A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness

·期刊原文

Reviews the book `Nagarjuna's `Seventy Stanzas :
A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness

David Ross Komito

Lang, Karen

Philosophy East & West

Vol. 40 No.2 1990.Apr Pp.256-258

Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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BOOK REVIEWS

Nagarjuna's "Seventy Stanzas": A Buddhist Psychology of
Emptiness. By David Ross Komito. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion
Publications, 1987. Pp. 226. $14.95.

David Ross Komito, in his preface to this new translation of
Najarjuna's Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness (Sunyatasptati),
credits Geshe Sonam Rinchen and Tenzin Dorjee with improving
his understanding of the text, which he first translated as
part of his 1979 dissertation at Indiana University. This
book contains their collaborative translation of Nagarjuna's
text, along with Geshe Rinchen's commentary on each of the
seventy-three verses. Komito organizes the book into three
chapters. The first chapter is his own commentary on the text
from the perspective of psychology. This chapter introduces
the basic Buddhist doctrines that have influenced Nagarjuna's
works and the later teachings on epistemology and logic
incorporated into the Tibetan monastic curricula, which have
influenced contemporary Dge-lugs-pa scholars' interpretations
of Nagarjuna's works. The second chapter contains the heart
of the book: a translation of the stanzas alone and the
translated stanzas along with Geshe Rinchen's commentary. In
the third chapter Komito discusses the authenticity of the
Seventy Stanzas and of the "autocommentary" attributed to
Nagarjuna, and traces the history of the text's transmission
into Tibet.

This short work of the great Indian Buddhist philosopher
Nagarjuna (circa 150-250 CE) presents the Mahayana teaching
of the emptiness (Sanskrit, sunyata; Tibetan, stong pa nyid)
of all phenomena against the backdrop of the early Buddhist
formula of the twelve limbs of dependent origination
(Sanskrit, pratityasamutpada; Tibetan, rten 'brel). Komito
explains that people's habitual perception of phenomena as
"independent, self-sufficient entities which bear their own
characteristics independently of the perceiving subject" is
the fundamental distortion in the cognitive process that
generates attraction and revulsion and "sets the samsaric
cycle of the twelve limbs in motion" (p. 73). He devotes much
of the first chapter to summarizing the contemporary
Dge-lugs-pa scholars' explanations of sections of Asanga's
Compendium of Abhidharma (Abhidharmasamuccaya) and
Dharmakirti's Commentary to Ideal Mind (Pramanavarttika) on
cognition. Since these works constitute an important part of
the monastic curriculum, this summary provides the reader
with a context for understanding Geshe Sonam Rinchen's
commentary on the Seventy Stanzas. But the methodological
problems of explaining Nagarjuna's thought in terms of
epistemological theories developed centuries later in India
and refined further in the monastic colleges of Tibet are
obvious. Curiously, in a chapter in which Komito proposes to
use psychology as "a context for translating Nagarjuna's
conceptions and intentions into a form which will be
meaningful to the modern person" (p. 15), there is little
mention of Western psychological theories on the cognitive
process.

The Seventy Stanzas is not the sort of text of which one can
expect a translation with much literary merit. The verse
format of the text and its abundant use of technical Buddhist
vocabulary make it a difficult work to render well in
English. Komito says that since previous translations of
Nagarjuna's treatises "were prone to being inaccurately read,
though translated correctly, simply because they were so
terse," they have chosen to "interpolate English words into
our translation of the stanzas which are not found in the
original text but which do reflect the meaning of Nagarjuna,
at least as the Tibetans interpret Nagarjuna" (p. 13). But in
many cases, their translation amounts to a paraphrase of the
text with commentarial material added. The translators place
in italics all the words which correspond to the Tibetan
text. Occasionally some words appear in italics that are not
in the text; for example, the text of 11cd (phan tshun rgyu
phyir de gnyis ni / rang bzhin gyis ni ma grub yin/ )is
translated: "Because ignorance and karmic formations are
interrelated as cause and effect so these two are known by a
valid cognizer not to exist inherently" (pp. 115-116). The
text reads: "Since they are caused by one another, these two
are not established as inherently existent." The phrase
"known by a valid cognizer" is a commentarial gloss. There
are also some odd translations of Buddhist technical terms,
for example, the translation of rnam rtog (Sanskrit, vikalpa)
as "preconception" in verses 34 and 60 instead of the more
usual "conception" or "discrimination." This creates some
confusion when the same English word is used to translate
another term phyin ci log (Sanskrit, viparyasa) in verse
62ab: de nyid rtogs pas phyin ci log / bzhi las byung ba'i ma
rig med/--which is translated as "The mind which directly
understands emptiness is an unmistaken mind which eliminates
the ignorance that arises from the four evil preconceptions."
This inconsistent rendering of Buddhist terms should have
been eliminated in the final draft of the translation. In the
passage cited above, the key expression de nyid appears to be
missing from the translation. A more literal translation of
62ab would be: "By understanding reality (de nyid), the
ignorance that arises from the four errors no longer exists."

The English style of the translation of Nagarjuna's verses
and Geshe Sonam Rinchen's oral commentary follows the
practice of developing a specialized vocabulary to deal with
philosophical concepts that have no direct parallels in the
West. The introductory remarks in chapter one offer some help
to the reader unacquainted with this specialized vocabulary.
Nonetheless, the reader would have been better served if the
translators had made a vigorous effort to paraphrase in
readable English statements such as the following comment on
verse 2: "he will never take rebirths through actions and
grasping at self-existence of self, the object of
elimination" (p. 101)--which is instead reproducing a literal
translation of the Tibetan. The commentary then goes on to
say that, in contrast to "Svatantrika Madhyamika and the
schools below," the Pra sangika Madhyamika school holds that
"one attains the state of nirvana without remainder before
attaining the state of nirvana with remainder" (p. 101).

Unfortunately, there is no explanation in the endnotes to
this chapter either of the distinction between the Prasangika
and Svatantrika schools or of the distinction between
"nirvana with remainder" and "nirvana without remainder." The
translators set themselves a difficult task in trying "to
serve both the needs of the scholar and the nonscholar." In
doing so, neither audience is well served. Nonscholars
require more explanation of unfamiliar terms and concepts
than is usually provided; scholars' needs are better served
by F. Tola's and C. Dragonetti's copiously annotated
translation of the Sunyatasaptati (Journal of Indian
Philosophy 15 (1987): 1-55).

The merit of Nagarjuna's "Seventy Stanzas".' A Buddhist
Psychology of Emptiness lies in its faithful reproduction of
a fine contemporary Tibetan scholar's commentary on this
difficult text. On virtually every verse Geshe Sonam Rinchen
provides much needed clarification. Komito's book is a useful
addition to the growing library of works reflecting modern
Dge-lugs-pa interpretations of Madhyamika thought.