Madhyamakālaṃkāra

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Shantarakshita.

The Madhyamakālaṃkāra (T. dbu ma rgyan) is treatise by the Indian scholar Śāntarakṣita (725–788) that synthesizes the views of the two major schools of Indian Mahayana Buddhism: the Madhyamaka and Yogacara schools.

The text was originally composed by Śāntarakṣita in Sanskrit and then translated from the Sanskrit to Tibetan by Surendrabodhi and Jñānasūtra.

Summary

Richard Hayes states:

Madhyamakālaṃkāra begins with the observation that if a phenomenon has an essential nature, then either that nature is simple or complex, that is, it is either a single thing or many things; there is no third possibility. This leads to discussions of doctrines by several schools of Indian philosophy, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. Each of the schools examined posits at least one entity that is completely uniform in nature and therefore has no internal differentiations. Several schools posit a uniform entity that is said to be the single source of all multiplicity. Drawing on arguments by earlier Buddhist thinkers such as Dharmakīrti, Śāntarakṣita argues that if there were a uniform, permanent and unobstructed singularity, then everything it supposedly causes would have to exist all the time. A cause is something in the presence of which an effect arises and in the absence of which the effect does not arise. But if a cause is permanent, then it is never absent, so none of its putative effects can ever be absent. In a theory that posits a single permanent cause of all things, there is no satisfactory account of all the changes that are experienced in daily life, nor is there any satisfactory account of temporal sequences or the fact that things exist in some places but not in others. This argument is applied to discredit the Sāṃkhya doctrine of primordial matter, the Nyāya doctrine of God, and the Vedāntin doctrine of Brahman. It is also applied to the Yogācāra doctrine that all things arise from consciousness. After arguing against the main candidates for singularity nominated by the various schools, Śāntarakṣita turns his attention to multiplicity. The very idea of multiplicity, he notes, only makes sense if one is talking about a collection of singularities. Given, however, that there are no singularities, there cannot be any collection of them. This being the case, no inherent nature of any entity can be either singular or multiple; if an entity has neither a singular nor a multiple inherent nature, it has no inherent nature at all. In other words, all phenomena are empty of inherent natures.[1]

Yogācāra-madhyamaka synthesis

Thomas Doctor (2004: p.ix) states:

[The Madhyamakālaṃkāra] is renowned as the principal scripture of the Yogācāra-madhyamaka. Although masters such as Ārya Vimuktisena (6th century CE) are said to have set forth their presentations of the Madhyamaka in a way that employs the assertions specific to the Vijñānavāda, Śāntarakṣita was the one to found an actual system in which the ultimate freedom from constructs (Sanskrit niṣprapañca, Tibetan spros bral)[2] is realized through insight into the non-existence of any external matter (bāhyārtha, phyi don).[3] This synthesis of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka, the two great currents of Mahāyāna philosophy, the principles of the vast and the profound as originally set forth by Asaṇga (fl. 4th century) and Nāgārjuna (possibly 150-250 CE) respectively, is also characterized by its use of the pramāṇa methods of Dignāga (5th-6th century) and Dharmakīrti (6th-7th century) as integral steps towards the realization of the ultimate.[4]

English translations of the root text

The following English-language commentaries include translations of the root text of the Madhyamakālaṃkāra:

Commentaries

Indian commentaries

Tibetan commentaries

English commentaries

Notes

  1. ↑ Madhyamaka, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  2. ↑ "Spros bral". Dharma Dictionary. Retrieved September 9, 2016. 
  3. ↑ "Phyi don". Dharma Dictionary. Retrieved September 9, 2016. 
  4. ↑ Doctor, Thomas H. (trans.) Mipham, Jamgon Ju.(author)(2004). Speech of Delight: Mipham's Commentary of Shantarakshita's Ornament of the Middle Way. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-217-7, p.ix

Sources

  • Blumenthal, James. The Ornament of the Middle Way: A Study of the Madhyamaka Thought of Shantarakshita. Snow Lion, (2004). ISBN 1-55939-205-3 - a study and translation of the primary Gelukpa commentary on Shantarakshita's treatise: Gyal-tsab Je's Remembering The Ornament of the Middle Way.
  • Doctor, Thomas H. (trans.) Mipham, Jamgon Ju.(author)(2004). Speech of Delight: Mipham's Commentary of Shantarakshita's Ornament of the Middle Way. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-217-7
  • Shantarakshita (author); Mipham (commentator); Padmakara Translation Group (translators)(2005). The Adornment of the Middle Way: Shantarakshita's Madhyamakalankara with commentary by Jamgön Mipham. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Shambhala Publications, Inc. ISBN 1-59030-241-9

External links

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