Madhyamaka Wiki

Bhāviveka

9 min read

Position summary

Bhāviveka is the second great Indian commentator on Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (after Buddhapālita) and the first Mādhyamika to compose major independent doctrinal treatises. Two of these stand out: the Madhyamakahṛdaya with its autocommentary Tarkajvālā, and the Prajñāpradīpa commentary on the MMK. His central methodological innovation can be put simply. The Mādhyamika cannot rest with prasaṅga alone but must advance autonomous syllogisms (svatantra-anumāna) whose subject and predicate terms are commonly established (ubhayasiddha) between Mādhyamika and opponent. Otherwise, he argued, Madhyamaka critique cannot reach its target.

Chapter 2 of the Prajñāpradīpa contains the famous critique of Buddhapālita’s reading of MMK 1.1, which Candrakīrti rebutted in the Prasannapadā. This three-cornered exchange — Buddhapālita, then Bhāviveka’s critique, then Candrakīrti’s defence of Buddhapālita — is the textual locus around which the entire later Svātantrika/Prāsaṅgika literature organised itself.

As with Buddhapālita, Bhāviveka does not use the term svātantrika. The school-designation is a Tibetan codification (see Prāsaṅgika-Svātantrika and ruegg-svat-pras-2006).

Hermeneutical approach

Fully within the Mahāyāna framework. Operates with the Two Truths as the structural basis, and describes the conventional in Abhidharma categories (on MMK 2.22c, a momentary, “cinematic” theory of motion that Avalokitavrata calls Sautrāntika). The later Tibetan (Geluk) reading takes this as accepting svalakṣaṇa (self-characteristic) on the conventional level, the form one of Ruegg’s criteria takes in later parlance; Ruegg gives that characterisation as Tsongkhapa’s reading (ruegg-svat-pras-2006, p. 345). Engages in extensive doxographical critique of rival schools (Yogācāra, Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika) in the Madhyamakahṛdaya / Tarkajvālā, integrating Madhyamaka into a broader scholastic project.

The logician is only half the picture. The third chapter of the Madhyamakahṛdaya, “Aspiring for the knowledge of reality” (Tattvajñānaiṣaṇā), sets the two truths to work as a path. Wisdom (ཤེས་རབ་, prajñā) is the goal, it takes two forms in dependence on the two truths, and the conventional form is the staircase without which the ultimate is not reached. The same author who insisted that the Mādhyamika argue by autonomous inference describes the ultimate as reached through study, a settled mind and analysis within concentration, and as directed at a reality that is non-conceptual and beyond words (see the key claims below).

Key claims

  • Prasaṅga alone is insufficient: the Mādhyamika must advance autonomous syllogisms (svatantra-anumāna) with commonly established terms to demonstrate emptiness rigorously. Yet Bhāviveka is inconsistent on this. In Prajñāpradīpa Ch 2 commentary on MMK 2.19 he explicitly permits a prasaṅga reading and himself converts the prasaṅga into an autonomous syllogism (“Thus because here there is a prasaṅga argument, the original meaning can be reversed”), while in Ch 1 he attacks Buddhapālita’s prasaṅga on precisely the ground that the same conversion saddles Buddhapālita with unwanted theses. Ames (1995: 299 n. 7) concludes that Bhāviveka “seems inconsistent, if not biased, on this point” — which suggests the critique of Buddhapālita is methodologically opportunistic rather than principled (ames-prajnapradipa-ch2-1995 critical note 4)
  • Critique of Buddhapālita on MMK 1.1, three-pronged (per Candrakīrti’s quotation in candrakirti-prasannapada-mmk1-excerpt section II): (a) the refutation is “not logical, because it does not employ arguments or examples”; (b) it “does not dispel the countercriticisms of others”; (c) since Buddhapālita’s words are consequential, the opposite meanings of his probandum and reason are clearly implied — so he unwittingly implies arising-from-other, that arising has meaning, and that arising has an end, contradicting his own tenets
  • Characteristic autonomous probative argument (as quoted by Candrakīrti, candrakirti-prasannapada-mmk1-excerpt section IX): “Ultimately, the inner sense sources can be ascertained to not arise from themselves, because they exist — just as in the case, for example, of an existent consciousness.” The use of paramārthatas (“ultimately”) as qualifier is the move Candrakīrti later turns into the second of Ruegg’s six criteria
  • Even the śrāvaka opponents’ arguments must be tested by the paramārtha/saṃvṛti distinction: in his own critique of the hearers (quoted at candrakirti-prasannapada-mmk1-excerpt section XI), Bhāviveka argues that a reason like “because the Tathāgata said so” is either non-established (relative) or contradictory (ultimate) — the same dilemma Candrakīrti then turns back on Bhāviveka’s own autonomous arguments
  • Conventional reality is described in Abhidharma terms. The Prajñāpradīpa Ch 2 commentary on MMK 2.22c (ames-prajnapradipa-ch2-1995, p. 330): conventionally, “the goer is a collection of conditioned factors which originates continuously in another place,” owing to the element air produced by effort arising from wishing. Avalokitavrata calls this the Sautrāntika view, which Bhāviveka accepts conventionally but not ultimately (Ames n. 176); Ames calls it “cinematic” and thinks Nāgārjuna would not necessarily have rejected it at that level (n. 11). Neither Ames nor the passage speaks of svalakṣaṇa. That Svātantrikas posit self-characteristic on the level of saṃvṛti is the later Tibetan criterion, which Ruegg calls Tsongkhapa’s reading and says was “fully elaborated only at a later period” (ruegg-svat-pras-2006, pp. 329, 345). Nor do external objects separate Bhāviveka from Candrakīrti: Ruegg has Svātantrikas and Prāsaṅgikas agreeing that they exist conventionally (p. 325)
  • The qualifier paramārthatas (“ultimately”) should be affixed to Madhyamaka negations — another of Ruegg’s six criteria. This qualifier is the dominant structural feature of every argument in Prajñāpradīpa Ch 2, for example “In ultimate reality, a goer does not go, because he already possesses activity, like one who stays” (ames-prajnapradipa-ch2-1995)
  • Doxographical project: Madhyamaka is articulated in dialogue with all rival schools through scholastic tenet-system literature (Madhyamakahṛdaya / Tarkajvālā) — and also within the Prajñāpradīpa itself, where Ch 2 answers objections from Vaiśeṣikas (Aulūkyas), Sāṃkhyas, Jains, grammarians (Pāṇinīyas), etymologists, and substantialist fellow Buddhists
  • Mahāyāna framework-dependence: the Prajñāpradīpa chapters close with Prajñāpāramitā sūtra citations as scriptural support — Ch 2 cites Ārya-akṣayamati-nirdeśa, the Dharmodgata chapter of Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, Ārya-brahma-viśeṣa-cintā-paripṛcchā, and Bhagavatī-prajñāpāramitā-suvikrāntavikrāmi as establishing the non-existence of coming and going (ames-prajnapradipa-ch2-1995). Even Madhyamaka’s most logically-oriented Indian interpreter treats Mahāyāna sūtra as load-bearing

The path from the conventional to the ultimate (Madhyamakahṛdaya 3.1–24)

Read in the Sanskrit with an unpublished English translation attributed to Pradeep P. Gokhale.

  • Wisdom in two forms (3.6–11). Wisdom satisfies like nectar, lights like an unobstructed lamp, burns the fuel of the afflictions (ཉོན་མོངས་, kleśa), and is the staircase to the palace of liberation (3.6). It is twofold in dependence on the two truths (3.7). Conventional wisdom (sāṃketikī) rests on the twelve sense bases (སྐྱེ་མཆེད་, āyatana) and does three things: it completes the accumulations of merit (བསོད་ནམས་, puṇya), such as giving, and of knowledge; it settles causes, effects and defining characteristics; and it matures beings through great love and compassion (3.8–9). Ultimate wisdom (pāramārthikī) acts without acting (apracārapracārā) towards a reality (tattva) that is peaceful, known by each for themselves, free of conceptual construction (རྟོག་པ་, kalpanā), beyond syllables (nirakṣara), free of one and many, and clear as the sky (3.10–11). Grammatically those qualities belong to the reality, not to the wisdom. As transmitted, 3.10 makes the wisdom what negates the whole net of conceptual constructions; the translator notes that an emendation (vidhāyini for vidhāyinī) would give that to the reality as well.
  • The staircase (3.12–13). Since it is not fitting to climb to the top of the palace of reality without “the staircase of the true convention” (ཡང་དག་པའི་ཀུན་རྫོབ་, tathyasaṃvṛti), one first makes the mind detached by means of conventional truth and then becomes certain about the specific and general characteristics of phenomena (dharmasvasāmānyalakṣaṇa). The image is used twice and nests: convention is the staircase to wisdom (3.12), and wisdom the staircase to liberation (3.6). Atiśa repeats 3.12 almost word for word in the second half of Satyadvayāvatāra v. 20, whose first half restates MMK 24:10 (apple-jewels-middle-way-2018, n. 504, which gives the Tibetan of both and the Sanskrit of 3.12).
  • The order of practice (3.14–22). Textual learning is pursued for the sake of the knowledge that comes from reflection and from meditation (3.14). Reality is not seen in an unsettled, obscured mind, as a face is not seen in muddy, moving water (3.15). The mind, like a stray elephant, is tied to its object with the rope of mindfulness (དྲན་པ་, smṛti) and controlled with the goad of wisdom (3.16). Specific remedies follow: attention to impermanence for an agitated mind and a broad object for a contracted one (3.17), reflection on the faults of distraction for a scattered mind and on the benefits of effort for a sluggish one (3.18), and meditation on the unattractive, on loving kindness and on dependent arising against attachment, hatred and delusion respectively (3.19). When the mind is stable and pliant one rests in equanimity (བཏང་སྙོམས་, upekṣā) (3.20). Only then, with the mind concentrated, does wisdom examine whether the nature of things grasped conventionally is the same when considered ultimately; if it is, it is reality, and if not, reality must be sought (3.21–22).
  • Teachings justified by what they remove (3.23–24). The aggregates, sense bases and elements, conditioned and unconditioned, were taught to the hearers for abandoning the obscuration (སྒྲིབ་པ་) of the afflictions, and to bodhisattvas for abandoning that and the obscuration of knowables as well. The teaching categories are justified by the obscurations they remove, not by a claim to describe what ultimately exists. The verse pair opens (3.23ab) with a line that no one burning with partisanship is fit for peace; its argument continues beyond v. 24.

Graph View

Backlinks