SuttaCentral
This is a reminder that participation in the forum is an opportunity to practice right speech. Please consider this before making a post.
Similarly, the meme involving H H the Dalai Lama, adds nothing to the discourse, and instead inclines to disrespect. Would you post this on a temple message board?
This topic was automatically opened after 12 hours.
Does anyone know which Nāgārjuna is believed to have written the Vigrahavyāvartanī? It quotes directly from the Aṣṭasāhasrikaprājnāpāramitāsūtra.
I am not finding any ‘definite’ prājnāpāramitā quotes in the MMK so far, but it would be so hard to identify a quotation, the body of literature being quoted is so vast, and so much of it lost.
I think most scholars, modern (Lindtner, David S Ruegg) and ancient commentators on Nagarjuna, like Candrakirti etc, agree that the texts of the Yukti corpus are by the historical Nagarjuna. According to Jan Westerhoff (in his translation of the Vigrahavyavartani), “The most detailed case against attributing the Vigrahavyavartani to Nagarjuna
has been made by Fernando Tola and Carmen Dragonetti in a paper published in 1998”, however he goes on to critique their arguments as not being very strong.
Of course it is impossible to truly establish that it is from the same author as the MMK, but without any strong evidence against it, it seems that it makes the most sense that it was by Nagarjuna.
Anyways, can I ask you for the quote you referenced?
In my opinion, due to Nagarjuna, vasuvandhu philosophy Buddhism still alive in around the world. Nagarjuna is a Incredible scholar for core teaching of the Tathagata.
Unfortunately, it seems the “reference” was actually just an opening dedication to Mañjuśrī which is only in the Tibetan redactions, not in the Sanskrit.
Yes, I agree! I find both of their works so stimulating and insightful. That was an age when the greatest minds of the time were applying themselves to understand many very subtle implications of the Dhamma.
Here’s something.
What Buddhavacana is Ven Nāgārjuna’s negatve tetralemma quoting to produce lemmata 3 & 4, namely nadvābhyāṃ (not both) & nāpyahetutaḥ (not acausally) when it is expressed like this:
- nasvāto (not from self)
- nāpiparato (nor from other)
- nadvābhyāṃ (not from both [self & other])
- nāpyahetutaḥ (not acausally)
?
When the tetralemma is expressed like this:
- Not existing
- Not nonexisting
- Not both existing and nonexisting
- Not neither existing nor nonexisting
What Buddhavacana produces 3 & 4?
This thing of tetralemma sounds amazingly close to the evasiveness and equivocation of some particular teachers contemporary of the Buddha, also known as well wriggling (DN1, DA21)
I’ve said it before, the Buddha, without dependent origination, would himself be an eel-wriggler in the very silences we call noble. Having the explanation of dependent origination seems to be the linchpin, as the amaravikṣepa are defined by not actually having a position/explanation behind all their evasions.
Actually “getting” this explanation is another matter.
The Catuṣkoṭi appears in numerous suttas, like the Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta MN 63.
I would like to pull out a phrase from the above quote:
The prapañca. This evasiveness claims to be for the opposite. For prapañcopaśamaṃ śivam, for the auspicious calming of prapaña, if my Sanskrit isn’t off in saying that.
I don’t claim to “get” much, but there is something that I think I might “get” about this tetralemma business, from prapañc-ing about it endlessly trying to get what its “about”.
You just stop. That’s it’s lesson. It says it right in the opening:
anirodham anutpādam anucchedam aśāśvatam |
anekārtham anānārtham anāgamam anirgamam ||
yaḥ pratītyasamutpādaṃ prapañcopaśamaṃ śivam |
deśayāmāsa saṃbuddhas taṃ vande vadatāṃ varam ||
there is neither cessation nor origination, neither annihilation nor eternity, neither one nor many, neither coming nor going, according to dependent origination, the auspicious calming of proliferation, I salute the Saṃbuddha, the greatest speaker, who taught the doctrine.
(MMK dedicatory verse, if my secondhand Sanskrit if not off)
All of this “neither/nor”:
Stops all possible options for equivocations, particularly the 4th lemma, which is essentially rounding off the rest of the options for the inventive speculator.
“What if something both exists and doesn’t exist so fundamentally at the same time that it truly can’t be called ‘existing’, because it doesn’t exist, it can’t be called ‘nonexisting’, because it exists, and it can’t be called ‘both’, because the manner of the non-dual relations between its extant and non-extant states are such that it can also be correctly described as ‘only one of these states’ at any given time in addition to being in both of these states at any given time.”
That is what the 4th lemma gets rid of. It is the “and 1-3 were the only options you ever had” 4th option.
From this we get a positive tetralemma of representing negative views to be abandoned:
which is essentially this presentation here:
This doesn’t cover the tetralemma from the opening of the Pratyayaparīkṣā Ch1, though:
Where would we find 3 & 4 from here? Lemmata 1 & 2 are easy to find in EBT Buddhavacana. I think these, 3 & 4, are Abhidharma refutations. But maybe the suttāni address this?
If I remember correctly, there were some non-Buddhist sramanas who held 4, that things arise acausaly or randomly. Perhaps there is a sutta that refutes this idea. But maybe I am confusing something else.
I’m not sure about 3 however, but it seems like, if you hold 1 and 2, then 3 just follows from that.
What on earth do we here make of the wild and crazy positive tetralemma describing nirvāṇa that comes up at the end of section XVIII?
諸佛或說我 或說於無我
All Buddhas either speak of self or speak of no self諸法實相中 無我無非我
Within the phenomenality of all phenomena there is neither self nor no self諸法實相者 心行言語斷
All phenomena’s phenomenality is characterized by the ending of the mind, activities, and speech無生亦無滅 寂滅如涅槃
It is unarisen and unending, it is calm extinguishment, it is like nirvāṇa一切實非實 亦實亦非實
All is real, all is unreal, all is both real and unreal非實非非實 是名諸佛法
All is neither real nor unreal, this is called all Buddha’s dharma
(T1564.23c16 Āryanāgārjunasya Mūlamadhyamakakārikāyām Ātmaparīkṣā)
Going from the presumption that Ven Nāgārjuna mostly works with śrāvaka Buddhavacana?
Where is this graphic from?
From my secret bank of awesome images 
it was a bit blurry, I just edited my post with the HD version.
).