Chinese Buddhist causation theories

·期刊原文

Chinese Buddhist causation theories:
An analysis of the sinitic Mahaayaana understanding of Pratitya-samutpaada

By Whalen Lai

Philosophy east and west

Volume 27, no.3(July 1977), P.241-264

(C) by the University Press of Hawaii

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.241

INTRODUCTION: BASIC ISSUES

Karl Potter in Presuppositions in Indian
Philosophies in Philosophies has underscored the
fact that causation is a key and basic Indian
philosophical concern, To achieve liberation from
the cycles of rebirth, sa.msaara, and to break away
from the endless procress of karma, it is important
to realize the weak link in the chain of causation
and thereby to break from the world of cause and
effect.(1) Joseph Needham, in his Science, anti
Civilization in China, volume 2, points out, on the
other hand, that the Chinese did not have native
concepts comparable to the English terms of "cause"
and effect." It was, he notes, the Buddhists from
India who first introduced such "causative"
framework of analyzing relationships to the
Chinese.(2) Needham's observation does not imply
that the Chinese in pre-Buddhist times had no sense
of temporal sequence concerning what went before and
what came after as a consequence. For all practical
purposes, the Chinese knew of antecedents and
consequents, and her scientists in ancient times
were not ignorant of the working of the universe.
What might distinguish the Chinese perception of the
sequential relationships, however, was her tendency
to use aorganistic (Needham) or, biogenerative or
procreatory model to understand the same
relationship. Instead of the Western mechanical
model of "A as the cause produces B as the effect,"
the Chinese used a biological model instead: A as
origin, pen(a), produces B as end, mo(b). The
Chinese concepts of pen/mo acted as the analytical
tools to understand sequential relationships.
Representative of such an outlook would be the I
Ching(c) concept of Change as life giving birth to
life, or the (Confucian) notion of Heaven and Earth
procreating the myriad things or the Taoist idea of
the Tao as the Mother of all. The East-West
difference is this: the mechanical model of cause
and effect tends to assume two distinguishable
entities;(3) the biogenerative model of pen and mo
suggests instead a fluid, organic continuum.(4) The
mechanical model might be related to the notion of
God as Creator and of Law, divine or natural.(5) The
pen-mo relationship recalls a fertility motif. The
terms pen-mo were derived, from the pictograph of
fertility: mother Earth or tree or wood. As the
branch is to the tree trunk, mo (the tip) is a
natural outgrowth of pen (basis): that is. the
brunch is an extension of the trunk. Similarly,
Chinese cosmology repeatedly invokes the notion that
the many are ultimately originated from, fathered
by, and basically in harmony with. the One. "From
the one pen came the myriad mo," characterized Han
thought in general.(6)

Considering the fact that Indian philosophy was
committed to the analysis of causative relationships
and that the Chinese were more prompt ti see the
fluidity between origin and end, it would appear
that the Chinese Buddhists would have some initial
difficulties in digesting the particular theory of
causation proposed by Gautama the Buddha. Cultural
boundaries, however, are never absolute, and it is
to the credit of the Chinese Buddhists that they did
make

P.242

an effort and succed, in many ways, in understanding
the implication of Gautama's theory of causation.
However, the Chinese had to come up with some
innovative terms to translate cause (hetu) and
effect (phala). They chose the words yin(d) and
kuo(e), originally meaning approximately "the basis
for" and "the fruit" for Cause rind effect. Even in
modem Chinese usage, yin-kuo (commonly used to
designate karmic retribution) does not fully
correspond to the English concepts of cause and
effect.(7)

Given the indigenous Chinese proclivity for an
organic world view, it would hardly be surprising
that China would eventually modify the Buddhist
theory of causation to fit her own taste. Knowingly
or unknowingly, that modification did take place
when Chinese Buddhist traditions attained maturity
and ventured independently toward a new articulation
of older Indian Buddhist insights. The new
articulation, the modifications, should not be seen
as a distortion, for in a very subtle way, the
Chinese gave an in genious native twist to Gautama's
initial insights. This twist was inspired or
facilitated by the fact that Gautama's causation
theory criticized a naive cause-and-effect sequence.
The final result might seem un-Indian to an
Indological purist. It is clearly sinicized, but it
should be remembered that the same end product would
equally appear non-Chinese and evidently Indic to a
Sinological purist. It would be best to regard the
final Chinese Buddhist formulations of causation
theories as reflective of an Indo-Chinese synthesis,
better still, as the expression of sinitic
Mahaayaana speculations on the nature of ultimate
reality.(8)

Since causation is at the heart of Buddhist
thought as well as of Hindu thought in general, a
full treatment of the sinicization of this Indian
aspect would be practically impossible. In this
short essay, I will focus primarily on the way in
which mature Chinese Buddhists reviewed, in
retrospection, the various causation theories within
Buddhism. I will analyze, in a philosophical manner,
the implications of the Chinese retrospective
evaluations and the origins of the "hicrarchial"
structures. I will leave the more historical aspect"
to another occasion.(9) It will he shown that the
kind of pen-mo fluidity outlined earlier and the
Chinese inclinations toward cosmic monism
transformed the Indian Buddhist theory of causation.
At the same time, Chinese metaphysics inherited the
philosophy of identity, and spontaneity (what Garma
Chang calls Totalism) via the Hua-yen(f) school's
understanding of the Maadhyamika critique of
temporality. In the Hua-yen school (which later
influenced Neo-Confucianism(10) ) we will see an
extravagant theory of a cosmic, infinite, ceaseless
autogenesis of the universe by the universe itself.

Buddhist causation theory has been the object of
much study. Recently David J. Kalupahana in
Causality: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1975) has
provided us with an in-depth study of the Indian
side of the story and dispelled some myths and
misundet standings of pa.ticcasamuppada. According
to Kalupahana, the carly Buddhists, were empirical
phenomenalists and cause was seen as the sum total
of coexisting

P.243

factors that gave rise to a consequent. Early
Buddhist texts did not differentiate between cause
(hetu) and condition (pratyaya). The distinction
between the pair (with which I shall begin the
discussion in the study) began with the
Sarvaastivaadins. Cause was then seen as comparable
to a seed, and condition as comparable to auxiliary
factors (moisture, sun etc.) needed to bring the
seed to fruition as the result (phala). In adopting
a theory of self-nature (svabhaava) the
Sarvaastivaadins risked reviving the old
satkaaryavaada philosophy (See follwing discussion,
herein). Their attempt to salvage the Buddha's
denial of that philosophy with recourse to a new
theory of momentariness (k.sa.na) led to a doctrine
of the reality of static past, present, and future.
The reaction was the Maadhyamika critique of
Naagaarjuna that denied any substance to the
so-called self-nature of things. Naagaarjuna's
emptiness philosophy (`suunyavaada) then led to a
transcendental critique that went beyond the earlier
phenomenalism. The three times and causality were
reinterpreted.(11)

The meaning of causation clearly was at the
heart of the Buddhist philosophy. How the Chinese
understood and reformulated that insight is
therefore crucial to Chinese Buddhist developments.
Although the Chinese AAgamas may preserve some early
Buddhist insights, by the time they were
sophisticated enough to move beyond the Taoistic
exegesis, the Chinese fell under the later influence
of the Sarvaastivaada/Maadhyamika phase. Shoson
Miyamoto's "A Reappraisal of
Pratiitya-samutpaada"(12) can introduce us to t he
issues at hand.

THE MEANING OF PRATIITYASAMUTPAADA

The theory of causation ascribed to Gautama has to
be understood, at first, in the context of other
options in Indian thought.(13) Gautama apparently
challenged the Upani.sadic notion of a permanent
soul or self, aatman, and posited what came to be
known as the anaatman tradition of no-self or
no-soul. Steering the Middle Path between extremes,
Gautama equally avoided the other alternative of the
Ucchedavaadins (annihilationists). who held the idea
that reality is totally fragmentated, and nothing
ever lasts or affects what comes after. In so
steering between the extremes, Gautama, often time
impatient with and indifferent to metaphysical
speculations, gave no definitive answer. He left the
problems to his followers to ponder upon in their
metaphysical spare time.

Closely related to the preceding, is Gautama's
similar denial of pari.naamavaada (evolutionism) on
one hand, and aarambhavaada (compositionism) on the
other. The former assumes that all phenomena evolve
out of a basic ontological source; the latter denies
the existence of any basic substance/substances and
antecedent causes. The former aligns itself casily
with the Vedaanta or the Saa.mkhya traditions, the
latter with the outlook of the Ucchedavaadins.
Gautama, in following the Middle Path, steered
between the eternalism of basic substance source and
the randomness of cut-up component elements that had
absolutely

P.244

no links to one another. He wanted neither
determinism nor indeterminism, fatalism nor
nihilism. He proposed then his theory of
pratiityasamutpaada. Basically. his theory proposes
concomitancy: "There being A. there is B. There
being not A. there is not B." There being cravings,
there is suffering. There being the cessation of
craving, there is cessation of suffering.(14)
Pratiityasamutpaada has been translated variously as
dependent coorigination, interdependent causation or
simply as causation. S peaking probably from within
the "northern path" and Far Eastern tradition,
Miyamoto notes:

Pratiitya-samutpaada is sometimes rendered
`causality' in English, but this is very misleading
because it is not mere cause-effect relationship;
rather, it is an attempt to interpolate pratiitya
(auxiliary factor, condition) as the most important
condition in the formula of cause -> condition ->
effect.(15)

Pratiityasamutpaada literally means conditioned
coarising. Pratyaya refers to the condition or
auxiliary cause or concomitant factor; samutpaada
refers to arising together. The Chinese had, not
incorrectly, used the term yuan-chi'i(9): yuan for
pratyaya and ch'i meaning rising for samutpaada.
Pratyaya is neither the cause nor the effect, but,
as Miyamoto points out, the key intermediate factor
in the normal sequence of cause -> condition ->
effect. Cause is hetu (Chinese, yin), and effect is
phala (Chinese, kuo). Hetu would bear phala or
cause, effect, when avid only when the favored
condition (pratyaya, yuan) is present. Thus, for
example, the seed (cause) would require moisture and
earth (the conditions, auxiliary causes, or
concomitant factors) before it can produce fruit
(the effect). By interpolating this intervening
factor, Gautama very ingeniously avoided the
pari.naama tradition (evolutionism, that is, things
evolve from a basic material cause) by insisting
that secondary conditions are necessary. Similarly,
Gautama avoided the aarambhavaada option (plurality
of entities coexisting with no reference to
antecedent causes), by insisting that things arise
concomitant to and with one another (samutpaada)
because the mutual conditions are ripe. Gautama, the
philosopher-and-therapist, (16) avoided causal
determinism on the one hand and acausal coexistcnce
on the other.

The reader by now realize that (1)the theory of
pratiityasamutpaada is not simply causation like A
causes 13, that is, not the naive cause-and-effect
relationship, and (2) it was proposed within an
Indian context out of a pectuliar range of opotionss
as was just explained. The difficulties facing and
English-speaking reader unfamiliar with the Indian
concerns for various causalities within their
philosophical context, in this regard, are not very
different from the difficulties that faced the
Chinese in the fourth to sixth centuries A.D. China
then had to acquire "causative relationships" which
she never had use for in her biogenerative (pen/mo)
world view. China had to learn it outside the
philosophical context of the Indian obsession with
causality. Finally, having no prior notion of cause
or effect (hetu phala), she had maybe double the
difficulties understanding the nuance of pratyaaya
as something between cause and effect. China chose
the right (right, perhaps by convention) term to

P.245

translate the Sanskrit original. She used the word
yuan, which originally meant "rim, along side" to
evoke the meaning of "condition, auxiliary factor,
cpncomitant cause." Like the choice of kuo for
phala, the choice was forced but eventually yuan
serves its designated purpose. Miyamoto however
wonders:

Pratiityasamutpaada is translated into Chinese as
yuan-ch'i; it remains a gravely doubtful question
whether the Buddhists and the intellectuals of the
Far East grasp the philosophical contents [of the
original concept].(17)

Miyamoto notes that yuan-ch'i has been liberally
used in China to simply signify what is synonymous
to yu-lai(h), which means whence-come, that is, a
theory of origination. Yuan-ch'i, like the English
word "causality" used to translate
pratiityasamutpaada, loses its more specific nuance
in such common usage. For example, prologues to
treatises which tell us the reason for writing, are
often called yuan-ch'i or yin-yuan(i)
(cause-and-condition)-the book being the result. The
latter term was used in that liberal and nonliteral
sense for "preface/reason for writing" as early as
the sixth century A.D. in the Chinese fabricated
work, Awakening of Faith in Mahayana.(18) Japanese
Buddhists followed similar practices. Legends of
temples are called temple engi (engi being the
Japanese pronounciation for yuan-ch'i).

By such shorthanded understanding of
pratiityasamutpaada as theory of origination, the
Chinese very likely, at times, missed the nuances of
the original Sanskrit. The absence of a native
tradition of cause-effect thinking might have been
responsible for this reduction of a unique theory of
causation to a general term for any causation. On
the other hand, I also suspect that the very lack
actually allowed the Chinese to formulate their own
theory of Buddhist causation outside the mechanical
cause-effect framework, so that they reinterpreted
pratiityasamutpaada in an organistic manner. China
in fact came up with her own Middle Path that
avoided causal determinism and acausal
indeterminism--just as Gautama did --but in her own
unique Hua-yen theory of a mysterious, spontaneous,
efforescence of reality.(19)

To add to the complexity, Chinese Buddhists not
only have to intuit what Gautama meant by the idea
of pratiityasamutapaada, they also had to
incorporate what the Indian Buddhist philosophers
thought that Gautama had meant by it. In short, the
issues involved are complicated. Generally speaking,
Indian Buddhists offered three interpretations of
pratiityasamutapaada. The AAbhidharmists, the
Maadhyamika philosophers, and the Yogaacaarins each
have their slightly different rendition of Gautama's
insight. These slightly different emphases by each
of these, however, were enough to eause heated
controversics and schisma. As a whole, especially
northern AAbhidharmists were the rationalizers who
wanted to work out, in minute analysis, the
conditions under whcih different elements (dharmas)
would arise together. They tended to interpret
pratiityasamutpaada as (to wit) Conditioned
Causation. In order to sustain a theory of anaatman,
the AAbhidharmists adhered to a doctrine of a
plurality of

P.246

elements (dharmas) which, in combination--that is,
following pratiityasamutpaada--produced the nominal
existence of realities. They were the causalist
philosophers. Although they look for causal
antecedents only in the immediate moment-entity
preceding the oncome of the next moment-entity,
nonetheless, they demonstrated a skill of
causalistic analysis in listing different pratyaya
factors.(20) [Incidentally, medieval pious
scholasticism in the West and Islamic kalam were
also interested in causuality as they too sought for
the gate of liberation from the world.](21)

Naagaarjuna. the founder of Maadhyamika,
questioned the assumption of the elements (dharmas)
in the AAbhidharmic system and proposed instead an
overall theory of emptiness (svabhaava-`suunya). The
theory of self-nature was shown by him to be
self-defeating. Conceptions of independent existents
are empty. Among the realities that he denied and
showed to be `suunya were the qualities of time
past, present, and future which his opponents, the
Sarvaastivaadins, held to be distinct categories.
Naagaarjuna was able to show the interdependence of
past, present, and future, how each by itself had no
claim to independent existence as such and how any
statement asserting their being intertwined (the
present preexists in the past. for example) would
end up in inner contradictions or antinomies. It is
said that Naagaarjuna developed the notion of
pratiityasamutpaada in the direction of what
Stcherbatsky would call relativity, or better,
interdependence (parasparaa pek.sa) hsiang-i
hsiang-tui(j) . If we use the English term
interdependent causation to designate
pratiityasamutpaada, then we can say that
Naagaarjuna would accept interdependence but negate
causation. Naagaarjuna also emphasized the reality
(or, to be exact, the emptiness) of the whole,
dharmataa, as opposed to the AAbhidharmist fixation
with the particulars; the change was from
dharmavaada to advayavaada, from d.ri.s.tivaada to
`suunyavaada.(22)

The Yogaacaara tradition offered its own
understanding of the prnciple of pratiityasamutpaada
within its particular focus on the working of the
[human] psyche. Thus Yogaacaara was most able to
show the interdependence of consciousness [as
subject] and name-and-form [as object], or the
intricate relationship between the false sense of
the self and the false sense of the object in the
seventh consciousness [manas], that is, the
emptiness that was in the structure of
paratantrantra [dependent] level of reality
i-t'a-hsing ch'i(k) . Intricate relationship of
interdependence or simultancity was seen also in the
mind's reception of the external impressions.
impressions come simultancously through the senses
There is beginningless and apparently interminable
mutual perfumation of mind upon defilement and
defilement upon mind. Yogaacaara, however, basically
claborated upon Maadhyamika understanding. Reality
is without substance and dependent on the
subject-perceiver.(23)

The Indian Buddhist expositions on
pratiityasamutpaada were not unknown to the Chinese.
However, in most cases, we will not encounter the
Chinese understanding of the AAbhidharma, the
Maadhyamika, and the Yogaacaara interpretation as
has just been presented. Instead we find a peculiar
phenom-

P.247

enon or division basic to Chinese self-understanding
of those philosophies.

Among the Chinese Buddhist schools, the
San-lun(l) (Three Treatises, Maadhyamika) school and
the T'ien-t'ai school are grouped as the
shih-hsiang(m) schools that philosophize upon the
Dharmataa (insofar as Dharmataa is often translated
as shih-hsiang in Chinese.) Shih-hsiang philosophy
is generally acausative. The Hinayaana and the
Yogaacaara schools are classified as the yuan-ch'i
or causation schools. These two major streams should
theoretically not overlap, since the shih-hsiang
wing was supposed to be "noumenalist" concerned with
dharmataa or the absolute-in-itself: whereas the
yuan-ch'i wing was usually depicted as being fixated
only with causative phenomena involving a plurality
of dharmas or dharma-characteristics (lak.sa.na).
However, it is recognized that Maadhyamika
transcendentalism was reached only through a
thorough critique of phenomenalism and
transvaluation of pratiityasamutpaada into the
paramaartha-void. Also, Chinese made the sinitic
distinction between Wei-hsin(n) (Mind Only) and
Wei-shih(o) (Consciousness Only) . The former,
represented by Ch'an (Zen), was supposed to be
"noumenalist, dharmataa-orientated." The latter,
represented by the school of Fa-hsiang, founded by
Hsuan-tsang, was relegated to a crypto-Hinayaana,
phenomenalist school. The Chinese Buddhist school
that achieved the highest synthesis of yuan-ch'i and
the noumenalist wei-hsin was the Hua-yen school.
That synthesis had been referred to as Wei-hsin
yuan-ch'i(p) (Mind-Only Causation, noumenal
phenomenalism) or as hsing-ch'i(q) (Essence Arousal;
to be analyzed later). How all these came about
would require a complementary study.(24) I would
simply suggest the unique Chinese rearrangements of
the three basic Indian schools in the following
diagram.

It can be noted that (Chinese) Maadhyamika is
traditionally not considered as a causative school.
There is some basis for this Chinese reading,
namely, that

P.248

(1) Maadhyamika is critical of the particularism of
dharm-analysis and supportive I of the universalism
of `suunyataa and dharmataa-intuition, (2) the
Chinese understood and defined causationism largely
as what is born or as origination. This reading
excluded the more intricate idea of
pratiityasamutpaada as interdependence, as
interpreted by Stcherbatsky. Maadhyamika is thus not
included in the Chinese criteria of yuan-ch'i.(25)
Maadhyamika indeed does not fall under such naive
causationism.

Furthermore causation (pratiityasamutpaada,
yuan-ch'i), understood as theory of origination
(yu-lai) , is responsible for the peculiar
hierarchial classification of four origins for
causative realities.

THE HIERARCHY OF CAUSATION THEORIES

Takakusu in Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy gives
a clear English summary of the four causation
theories:(26) that classification ultimately dates
back to the writings of Fa-tsang. The four are (1)
causation by action-influence, or karma causation,
(2) causation by the ideation-store, or
aalayavij~naana causation, (3) causation by
thusness, tathataa, or, better, by the womb of the
Buddha, tathaagatagarbha-causation, and (4)
causation by the Universal Principle, or
Dharmadhaatu causation. These are not four separate
theories but rather each higher one incorporates the
lower one(s) within itself.

The first, yeh-kan yuan-ch'i(t) . is rather
straightforward. All realities are due to action
producing necessary reactions. As such, it is not
particularly Buddhist since all Hindus would
subscribe to it. However, Chinese often lump this
outlook on the Hinayaana school (on the assumption
that the higher theories, beginning with
aalayavij~naana causation of Yogaacaara, are beyond
Hinayaana). Karma causation is not the same as
causation in classical Western physics. There is no
beginning and no end to sa.msaara, that is, no first
cause, no telos as with Aristotle. Since the chain
of rebirth is circular, every stage is a cause when
viewed from its effect, while it is also an effect
of an anticedant cause.(27) In that general sense,
cause and effect blend together. It may men be said
that there is a cause in the effect, and an effect
in the cause. Strictly speaking, the satkaaryavaada
position (effects prcexist in causes) usually is
denied by Buddhism, although it does come into its
fold.

Next is the aalaya (vij~naana) causation of the
Yogaacara school lai-yeh yuan-ch'i(u). We will not
find any corresponding commpound like aalaya
(vij~naana) used in the liberal sense that Miyamoto
suggested earlier, namely, its origination traced to
a source in the aalayavij~naana, the storchouse
consciousness, Takakusu gives a rather general
explanation why consciousness or mind is selected.
"Actions (karma) are divided into three groups,
i.e., those by the body, those by speech and those
by volition.... But the mind being the inmost recess
of all actions, the causation ought to be attributed
to the mind-store or Ideation store
[aalayavij~naana]" (italies mine).(28) It seems that
Takakusu, in his explana-

P.249

tion, recalls the favorite Shingon (Mantrayaana)
theme of "body, speech, and mind" and associates
aalayavij~naana freely with the centrality of
mind-karma in the first Verse of the
Dharmapaada.(30) The reason why the Chinese created
aalayavij~naana causation as a causation theory is
due to the recognition that, in the Yogaacaara
system, the origin of all illusions (and
enlightenment too) is traced to certain seeds
(biijas) in the aalayavij~naana. These seeds lie in
the aalayavij~naana, and sprout into the
object-realm, which in turn influcnces the mind by
planting a new seed... in an endless process of
mutual dependence.(31) Although there is no explicit
aalayavij~naana causation theory in Indian
Mahaayaana philosophy (`saastra), as such it still
can be accepted as a Legitimate inference from
Yogaacaara. However, it is in the last two types of
causation that we see something that Fa-tsang(v) of
the Hua-yen school discovered. These two types are
unknown to Indian schools. These two are unique to
sinitic Mahaayaana and deserve our scrutiny.

Tathataa causation or tathaagatagarbha causation
is the next causation which is higher than that of
layavij~naana. Just as karma is traced, according to
the Chinese, to the mind or consciousness, the
aalayavij~naana too has its basis in tathataa
(thusness, suchness) or the tathaagaragarbha (womb
of the Buddha, matrix of the Thus-come, embryonic
buddhahood). This is how Takakusu explains it:

Thusness [the noumenon] in its static sense is
spaceless, timeless, all-equal, without beginning or
end, formless, colorless, because the thing itself
without its manifestation cannot be sensed or
described. Thusness in its dynamic sense can assume
any form; when driven by a pure cause it takes a
lofty form; when driven by a tainted cause it takes
on a depraved form. Thusness, therefore, is of two
states. The one is the Thusness itself; the other is
its manifestation, its state of life and death.(32)

Thusness causation, therefore, means that from out
of the static noumenon itself. the phenomenal life
and death arise. Because it traces the root of
reality, the origin of all things, beyond the
aalayavij~naana (considered in this scheme as
corresponding to a phenomenal consciousness),(33) to
thusness itself, it is regarded, therefore, as
superior to aalayavij~naana causation and is known
as ju-lai-tsang yuan-ch'i(w) or chen-ju
yuan-ch'i(x),(34) causation, or better, origination
from the womb of the Buddha (ju-lai-tsang,
tathaagatagarbha) or thusness (chen-ju, tathataa,
also translated as suchness).

The person who first discovered this theory was
Fa-tsang. He found it basically in the Awakening of
Faith in Mahaayaana, a work suspected to be a
Chinese fabrication. Takakusu's description thusness
given earlier draws basically upon the Awakening of
Faith, where it is said:

The (Suchness) Mind has two gates: the gate of
Suchness and the gate of sa.msaara. The Mind as
phenomena (sa.msaara) is grounded on the
tathaagatagarbha. What is called the aalayavij~naana
is that in which "neither life nor death"
(nirvaa.na) fuses with "life and death" (sa.msaara)
in a neither-identical-nor-differentiated
manner.(35)

P.250

I have demonstrated, elsewhere, that Fa-tsang was
clearly influenced by the Taoist paradox of active
inactivity (wu-wei erh wu-pu-wei(y)) as well as by
the logic in the / Ching (Book of Changes).(30) The
Buddhist absolute, tathataa, was apparently seen as
something similar to the Tao(z): in one aspect,
static; in another, dynamic. Just as the Chinese
would see all activities as emerging out of a
primordial passivity (the Tao produces all things),
the tathataa causation theory, regarded as a more
profound causation, also is seen to be proposing
that life-and-death emerged from out of the static
noumenal suchness itself. There is no comparable
(explicit) theory in Indian Mahaayaana. In fact.
generally the Indian Buddhist schools would state
that Dharmataa (tathataa) supports phenomena; it
does not create phenomena.(37) Tathataa causation as
developed by the Chinese would find a closer
affinity with the bhedaabheda Vedaanta school in
Hinduism. which regards all things as somehow being
generated from Brahman (the India counterpart to the
Taoist idea of Tao) .(38) The Chinese Buddhist,
however, would legitimatize their interpretation by
finding support in Buddhist scriptures like the
`Sriimaalaa suutra (Sheng-men-ching(aa)).

Therefore, O Lord, the tathaagatagarbha is the
foundation, the support, the substratum of the
immutable Buddha-dharmas which are essentially
connected with, indivisible from (the Absolute) and
unreleased from wisdom. [Similarly, it the
tathaagatagarbha is the foundation etc.] of the
worldly dharmas, produced by cause and conditions,
which are by all means disconnected, differentiated
(from the Absolute) and separate from wisdom.(39)

Yet, it can be shown that the `Sriimaalaa suutra did
not support a theory of the tathaagatagarbha
creating the phenomenal realities or causing them to
come into being as the Chinese would see it. It only
suuports them in an epistemological way, that is,
the mind is the seat of enlightenment as well as of
nonenlightenment.(40) Basing himself upon the
controversial Awakening of Faith, Fa-tsang came up
with a theory of tathaagatagarbha causation.

In the Awakening of Faith, there is a key
metaphor that eventually prompted Fa-tsang to see an
identification of cause and effect. That metaphor
lies at the heart of' the third and fourth causation
theories in the Chinese review of causationism. That
metaphor, henceforth on the lips of oriental
Buddhists compared the relationship between Suchness
and phenomenal realities to the relationship between
water and the waves.

All forms of mind and consciousness are products of
ignorance. Forms ignorance do not exist apart from
the essence of enlightenment. They cannot be
destroyed and yet they cannot be not destroyed. This
is like the water of the sea being stirred up by the
wind.... So to it is with the innately pure mind of
sentient beings. The wind of ignorance stirs it. The
pure mind [water] andignorance were [originally]
formless. [Now] the two [mind and form of ignorance,
water and wave] are inseparable.(41)

Using this metaphor, found in the Awakening of
Faith, Fa-tsang was able to

P.251

argue that the phenomenal world [waves that rise and
fall, analogy to life and death, sa.msaara] is
generated out of Suchness [the water]. Fa-tsang went
on to underline that in essence, the two are not
different waves are still water. The implication of
this interpretation was very great for subsequent
Chinese Buddhist philosophies (especially,
Ch'an),(42) but in this discussion we will only
underline its ramifications for the Chinese
understanding of causationism.

The water is the cause (strictly speaking, the
material cause) and the waves are the result. The
wind that ruffles the water plays the role of the
efficient cause (in Aristotelian terms) or the
condition, concomitant factor (pratyaya). Since the
Awakening of Faith says that the wetness of the
water is not changed whether it be static (water) or
dynamic (wave), Fa-tsang said that the nature of
Suchness (the water's wetness) is none other than,
or fully present in, phenomena (the waves). "Chen-ju
sui-yuan pu-pien(ab); Suchness follows pratyaya (the
wind) without changing its essence" was the credo of
suchness causation.(43) The waves (phenomena) are
none other than the water (noumena). It also follows
that, when Fa-tsang applied this to his
understanding of causation, cause (water) and result
(waves) are simultaneously present or coexisting,
ontologically fluid and intrinsically nondual
(advaya). From this emerged the very fascinating
Hua-yen doctrine of totalistic simultaneity that can
be found in articles one, five and nine in the "Ten
(Hua-yen) Mysteries or Profound Theories" completed
by Fa-tsang. I will cite again from Takakusu
primarily for his relative availability.

1. The theory of co-relation, in which all things
have co-existence and simultaneous rise. All are
co-existent not only in relation to space but also
in relation to time. There is no distinction of
past, present and future, each of them being
inclusive of the other. Distinct as they are and
separated as they seem to be in time, all beings are
united to make one entity--from the universal point
of view.

5. The theory of complementarility by which the
hidden and the manifested will make the whole by
mutual supply. If one is inside, the other will be
outside, or vice versa. Both complementing each
other will complete one unity.

9. The theory of 'variously completing then
time-periods creating one entity Each of past,
present and future contains three periods, thus
making up nine periods which altogether form one
period--nine and one, ten periods in all. The ten
periods, all distinct yet mutually penetrating, will
complete the one-in-all principle....(44)

All these contributed to the Hua-yen doctrine of'
simultaneity, t'ung-shih(ac) . All phenomena are
t'ung-shih tun-ch'i(ad), arising together at the
same time, wu-ai(ae), with no obstruction between
one another, and hu-she(af), subsuming each in each,
completely and wholly.

The first article proposes the simultaneous
appearance of and correspondence between cause
(hetu) and effect (phala) . The fifth article,
influenced by the / Ching tradition of the latent
and the manifested, applies the same to the
complementation of the hidden (organic germ) and the
actualized (fruit,

P.252

result) in their yin-yang(ag) harmony. The ninth
article followed the T'ien-t'ai practice of creating
a square of the number three (3 x 3) to produce
nine, which united in a One, forms the favored round
number of ten (the perfect number) in the Hua-yen
world view. What is significant here, for our
concern, is the curious interpresence of past,
future, present in each other (3 x 3) and all nine
in one (the final absolute inclusive tenth). We can
feel that here, in the elimination of temporal
sequence Fa-tsang was reasserting the organistic,
noncausative. native Chinese outlook outlined in the
beginning of this essay. (The elimination of spatial
distinctions can be found in articles two, six, and
seven; the rest deal more with quality and
quantity.(45))

ACAUSATIONISM: THE MAADHYAMIKA CONTRIBUTION

I would like to return, at this junction, to the
issue of the conflict and confluence of Indian
Buddhist and Chinese native assessment of time, and
the curious fate of pratiityasamutpaada in sinitic
Mahaayaana at its peak.

We said that Gautama very innovatively departed
from a simple cause-effect temporal sequence by
interpolating the key component of pratyaya,
auxiliary condition or concomitant factor between
cause and effect. The classical formulation is that
"A being present, B happens." Craving being present,
suffering happens, From an early date, there was a
debate on whether the chain of causation (usually
twelve in number from ignorance through cravings to
life and death) involves time sequence. The usual
classification is to regard it as spanning past,
present, and future. (Takakusu made this clear by
seeing two past causes, five present effects, three
present causes, and two future effects leading back
to rebirth and a full circle.(46)) There were others
who argued that the twelve chains occur in a
k.sa.na, a split second. They would deny that there
was craving earlier and therefore there is now
suffering, but admit that there being craving, there
is suffering. The denial of the reality of past,
present, and future by the Mahaasa^nghika, which
influenced the Mahaayaana and the Maadhyamika
school, is crucial in the abolition of time
sequence, that is, the discrete past, present, and
future as held by the Sarvaastivaadins.

Naagaarjuna of the Maadhyamika school showed,
through his dialectics, the emptiness of the
concretized realities of past, present, and future.
Since he apparently had no positive statement, it is
hard to say what his position on time was. His
position after all to have no position. Because of
his criticism of time sequentialism, Naagaarjuna was
regarded by scholars as not proposing the usual
causation scheme. It is from a writing attributed to
him, rightly or wrongly, that the Chinese derived
the theory (found, for example, in T'ien-t'ai) that
the three times are one: san-shih i-shih(ah).(47)
The Chinese harmonizing tendency or love for a final
complementary Oneness is innate to the T'ien-t'ai
understanding of Maadhyamika for its own purpose.
The transformation discussed may be depicted in the
following manner:

P.253

There is, I think, an important difference
between interdependence and harmonism. Things can be
mutually dependent without necessarily adding up to
a whole, to a unity. Yin-yang harmonism, however,
implies this oneness through complementation. It can
be seen that this sense of oneness or harmony in
T'ien-t'ai was derived unconsciously more from the
native Chinese cosmic monism than from Naagaarjuna
who might not agree with such a theory of mutual
penetration.

In this sinicization process, however, Chinese
Buddhists incorporated something which was alien to
their own world view: namely, the notion of
immediate identity, hsiang-chi(aj) (A = B) .
Reserving this issue for another detailed
discussion, I can only briefly, if somewhat
dogmatically, state this: the Chinese had the notion
that the many emerged from the one. The One is the
origin (pen); the many, born of the one, is the end
(mo). The origin and the end, the one and the many
are not disjointed like cause and effect, but fluid
like the Great Tao and myriad things. Yet, prior to
the Buddhist, there was not a native theory that
claimed that the Many is immediately identical with
the One or that Being is immediately Nonbeing. The
evidence seems to show show that the Chinese
Buddhist initiated this mutual identity concept.(48)
Yet, paradoxically, it would be difficult to find
Indian Buddhists saying that Being is Nonbeing (Sat
is Asat) or that the One is the Many in any
logical/philosophical (as distinct from
inspirational/scriptural) context. How then did the
philosophy of immediate identity (hsiang-chi) begin
in China?

It began with a particular Chinese translation
of the praj~naaparamitaa suutra, especially in
Kumarajiiva's choice of the word chi-shih(ak) as the
copula that has to be interpolated in the
translation of "ruupam `suunyam eva" (form [is]
empty only).(49) The Chinese word for "is"--namely,
chi-shih--is not required in Sanskrit in this
instance. Apparently, the Buddhist usages such as
sa.msaara is nirvaa.na or form is emptiness
introduced a strength or magnitude of meaning
(signifying symmetrical identity) , perhaps not
available in earlier usage of the Chinese chi (which
usually means, that is, as in "A, that is, B"). Now
A is B: A = B. Naagaarjuna's exposition of the
praj~naapaaramitaa suutra's insight into the
emptiness of all things is known as tile first
nondual philosophy in Indict. This nonduality is
generally used intentionally to negate and not to
affirm: that is, things neither come nor go, are
neither the same nor different. Only in a special

P.254

context, when this neither/nor logic is applied to
the whole of wholes, to Dharmataa as `suunyataa,
nirvaa.na as sa.msaara, naama-ruupa as `suunya,
would it mean a philosophy of total symmetrical
identity (A=B).(50) A kind of monism of intent, of
intuitive insight, or of didactic negatation of
Hinayaana dualism is then proposed. Chinese
Buddhists, however, extended its usage, and we begin
to hear of the One is the Two, BEing is Nonbeing,
the One is the Many, and in our discussion here, the
Water is the Wave, the Substance is the Function,
the Origin is the End, the Cause is the Effect, the
Part is the Whole. Some of these would de to
extravagant to Indian logicians.(51)

Now if we follow the early Taoist pen-mo logic
in which total identity is not involved, it would be
more proper to say, with reference to the Awakening
of Faith, that the passive water (pen) was in time
ruffled up by the wind. Initial passivity preceded
the mo, activity. However, that would not be in the
best tradition of the Buddhist mutual identity
theory. It is to the credit of the commentator
Wonhyo (Yuan-hsiao(al)) that he underlined firmly
the paradox that (1) the wind of ignorance has no
beginning, therefore one cannot say that at one time
there was pacificity before the advent of activity,
and (2) the whole body of the water as one unit
moves, that is, not just the surface of it as if the
substance or the pen remains immobile. In other
words, there might be a logical priority of
passivity but there is not a chronological priority.
Thus Wonhyo says,

....the whole body of water moves,therefore the
water is not separate from the form of the wind [the
wave-form].(52)

....The forms of sa.msaara [like the wet waves] are
none other than the enlightened essence [the wet
water]....The immutable Mind itself is one with
mutability. It is not mutability fuses with
immutability.(53)

This unity of activity and passivity should be
underlined because the same notion occurred later in
Neo-Confucian thought as the idea of activity and
passivity having one source (tung-ching
i-yuan(am)).(54) The Buddhist elimination of a naive
concept of time sequence (that is, the logic of
pen-mo, or there is the passive origin and then
comes the active end) and the substitution of a
paradoxical unity of passivity and activity in one
substance is significant because it introduces into
Chinese thought, not just the notion of spatial
identity (chi, as just mentioned) but also temporal
simultaneity or spontancity. The later led to the
fourth theory of Dharmadhaatu Causation, spontancous
generation of the universe in every split second a
theory unknows to India and more extravagant than
traditional Chinese cosmogonic pen-mo theories. In
the Dharmadhaatu Causation, the One is immedeiately
identical to and is spontancously the Many.

We may summarize the preccding discussion on the
Indian contribution to native Chinese outlook in the
production of sinitic Mahaayaana notion of time and
causality in the following way: Indian Buddhist
thought, directly or

P.255

indirectly, introduced to the Chinese the notion of
(1) immediate identity, (2) transtemporal
simultaneity, (3) interdependence or
matrix-relationship.

The following diagram shows how the Indian
Maadhyamika influence and the Chinese pen-mo monism
were synthesized into the Dharmadhaatu Causation
theory:

I will explain below what Dharmadhaatu Causation is,
reserving the historical issues for the last section
of this essay.

THE CROWN OF CAUSATION: DHARMADHAATU CAUSATION

Dharmadhaatu Causation is so extravagant in
conception that logical language or explanation
sometimes cannot depict it as well as analogies,
metaphors, or diagrams (especially ma.n.dala) .
Dharmadhaatu is the realm of the Dharma, the
absolute, transcendental reality which, like the
tathaagatagarbha described earlier, has both the
noumenal and the phenomenal aspect. Takakusu calls
it the Universal Principle. He writes:

Buddhism holds that nothing was created singly or
individually [but through pratyaya, always with one
another]. All things in the universe--matter and
mind--arose simultaneously, all things in it
depending upon one another, the influence of each
mutually permeating and thereby making a universal
symphony of harmonious totality. If one item were
lacking, the universe would not he complete; without
the rest, one item cannot be. When the whole cosmos
arrives at a harmony of perfection, it is called the
`Universal One and True,' or the 'Lotus Store.' In
this ideal universe all beings will be in perfect
harmony, each finding no obstruction in the
existence and activity of another.(55)

As usual, the Dharmadhaatu Causation subsumes all
the previous causation theories within itself. It is
"the elimax of all the causation theories; it is
actually the conclusion of the theory of causal
origination [pratitya-samutpaada] and is already
within the theory of universal immanence,
pansophism, cosmotheism,

P.256

or whatever it may be called."(56) The reader who
finds it hard to picture what these mean ?; should
perhaps imagine the scene of "all beings, from the
highest to the lowest, are parts of one and the same
Ma.n.dala."(57) The world view here is not static
but extremely dynamic, not finite hut infinite.
Pascal's line--"the center being everywhere, the
circumference nowhere"--describing the aweinspiring
and intimidating Infinite that threatened his ego,
would he appropriate. However, for the Buddhist, it
would be a leap of joy to behold the endless world
of light. (Had Pascal only let go of his self!(58))
This is because in the Dharmadhaatu. everything can
be the center, the whole, the One that absorbs
within itself the essence of all other entities,
"like the net of Indra. where one jewel reflects all
others." or comparable to the realm of the stars in
Plotinus, where one star captures the light of all
other stars.(59) Takakusu describes the implications
for causation:

It is the causation by all beings themselves and is
the creation of the universe itself, or we can call
it the causation by the common action-influence
[karma] of all beings. Intensively considered, the
universe will be a manifestation of Thusness or the
Matrix of Tathaagata (Thus come). But extensively
considered it is the causation of the universe by
the universe itself and nothing more.(60)

It is an endless causation or ontogenesis of the
universe in all its parts in a mysteriously
concerted manner of mutual influence and
penetration. One has to visualize something like a
spontaneous, instantaneous, never-ceasing,
self-generating universe to catch a glimpse of
Dharmadhaatu causation.

How is this causation superior to the
tathaagatagarbha causation that precedes it? The
water-and-wave metaphor may be a very good
illustration of their differences and relationship.
In the tathaagatagarbha causation, the water
(tathataa, the noumenal) generates the waves (the
phenomenal sa.msaara) through the action of the wind
of beginningless ignorance. It is said that the
water and the waves are one in substance, in being
wet and watery. The principle of the identity of the
noumenal and the phenomenal. in a causatively
immediate manner, was established. (This is
different from the dictum, sa.msaara is nirvaa.na,
nirvaa.na is sa.msaara," which by itself does not
involve causality.) The wave is water; the water, in
toto, moves as waves. The universal water and the
particular individual waves are one.

Dharmadhaatu Causation, however, is not
satisfied with just this identification. It asks:
What about the identity of one wae with all the
other waves, and one drop of water with the whole
body of water? It, therefore, goest one step further
to establish the principle of the interpenetration
of every particular wave with all other particular
waves, individually or as a whole. this is known, in
the Hua-yen scheme, as the shih-shih wu-ai(aa):
phenomenal fact and fact are not obstructed. this is
the basic new ideology of the One-is-All All-is-One
philosophy.(61) One is All is like the reflection of
a candle in a hall of mirrors: the one light is
reflected in all the mirrors, and all mirrors
reflect one another in an infinite manner. All is
One is like the telescoping of all the mirror images

P.257

into a crystal ball placed in the center. Fa-tsang,
it is said, actually used these two means to
demonstrate to Empress Wu the mystery of this new
world view.(62) Readers can also turn to his sermon
on the Golden Lion for another exposition of the
same.(63)

THE SOURCE OR INSPIRATION THE DHARMADHAATU CAUSATION

Indian Mahaayaana philosophy (`saastra) does not
know of a dharmadhaatu causation theory. That theory
is derived from a creative Chinese reading of the
Buddhist suutras. Already the tathaagatagarbha
causation--based on the Awakening of Faith--points
toward this higher theory of Dharmadhaatu causation.
Fa-tsang of the Hua-yen school had discovered this
theory within the scriptural (suutra) tradition,
particularly, the Hua-yen or Avata.msaka suutra. The
superiority of the Dharmadhaatu theory over the
tathaagatagarbha causation theory lies in the new
insight into the extreme mystery that the part is
the whole, that the One is the All.

In the English language, there is one essay on
the Hua-yen suutra by D. T. Suzuki on "The
Ga.n.davyuuha."(64) The Ga.n.davyuuha depicts the
pilgrimage of Sudhana under the direction of
Ma~njusrii. The pilgrim finally encounters
Samantabhadra. The Ga.n.davyuuha is an independent
work in Sanskrit that forms now the last chapter of
the 80-chapter Chinese Hua-yen (Avata.msaka) suutra.
The pilgrimage of Sudhana leads eventually to the
Dharmadhaatu, the ultimate realm of reality. The
Ga.n.davyuuha is thus known also as
dharmadhaatuprave`sa, ju fa-chieh p'ien(ao) ,
entering into the realm of the dharma. I will select
two metaphors in the Dharmadhaau-vision to
illustrate what this ultimate realm is like. One
metaphor is that of light or total luminosity.
Suzuki's study describes this well:

Therefore, the Dharmadhaatu is a world of lights not
accompanied by any form of shade. The essential
nature of light is to intermingle without
interferring or obstructing or destroying one
another. One single light reflects in itself all
other lights generally and individually.(65)

The intermingling of one and all, singly and
totally, is precisely the motif basic to the notion
of Dharmadhaatu Causation, the realization of the
One us the All, and vice versa.

Sudhana, the pilgrim, journeyed toward the world
of the infinite until he came face to face with
Samanthabhadra. Eventually, like in Plotinus'
description of the ascent of the soul, the seer
(Sudhana) and the seen (Samantabhadra) merged into
one. Sudhana literally expanded in his
pysicospiritual stature until he became one with the
highly luminous body of the cosmic Buddha.(66) This
theme of an enlightened person (in fact, all
enlightened persons, buddhas) being an emanation of
the cosmic Buddha can be seen in an early Mahaayaana
suutra, the Lotus suutra. In the avata.msaka suutra,
this theme is given the ultimate expression.

P.258

All these Bodhisattvas from the ten quarters of the
world together with their retinues are born of the
life and vows of samantabhadra the Bodhisattva....
they are also able to expand their own bodies to the
end of the universe... they reveal in each particle
of dust all the worlds, singly and generally...
emitting a deep, full sound form every pore of the
skin, which reverberates throughout the
universe...By means of their pure wisdom-eye they
see all Buddhas of the past, present and future....
(67)

This uncanny scene defies all our normal senses of
dimension or time. Repeatedly we see the description
that in every dust particle (the smallest) are
millions and millions of buddha-worlds (the
infinite) . Repeatedly we are confronted with
Sudhana's observation, that in every pore of the
skin of the Buddha, there are millions and millions
of buddha-worlds. It is as if one has stepped into a
shadowless world of supreme luminosity and is
confronted with the impossible: that the smallest is
immediately the gr eatest and vice versa. That world
is the world of the Dharmadhaatu, It is based on
this vision in the scripture and not on any formal
philosophical doctrine of Indian Mahaayaana thinkers
that we know of, that the Hua-yen school of Fa-tsang
developed the final theory of causation:
Dharmadhaatu Causation. (Sometimes the Esoteric
schools tops it with its own causation of the Five
Elements but the crown of causationism really
belongs to Hua-yen.(68))

However, philosophically and historically, the
Dharmadhaatu causation passed through some key
doctrinal hurdles before it became articulated. As
may be evident in our previous description, one of
the characteristics of Dharmadhaatu Causation is
that it is self-generative, autogenetic. Each of the
particular entities initiated its own emanative
evolution. Fa-tsang referred to this as hsing-ch'i,
essence arousal or causation due to the Dharmataa in
itself. The Absolute is so absolute that it requires
no external help to generate causal phenomena. This
means, in effect, that the Absolute requires no
pratyaya, concomitant factors or auxiliary
conditions, since it is its own generator. In other
words, strictly speaking, the Dharmadhaatu causation
is no longer yuan-ch'i, dependent corrigination
(pratiityasamutpaada) but is hsing-ch'i, or
independent self-origination. Indeed, Fa-tsang
intended hsing-ch'i to be superior to yuan-ch'i,
just as the intended Dharm adhaatu causation to be
superior to thathaagatagarbha causation.

At this point I will riefly review the latter.
In the latter, tathataa as water is churned into
waves of phenomena under the stimulation, that is,
the condition, (pratyaya) of the wind of ignorance.
The absolute, tathataa, still requires condition
(the wind) and still depends on something other than
itself to become creative. Not satisfied with this
dependent status, Fa-tsang produced the theory of
hsing-ch'i: the self-arousal of the absolute into
the realm of the relative, the interpenetration of
Dharmadhatu into Lokadhatu, by its own volition and
without external help especially not the wind of
avidya, ignorance. In the world of light, light
should be its own source of being. Once more,

P.259

Fa-tsang found in the Hua-yen suutra a justification
of this new theory of self-generation. Fa-tsang
based this new theory on Ju-lai hsing-ch'i(ap), the
title of chapter 32 of the 40 chapter ofthe Hua-yen
suutra, benefitting from the particular choice of
Chinese words used in the translation. The Sanskrit
original is, as takasaki Jikido has shown,
tathaagatotpattisambhava.

Here "utpatti" means the birth of the Buddha, i.e.,
the attainment of bodhi, while "sambhava" is used to
show the manifestation of the dharmakaaya in various
forms of the Buddha's activities. The former
signifies Buddha's Wisdom (j~naana) while the latter
signifies Buddha's Compassion (karu.naa).(69)

Hsing-ch'i in its original Sanskrit has nothing
whatsoever to do with a causation theory concerning
the Dharmataa's self-generating power of creation.

However, Hsing-ch'i can imply the awakening of
the Buddha-essence in man, and it would correspond
to the concept of the arousal of the bodhicitta, the
mind of enlightenment. Hsing-ch'i was understood in
that subjective, meditative sense as the awakening
of the Buddha-germ in man, by the first two
patriarchs of the Hua-yen school, Tu-shun (557-640)
and Chih-yen (602-668) . The third patriarch,
Fa-tsang, cosmicized and objectified this idea of
awakening the Buddha-germ. He reinterpreted the
germ, the tathagatagarbha, in ontological terms. The
arousal of one's innate germ of enlightenment, the
Buddha-nature, now became the generation of the
phenomenal realm from the Dharma-essence. The germ
became a kind of cosmic womb like the Mother of all
things in Taoism.

In this way, Fa-tsang instituted
Dharamadhaatu-causation, fa-chieh yuan-ch'i(aq). In
it, the absolute dharmataa (dharma-essence,
Fa-hsing(ar)), representing the noumenal, generates,
out of itself, causative phenomenon (yuan-ch'i). The
synthesis of fa-hsing and yuan-ch'i thus produces
hsing-ch'i(as) . Fa-tsang, therefore, synthesized
Yogaacaara (yuan-ch'i) and Maadhyamika
(shih-hsiang), and Hua-yen could therefore claim to
be the one Mind Only Causation (yuan-ch'i) school.

SUMMARY

This article has surveyed the development of
causative understanding, beginning with the
classical doctrine of pratiityasamutpaada,
culminating in the Hua-yen doctrine of Dharmadhaatu
Casation. The extent of coverage does not permit, at
timers, clarifications on minute points. I hope,
nevertheless, that I have made the Chinese
hierarchical classification hierarchical rationale
of Causation Theories ----however esoteric and
idiosyneratic it might appear on first reading
intelligible and accountable. The esoteric Hua-yen
oulooks are ont irrational; even its mysteries
contain a rationae.

The presentation here does not seek to prove how
chinese misunderstood pratiityasamutpaada, but how
creatively and ingeniously they had understood it
through retrospection and adopted it for their own
particular independent expression. The end product
is sinitic Mahaayaana, a term I have coined to

P.260

designate a sinicized Mahaayaana that remains
faithful to the Dharma, the Law or Truth, that was
never meant to be an Indian monopoly.

All the finer points aside, the transformation
of the pratiityasamutpaada theory can be said to be
this: Gautama's discovery of the principle of
pratiityasamutpaada within an Indo-European
causative context was transposed into the Chinese
biogenerative framework. The Indian Buddhist core
concept of concomitancy (the pratyaya-factor between
'mechanical' entities) has been transformed in China
into that of a cosmic and organic harmony. The
rather technical Sanskrit dependent coorigination
became, finally, t he spontaneous autogenesis of the
One and the All, a joyous celebration of a (Taoist)
animated or animistic universe. From India, China
learned the paradox of identity, nonduality,
relationality, and the timeless present. To these
she contributed her native assumptions of harmony,
unity, fluidity, and a basic worldliness. Together,
the two cultures produced a unique vision of the
infinite absolute, within a unique history of faith
filling old bottles with new wine.

NOTES

1. Karl Potter, Presuppositions in Indian
Philosophies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
1963), pp. 93-116.

2. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in
China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956),
pp. 271, 280-289.

3. The philosopher Hume had leveled his
criticism against causalism precisely on the
ambiguities involved in this assumption of rarified
entities.

4. This phenomenon has been expressed in terms
of the aesthetical continuum by the philosopher
Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop.

5. God is not continuous with his creation in
the Biblical view, and even in Aristotle, the First
Mover or Cause is unmoved or uncaused. However.
Needham's thesis that the notion of "natural law" in
Science in the West wits a result of Western theism
oversimplifies the issues; Needham, Science and
civilization in china, pp. 563-574.

6. The Han Confucian cosmologists like Tung
Chung-shu(at) or the Taoist writers of
Huai-nan-tzu(au) both subscribed to this general
notion of cosmic evolution from the one to the many.
However, it was with the Neo-Taoists that the
practice of treasurice of treasuring the pen and
repressing the mo, chung-pen ch'u-mo(av), began.

7. As with the term pao-ying(aw), also meaning
retribution, yin-kuo designates the mysterious
autogenetic process of natural consequence. Both
terms are affiliated with the notion of kan-ying,
stimulus and response, in Han thought.

8. On the definition of sinitic Mahaayaana, see
Whalen Lai, "The Emergence of sinitic Sinitic
mahaayaana: T'ien-t'ai, " paper rend at the
Association for Asian Studies conference at Toronto,
1976.

9. On the formation of the Hua-yen review of the
Buddhist traditions leading up to itself, see
fa-tsang's Wu-chiao-chang (T.45, no. 1866)

10. for a short discussion, see especially
Wing-tsit chan's A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy
(Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 19630,
p. 570, fn. 124; for details, see Imai Usaburo,
Sodai Ekigaku no Kenkyu (tokyo, Meiji, 1958). See
also chan's general remarks, Source Book, pp.
406-408. However, his statement that in
Neo-confucian philosophy, "the universe is... daily
renewed. This creative element is lacking in the
Universal causation [Dharmadhaatu Causation] of
Hua-yen." should be taken with the following
qualification. Dharmadhaatu Causation does not

P.261

subseribe to the I Ching notion of sheng-sheng(ha),
produce and reproduce, but it is extrendely dynamic,
ceaselessly generative.

11. I am grateful for corrections and
suggestions given by Prof. Kalupahana to this study.

12. The essay, in English, is in studies in
Indology and Buddhology presented in honor of Prof.
S. Yamaguchi (Kyotc,, 1955).

13. See Karl potter, Presuppositiohns in Indian
studies, pp.117--144.

14. The Four Noble Truth`s are given within the
framework of pratiita-samutpaada.

There is suffering B
There is the cause of suffering. A x B
There is the cessation of suffering. -A
There is the path to the cessation of suffering. -A x -B

15. Miyamoto, Studies in Indology anti
Buddhology, p. 156.

16. Gautama was known to avoid metaphysical
issues not condusive to the task to eliminate the
pathology (nidaana) of suffering, but his theory of
pratiityasamutpaada as a theory of the Middle Path
seems to, if not consciously, then unconsciously,
offer a philosophical alternative to other options.

17. Miyamoto, Studies in Indology and
Buddhology, p.153.

18. See Whalen Lai, "The Awakening of Faith in
Mahayana: A Study of the Unfolding of Sinitic
Motifs," (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard, 1975). The
second so-called translation of the Awakening of
Faith apparently avoided, in one place, that usage
of the term yin-yuan in recognition of the Chinese
license.

19. I would not regard the Chinese understanding
as a distortion but as a structural transmutation of
the intention of pratiityasamutpaada in a new
cultural context. Christianity underwent similar
transformations in Rome.

20. For example, there are four types of
pratyaya; ee Kalupahana, Causality.

21. The concern for causality and fate and its
opposite, liberation from causal determinism, could
have been the philosophical expression of a
historical, existential awareness of the tension
between necessity and freedom in the medieval
Weltzeit. Generally, classical philosophies are not
alert to this tension, being at home with physis,
Tao, etc.

22. See T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy
of Buddhism (London, Alien & Unwin, 1955), p. 49.
The term relativity upset many oriental
Buddhologists who came out of the Chinese San-lun
tradition of emphasizing the absolute void
(atyanta-`suunyataa) as pi-ching-k'ung(bb); the void
in Chinese San-lun is a nondependent void. On the
sinicization of Maadhyamika in China, see my "The
Intended Meaning of the Term `ch'eng-shih(bc).' a
Hypothesis," (1976, submitted to Indogaku Bukkyogaku
Kenkyuu) and Th. Stcherbatsky, The Conception of
Buddhist Nirvana (Leningrad: Academy of Science of
the USSR, 1927).

23. Yogaacaara developed the Two Truths theory
of Naagaarjuna into its own Three Truths/
Perspectives. The following is a concise summary:

a. perception of 3 rope as empty of self-nature.
perspective A: intuition into the reality-as-it-is,
tathataa.

b. everyday perception of 3 rope as a rope,
nominal reality. perspective B (paratantra) :
subject-object realistic perception.

c. misperception of a rope (in the: dark) as a
snake. perspective C: misperception the object is an
illusion.

See T. Stcherbatsky. Discourse on Discrimination
between Middle and Extremes (Moscow, 1936), and
Chan, Source Book, pp. 395.

24. See Whalen Lai. "The Meaning of Mind Only
(Wei-hsin)", Philosophy East and West 22, no. 1
(Jan., 1977): 65-83.

25. Naagaarjuna, on the other hand, clearly
identified his philosophy of the Middle Path
(Maadhyamika) with causationism itself; see his
Madhamika-kaarikaas included in frederick J. Streng.
emptiness (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1956).

26. Takakusu, (Honolulu, University of Hawaii
Press, 1947), pp. 23-36.

27. Takakusu, Essentials in Buddhist Philosophy,
p.28.

28. Satkaarvavaada holds that the effect is
prcexistent in the cause; see Karl Potter,
Presuppositions

P.262

in Indian studies, p. 106, and earlier
discussion in this essay.

29. Takakusu, Essentials, p.31.

30. Dhammapaada, trans. P. L. Vaidya (Poona,
1934); see first verse, p.53. All realities are said
to he of the mind, the doer of Food and evil.

31. Takakusu, Essentials, p.72. See Chan, Source
Book, pp. 370-395, esp. p. 371. 32. Takakusu,
Essentials, p. 34.

33. On how consciousness, shih(hd) . became
relegated to the realm of phenomena and below the
chen-ju hsin(he), Thusness or Suchness Mind. see my
"The I Ching and the Formation of the Hua-yen
Philosophy." forthcoming Journal of Chinese
Philosophy.

34. Actually, Fa-tsang used only the term
ju-lai-tsang yuan-ch'i but modern Japanese
Buddho-logists have learned to use the more liberal
chen-ju yuan-ch'i term instead. That modem practice
might be dated back to usages in the Yoshino period
in late Kamakura Japan. Strictly speaking,
ju-lai-tsang is not always symmetrically identical
with chen-ju, for the dynamic tathaagatagarbha
responsible for the causation is tsai-fu chen-ju(bf)
"in bondage to phenomena." Only upon its release, is
it truly chen-ju, tath ataa.

35. See Hakeda, trans. Awakening of Faith in
Mahayana (New York: Columbia University Press,
1967), p. 36. The Chinese original is somewhat
ingeniously ambiguous and much lies behind the
nuance of the terms hsin sheng-mieh(bg) (the Mind in
its phenomenal aspect) and the sheng-mieh hsin(bh)
(the phenomenal mind) and their relationship with
the tathaagatagarbha and the aalayavij`naana.

36. See my "The I Ching and the Formation of the
Hua-yen Philosophy."

37. The position here is that of
Hsuan-tsang(bi), repr esenting (in my mind) the more
orthodox indian position, but it was attacked by
Fa-tsang.

38. According to the bhedaabheda Vedaantins,
Brahman (the Absolute) and the phenomenal world are
neither same nor different; the source of reality
lies with Brahman. The Chinese Taoist would also see
reality as coming out of the Tao. Thus when Fa-tsang
moved towards the Taoist outlook, he unknowingly
moved close to the bhedaadheda Vedaantins.

39. See Alex and Hideko Wayman, The Lion's Roar
of the Queen `Sriimaalaa (New York, Columbia
University Press, 1974), p.105 for his translation;
p. 44 for a discussion.
40. So understood, it is not too different from
the moral Idealism of the opening lines of the
Dhammapaada. That the seat of power lies with a king
does not mean that realities are created by the
king.
41. See Hakeda, trans. Awakening of faith, p.41.
I do not follow the interpolations that Hekeda added
to his translation to make it more logical.

42. For example. it would be difficult for an
Indian Buddhist who adheres to the doctrine that
tathataa only "supports" phenomena to say, like the
Ch'an Buddhist would, that a flower is immediately
as such the Absolute. That Ch'an statement is based
on the faith in the presence of tathataa (the
wetness of the water) in the newer (the wave)
itself, that is, an immanentalist position. That
immanental position is thought to be derived however
from Maadhyamika. Tokiwa Daijo in Bussho, no kenkyuu
(Tok yo: Meiji Shoen, 1934), pp. 262-263, reviews
the same issue from a different angle.

43. See Fa-tsang's commentary on the Awakening
of Aith in T. 44, p. 255c.

44. Takakusu, Essentials, pp. 124-126. A good
translation of the Treatise on the Golden Lion is in
Chan, Source Book, pp. 409-414. The essay on the Ten
Mysteries was attributed to Tu-shun(bj) and recorded
by Chih-yen(bk)(T. 4.5, No. 1868) but was man,
likely a Fa-tsang compilation.

45. Takakusu, essentials, pp. 124-126; see also
Chan, Source Book, pp. 415-424 for another similar
treatise.

46. Takausu, Essentials, pp. 26-27.

47. See Leon Hurvitz "Chih-i," Melanges Chinois
et Bouddhiques 12 (Brussels, 1960-1962) for a
discussion of the basic doctrines. I think there is
a difference in saying, as naagaarjuna did, that the
three times are unreal, empty of self-nature and
relative. and saying, with Chih-i, that the three
times are one or present in the "moment" (an
Avatamsaka-suutra's insight.)

48. This can be inerred from the fact that such
a Buddhist master as Chi-tsang of the San-lun school
had entrized the Taoist for "knowing about
emptiness" but failing to "exhaust (that is, to
conceptually destroy even the assumption of)
emptiness (as potential matter or as antitheses to
form or reality" chih-k'ung erh pu-chin-k'ung(bl).

P.263

49. It seems, from my research so far, that the
intentional use of a double compound chi-shih (both
meaning "is") was for the purpose of underlining
this total identity or mutual identity, hsiang-chi.
The choice by Kumarajiva by kumarajijva was
therefore ingenious and innovative. He might have
borrowed the idea from Chih Tao-lin(bm), who was
known to have used the word chi in his philosophy of
"roving in the mysteries while abiding with forms,
chi-se yu-hsuan"(bn). However, there the word chi
was used as a verb or adverb (Japanese: tsuku(bo),
not as a copula sunawachi). I was alerted to the
possibly new use of the compound, che shih, in a
conversation with Professor L. S. Yang at Harvard.

50. In that sense, the Chinese interpretation of
Maadhyamika had this advaya philosophical basis.

51. It would seem, in reading Potter's book,
that Indian Logicians generally would not accept the
irrationality of the part being equal to the whole.

52. T. 44, p. 208b. The Suchness Mind is totally
involved in the movements.

53. T. 44, p. 208b. The last sentence describes
the "lower" aalayavij~naana only.

54. See Chan, Source Book, p. 570, and note 10
herein.

55. Takakusu, Essentials, p. 35.

56. Essentials, p. 118.

57. Essentials, p. 37. The reader of Takakusu
should be aware that, from this page on, until p.
54, Takakusu was actually describing the Buddhist
philosophy from the Hua-yen or Dharmadhaatu
perspective.

58. Only those who grasp onto their persons or
atmans and are unable to let go would be duely
frightened by this cosmic envelopment of the anatman
no-self into the Dharmadhaatu. For a contemporary
explanation of the Hua-yen philosophy, see Garma
Chang's The Buddhist Teaching of Totality
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1971), chapter 1.

59. The net of Indra, a basic Hua-yen metaphor,
is filled with glittering jewels: see Nakamura
Hajime, "Interrelational Existence" in Philosophy
East and West 17 (1964), for the link between
Plotinus and Hua-yen suutra.

60. Takakusu, Essentials, p. 118.

61. The "One = All" formula is the traditional
summary of Hua-yen philosophy i chi tuo, tuo chi
i(bq).

62. See Sung Kao-seng-chuan(br), T. 50, p. 732;
retold by Chang, Buddhist Teaching, pp. 22-24.

63. Chan, Source Book, pp. 409-414.

64. D. T. Suzuki, On Indian Mahaayaana Buddhism,
ed. E. Conze (New York: Harper, 1968), pp. 147-226,
a most brilliant exposition on the numinous realm of
the Dharmaadhatu.

65. Suzuki, Indian Mahaayaana, p. 167.

66. Suzuki, Indian Mahaayaana, p. 158.

67. Suzuki, Indian Mahaayaana, p. 158; see
passages in the Hua-yen suutra. T. 10, pp. 237-241.

68. Taantric Vairocana, however, did share the
numen of Dharmadhaatu and Dharmakaaya.

69. Takasaki Jikido, "Kegon kyogaku to nyoraizo
shiso," in Nakamura Hajime, ed., Kegon shiso (Kyoto:
Hoztokan, 1960), pp. 282-288. The quotation here is
from the author's own English summary on p. 11 from
the buck. Fa-tsang even freely read ju-lai(bs)
(tathaagata), thus-come, in such a way to imply "The
unchanging [suchness, tathataa, ju] is essence
(hsing); the manifested function (yung,) [seen in
the word lai] is arousal (ch'i)." Therefore ju-lai
is hsing-ch'i(bt). This clever twist of words is
possible because the praj~naa-paaramitaa suutras had
interpreted tathaagata in terms of its relationship
with tathataa.