A History of Buddhist Philosophy

·期刊原文

A History of Buddhist Philosophy

by David Kalupahana,

Reviewed by Frank J. Hoffman

Religious Studies, Vol.29 No.3 ( Sept 1993), Pp.408-411

COPYRIGHT Cambridge University Press 1993

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Kalupahana describes his 1992 work as an expansion and completion of

earlier ideas in his successful 1976 work, Buddhist Philosophy, and

the more recent volumes, Nagarjuna and Principles of Buddhist

Psychology. The present work is divided into two main sections:

'Part One: Early Buddhism' and Part Two: Continuities and

Discontinuities'. That Kalupahana has an authentic point of

departure within Sri Lankan tradition for providing a picture of

Buddhism from one sort of insider's perspective is a great merit of

the book. In this way it is distinguished from so much of the

scholarship, especially of Westerners on Buddhism, which is either

so text-specific as to be fragmentary and lacking in holistic vision

or so contrived from an idiosyncratic weaving of several ideas from

different Buddhist cultures as not to be about anything. Scholarly

quibbles aside for the moment, the vitality of the Sri Lankan

tradition of Buddhist exegesis is definitely represented in this

work.

'The middle way' in Buddhism is a systematically ambiguous term and,

as such, is subject to numerous construals. It may be styled,

ethically, as a middle between the extremes of princely pleasures of

Sakyamuni's palace life (hedonism) and the self-mortification of

Jainas and others (asceticism); metaphysically (pace Kalupahana), as

a middle between the eternalist soul theory of afterlife (Hindu

atmavada) and a materialist view denying karma and rebirth

(Carvaka).

In Part One, Kalupahana ends Ch. I therein driving one

interpretation of the middle way as, epistemologically, between the

search for ultimate objectivity in knowledge claims (objectivism)

and the belief that there can be no such objectivity (scepticism)

(2I). In Ch. II as Kalupahana pulls selected Mahayana bits towards

early Buddhism he also stretches bits of early Buddhism to reach

Mahayana. While not calling Buddha a hodhisattva, he does say, in

giving a diachronic account of Buddha's demise, that the Buddha's

strenuous life as a constant guide to thousands of people on matters

moral and spiritual gradually began to take a toll on his health

(rather than emphasizing synchronically the causal role of bad pork

or mushroom according to text and tradition) (29). In Ch. III we

find Buddha's middle way view explained, again epistemologically,

with reference to a pragmatic criterion of truth which avoids the

extremes of both the correspondence and the coherence theories of

truth (52). In Ch. IV on experience and theory one finds a holding

fast to the principle of dependent arising as superior to

substantialist views of nature and of the supposed eternal self in

that this Buddhist principle avoids mystery and explains phenomena

as arising and passing away in a 'verifiable manner'. (Over the

years, Kalupahana has neither sufficiently worked out in detail his

view that Buddhism is a form of empiricism, nor deigned to take his

critics seriously.) By contrast to Buddhist perception of things as

they have come to be (yathbhuta), those who hanker after mystery are

obscurantists courting anxiety and frustration (59). In Ch. V on

language and communication, holding neither to an ontological

one-one correspondence between concept and object nor to a theory

that experience is incommunicable through language, the Buddha's

view of communication as 'skill in means' emerges as an alternative

to the absolutism and nihilism of the other theories respectively

(66-7). In Ch. VI on the human personality there is exploration of

the theme of 'the selfless self' in Buddhism as this idea relates to

the concept of person, world, and others, including a consideration

of socio-political, moral and epistemological concerns (77). Ch. VII

on 'the object' argues that the non-substantiality doctrine applied

both to experiencing subject and object perceived neither denies

individuality nor urges abandonment of all views about the nature of

the object (84)- Objects already known and objects of knowledge

viewed as a generic category are distinguished and the distinction

forms the structure of the chapter. Ch. VIII on the problem of

suffering argues that Buddha views only dispositional phenomena as

unsatisfactory, not all phenomena or things generally (89). On

Kalupahana's interpretation, the realization of impermanence and

non-substantiality just is the attainment of freedom and happiness

(89). As he earlier puts it, the elimination of lust, hatred, and

confusion is the Buddha's distinctive achievement (i.e. the

knowledge of the destruction of defilements) which is constitutive

of his enlightenment (26). In Ch. IX on freedom and happiness he

holds that nirvana is the appeasement of all dispositions (90-1).

Ch. X explains that in early Buddhism there is no sharp distinction

between the moral life and the good life. The position is neither

absolutist nor relativist but pragmatic -- the rightness or

wrongness of an action or rule consists in 'what it does to the

person or the group of people in the particular context or

situation' (102). Here the eight-fold path is discussed in detail.

In Ch. XI on popular religious thought Kalupahana discusses

Redfield's distinction between the elite 'Great Tradition' and the

village 'Little Tradition', but in the course of discussing the

central Buddhist ritual of taking refuge in Buddha, Doctrine, and

Order, he comes to reject Redfield's distinction. If contemporary

Buddhist villagers have lost touch with academic understanding, that

is because of colonization and Western education in Buddhist lands

(i i8). In Part One Kalupahana is clearly on home ground.

In Part Two on continuities and discontinuities with early Buddhist

tradition (Chs. XXI-XXIII) Kalupahana develops his own view of

'common ground' between Theravada and Mahayana. The way in which he

does so is to find in Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, and Dignaga selected

emphases (as was found in Moggaliputta-tissa) which elaborate the

early Buddhist message. It is in Part II that Kalupahana is likely

to sustain the greatest degree of criticism from Mahayana text

specialists, some of whom may find Kalupahana's conclusions

unacceptable. It is worth noticing, however, that his expressed

intention is the mature one of seeking common ground between the

Theravada tradition in which he was reared and the Mahayana (239)-

The author's own self-understanding seems however not that he is

constructing Buddhism for the reader, but objectively uncovering it

in the earliest stratum and finding similarities in later strata.

Whether such a stance can be maintained in the present-day

philosophical world is an interesting issue for debate. The work

concludes with an epilogue on philosophy and history, an appendix on

the Lankavatara, a bibliography, and an index. There are a few

embarrassing misprints, as when sabhava should be svabhava (I33) and

Kathavatthn should be Kathavatthu (I26), to mention but two.

Overall, one finds that 'one major text and three prominent

philosophers generally identified with Mahayana are representative

of the non-substantialist and non-absolutist teachings of the

Buddhist himself' (xiii). This is a controversial claim in a

controversial work, and it will be difficult for specialist readers

not to have strong views about it, pro or contra.

On balance, what can be reasonably said? Perhaps this: that

Kalupahana is a pioneering theoretician and harmonizer in the mould

of Buddhaghosa, whom he often chastises; but also that there is no

good reason to believe that one has the very words of the Buddha in

pristine exactitude -- in the Pali Canon or indeed elsewhere -- just

as one does not have the very words of Jesus (which in relative

chronology would have been more likely). Although it would be fair

to say that Kalupahana could have written a better book than this

one proffered as the 'consolidation of thirty years of research and

reflection' (ix), there are many in the field who are not producing

books this good. Kalupahana's History is his best book since the I 9

76 Buddhist Philosophy.

Kalupahana's 1992 Work reveals a deep philosophical commitment to

Buddhism, and a 'belief "in"' (to borrow H. H. Price's term) the

Buddha. The former emerges throughout the work in the use of

strategies of argument designed to elucidate 'the middle way' as a

invulnerable way free of various difficulties which obtain to

alternative 'extreme' views. The latter, the faith of a Buddhist

theoretician, may be glimpsed here and there, but most notably when

fending off a possible ethical criticism of Buddha with the

flourish: 'The legend about Siddhartha's leaving home while his wife

and new-born baby were asleep, while highlighting the emotional

stress in his renunciation, also symbolizes Yasodhara's acceptance

of her husband's decision. Any other interpretation of his

renunciation would do violence to the character of a person who

propounded an extremely enlightened form of love and compassion for

oneself as well as others' (24).