Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Eli Franco

Reviewed work(s):
Altruism and Reality. Studies in the Philosophy of the Bodḥicaryāvatāra by Paul Williams
Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 63,
No. 1 (2000), pp. 123-124
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1559614
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 REVIEWS
to both these phenomena the nature of inde-
pendently existing substances, something which
is no doubt debatable. The case for analogy as
a separate channel of knowledge (pramana)
rather than a kind of inference, has little
convincing force. The second chapter, on
testimony, is problematic in so far as all systems
which recognize authoritative sources of know-
ledge, such as a saintly person, scriptures or
God's revelation, are ultimately based on faith
which cannot be easily argued with. However,
the exposition of the stances of various oppon-
ents makes for a good exercise in logic if
nothing else. The author adds two appendices
to Part II, one on the 'Essentials of
Dharmakirti's theory of knowledge' and the
other on 'Conceptions of I?vara in the early
Nyaya-Vaisesika school'. Both are quite
instructive and should be read first.
Part III of the work covers the rest of
Jayanta's work, namely the fourth to twelfth
dhnikas. In nine author's chapters, it deals with
more philosophical and theological aspects of
Nyaya thought. First is advocated the validity
of all the four Vedas as the authentic word of
God not only as a means of cognition, but also
as the source of religious duty. The problem is
that Jayanta, in accordance with attitudes in
medieval India, was guided more by smrti, i.e.
sastras, puranic literature and even sectarian
writings, rather than by sruti, i.e. the Vedic
texts themselves. However, he solves it summar-
ily by proclaiming that they are authentic,
because they are based on the Vedas. Non-
Vedic and anti-Vedic texts are, of course, out.
In being guided by authentic texts there is
still the question of understanding their mean-
ing. So Jayanta deals with the problem of
word-meaning, including the function of 'uni-
versals' or abstract concepts and the meaning
of whole sentences. How does a sentence yield
meaning? Here the science of grammar proves
its usefulness. A chapter on the soul, whose
existence is for Jayanta known by inference,
gives the opportunity to ventilate also the
question of rebirth and karma on the same
inferential basis. With regard to liberation,
Jayanta squarely refutes all shades of monism
and in a long exposition argues that the only
proper means for the attainment of liberation
is right understanding acquired by constant
reflection-which I take to mean eventually
reflection of a higher kind usually covered
nowadays by the term 'meditation'. For this
purpose the life of a sahniyasimay be adopted
even without entering the stage of a
householder.
The last three chapters return to purely
logical considerations, presumably to provide
more food for reflection. However, there are
sufficient materials in them, as in the whole
work of Jayanta, to satisfy minds bent on
metaphysical speculation or logical argumenta-
tion. All this the author's summaries allow to
come through. The author expresses the hope
that the scholarly world will receive his work
with delight. Well, some might, if they have
done at least some preliminary study of Indian
logic. The work has a clear style and can be
recommended to advanced students as an
introduction before tackling the original work
of Jayanta himself.
KAREL WERNER
123
PAUL WILLIAMS: Altruism and reality.
Studies in the philosophy of the
Bodhicaryavatara. Richmond:
Curzon Press, 1998.
Santideva (fl. first half of the eighth century?)
is generally acknowledged as one of the most
important Madhyamakas in India, yet the
philosophical aspects of his lengthy poem
Bodhicaryavatara have drawn little attention
from modern scholars. To the best of my
knowledge Williams's work is the first book-
length scholarly study devoted exclusively to
Santideva's philosophy and as such it deserves
our attention and appreciation. The book
consists of five chapters; each forms an inde-
pendent essay and, buddhistically enough, they
are not meant to form a whole. Nevertheless,
two principal concerns are apparent throughout
the book. The first is the variety of interpreta-
tions of the BCA mainly by Tibetan comment-
ators, which reflects what happened to
Madhyamaka ideas when they reached Tibet.
Williams's second concern is a critical philo-
sophical interpretation of some key verses of
the text. Each chapter centres on a verse or a
small group of verses from the philosophical
chapters (8-9) of the BCA which Williams
submits to critical philosophical analysis; he
then reflects on the consequences of the argu-
ments, compares them to modern (mainly
British) philosophical doctrines, and does not
hesitate to discard them when he considers
them to be faulty or unconvincing in this light.
It is unfortunate, however, that Williams's
philosophical interest is not matched by a
philologically founded and historically sensitive
understanding of Santideva's text.
Williams's translations are usually based on
the Tibetan versions even when the Sanskrit
original is available and duly quoted by him. I
see no justification for this unacknowledged
procedure; certainly not in the present book
which aims to be of a general Buddhological
appeal and is not perceived by its author as
conveying only a sectarian dGe lugs interpreta-
tion of Santideva's thought. The fact that
Williams translates from the Tibetan is clearly
seen in those cases where the Tibetan transla-
tion is mistaken and Williams promptly repeats
the mistake (e.g., BCAP 250.1-2, trans. p. 18;
note that tac ca nirvanam ucyate is a pratTka).
Williams's nonchalant attitude towards the
Sanskrit textual tradition is also reflected in the
fact that he does not use the best available
Sanskrit editions of the relevant texts; even in
the case of the BCA itself de la Vallee Poussin's
erudite edition is ignored.
The first three chapters are relatively short
(1-28; 29-51; 52-63) and have been published
before. For reasons of space I shall not discuss
them here.
Chapter iv deals with the elusive verse BCA
9.140 where Santideva says that without having
'touched' (i.e. apprehended) a conceptualized
being, its absence/inexistence cannot be appre-
hended (kalpitam bhavam asprstva tadabhavo
na grhyate/). The point at issue is one of the
most crucial and fascinating in Madhyamaka
thought, namely, the object of emptiness. As
the Fifth Dalai Lama said (in Williams's
translation, p. 85): 'If both the self [that is the
124 REVIEWS
validly existent person] and the self that is the
non-existent object negated are not intimately
identified, it is like dispatching an army without
knowing where the enemy is and like shooting
an arrow without having sought the target.'
Williams's analysis of the object of negation
has many valuable points. I believe he is right
to lean, though not too heavily, on the
differences between rather than the similarities
among the commentaries. This approach is in
fact used throughout the book and it allows
the reader to understand the rich variety of
interpretation to which the BCA was submitted
both in India and Tibet. On the other hand, I
find it unfortunate that Williams has chosen to
translate abhava as 'negation' rather than
'absence' or 'inexistence' (cf. p. 195, n. 4).
Further, bhdva(being/thing/entity) is translated
throughout as 'negandum'. Consequently first-
order statements about reality become, in
Williams's analysis, second-order statements,
or statements about statements about reality,
e.g. 9.140b quoted above is translated: 'the
negation of that is not apprehended'. The
resulting confusion between the ontological
and epistemological levels may have led
Williams (p. 76) to misunderstand
Prajfiakaramati'sgloss that the absence/inexist-
ence of a pot is the opposite (viparyaya) of the
pot (tad(=ghata)abhavas tadviparyayarupah).
Williams, however, thinks that viparyaya here
means 'inversion', and, if I understand him
correctly, he interpretsthe inversion as referring
to an inference modo tollente.
Chapter v is the longest (over a hundred
pages including the notes) and the most
ambitious part of the book. It bears the
provocative subtitle 'How Santideva destroyed
the Bodhisattva path' and takes its starting
point in BCA 8.101-103. Surprisingly enough,
it is nothing but a lengthy criticism of the
Buddhist anatman doctrine and has nothing
specifically to do with Santideva's text or with
Madhyamaka philosophy as such. Whatever
Williams has to say here could equally be said
about the discussion of this topic in
Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosa or the
Milindapanha. Furthermore, his presentation
of the anatman doctrine is too sketchy, inaccur-
ate and tendentious. This doctrine certainly has
its problems, but it is not the utter irrational
nonsense that Williams takes it to be, and it is
clear that his concern is to refute the doctrine
rather than to understand it. I, for one, have
not been convinced by his argument that the
andtman doctrine makes memory impossible,
that, if it were true, people would be as
disoriented as those suffering from Korsakov's
syndrome, or that it only allows 'a disembodied
pain' and 'free-floating pain'. Williams's basic
argument is quite simple. Without persons
there is no pain, and if one holds the anatman
doctrine, this implies that there are no persons.
Therefore, there is no pain, and consequently
pain cannot be removed, and thus there is
neither Bodhisattvahood nor Buddhahood.
What Williams does not seem to realize is that
for Santideva the meditation on anatman is not
a meditation on ultimate reality and that the
latter would actually endorse Williams's conclu-
sion. Only in a single note (87) does Williams
consider the possibility that pain, like all things
characterized by dependent origination, is an
illusion according to the Madhyamaka, but
argues that pain cannot be empty, that it exists
ultimately, and that any analysis which fails to
acknowledge this would be incoherent.
According to Williams pain and the person it
affects are as clear as Cartesian first evidence,
something like 'It hurts, therefore, I feel pain'.
It is interesting to note that neuro-physiologists
attempt to explain cognitive functions such as
perception, memory, language and con-
sciousness with the concept of 'temporal bind-
ing' which is at least compatible with the
anatman doctrine; cf. e.g., A. K. Engel et al.,
'Temporal binding, binocular rivalry and con-
sciousness' published on the Internet at
www.phil.vt.edu/ASSCengel/Engel.html.
Williams is a gifted and engaging writer; it
is, for this reason, all the more regrettable that
the book did not undergo more rigorous editing
which might have removed occasional irrelevan-
cies (e.g. p. 30: 'Santideva was no doubt a very
nice person'), tautologies (e.g. p. 74: 'if it is
mistaken, then it is not true'), patently false
statements (e.g. p. 128: 'if something is rela-
tively stable, then relative to what it is relatively
stable it is absolutely stable'), repetitions and
digressions that do not advance the argument
in any way.
In spite of its shortcomings Williams has
written a very interesting and lively book. It is
rare that analytical philosophers engage in a
serious discussion of Buddhist texts. I cannot
recall anything similar to such an endeavour
since Oetke's 'Ich' und das Ich. (Stuttgart,
1988), which seems to have escaped Williams's
attention despite his interest in the anatman
controversy. On the whole, secondary scholarly
literature in French and German is conspicu-
ously missing in Williams's bibliography. For
reasons of space I have to refrain from
comparing the two works, an interesting under-
taking because Williams and Oetke have a
similar philosophical approach and both are
strongly influenced by Strawson's conception
of a person.
ELI FRANCO
HEIDI PAUWELS:Krsna's round dance
reconsidered:Hariram Vyas's Hindi
Rdspancddhydyi. (London Studies
on South Asia, no. 12.) xii, 244 pp.
Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996.
?35.
An edition of Hariram Vyas's Rdsapancddhyayi
is to be welcomed for several reasons. This
poem is probably the earliest connected treat-
ment extant in Brajbhasa of an old Krsna
theme, that of Krsna's dance with the cowherd
women in the rural district of Braj. Composed
in the Braj region c. 1570, it fills out our picture
of vernacular literary activities there as
Brajbhasa approached its peak of literary
maturity, for it has not been properly edited
before, and no other work of such popular
emphasis seems to be represented in the
narrative-expository (prabandha) genre of
Brajbhasa poetry at this time. Hariram's
Rdsapancaddhyyly illustrates the no doubt long-