Reading section 10

The name most definitely connected with the early promulgation of Mahayanism is Nagarjuna.[209] A preponderance of Chinese tradition makes him the second patriarch after Asvaghosha[210] and this agrees with the Kashmir chronicle which implies that he lived soon after Kanishka.[211] He probably flourished in the latter half of the second century. But his biographies extant in Chinese and Tibetan are almost wholly mythical, even crediting him with a life of several centuries, and the most that can be hoped is to extract a few grains of history from them. He is said to have been by birth a Brahman of Vidarbha (Berar) and to have had as teacher a Sudra named Saraha or Rahulabhadra. When the legend states that he visited the Nagas in the depths of the sea and obtained books from them, it seems to admit that he preached new doctrines. It is noticeable that he is represented not only as a philosopher but as a great magician, builder, physician, and maker of images.

Many works are attributed to him but they have not the same authenticity as the poems of Asvaghosha. Some schools make him the author of the Prajna-paramita but it is more usually regarded as a revelation. The commentary on it known as Maha-prajna-paramita-sastra is generally accepted as his work. A consensus of tradition makes him the author of the Madhyamika[212] aphorisms of which some account has been given above. It is the principal authority of its school and is provided with a commentary attributed to the author himself and with a later one by Candrakirti.[213] There is also ascribed to him a work called the Suhrillekha or friendly letter, a compendium of Buddhist doctrines, addressed to an Indian king.[214] This work is old for it was translated into Chinese in 434 A.D. and is a homily for laymen. It says nothing of the Madhyamika philosophy and most of it deals with the need of good conduct and the terrors of future punishment, quite in the manner of the Hinayana. But it also commends the use of images and incense in worship, it mentions Avalokita and Amitabha and it holds up the ideal of attaining Buddhahood. Nagarjuna's authorship is not beyond dispute but these ideas may well represent a type of popular Buddhism slightly posterior to Asvaghosha.[215]

In most lists of patriarchs Nagarjuna is followed by Deva, also called Aryadeva, Kanadeva or Nilanetra. I-Ching mentions him among the older teachers and a commentary on his principal work, the Satasastra, is attributed to Vasubandhu.[216] Little is known of his special teaching but he is regarded as an important doctor and his pupil Dharmatrata is also important if not as an author at least as a compiler, for Sanskrit collections of verses corresponding to the Pali Dhammapada are ascribed to him. Aryadeva was a native of southern India.[217]

The next epoch in the history of Buddhism is marked by the names of Asanga and Vasubandhu. The interval between them and Deva produced no teacher of importance, but Kumaralabdha, the founder of the Sautrantika school and perhaps identical with Kumarata the eighteenth Patriarch of the Chinese lists, may be mentioned. Hsuean Chuang says[218] that he was carried off in captivity by a king who reigned somewhere in the east of the Pamirs and that he, Asvaghosha, Nagarjuna and Deva were styled the four shining suns.

Asanga and Vasubandhu were brothers, sons of a Brahman who lived at Peshawar. They were both converted from the Sarvastivadin school to Mahayanism, but the third brother Virincivatsa never changed his convictions. Tradition connects their career with Ayodhya as well as with Peshawar and Vasubandhu enjoyed the confidence of the reigning monarch, who was probably Candragupta I. This identification depends on the hypothesis that Vasubandhu lived from about 280 to 360 A.D. which, as already mentioned, seems to me to have been proved by M. Peri.[219] The earlier Gupta kings though not Buddhists were tolerant, as is shown by the fact that the king of Ceylon[220] was allowed to erect a magnificent monastery at Nalanda in the reign of Samudragupta (_c_. 330-375 A.D.).

Asanga founded the school known as Yogacara and many authorities ascribe to him the introduction of magical practices and Tantrism. But though he is a considerable figure in the history of Buddhism, I doubt if his importance or culpability is so great as this. For if tradition can be trusted, earlier teachers especially Nagarjuna dealt in spells and invocations and the works of Asanga[221] known to us are characterized by a somewhat scholastic piety and are chiefly occupied in defining and describing the various stages in the spiritual development of a Bodhisattva. It is true that he admits the use of magical formulae[222] as an aid in this evolution but they form only a slight part of his system and it does not appear that the Chen-yen or Shingon sect of the Far East (the Sanskrit Mantrayana) traced its lineage back to him.

Our estimate of his position in the history of Buddhism must depend on our opinion as to the authorship of _The Awakening of Faith_. If this treatise was composed by Asvaghosha then doctrines respecting the three bodies of Buddha, the Tathagatagarbha and the Alaya-vijnana were not only known but scientifically formulated considerably before Asanga. The conclusion cannot be rejected as absurd--for Asvaghosha might speak differently in poems and in philosophical treatises--but it is surprising, and it is probable that the treatise is not his. If so, Asanga may have been the first to elaborate systematically (though not to originate) the idea that thought is the one and only reality. Nagarjuna's nihilism was probably the older theory. It sounds late and elaborate but still it follows easily if the dialectic of Gotama is applied uncompromisingly not only to our mental processes but to the external world. Yet even in India the result was felt to be fantastic and sophistical and it is not surprising if after the lapse of a few generations a new system of idealism became fashionable which, although none too intelligible, was abstruse rather than paradoxical.

Asanga was alleged to have received revelations from Maitreya and five of his works are attributed to this Bodhisattva who enjoyed considerable honour at this period. It may be that the veneration for the Buddha of the future, the Messiah who would reign over his saints in a pure land, owed something to Persian influence which was strong in India during the decadence of the Kushans.[223] Both Mithraism and Manichaeism classified their adepts in various ranks, and the Yogacara doctors who delight in grading the progress of the Bodhisattva may have borrowed something from them.[224] Asanga's doctrine of defilement (klesa) and purification may also owe something to Mani, as suggested by S. Levi.

In spite of his literary merits Asanga remains a doctor rather than a saint or poet.[225] His speculations have little to do with either Gotama or Amitabha and he was thus not in living touch with either the old or new schools. His brother Vasubandhu had perhaps a greater position. He is reckoned as the twentieth Patriarch and Tibetan tradition connects him with the worship of Amitabha.[226]

Paramartha's life of Vasubandhu represents him as having frequented the court of Vikramaditya (to be identified with Candragupta I), who at first favoured the Sankhya philosophy but accorded some patronage to Buddhism. During this period Vasubandhu was a Sarvastivadin but of liberal views[227] and while in this phase wrote the Abhidharma-kosa, a general exposition of the Abhidharma, mainly according to the views of the Vaibhashikas but not without criticism. This celebrated work is not well known in Europe[228] but is still a text-book amongst Japanese Buddhist students. It gained the esteem of all schools and we are given to understand that it presupposed the philosophy of the Vibhasha and of the Jnana-prasthana. According to Paramartha the original work consisted of 600 aphorisms in verse which were sent by the author to the monks of Kashmir. They approved of the composition but, as the aphorisms were concise, asked for fuller explanations. Vasubandhu then expanded his verses into a prose commentary, but meanwhile his views had undergone a change and when he disapproved of any Vaibhashika doctrine, he criticized it. This enlarged edition by no means pleased the brethren of Kashmir and called forth polemics. He also wrote a controversial work against the Sankhya philosophy.

Late in life Vasubandhu, moved by the entreaties of his brother Asanga, became a devout Mahayanist and wrote in his old age Mahayanist treatises and commentaries.[229]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 187: The uncertainty as to the date of Kanishka naturally makes it uncertain whether he was the hero of these conquests. Kashmir was certainly included in the dominions of the Kushans and was a favourite residence of Kanishka. About 90 A.D. a Kushan king attacked Central Asia but was repulsed by the Chinese general Pan-Ch'ao. Later, after the death of Pan-Ch'ao (perhaps about 103 A.D.), he renewed the attempt and conquered Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan. See Vincent Smith, _Early History of India_, 3rd ed. pp. 253 ff.]

[Footnote 188: See Fa-Hsien, ed. Legge, p. 33, _B.E.F.E.O._ 1903 (Sung Yuen), pp. 420 ff. Watters, _Yuean Chwang_, I. pp. 204 ff. _J.R.A.S._ 1909, p. 1056, 1912, p. 114. For the general structure of these stupas see Foucher, _L'art Greco-Bouddhique du Gandhara_, pp. 45 ff.]

[Footnote 189: _J.R.A.S._ 1909, p. 1058. "Acaryanam Sarvastivadinam pratigrahe."]

[Footnote 190: Similarly Harsha became a Buddhist late in life.]

[Footnote 191: Watters, vol. I. p. 203. He places Kanishka's accession 400 years after the death of the Buddha, which is one of the arguments for supposing Kanishka to have reigned about 50 B.C., but in another passage (Watters, I. 222, 224) he appears to place it 500 years after the death.]

[Footnote 192: Watters, vol. I. 270-1.]

[Footnote 193: But Taranatha says some authorities held that it met at Jalandhara. Some Chinese works say it was held at Kandahar.]

[Footnote 194: Walters, _l.c._]

[Footnote 195: Translated by Takakusu in _T'oung Pao_, 1904, pp. 269 ff. Paramartha was a native of Ujjain who arrived at Nanking in 548 and made many translations, but it is quite possible that this life of Vasubandhu is not a translation but original notes of his own.]

[Footnote 196: Chinese expressions like "in the five hundred years after the Buddha's death" probably mean the period 400-500 of the era commencing with the Buddha's death and not the period 500-600. The period 1-100 is "the one hundred years," 101-200 "the two hundred years" and so on. See _B.E.F.E.O._ 1911, 356. But it must be remembered that the date of the Buddha's death is not yet certain. The latest theory (Vincent Smith, 1919) places it in 554 B.C.]

[Footnote 197: Chap. XII.]

[Footnote 198: See Watters, I. pp. 222, 224 and 270. It is worth noting that Hsuean Chuang says Asoka lived one hundred years after the Buddha's death. See Watters, I. p. 267. See also the note of S. Levi in _J.R.A.S._ 1914, pp. 1016-1019, citing traditions to the effect that there were 300 years between Upagupta, the teacher of Asoka, and Kanishka, who is thus made to reign about 31 A.D. On the other hand Kanishka's chaplain Sangharaksha is said to have lived 700 years after the Buddha.]

[Footnote 199: See Takakusu in _J.P.T.S._ 1905, pp. 67 ff. For the Sarvastivadin Canon, see my chapter on the Chinese Tripitaka.]

[Footnote 200: See above, vol. I. p. 262. For an account of the doctrines see also Vasilief, 245 ff. Rockhill, _Life of the Buddha_, pp. 190 ff.]

[Footnote 201: Its connection with Gandhara and Kashmir is plainly indicated in its own scriptures. See Przyluski's article on "Le Nord-Ouest de l'Inde dans le Vinaya des Mula-sarvastivadins," _J.A._ 1914, II. pp. 493 ft. This Vinaya must have received considerable additions as time went on and in its present form is posterior to Kanishka.]

[Footnote 202: The distinction between Sarvastivadin and Mulasarvastivadin is not clear to me. I can only suggest that when a section of the school accepted the Mahavibhasha and were known as Vaibhashikas others who approved of the school chiefly on account of its excellent Vinaya called themselves Primitive Sarvastivadins.]

[Footnote 203: See Sylvain Levi, _J.A._ 1908, XII. 57 ff., and Winternitz, _Ges. Ind. Lit._ II. i. pp. 201 ff.]

[Footnote 204: The only reason for doubting it is that two stories (Nos. 14 and 31) in the Sutralankara (which appears to be a genuine work) refer to Kanishka as if he had reigned in the past. This may be a poetic artifice or it may be that the stories are interpolations. See for the traditions Watters on _Yuean Chwang_, II. 102-4 and Takakusu in _J.R.A.S._ 1905, p. 53 who quotes the Chinese Samyukta-ratna-pitaka-sutra and the Record of Indian Patriarchs. The Chinese list of Patriarchs is compatible with the view that Asvaghosha was alive about 125 A.D. for he was the twelfth Patriarch and Bodhidharma the twenty-eighth visited China in 520. This gives about 400 years for sixteen Patriarchs, which is possible, for these worthies were long-lived. But the list has little authority.]

[Footnote 205: The traditions are conveniently collected in the introduction to Teitaro Suzuki's translation of _The Awakening of Faith._]

[Footnote 206: The Saundaranandakavya.]

[Footnote 207: See Nanjio, Nos. 1182, 1351, 1250, 1299. It is noticeable that the translator Paramartha shows a special interest in the life and works of Asanga and Vasubandhu.]

[Footnote 208: See Winternitz, _Ges. Ind. Lit._ II. i. p. 211. It is also noticeable that _The Awakening of Faith_ appears to quote the Lankavatara sutra which is not generally regarded as an early Mahayanist work.]

[Footnote 209: Nagarjuna cannot have been the founder of the Mahayana for in his Maha-prajna-paramita-sastra (Nanjio, 1169, translation by Kumarajiva) he cites _inter alia_ the Lotus, the Vimalakirti-sutra, and a work called Mahayana-sastra. See _B.E.F.E.O._ 1911, p. 453. For Nagarjuna see especially Gruenwedel, _Mythologie_, pp. 29 ff. and the bibliography given in the notes. _Jour. Budd. Text. Soc._ V. part iv. pp. 7 ff. Watters, _Yuean Chwang_, pp. 200 ff. Taranatha, chap. XV and Winternitz, _Ges. Ind. Lit._ II. i. pp. 250 ff.]

[Footnote 210: He is omitted from the list of Buddhabhadra, giving the succession according to the Sarvastivadins, to which school he did not belong. I-Ching classes him with Asvaghosha and Aryadeva as belonging to the early period.]

[Footnote 211: Rajatarangini, i. 173, 177.]

[Footnote 212: Edited in the _Bibliotheca Buddhica_ by De la Vallee Poussin and (in part) in the _Journal of the Buddhist Text Soc._ See too Walleser, _Die Mittlere Lehre des Nagarjuna nach der Tibetischen Version uebertragen_, 1911: _nach der Chinesischen Version uebertragen_, 1912.]

[Footnote 213: The ascription of these works to Nagarjuna is probably correct for they were translated by Kumarajiva who was sufficiently near him in date to be in touch with good tradition.]

[Footnote 214: The name of this king, variously given as Udayana, Jetaka and Satavahana, has not been identified with certainty from the various transcriptions and translations in the Chinese and Tibetan versions. See _J. Pali Text Soc._ for 1886 and I-Ching _Records of the Buddhist Religion_ (trans. Takakusu), pp. 158 ff. The Andhra kings who reigned from about 240 B.C. to 225 A.D. all claimed to belong to the Satavahana dynasty. The stupa of Amaravati in the Andhra territory is surrounded by a stone railing ascribed to the period 160-200 A.D. and Nagarjuna may have addressed a pious king living about that time.]

[Footnote 215: For other works attributed to Nagarjuna see Nanjio, Nos. 1169, 1179, 1180, 1186 and Walleser's introduction to _Mittlere Lehre nach der Chinesischen Version_ The Dharmasangraha, a Sanskrit theological glossary, is also attributed to Nagarjuna as well as the tantric work Pancakrama. But it is not likely that the latter dates from his epoch.]

[Footnote 216: Nanjio, No. 1188.]

[Footnote 217: The very confused legends about him suggest a comparison with the Dravidian legend of a devotee who tore out one of his eyes and offered it to Siva. See Gruenwedel, _Mythologie_, p. 34 and notes. Polemics against various Hinayanist sects are ascribed to him. See Nanjio, Nos. 1259, 1260.]

[Footnote 218: Watters, _Yuean Chwang_, II. p. 286. Hsuean Chuang does not say that the four were contemporary but that in the time of Kumaralabdha they were called the four Suns.]

[Footnote 219: For Asanga and Vasubandhu see Peri in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1911, pp. 339-390. Vincent Smith in _Early History of India_, third edition, pp. 328-334. Winternitz, _Ges. Ind. Lit._ II. i. p. 256. Watters, _Yuean Chwang_, I. pp. 210, 355-359. Taranatha, chap. XXII. Gruenwedel, _Mythologie_, p. 35.]

[Footnote 220: Meghavarman. See V. Smith, _l.c._ 287.]

[Footnote 221: Two have been preserved in Sanskrit: the Mahayana-sutralankara (Ed. V. Transl., S. Levi, 1907-1911) and the Bodhisattva-bhumi (English summary in _Museon_, 1905-6). A brief analysis of the literature of the Yogacara school according to Tibetan authorities is given by Stcherbatskoi in _Museon_, 1905, pp. 144-155.]

[Footnote 222: Mahayana-sutral. XVIII. 71-73. The ominous word _maithuna_ also occurs in this work, XVIII. 46.]

[Footnote 223: Vincent Smith, _l.c._ p. 275.]

[Footnote 224: But there are of course abundant Indian precedents, Brahmanical as well as Buddhist, for describing various degrees of sanctity or knowledge.]

[Footnote 225: The wooden statues of Asanga and Vasubandhu preserved in the Kofukaji at Nara are masterpieces of art but can hardly claim to be other than works of imagination. They date from about 800 A.D. See for an excellent reproduction Tajima's _Select Relics_, II. X.]

[Footnote 226: See Eitel and Gruenwedel, but I do not know in what texts this tradition is found. It is remarkable that Paramartha's life (_T'oung Pao_, 1904, pp. 269-296) does not say either that he was twentieth patriarch or that he worshipped Amida.]

[Footnote 227: On receiving a large donation he built three monasteries, one for Hinayanists, one for Mahayanists and one for nuns.]

[Footnote 228: The work consists of 600 verses (Karika) with a lengthy prose commentary (Bhashya) by the author. The Sanskrit original is lost but translations have been preserved in Chinese (Nanjio, Nos. 1267, 1269, 1270) and Tibetan (see Cordier, _Cat. du Fonds tibetain de la Bib. Nat._ 1914, pp. 394, 499). But the commentary on the Bhashya called Abhidharma-kosa-vyakhya, or Sphutartha, by Yasomitra has been preserved in Sanskrit in Nepal and frequently cites the verses as well as the Bhashya in the original Sanskrit. A number of European savants are at present occupied with this literature and Sir Denison Ross (to whom I am indebted for much information) contemplates the publication of an Uigur text of Book I found in Central Asia. At present (1920), so far as I know, the only portion of the Abhidharma-kosa in print is De la Vallee Poussin's edition and translation of Book III, containing the Tibetan and Sanskrit texts but not the Chinese (De la Vallee Poussin--_Vasubandhu et Yasomitra_, London, 1914-18). This chapter deals with such topics as the structure of the universe, the manner and place of rebirth, the chain of causation, the geography of the world, the duration and characteristics of Kalpas, and the appearance of Buddhas and Cakravartins.]

[Footnote 229: See Nanjio, pp. 371-2, for a list of his works translated into Chinese. Hsuean Chuang's account differs from the above (which is taken from Paramartha) in details. He also tells a curious story that Vasubandhu promised to appear to his friends after death and ultimately did so, though he forgot his promise until people began to say he had gone to hell.]

CHAPTER XXIII

INDIAN BUDDHISM AS SEEN BY THE CHINESE PILGRIMS

About the time of Vasubandhu there existed four schools of Indian Buddhism called Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Madhyamika and Yoga or Yogacara.[230] They were specially concerned with philosophy and apparently cut across the older division into eighteen sects, which at this period seem to have differed mainly on points of discipline. Though not of great practical importance, they long continued to play a certain part in controversial works both Buddhist and Brahmanic. The first two which were the older seem to have belonged to the Hinayana and the other two even more definitely to the Mahayana. I-Ching[231] is quite clear as to this. "There are but two kinds of the so-called Mahayana" he says, "first the Madhyamika, second the Yoga.... These two systems are perfectly in accordance with the noble doctrine. Can we say which of the two is right? Both equally conform to truth and lead us to Nirvana" and so on. But he does not say that the other two systems are also aspects of the truth. This is the more remarkable because he himself followed the Mula-sarvastivadins. Apparently Sarvastivadin and Vaibhashika were different names for the same school, the latter being applied to them because they identified themselves with the commentary (Vibhasha) already mentioned whereas the former and older designation came to be used chiefly with reference to their disciplinary rules. Also there were two groups of Sarvastivadins, those of Gandhara and those of Kashmir. The name of Vaibhashika was applied chiefly to the latter who, if we may find a kernel of truth in legends which are certainly exaggerated, endeavoured to make Kashmir a holy land with a monopoly of the pure doctrine. Vasubandhu and Asanga appear to have broken up this isolation for they first preached the Vaibhashika doctrines in a liberal and eclectic form outside Kashmir and then by a natural transition and development went over to the Mahayana. But the Vaibhashikas did not disappear and were in existence even in the fourteenth century.[232] Their chief tenet was the real existence of external objects. In matters of doctrine they regarded their own Abhidharma as the highest authority.[233] They also held that Gotama had an ordinary human body and passed first into a preliminary form of Nirvana when he attained Buddhahood and secondly into complete Nirvana at his death. He was superhuman only in the sense that he had intuitive knowledge and no need to learn. Their contempt for sutras may have been due to the fact that many of them discountenance the Vaibhashika views and also to a knowledge that new ones were continually being composed.

I-Ching, who ends his work by asserting that all his statements are according to the Arya-mula-sarvastivada-nikaya and no other, gives an interesting summary of doctrine.

"Again I say: the most important are only one or two out of eighty thousand doctrines of the Buddha: one should conform to the worldly path but inwardly strive to secure true wisdom. Now what is the worldly path? It is obeying prohibitive laws and avoiding any crime. What is the true wisdom? _It is to obliterate the distinction between subject and object_, to follow the excellent truth and to free oneself from worldly attachments: to do away with the trammels of the chain of causality: further to obtain merit by accumulating good works and _finally to realize the excellent meaning of perfect reality_."