- Hardcover: 191 pages
- Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers (August 1991)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 9004094482
- ISBN-13: 978-9004094482
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 522 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#2,359,467 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #75 in Books > Nonfiction > Philosophy > Eastern > Buddhism > Mahayana
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
In the past European scholars have tended to treat both Madhyamaka and Yog?c?ra as separate and fundamentally opposed trends in Mah?y?na Buddhist thought. Drawing heavily on early textual evidence this work questions the validity of such a "Mah?y?na schools" hypothesis. By down-playing the late commentorial traditions, the author attempts a general reappraisal of the epistemological and ontological writings of Nagarjuna, Asanga and Vasubandhu. He concludes that the overlap in all areas of doctrine is significant, but particularly with respect to the teachings on the levels of truth, the enlightened and unenlightened states, the status of language and the nature of reality. It is hoped that such investigations may provide the basis for a new theory on the proliferation of Indian Mah?y?na Buddhism as an organic process of assimilation to new audiences, and specific contemporary problems, rather than in the more schismatic manner favoured by past researchers.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Luminous perspective,
By Joseph S. O'Leary (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yog?c?ra in Indian Mah?y?na Buddhism (Hardcover)
This book does a great service to those of us who have been struggling with the elusive Nagarjuna. It reveals the depth of his roots in early Buddhist tradition (building on and correcting the work of A.K. Warder and David Kalupahana) and allows his works to be read as a vibrant repristination of basic Buddhist insight. Particularly interesting is the account of the early Buddhist antecedents of Nagarjuna's formulation of the two truths theory (conventional and ultimate truth). Harris also shows how close were the Yogacara (mind-only) and Madhyamaka (emptiness) traditions and how inapposite is the later labeling of them as rival "schools." He blames many of the distortions in our view of Nagarjuna on his most famous commentator Candrakirti, whom he accuses of radicalizing the contrast of the two truths at the expense of conventional truth (pp. 116-17). Candrakirti accuses Yogacara of absolutizing a conventional doctrine (which he has no quarrel with as such), but Harris claims that the Yogacarins "actually agree with him that all dogmas must be, by definition, non-ultimate" (p. 164). Candrakirti's sparring-partner Bhavaviveka attacks Yogacara from the opposite angle, accusing it of devaluing conventional reality; this again misses the substantial overlap of the Madhyamaka and Yogacara traditions. Harris is a master of the sources, which he quotes and translates illuminatingly throughout. He evokes the realm of nirvana and emptiness, the quiescence of fabrications, in lucid pages that have "the savor of liberation." He asserts that emptiness is a state of mind, not an ontological reality, and perhaps goes too far in this direction. He talks of ultimate reality as "an ontologically indeterminate existence realm" (p. 131), which is rather opaque and unhelpful diction. What he means is that it lies beyond the grasp of dualistic categories of being and non-being. (Alas, there are an appalling number of misprints, despite the high price of the book.)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Luminous perspective,
By Joseph S. O'Leary - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yog?c?ra in Indian Mah?y?na Buddhism (Hardcover)
This book does a great service to those of us who have been struggling with the elusive Nagarjuna. It reveals the depth of his roots in early Buddhist tradition (building on and correcting the work of A.K. Warder and David Kalupahana) and allows his works to be read as a vibrant repristination of basic Buddhist insight. Particularly interesting is the account of the early Buddhist antecedents of Nagarjuna's formulation of the two truths theory (conventional and ultimate truth). Harris also shows how close were the Yogacara (mind-only) and Madhyamaka (emptiness) traditions and how inapposite is the later labeling of them as rival "schools." He blames many of the distortions in our view of Nagarjuna on his most famous commentator Candrakirti, whom he accuses of radicalizing the contrast of the two truths at the expense of conventional truth (pp. 116-17). Candrakirti accuses Yogacara of absolutizing a conventional doctrine (which he has no quarrel with as such), but Harris claims that the Yogacarins "actually agree with him that all dogmas must be, by definition, non-ultimate" (p. 164). Candrakirti's sparring-partner Bhavaviveka attacks Yogacara from the opposite angle, accusing it of devaluing conventional reality; this again misses the substantial overlap of the Madhyamaka and Yogacara traditions. Harris is a master of the sources, which he quotes and translates illuminatingly throughout. He evokes the realm of nirvana and emptiness, the quiescence of fabrications, in lucid pages that have "the savor of liberation." He asserts that emptiness is a state of mind, not an ontological reality, and perhaps goes too far in this direction. He talks of ultimate reality as "an ontologically indeterminate existence realm" (p. 131), which is rather opaque and unhelpful diction. What he means is that it lies beyond the grasp of dualistic categories of being and non-being. (Alas, there are an appalling number of misprints, despite the high price of the book.)
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