Catuḥpratisaraṇasūtra
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Catuḥpratisaraṇasūtra. A sutra from the Sanskrit tradition that presents the principle of the four reliances (pratisaraṇa).[1][2][3]
Deleanu (2019) hypothesizes that this text "was compiled in Northern India, around the 1st century CE, in Sautrāntika/(pre-Vijñānavāda) yogācārin circles and later gained popularity in both Śrāvakayāna and Mahāyāna."[1]
Deleanu states:
- The sūtra, most probably a late Northern post-canonical text, does not elaborate upon the nuts and bolts of the guidelines, but it clearly espouses an ideal of flexible interpretation over the reification of meaning and entrusting hermeneutical authority to a single person or community. The ideal seems to have been part and parcel of the Buddhist tradition since the earliest days. The Buddha himself tailored his sermons and instructions to the needs and level of each particular interlocutor rather than aiming at an abstract exposition of general truths.[4]
Deleanu translates the four reliances (as presented in the text) as follows:
- Rely not upon the person (pudgala) but on the Teaching (Dharma).[5]
- Rely not upon the letter (vyañjana) [of the scriptures] but on [their] meaning (artha).[6]
- Rely not upon [the provisional scriptures whose] meaning is to be interpreted (neyārtha) but on [those conveying] the definitive meaning (nītārtha).[7]
- Rely not upon the [ordinary] consciousness (vijñāna) but on the [higher] cognition (jñāna).
Lin Qian states:
- According to Étienne Lamotte (1988b), the four pratisaraṇas are from the Catuḥpratisaraṇasūtra, a relatively late sūtra that appears to exist only in Sanskrit and Chinese..."[2]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Deleanu 2019, Abstract.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Lin 2015, section 2.4.7.
- ↑ Westerhoff 2018, Chapter 2.
- ↑ Deleanu 2019, pp. 4-5.
- ↑ Deleanu states: "Skt. dharma is used here in the sense of ‘[Buddhist] Teaching’ as well as the ‘[supreme] truth’ it leads to." (Deleanu 2019, p. 2 fn. 2)
- ↑ Deleanu states: "In a strict grammatical sense, vyañjana refers to a ‘consonant’. Literally, it means ‘becoming manifest’. This alludes to the nature of the consonant which is incapable of standing alone and manifests itself phonetically when pronounced together with a vowel... Here, however, the word is used in a more general sense of ‘letter’ contrasted to the ‘[ultimate] meaning’ or ‘spirit’ of the Teaching. [...] The primacy of the meaning over the letter is a common theme in Mahāyāna literature. (Deleanu 2019, p. 3 fn. 3)
- ↑ Deleaunu states: "The distinction between scriptures or teachings whose meaning is explicit (Pali,nītattha), needing no further spelling out, and those whose meaning is implicit and require interpretation (Pali, neyyatha) is already found in the Pali Canon (AN I 60.11-15). Although it continued to have some currency in the Theravāda tradition (e.g. Manorathapurȧnī II 118), the dichotomy became a major hermeneutical strategy in Mahāyāna Buddhism."
Sources
- Deleanu, Florin (2019), "How Gnosis Met Logos: The Story of a Hermeneutical Verse in Indian Buddhism", Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, XXIII
- Lin, Qian (2015), Mind in Dispute: The Section on Mind in Harivarman’s *Tattvasiddhi (PDF) (Phd thesis), University of Washington
Westerhoff, Jan (2018), The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, Oxford University Press
Further reading
- Lopez, Donald S. Buddhist Hermeneutics, 1993, Introduction.
- Westerhoff, Jan (2018), The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, Oxford University Press, "The Question of Authenticity"
- Four Reliances Sutra