This is a pre-published draft of an article by the same title published in Ramon N. Prats, ed., The Pandita and the Siddha: Tibetan Studies in Honour of E. Gene Smith, Amnye Machen Institute (McLeod Ganj 2007), pp. 153-170. I recommend making reference to the print publication only.
Very Big Questions are usually avoided in academic philology, and there are excellent reasons for this wellknown fact. The desire not to step on the toes, and thereby perhaps provoke the wrath, of colleagues who have different points of approach to the broader issues must be high on the list, but there is also the possibility Big Questions might brush aside or violate the details our more careful scholars tend to value above all else, as if inspired by Wm. Blake's "For every minute particular is holy." When I was made privy to the plot to spring a surprise volume on E.Gene Smith, my first impulse, given the shortness of the notice, was to transform a long footnote from my current literary-historical research into a short paper made more dense, rather than clarified, with a lot of footnotes and bibliographical references. I soon had second thoughts about it. I thought, 'Why not offer something large and problematic, even controversial? Certainly E.Gene Smith has a hugely generous spirit that can easily accommodate arguments with which he may or may not entirely agree. He deserves something of more consequence.' That is why I decided to go back to work on this long paper, more than ten years in the making, which I had many times thought to publish, but then held back, for reasons just given, among still others. Now that 'tantra', along with a few other comparably arcane areas of study like 'Hermeticism', has gained a small and precarious yet culturally significant place for itself in the academy,[1] it could be a cause for celebration, or not, depending on what we mean by it, of course, but also depending on where we intend to go with it.
Introduction: Intention, Ethics, and Problems with Emotions
The intentions of the Buddhas are deep and difficult to fathom. Buddhist revelations entail not only the revelation of their oral and written forms of transmission, but the revelation of their meaning to those who hear or read them. The discussion here is almost entirely limited to textual, literary documents available in libraries, and obviously makes no claims to momentous revelations of its own.[2] It is very much about 'revelation', in the sense of eruptions and influxes of transcendent truths into our mundane world, but on the assumption that these 'interruptions' have very much to do with the times in which they occur, which would justify bringing historical insights to bear on the content of revelations even when these revelations demand other types of insights not of the chronological kinds.
If we speak about the Vajrayāna elaboration and de-elaboration of Mahāyāna, the first must is based on an arguable assumption about what the Buddhist radical might be. We may seem to play with words, since the word 'perspective' presupposes some vantage point as well as a presumption about fundamentals: What is it that makes Buddhism Buddhism? This is neither rhetorical nor a question with answers better left unsaid.
One of the basic concepts that emerge from my general study of Tibetan Buddhist culture (although 'culture' as a generalized concept may serve here just as well) is that it is a lived-through process which not only allows for, but frequently encourages a range of perspectives (=assumptions about what is fundamental). Culture is never the property of a single person with a single perspective. Shifting and developing perceptions of culture are themselves part of culture. This makes understanding culture the epistemological equivalent of the mind knowing itself (a knowing agent seeking to understand a complex of which the knowing agent itself is a contingent part). These comments do undoubtedly apply to intra-cultural as well as extra-cultural understandings.
Buddhism, and particularly Mahāyāna Buddhism, recognized the potential value of such a broad range of individual approaches that it often appears laughable when scholars insist that there was, for any time or space, an 'orthodox doctrinal position.' Sometimes the heat of scholarly insistence on this point (and the use of the very word 'orthodoxy') only succeeds in conveying to us the limitations of their disciplinary approaches. A number of Buddhist doctrinal 'positions', to the extent they may be called such, are positioned at different points in the process leading to Enlightenment, which means that they are not 'ultimately' well founded, and were never meant to be. Ways of thinking, including Buddhist ways of thinking, may be wrapped around deeply embedded karmic seeds, may be just epiphenomena of an illusory self-concept ('conceited' or 'narcissistic' are words that spring to mind). Philosophical views, however liberal and enlightened they may seem, may be self-serving in a very deep sense. Abhidharma Buddhism considers afflicted views (lta-ba nyon-mongs-can), including views held too rigorously or given priority over other things, as well as the views which see substance in momentary aggregations (mentioned later in this paper) to constitute one of the six main complexes that obstruct Enlightenment.[3] If there is a Buddhist radical, it has little to do with fundamentalisms of the text-based kinds and renders the very idea of 'philosophy' problematic.
I must first say, before going on to give my preferred answers for this Very Big Question of the "Buddhist radical[s]," and then justifying them primarily with citations, that I am not in the business of looking for an 'original' Buddhism as such,[4] but for basic factors that account for its distinctive continuity. Such generalized observations are dangerous, and are more generally assumed than they are openly posed. This makes it all the more important to pose them openly.
My answers roughly fall into two parts, dividing Buddhism into two not-unconnected levels, those of devotion and thought. On the level of devotion is Refuge in the three Jewels, in Buddha[s], Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha[s]), and the Buddhist Community (pre-eminently the most venerable of the monks and nuns, but also engaged laypersons or lay renunciates). This devotion is primarily a matter of 'conduct', acts of devotion through the offering of goods and services, and acts of worship through the devotee's bodily, verbal and mental powers.
This devotional complex also involves commitment to a particular social ethic, the ten virtues. The Buddhist ten virtues has often been compared with the Mosaic ten commandments, although the first three of the Mosaic are about the vertical relationship between deity and human, which is completely lacking in the Buddhist, operating as it does entirely on the intra-human and inter-species levels. The Buddhist version, which follows, is divisible into the bodily (1-3), verbal (4-7) and mental (8-10):
1. Renouncing the taking of life.
2. Renouncing the taking of things not given.
3. Renouncing promiscuous sexual conduct.
4. Renouncing lying.
5. Renouncing slander.
6. Renouncing harsh speech.
7. Renouncing gossip.
8. Renouncing miserliness.
9. Renouncing thoughts of harming.
10. Renouncing counterproductive perspectives.
These bodily, verbal and mental acts of devotion and ethics find corresponding levels in the objects of devotion, a theory that was nowhere more highly elaborated than in Tibet. In Mahāyāna, and thence in Tibet, we find the first object of Refuge, the Buddha[s], trifurcated into Body, Speech and Mind (the second of these covering the same territory as the second Refuge). Each of these three may be represented by a 'receptacle' (rten), an icon. Body receptacles include images; Speech receptacles — sacred books; Mind receptacles — stūpas or caityas, commemorative monuments and reliquaries. These are considered worthy to receive such acts of devotion as light offerings, circumambulations, prostrations, special rituals, praises, prayers and aspirations.
It may well be objected that there are historical developments in the cult of the Buddha image, for instance, which surely didn't exist in the beginning, and in various devotional practices, and I by no means intend to deny change. That would be very un-Buddhist indeed. I am arguing for a continuum of devotion and devotional practice as an inextricable part of Buddhism the religion, and also that Buddhism always involves the subordination (even when not 'absolute') of the believer's bodily conduct, verbalizations and thought to the bodily, verbal and mental levels pertaining to Buddha[-s/-hood]. Inasfar as some modernizing Buddhists and buddhicizing Moderns have denied this component, insisting on a purely rational 'Buddhism of the head',[5] they have been, on the whole, anti-traditional, placing themselves off to the margins of the present discussion.
While the second 'non-development', that of thought, is usually treated as a separate topic, it may also be seen as a further form of subordination to Buddhathought, and of the tenth ethical virtue, renouncing perspectives counterproductive to Buddhist goals. I have attempted to trace this historical non-development in a separate work entitled 'Illusion Web — Locating the Guhyagarbha Tantra in Buddhist Intellectual History,' an ironic title, since the web/palace imagery, providing visualizable cues to the nature of the Buddha's enlightened vision (called variously relativity, interdependently originating, realm of dharmas, voidness), seems to be unlocalizable in the history of Buddhism, since it shows up at every turn, or 'shines everywhere' so to speak.[6] The web/palace as objective experience (Enlightenment) pertaining to an experiencing subject (Enlightened One) is a dualism rendered entirely problematic in the higher meditative concentrations (meditation being another indispensable even if not universally practiced component of Buddhism) and finally overcome in the nonduality of the actual experiencing of Enlightenment where even the word 'experience' is problematic, only to reappear out of compassion for those who still need help in finding and pursuing the Path. The view of phenomena as interdependently originating, having neither a first cause nor any simple or singular lines of causation, is a Buddhist constant which, I believe, comes prior to Buddhist philosophical construction (meditative experience of the same by someone being the real priority). It is assumed, and at the same time is most generally assumed to be far beyond ordinary human understanding; hence faith and devotion, even on the 'intellectual' level, are not far to follow.
Buddhist 'tantra', more correctly termed Vajrayāna, is a theatrical elaboration of these same basic elements which, being Buddhist, it presumes. This elaboration is meant to effect an active engagement of the bodily, verbal and mental powers in the replication or approximation (perhaps a 'dramatic pre-enactment') of the Enlightened One's Body, Speech and Mind as an expedient in their actualization. On the ritual/contemplative level, this means powerful gestures [body], powerful words [speech], and powerful thoughts [mind]. On the yogic level it is physical posture, mantra repetition and mental yoga (visualization, concentration and various other meditation practices), all of it summed up for us in the Sanskrit word sādhana. A lot of ink (or its verbal equivalent) has been spilled by learned professors about what the defining charactaristic of tantra might be. As far as Vajrayāna is concerned (and arguably Hindu tantra as well), it is the employment of sādhana that makes tantra.[7] In other words, it isn't an academic category at all, which makes the professors vaguely dissatisfied or more plainly perplexed.
Although if left unsaid it may not be obvious, the ten virtues are positive counterparts of ten nonvirtues, and these ten nonvirtues are motivated by the three or five 'poisons',[8] 'poison' being a stock metaphor for passions (the primary negative emotional poles), so much so that its metaphorical usage is rarely even recognized as being such. The poisonous roots of the nonvirtues of mind are most obvious.[9] Miserliness is motivated by the poison of attachment/desire, thoughts of harming by the poison of aversion/hatred, and counterproductive perspectives by the poison of stupidity/ indifference.[10] The correspondences for body and speech nonvirtues may be a little less obvious, but understandable with slight reflection. Predominance of nonvirtues motivated by a particular poison lead to rebirth in a particular (and particularly undesirable) realm of existence, as the first Karma-pa Dus-gsum-mkhyen-pa said in a public talk,[11]
In order to avoid the sufferings of hell realms, it is necessary to avoid the reasons [for being born in them]. Therefore it is very important not to perform those of the ten nonvirtues which are done mainly out of aversion/hatred, even though your life be at stake. When aversion/hatred is not abandoned, in the case of ordinary Refuge takers (Buddhists), they lack the four principles of cultivating virtue [1. Not to scold when scolded. 2. Not to return anger for anger. 3. Not to uncover the faults of one who uncovers one's faults. 4. Not to strike back]. In the case of Bodhisattvas, they must cultivate love because all sentient beings have been their mothers, and love and aversion/hatred cannot live together in the same place, while it is not difficult to consume the virtues of a thousand aeons [in a moment of anger]. In the case of Vajrayānists, they must imagine all beings of the biological universe as male and female deities. When anger is engendered toward them there is no way to encounter the visualized deity.[12] It might just be possible to abandon aversion/hatred [entirely], but even when a 'contemplative absorption of great love' is spoken of, it will be understood to mean that since the hatred has just dug in deeper it does not manifest itself.
The Karma-pa continues his analysis in the same vein with the other passions, but it is most important for the following discussions to keep in mind the deep and unmanifest passions. The final sentence shows that the sophisticated Buddhist was not to be satisfied with the trances of universal love and cosmic unity, because even in the midst of them there might lurk passions 'sleeping in concealment' (bag-la nyal-ba, or bag-nyal), or 'hidden formations' (bag-chags / vāsana).[13] This sort of religiously-practical depth psychology was already present in some sūtras; witness, for example, the 'deeply hidden pains' (bag-la nyal-ba'i zug-rngu) in the Gaṇḍavyūha. One might think we were preparing to embark on a discourse on psychoanalytical theory, but that is not our aim here.
According to Theravāda teachings even to this day, the main method of dealing with emotional states is to give up the negative and take up the positive. Following are the 'Four Perfect Abandonings' (yang-dag-par spong-ba bzhi) which are four among the thirty-seven factors of Enlightenment. Rather than 'abandonings' (although this is the understanding of the term in Sanskrit and Tibetan sources), the Pali may more correctly be understood as 'endeavours,'[14]
1. Avoiding [negative mental states].
2. Overcoming [negative mental states].
3. Developing [positive mental states].
4. Maintaining [positive mental states].
The following Tibetan scheme may supply a somewhat oversimplified picture. It isn't especially clear which school is intended by the Lesser Vehicle. Certainly Theravāda teachers today are likely to say that avoidance, while effective in some degree, is at some point insufficient, and go on to recommend some form of 'transformation.'[15] Great Completedness (Rdzogs-chen) texts, both Rnying-ma-pa and Bon, recommend a three-fold set of possibilities for dealing with negative mental or emotional states.
Lesser Vehicle (Hīnayāna) —
A. Abandoning/ avoiding (spong-ba).
Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna) —
B. Transformation (bsgyur-ba) —
a. Bodhisattva transformation, primarily by 'antidotes' (gnyen-po), and
b. Transformation through Vajrayāna methods, which might be described as 'reversals' (log-pa, bzlog-pa) or 'Vajrayāna elaborations.'
C. Releasing/ disentangling (grol-ba), which might also be understood as 'Vajrayāna de-elaboration,' as recommended in Great Completedness of Rnying-ma and Bon Schools or, in the New Schools, Great Seal (Mahāmudrā).[16] The naive view sees this releasing as 'giving free rein' to the negative emotions, although the Tibetan term implies a disentanglement, which, I would further suggest, means a freeing up of the space they would otherwise occupy.
Transformation might all along have been implicit in the practice of abandoning, just as releasing might have been implicit in the practice of transformation. Rather than ascribing newness of one over the other, as if the 'later' supplanted the 'earlier,' what we see here may just be a more sophisticated program, with different approaches to negative emotions made available as needed to persons at different stages of development. Flexibility, to no one's surprise, may be a strength.
Vajrayāna poetics and/or hermeneutics
Vajrayāna is theater. It is a theater with a very Buddhist audience in mind, one of the givens that too often escapes scholars, and their theories on Vajrayāna and its development have, on the whole, denied or ignored this. The following discussion of 'literary critical' development of Vajrayāna does not claim to entirely displace or belittle those other theories, rather to supply a perspective which I have found too often absent but which is, I think, essential. We should start in medias res.
Tragedy, then, is a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in itself, and of some amplitude; in language enriched by a variety of artistic devices appropriate to the several parts of the play; presented in the form of action, not narration; by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions. (Aristotle, Ars Poetica, chapter 6)[17]
Aristotle goes on to recommend (in chapter fourteen), the killing of those near and dear as the most effective way of arousing pity and fear in the audience.
The Aristotelian concept of catharsis has been discussed endlessly. My only reason for bringing it up is to point to what I see as a parallel concept in Vajrayāna 'drama'.
Against Plato's objection to poetry on the grounds that it excites the emotions, which ought to be kept under control, Aristotle, while agreeing that it does indeed excite the emotions, claims that in doing so it releases them, and hence has the effect of reducing them.[18]
I do not think that catharsis for Aristotle was ever limited in meaning to a lightheaded aftereffect of seeing an engaging drama, as some latter-day interpreters would have it; it was an adjunct process (mimêsis), a simultaneous production, since if the tragedy is to be effective, it must keep us in its grasp, making us co-participants.[19] Indian dramatic theorists, along with Indian poetic and artistic theories in general, differ from Aristotle primarily in the number of emotions — for him, two, pity and fear; for them eight, nine or ten — that drama may unleash in its audience to good effect.[20] These are the rasa (nyams).
1. erotic/enticing (śṛṅgāra / sgeg-pa).
2. wrathful/aggressive (raudra / drag-shul).
3. heroic/athletic (vīra / dpa'-bo).
4. compassionate/pitiable (kāruṇya / snying-rje).
5. ugly/revolting (bibhatsa / mi-sdug-pa).
6. laughable/humorous (hāsya / bzhad-gad).
7. marvellous/astounding (adbhuta / rmad-byung).
8. frightening/terrifying (bhayānaka / 'jigs-rung).
9. peaceful/quieting (śānta / zhi-ba).
Some Indian architectural manuals advise that pictures representing all nine of these emotions could be displayed in palaces or temples, but not in individual homes, even if this had become the fashion. They suggest that people display only pictures for erotic, ludic, and pacific emotions in the home.[21] There are many references to these in Indian and Tibetan tantra literature, as, for example in the Hevajra Tantra,[22] enough to suggest that rasa theory was not just an afterthought (Vajrayāna iconography, although generally reduced to 'peaceful' and 'wrathful' deities, makes use of the full range of rasa categories).
The European dramatic 'unities' of action, time and place also bear some similarity to the five 'unities' of a tantra. These 'unities', called phun-sum-tshogs-pa, or, in Sanskrit, saṃpanna (with connotations of totality, wholeness, completeness and perfection), are most frequently the unities of Teacher, Place, Teaching, Time and Audience [capitalized because they are very common words used in a special way, being in some sense hypostasized]. These 'unities' were considered critical for correct interpretation of tantras because they are interdependent. Hence the nature of the Teachings, as well as their manner of presentation, is largely dependent on the other four. Together, all five form a larger unity which delineates the entirety of the realm of discourse (within which the discourse itself is only one interdependent component). Hence they are crucial to traditional tantra exegesis. It is not sufficient to say 'the Buddha said'. One must ask 'in what setting?' and 'to whom?' and even 'by what form of Buddha?' In brief, Buddhist theories of interdependent causation are self-consciously allowed to reflect back on Buddhist views about the production of Buddhist scriptures themselves, a point that has on the whole escaped the reflections of recent Buddhologists, but certainly requires more serious consideration.
Now, in an attempt to sum up the discussion thus far, we must say that ritual actions and meditative visualizations, rooted as they are in Buddhist forms of devotion, are believed to link with something basic about human beings and about Buddha[-hood] as well, otherwise there is no justification for their reputed power to lead toward Buddhist Enlightenment. The 'future' Buddhist goal is taken as a present groundwork. This linkage is denoted by sahaja (lhan-skyes, or, lhan-cig skyes-pa), which P. Kvaerne, after careful consideration,[23] has translated as the 'simultaneously-arisen', a translation which is basically sound, but which I would prefer to modify somewhat to 'simultaneously (or parallelly) produced' when it serves as an adjective, and 'parallel production' when (or if) it is used as a noun.[24] There is a partially analogous term in the poetics of Daṇḍin, sahokti (saha-ukti), which means 'paralleled expression' in which disparate objects are made to undergo, or undertake for poetic ends, the same actions at the same time. This allows an entire complex of related or interacting objects, thoughts, and so forth, to be linked with another such complex. Another way of stating the foregoing is to say that the drama of ritual action and visualization in Vajrayāna engages the participant through the passions in order to transform (bsgyur) and/or release (grol) them, and it accomplishes this, at least in part, by methods held in common with literary, visual and dramatic art, and the tantras themselves are quite self-conscious of this. Given the fact that literary criticism of the alaṃkārika and Vajrayāna flourished in India during the same centuries, it would be more remarkable if this were not the case.
Tantras and the literary productions of the alaṃkārika share a certain similar level of sophistication, have a similar sense of elitism. They frankly do not care whether or not they will be understood by the non-initiate. If people are bewildered or shocked, so much the better for them. That is no concern of the high literary aesthete or of the Vajrayāna initiate. Neither, on the other hand, would either of these elitists bother to express themselves if there were no fellow initiates who could appreciate their work. But there is a difference in that the ends are different. While the littérateur aims for pleasing and striking, but in any case skilfully accomplished, effect (and hence aggrandizement by their peers), the Vajrayānist aims ultimately for Buddhist Enlightenment.[25] Buddhism, denying any substantive continuity or inherent identity to the 'self', goes on to play in Vajrayāna with the concept of the self, with the self-image, through imagination, through imagination programs with close analogies to birth and death processes. All Buddhism uses 'imagination', since the goals of Nirvāṇa, etc., have to be imagined until they are realized. In this Buddhist context, imagination means goal-oriented visualization (dmigs-pa means both visualization and intentness on an objective). Still, with a sense of catholicity that it shares with (and develops on the basis of) the major Mahāyāna sūtras, Vajrayāna would have no problem in accepting the modus operandi of the littérateur as 'means' (upāya). The tantras are, after all, literature. Why then should they not have literary aims as well?
Although apparently little appreciated by others, the importance of literary studies for Buddhist studies was recognized by some Tibetan scholars, as for example, Bod Mkhas-pa Mi-pham-dge-legs-rnam-rgyal:
Poetic science is a supremely valued subject for study. The scriptures on inner science [i.e., Buddhism] are themselves in the form of poetry. All the other sciences use it as well. Therefore it is as important as the iris of the eye for seeing all knowables.[26]
Tāranātha declares that, while some tantras use the 'four methods' of interpretation, all of them employ the 'six ends.'[27] Sa-skya Paṇḍi-ta says that statements like "Father and mother are to be killed" that appear in some of the sūtras, tantras and poetic treatises are 'figurative' or 'non-literal' (sgra ji-bzhin ma yin-pa).[28]
'Jam-dpal-dgyes-pa[29] says,
The profound Vajrayāna as well
is sealed with the 'six ends' and the 'four methods'.
It has been set down with the stainless reasoning
that accompanies the oral precepts of the lineages.
What Sog-bzlog-pa says about it
Sog-bzlog-pa has a long but especially revealing discussion of the rhetorical aims of the tantras and the necessity for rhetorically informed interpretation.[30] He begins with two suggestive quotes from Buddhist treatises, then gives four alternative positions which he finds unsatisfactory, and finally gives his own explanation, supporting it with scriptural as well as commentarial citations:
It says in the Madhyamakahṛdayakārika:[31]
In order to point to non-self and the like, and to point to the greatness of the Three Precious, [the Buddha taught] in accordance with the student's Vehicle.
The Ācārya Abhaya said in his Munimatālaṃkāra:[32]
The Mahāyānists whose every deed is a personification of compassion and who teach stainless Total Knowledge — What sort of person with a mind would condemn them? Only one who does not really know faults and qualities or who considers qualities to be faults or who hates those who have qualities would condemn the Great Vehicle.[33]
Some say, "Even if the Mahāyāna Secret Mantra literature [might have been] taught by yakṣas, rakṣasas, and the like, it [could not have been] preached by the Tathāgata because it teaches things contradictory to the way of Dharma preached by the Victor such as taking life and taking what was not offered."
Some commentators on the Pariśodhana Tantra say, "These explanations about sexual conduct were done as a favor to the deities of great desire such as Lord of the Dance (Naṭeśvara). If this were not so, there would be some contradictions in the precious holy Dharma preached from the mouth of one Tathāgata. [This would demonstrate] unskilful means. These are like the words of a madman, since doubts will prevent beings from being liberated."
Some early Tibetans have said, "While surely preached by the Tathāgata, such things as taking life, taking what was not offered, wrong sexual relations, and telling lies have been taken literally, and this creates wrong practices in the profound way of secret mantra."
Some others have said, "All the discourses of Buddha are exclusively of the uncompromisingly presented (nges-don) sort. Otherwise the Bhagavan would tell lies."
All these statements display a lack of understanding. They have not realized that the Bhagavan made statements that were intentional,[34] flexibly-intentional, literal, metaphorical, adjusted, and uncompromisingly presented. He did this in order to lead some aspirants [to the Path] and in order to prevent others from using them on their own in the absence of a master.
There are four types of statements intended to be flexible.
[1] In order to induct some aspirants into the perfect Path, He made such statements as those about spontaneously generated sentient beings and form [and other skandhas] as existing. These are flexibly-intentional statements [adjusted for the sake of] inducement.[35] [2] With respect to the three substantialities[36] [generalized concept substantiality, extrinsically determined substantiality, substantiality thoroughly established in its own right], He made statements about the non-existence of all dharmas, about them being like a mirage, or being like space. Such statements are philosophically flexibly-intentional statements. [3] As a way of neutralizing such things as condemnations of the Buddha, He made statements such as those about the Supreme Vehicle.[37] These are called antidotal flexibly-intentional statements. [4] On account of their profound import, He changed the letter of His statements. Such statements are transmuted flexibly-intentional statements.[38]
As the Sūtrālaṃkāra[39] says,
There are four ways of flexibly-intentional statements.
One is [adjusted] for hearers, one for substantialities,
one for converting faults,
and one for the profundity of the utterances themselves.[40]
As examples of antidotal flexibly-intentional statements, the Buddha said, "I myself in those times became the Buddha Vipaśvī (Rnam-par-gzigs)." In this way He meant to point out the sameness of Dharmakāya. [This is the intention of indicating sameness.][41]
Also, "If you serve Buddhas as many as the sands of the Ganges, you will hear these teachings." In such statements He had another purpose in mind [besides the plainly obvious one].
"Those who have made merit and make aspirations for Sukhāvatī will take birth there." Such statements have a different time-frame in mind [than what seems to be implied].[42]
"Generosity is inferior, while discipline is supreme." This was expressed with the inclinations of the [particular] person in mind, the textual traditions and reasoning determining the course of the words and meaning [in the preceding cases].
When [the Buddha] was explaining things so that the course of words and meanings was not determined by authorities (precedents) and reasonings, but indicating directly the teachings with just the [right] expression, this is [what is meant by] 'literal'. To give an example,
You should not kill living beings.
Neither should you take what was not given.
If you want accomplishments, you will not engage
in lies or lustful practices.[43]
Indicating things through 'reversals' (snrel-gzhi)[44] of words and meanings, the course of which was determined by authorities and reasonings are the 'non-literal' (metaphorical) expressions.
Statements in which all dharmas are demonstrated as voidness are 'uncompromisingly presented', while those which are aimed at sentient beings, personalities and humans are 'adjusted presentations'.
The Samādhirāja[45] says,
Among the Teachings of the Sugata Teacher we must recognize
a special category of sūtra sets that are 'uncompromisingly presented'.
All those scriptures in which sentient beings, personalities and humans are the ones being taught
must be recognized as 'adjusted presentations'.
This subject is treated in detail in the Saṃdhinirmocana,[46] to which the reader is referred.
While the Bhagavan's advice was to renounce killing, yet there are those potential Buddhists who find this renunciation intimidating or threatening. For [Buddhist teachings] are not meant exclusively for qualified persons with minds thoroughly purified with discipline and contemplative absorption, but even those who have not renounced killing are suitable for induction into this holy Vehicle.[47] Oblivious to the foregoing, they hear agreeable words[48] which induce them to take Refuge in the Three Precious, generate the Thought of Enlightenment and so on. Following their induction, and at least by the time they are intimidated by the direct vision of the perfect Path's significance, they will definitely turn away from killing and so forth. [The statements] serve rather to turn [their propensities for killing and so forth] into a basis for their gradual induction.
"Statements about killing and so forth are not intended literally, but elastically." This the Great Translator Rin-chen-bzang-po has explained in detail using the Dgongs-pa Lung-ston[49] Tantra, the Rdo-rje Rtse-mo,[50] the De-nyid Bsdus-pa (Tattvasamgraha), and other scriptures.
Since these things are dependent on the oral precepts of the Lama, the purposes are concealed, the words altered, and statements such as those on killing have been made.
Ācārya Śākyamitra says in his Kosalālaṃkāra,[51]
Why, it may be asked, are such statements as this made by Buddha in elastic expressions?
It is in order to prevent unauthorized use of mantras by those who happen to see the volumes.
Without the oral precepts of the teacher, they must never attain achievements.
The Sgron-ma Gsal-ba[52] says, "Intending that they must not be used without a teacher, in order to indicate particular activities in words that violate [the norms of ordinary] worldlings, the Buddha said such things as 'All sentient beings are to be killed,' 'enjoy telling lies,' 'covet the property of others,' and 'always act on your desires'."
Taking 'killing' literally is great among the sins that are grave by their very nature (rang-bzhin-gyi kha-na-ma-tho-ba), and was preached to be the most important cause of being reborn in lower realms. Because they would violate the teachings of the Buddha, statements on 'killing' are not to be taken literally.
For further explanation, this quote from the Sarvarahasya Tantra,[53] where 'killing' is intended to mean the killing of the self-concept, will serve,
All aspects of all sentient beings
are subsumed by the constituents (dharmas) of your own mind.
If you slay through application of the non-self of dharmas, it is only your self that will die.
Ācārya Dharmakīrti also said, "Statements such as 'If you slay all sentient beings' are applicable to Voidness, meaning utter annihilation," and further,
Performed on the skandhas which have no real substance,
it is done by thoughts which are product of 'peaceful abiding' meditations.
Performing this sort of killing
falls within the context of the Supreme Vehicle.
In other cases, 'taking life' may be said with the intended meaning of slaying the emotional disturbances, slaying the discursive thoughts, slaying the views which see substance in momentary aggregations ('jig tshogs la lta-ba). The ācāryas of the past have explained these things in detail. Likewise, statements on stealing, wrong sexual practices, and telling lies are not literally intended. The Sandhivyākaraṇa Tantra[54] says,
Whatever the Total Knowledge belonging to the Completely Enlightened One may be, it is conceived as a substance
and whoever would rob Him of it must be coveting the possessions of others.
One whose purpose is a single objective,
to have perpetual congress with the way things are,
will delight in desiring the same for sentient beings
and lust for the supreme attainment.
Telling about two interdependent productions,
the internal, or subjective one, and
the one of external objects as well
is sheer delight in telling lies,
as the yogi's context is non-contextual.
Whatever this Total Knowledge beyond the world might be, these [statements are] actually restrictive, serving toward its achievement. Hence, taking it as a sort of supreme substance, through methods of perfectly appropriating this and other things that pertain to the Tathāgata, they are produced within ones own continuum, and this is called 'robbing others of their property.'
In the same way, perpetual application [congress] to the non-dual and even-toned by way of fixing ones sight on the perfect Total Knowledge and Realm of [All] Knowables is [actually] a restrictive [measure] on desire. Enjoying this sort of thing is [what] 'enjoying desire' [means].
The just-cited Tantra also says,
Conventional-adjustment and strict-meaning truths.
These are the two organs.
What is called 'pairing' (yuganaddha)
is their nondual congress.
Through congress with no distinctions between them
everything falls under their provenance.
This is the ultimate mode of the Great Lust of all Buddhas.
All external and internal dharmas covered by the environmental and biological realms are neither eternal nor unmade,[55] but still they are products of interdependent origination, and dependent on their particular causes and conditions. Therefore, to teach that they are illusory and marked by falsehood and deception is to tell falsehoods. At the same time, these very [dharmas] are, in strict meaning truth, supported by a groundwork which lacks substance [devoid of substantiality].
Furthermore, it is as it says in a sūtra,
O offspring of gods (lha), everything is false and mirage-like,
I also am compelled to teach in such a manner.
Hence I tell lies.
Whatever the Buddha may have taught in a literal way pertaining to coercive magical actions He taught that they have to be done by those who are capable of truly achieving the purposes of others [i.e., not out of selfish desires], because they are immaculate personages with exceptional aspirations, they have clairvoyant powers, and their ritual actions are done correctly. Under any other circumstances, [the statements] would not be [literal].
If it is said that [tantras] are not Buddhist scriptures because they have such statements about slaying and taking what was not given,[56] then this would most certainly apply equally to the other Baskets, since [as demonstrated by the following quotations] they have them as well.
Such words of advice [given by Buddha?] as the following one taken from the Aṅgulimāla Sūtra[57] [help show] the wide usage of elastic expressions,
I do not adhere to the rule of renouncing taking what was not given.
The way of robbing the property of others is one I thoroughly endorse.
The thing that was not given is known as Awakening.
This no one has [ever] bestowed on anyone.
Just because the Bhagavan sat beneath the Awakening Tree,
you did not receive anything. [Your obscurations] were not destroyed.
This is how all the teachings are.
This is the supreme teaching.
Another sūtra says,
The father and mother are to be slain.
If the king, the two kinds of pure [priests], the surrounding country, their audiences included, are conquered,
the one who does so becomes pure.[58]
This is interpreted as follows. The father in this passage is the seeds, the hidden karmic formations. The mother is thirst, the thoughts which adhere to and thirst for the latter (in the preceding statement). The two kinds of pure [priests] are Buddhist monks and Brahmins. To summarize their significance, they [tend to] have a haughty outlook since they believe they become disentangled from the psychological mechanisms (skandhas) that are under the compulsion of the all-basis consciousness (ālayavijñāna) through [external] pure practices and cleanliness. They also think that keeping the supremacy of discipline and asceticism will make them pure and disentangled. Surrounding country means the mental sphere ('country') and the six sense organs. Their audiences are the forms and so forth of the external world. The one who thoroughly purifies the foregoing things becomes pure.
We should likewise consider the following quote,
Who knows the absence of essence as the essence,
who abides always in the counterproductive (phyin-ci-log),
who has more emotional affliction than the emotionally afflicted,
will attain true Awakening.[59]
This means knowing the absence of distracting thoughts to be the essence. [The second line] means to keep the right priorities in mind for the counterproductive [thoughts and actions] that stem from a lack of right priorities. [The third line] tells how the emotional afflictions stemming from the hardships of religious practices lead to attaining Awakening.
[Finally, in sum,] these are the ways to internalize the exact significances of the teachings which were expressed in flexibly intentional statements without making mistakes.[60]
By way of conclusion
Introducing an early seventeenth-century Tibetan discussion as evidence for the eleventh and twelfth centuries (when the New Schools were becoming 'naturalized' in Tibet), let alone the Indian scene in earlier centuries, provokes many questions, but a very thorough study indeed would be required to trace the entire history of Buddhist scriptural rhetoric studies. It is not even possible here to adequately address the narrower objective of tracing Tibetan understandings in this field (very much remains to be done). I would only like to point out that many of the sūtras, tantras and commentaries cited by Sog-bzlog-pa would have been available to eleventh century Tibetan readers, and some as early as the eighth century. He does supply reference to a lost discussion of the subject by Rin-chen-bzang-po from the late tenth or early eleventh century.
Although it is not possible to make a watertight historical argument at this point, we may still use Sog-bzlog-pa to advance an alternative view of Vajrayāna to the usual ones, a supportable hypothesis, if you will. One common view is that Vajrayāna arose as a popular, a-Buddhistic antinomian movement of the Indian underclasses (Dravidian substrata, and the like).[61] Others think that there was a tantric movement instigated by a radical non-Buddhist elite (meaning the Mahāsiddhas)[62] which somehow and for some reason was co-opted by Buddhists to form the Buddhist tantras. I would not deny all truth to these scenarios. I wish instead to present another possibility that, while not necessarily any more historically provable than the usual one, needs to be considered just because it could broaden the horizons of scholars working on the problems of Vajrayāna origins, not that it is my true purpose to uncover origins per se.
I shall attempt to state the alternative as simply as possible. The stories of Mahāsiddhas in Buddhist tantra literature are not to be taken as historical fact upon which other historical conclusions may be based (although the figures about whom these stories are told may have been historical, this being beside the point at this point). They are above all stories, subject to the same sorts of rhetorical analyses discussed by Sog-bzlog-pa. Their highly symbolic and stylized 'biographies' are meant to point toward Buddhist truths. Thus, when one encounters the Mahāsiddha Pig-pen (Phag-tshang-pa) with a club over one shoulder and a woman under the opposite arm leading a herd of pigs, one will know that these symbolize his transformation of, and control over, the three poisons of aggression, lust and ignorance respectively. By doubting the historical utility of the Mahāsiddha stories, the architecture of one of the common views begins to loosen at the base. This might then lead us to look for factors within Buddhism itself that would account for the production of the entire range of Vajrayāna literature of which the Mahāsiddha stories are only a small part. What I propose is, in brief, a re-etymology of Vajrayāna.
I repeat that I do not pretend to sufficient historical evidence for the following view. What I appear to be doing is taking an insight from late scriptural rhetoric study and applying it back onto history — a dubious procedure, but perhaps the results would prove worthy of testing. The alternative I suggest is as follows. Mahāyāna scriptural-hermeneutical thinking reached a level at some point (the fourth century CE?) at which the idea was widely accepted in those circles that the Buddha employed several distinct levels of discourse. This sort of multi-leveled rhetorical analysis, after becoming sufficiently commonplace in Mahāyāna thought, began to have consequences for the literary forms that the subsequent revelations of Buddhist truth (scriptures) took upon themselves. Not just the literary forms, we must add, but the liturgical, artistic and even meditational forms as well. These forms are the forms that would be called, in their entirety, Vajrayāna, and moreover, they were found to be effective, even much more effective, in promoting Buddhist truths.
This alternative view implies a simple reversal of priorities. When Snellgrove[63] says, "... for while the tantra itself was intended to be understood in its obvious (and be it added in its often reprehensible) sense, the leaders of this new period persist in regarding it in a figurative sense," we should require from him a demonstration that the interpretive strategies of those he calls "leaders of this new period" did not exist in the time of "the tantra itself." In case we do not require this of him, we would seem to be tacitly agreeing to an assumption because it is consonant with our own (and, be it added, perhaps reprehensible) interests. That those interpretive strategies did exist in the fourth century is indicated by Sog-bzlog-pa's citation of the Sūtrālaṃkāra, a reputedly fourth-century text.[64] Assuming, as many scholarly critics now accept, that Vajrayāna developments (properly speaking) came later, we begin to make a case for our view.
"It clearly only becomes possible to understand these texts thoroughly by accepting their weltanschauung complete, and this is probably an impossibility for a modern European. To think that one has done so is not sufficient."[65]
These are highly provocative words with retroactive implications for Snellgrove's own historical scheme of Vajrayāna origins as well as the alternative one presented here (and there would seem to be implied here an ethnographical assumption that those who are born in a Vajrayāna environment will as a matter of course be able to understand tantras, an idea Tibetan teachers do find ludicrous). These words, which basically boil down to 'Don't try it; it won't work,' would push us into the situation of being incapable of understanding the significance of things in another culture by virtue of our grounding in our own. Our interpretive strategies would not work for them. Even if so, do we then need to remain entirely thwarted in our efforts to interpret tantras? Our logical alternative to total bafflement would clearly lie in a study of (and attempt to understand, even in the face of obstacles) the interpretive strategies employed within the tradition we want to understand. What seems to be implied in Snellgrove's statements, taken together, is that Vajrayāna was, in origin, something thoroughly comprehensible to us because it was intended to mean word-for-word what it said, but became utterly confounding for "modern European" minds only by the subsequent application of hermeneutical whitewash (which is then the medium through which the Tibet-born person 'naturally' understands it, and which make it impossible for anyone else to understand). The simple became complex, and the evolutionist assumptions implicit in the 'historical method' would seem well served.
What my alternative model of historical development (and non-development) implies is that the interpretive complexity of tantra texts is rooted in a prior interpretive complexity in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Vajrayāna was never 'simple' because Mahāyāna was never 'simple,' but rather possessed a sophisticated hermeneutic. With this sort of understanding, Vajrayāna becomes an intelligible part of the Buddhist mainstream. Why should this idea come as a shock to "a [post-] modern European"?
The common views of Vajrayāna in India help to sustain a common view about its transmission and development in Tibet, and makes the preceding considerations important to further germane arguments. The common view (which Snellgrove shares with a number of philologically-oriented scholars), that the tantras were initiated in India with literal intentions and only later had interpretive schemes applied to them, has its corollary in the common view that the Old Tibetan Tantras translated in late imperial times were equally literally interpreted and practiced up until the Later Spread or beyond. In light of the alternative view, these assumptions also require re-evaluation. There were doubts, voiced in writing by the Western Tibetan King Zhi-ba-'od (late 11th century) and later critics, as to the authenticity of the Old Tantra scriptures (meaning their genuine origins in India, although this leads to other questions which beg further consideration, such as, How Buddhist were Buddhist scriptures in India?). But it is important to note that 'authenticity' of tantras is quite a different matter from their correct interpretation or correct implementation. As Sog-bzlog-pa repeatedly points out, the problem of interpretation applies equally to all tantras, 'Old' or 'New', all of them being subject to misapprehension and misapplication. Tenth-century bands of supposedly pious terrorists (such as the infamous Ar-tsho Bande), if they were indeed such, were rightly censured by the Tibetan tradition, but there is no reason even to derive from this any implications that the Old Tibetan Vajrayāna teachers were of the same sort. There seem no good reasons, other than reasons of polemic or hermeneutical naiveté, to think they were murderous profligates. The Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra with its levels of interpretation was translated by the late eighth century or so, and the levels of interpretation are discussed in the early ninth-century Sgra-sbyor Bam-po Gnyis-pa, and in a more or less contempory work by the Tibetan translator Ka-ba Dpal-brtsegs.[66] These textual facts argue against hermeneutical naiveté. Of course, these arguments would require much more extensive documentation to be considered entirely secure, but we can learn to live with degrees of insecurity.
Still, the alternative view is consonant with what we understand about the early Indian tantras and the Old Translation tantras. In order to continue to follow what I call the common view, we should be forced to demonstrate hermeneutical naiveté in the earliest of these tantras. It is entirely possible to point out the use of interpretive cues, for example, in the Old Translation Guhyagarbha Tantra and its Old Tibetan commentaries, where they make their appearance in the very beginning in terms of the Five Unities (Phun-tshogs Lnga). In order to rightly determine the realm of discourse, we must know the form of the Teacher (Nirmāṇakāya? Sambhogakāya?) and how this correlates with the character of the Questioner and Audience (devas, rakṣasas, bodhisattvas, humans? The Buddha talking to Himself or to someone emanated from Himself?), the Time, and the Place (the objective realm corresponding to 'subjective' states of the Teacher). By understanding the context of the discourse, we should be enabled to ascertain the nature and manner of its content. This quite conscious interpretive nexus has close interrelations with, and consequences for, Buddhist thought, symbolism and art, a theme I have touched upon elsewhere.[67]
One interrelationship is with the [non-]duality which manifests in the polarity symbolism of the Buddha's insight (prajñā) and means (upāya). If the Buddha adjusts His presentation of Buddhist truths, it is because He understands the differing capacities of sentient beings to accommodate that truth (insight) and He equally well understands the most effective ways to wean them away from their limitations (including those in the realm of the ethical) so that they may be more directly confronted with Buddhist truth (means). Those nurtured on Judaic or Christian scriptural hermeneutics may find all this rather difficult to comprehend, but they would do well to wean themselves of the expectation that Buddhist scriptures should 'mean' the same way as their own. Otherwise we go back to 'square one' and rest content with incomprehensibility. I think that taking this flight to nowhere would be going too far. Surely if Buddha could find the right method to get through to serial killers like Aṅgulimāla, He could find it in His heart to get through, in one way or another, to us. As the Kāśyapaparivarta says, Lotus seeds do not sprout in space. They need much mire and manure. Or, elsewhere in the same Sūtra:
For example, the villagers' impure dung;
it benefits the fields of sugarcane.
Likewise the Bodhisattvas' afflictive emotions manure;
it benefits the Dharma of the Victor.[68]
Or, to quote one last time from David Snellgrove, "Manure nourishes the fairest rose."[69] If shortage of afflictive emotional manure is a problem, it isn't one of ours. Also, if 'elasticity' is so unbearably problematic for us (doctrinal rigidity being a reputed virtue in our religions and political ideologies), we still ought to be grownup enough to know from experience that a rubber band, if stretched between the thumbs and forefingers of our two hands, may snap back in either direction. It just depends which side has the firmer grip.
Key to bibliographical references:
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'BA'-RA-BA, Bka'-'bum — 'Ba'-ra-ba Rgyal-mtshan-dpal-bzang (1310?-1391?), A Tibetan Encyclopedia of Buddhist Scholasticism: The Collected Writings of 'Ba'-ra-ba Rgyal-mtshan-dpal-bzang, Ngawang Gyaltsen and Ngawang Lungtok (Dehra Dun 1970), 14 volumes.
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BROIDO, 'Hermeneutics' — Michael Broido, 'Does Tibetan Hermeneutics Throw Any Light on Sandhābhāṣa?' Journal of the Tibet Society, vol. 2 (1982), pp. 5-39.
BROIDO, 'Killing' — Michael M. Broido, 'Killing, Lying, Stealing, and Adultery: A Problem of Interpretation in the Tantras.' Contained in: Donald S. Lopez Jr., ed., Buddhist Hermeneutics, University of Hawaii Press (Honolulu 1988), pp. 71-118.
CHATTOPADHYAYA, Reflections — Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya, Reflections on the Tantras, Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi 1978).
COZORT, 'Sādhana' — 'Sādhana (sGrub thabs): Means of Achievement for Deity Yoga.' Contained in: José I. Cabezón & Roger R. Jackson, eds., Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, Snow Lion (Ithaca 1996), pp. 331-43.
DALAI LAMA, World — The Dalai Lama, The World of Tibetan Buddhism, tr. by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Wisdom Publications (Boston 1995).
DORSCH, Classical Literary Criticism — T.S. Dorsch, Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin Classics (Baltimore 1965).
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HUNTINGTON, 'Note' — John C. Huntington, 'Note on a Chinese Text Demonstrating the Earliness of Tantra,' Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 10, no. 2 (1987), pp. 88-98.
JOSHI, Studies — Lal Mani Joshi, Studies in the Buddhistic Culture of India, Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi 1977), 2nd revised edition (1st edition, 1967).
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KATZ, Buddhist Images — Nathan Katz, Buddhist Images of Human Perfection: The Arahant of the Sutta Piṭaka Compared with the Bodhisattva and the Mahāsiddha, Motilal Banarssidas (Delhi 1982).
KONG-SPRUL, Shes-bya Kun Khyab — Kong-sprul Yon-tan-rgya-mtsho (=Blo-gros-mtha'-yas), Shes-bya Kun Khyab (=Theg-pa'i Sgo Kun las Btus-pa Gsung-rab Rin-po-che'i Mdzod Bslab-pa Gsum Legs-par Ston-pa'i Bstan-bcos Shes-bya Kun Khyab), Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khang, (Peking 1985).
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KVAERNE, 'On the Concept' — Per Kvaerne, 'On the Concept of Sahaja in Indian Buddhist Tantric Literature', Temenos, vol. 11 (1975), pp. 88-135.
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* I would like to thank John Newman, in particular, for kindly reading and making emendations to an earlier draft. I would like to recommend very highly the introductory chapters of his dissertation (NEWMAN, Outer Wheel) as the most complete and valuable survey of modern cosmopolitan views about Buddhist Vajrayāna to appear in English to date. Its content will not be duplicated here. I should point out that, even though I will not be following his advice, I essentially agree with Newman that "A basic tantra should be studied in conjunction with the full range of its commentarial and allied literature" (p. 68). I will not focus on any particular tantric cycle here, but rather search for higher order generalizations, dangerous as they may be.
[1] See in particular the newly released volume, edited by David White, entitled Tantra in Practice (Princeton University Press, Princeton 2000). The forty contributors to this volume have almost without exception secured academic teaching or research positions. Here, following Tibetan tradition, we do not use the word 'tantra' as a general term (apart from referring to particular texts), but use Vajrayāna instead. Still, 'tantra' and 'tantric' may be useful in contexts where it is desirable to speak of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist tantric systems with a single word.
[2] I thereby think there is very little likelihood of betraying Vajrayāna 'secrets' since the material used is published, and therefore and in that degree 'public knowledge.' Mantras, initiations, pledges, activities, substances and the like are often placed under the seal of secrecy (and some reasons for this secrecy are alluded to in the passage by Sog-bzlog-pa which appears later on in this paper), but these subjects will hardly be touched upon except in the most general way. In very recent years it has become true that there is hardly any aspect of Buddhist Vajrayāna that has not been dealt with in one way or another in an English-language publication.
[3] For the full list of 5 afflicted views which are numbered among the ten 'infiltrators' (anuśaya), see Chapter Five, verse 3, of the Abhidharmakośa; PRUDEN, Abhidharma, vol. 3, p. 772. When the last of the six infiltrators, afflicted views, is subdivided into five, the total becomes ten. Further analysis of the kleśas leads finally to a grand number of 84,000.
[4]This is why I have termed this perspective anti-philological. It is also anti-evolutionary. The usual procedure of the evolutionist philologist is to find traces of an uncharacteristic trend within the wider tradition, claim that it is the original strand just because it is so much different from the tradition as we know it, and then finally accuse the tradition of being untrue to its 'actual' origins (or, alternatively, they may excise uncharacteristic trends by dubbing them 'later interpolations'). This sort of etymologizing scholarship has, for better or worse, a subversive effect, that may or may not be consciously intended. It is also part of the cultural process. 'Original Buddhism' is, in any case, too far removed from the period of focus of this study to be very relevant.
[5]This phrase was borrowed from Dr. Gregory Schopen, whether or not it originated with him. Another now common way to refer to a similar phenomenon (within a broader context) is 'Buddhist modernism', a phrase which evidently was coined by Alexandra David-Neel, the famous Tibet scholar, adventurer and popularizer. 'Protestant Buddhism' is a term being used by Buddhological scholars in a similar if somewhat different sense. Just as Protestants have an 'apostolic' tendency to deny Christian tradition (together, ironically, with the 'apostolic succession') and go straight to a reconstructed point of Christian origins, so 'Protestant Buddhism' goes straight for a 'primitive Buddhism' which owes much to their own rationalist mind-sets brought to bear on a field of literary evidence thoroughly weeded of contrary evidence by applying evolutionist philology. This 'Protestant' form of Buddhism, apparently largely produced by Protestants rather than Catholics, is then ingested and digested by the Buddhist traditions themselves, contributing to the development of 'Buddhist modernism'.
[6]'Shines everywhere' is the meaning of the name of Vairocana, the central of the five Tathāgatas.
[7] For those who require a brief introduction to Buddhist (not Hindu) sādhana, I would most recommend COZORT, 'Sādhana.'
[8]See HOLT, Discipline, especially chapter five, 'The Structure of Disciplined Actions', for evidence and arguments for the passionate etiology of nonvirtues according to vinaya texts. The three poisons are sometimes in Mahāyāna and usually in Vajrayāna increased to five by the addition of greed/envy and pride/slander. Even if the listings vary, they may be said to cover basically the same moral/motivational territory, the same all-too-human obsessions, as the 'minute-to-multiplied afflictive mental states' (nyon-rmongs phra-rgyas) or the 'root afflictions' (rtsa-ba'i nyon-rmongs) of the two main Abhidharma works studied in Tibet (but in these, the Abhidharmakośa and Abhidharmasamuccaya, one does not detect any use of the 'poison' metaphor; one does find the expression 'poison of afflictive mental states,' kleśaviṣa, in the Kaśyapaparivārta, section no. 48).
[9]Demerits of mind override those of body and speech, since the latter always involve the mental.
[10]Indifference in the negative sense, to be carefully distinguished from the positive virtue of equanimity (upekṣā / btang-snyoms), a form of tolerance which involves both a patient, longsuffering attitude ('turning the other cheek') and especially an absence of prejudice. Equanimity is one of the Four Immeasurables (almost always found at the beginnings of Vajrayāna ritual meditations, it should be noted), and therefore goes nicely together with love, compassion and rejoicing in the happiness and accomplishments of others.
[11]The context is a recorded public teaching (tshogs chos) by Dus-gsum-mkhyen-pa. See KARMA-PA I, Selected Writings, vol. 1, pp. 270.5-271.5.
[12]The Tibetan term lha, while essentially untranslatable, has often been translated as 'god' or 'deity'. In most contexts, lha does not mean 'deity' as an entity which exists in its own right and brings other things into existence; to the contrary, it means an entity that exists only as a mental projection 'created' by the devotee (a yi-dam-gyi lha, called such because it epitomizes the sādhaka\ā's high aspiration for enlightenment). Also called lha are certain Hindu 'deities' (deva) such as Indra and Brahma, as well as local Tibetan 'lords of the soil' (sa-bdag). Lha may be both worldly ('jig-rten-pa) and trans-worldly ('jig-rten las 'das-pa). Lha is also frequently used as a respectful epithet for rulers and for the recently deceased. The feminine form is lha-mo.
[13] Bag-la nyal-ba is simply the Tibetan of anuśaya used in some sūtra translations; in Abhidharma contexts anuśaya was translated with [nyon-mongs] phra-rgyas. Note that since this is a work by a student of Tibet, rather than of India, Tibetan terms are generally given priority over Indic ones; Sanskrit terms are occasionally supplied only in favor of those who might for reasons of their own find them more meaningful.
[14] See Chapter Two of GETHIN, Buddhist Path.
[15] For those who have been led to believe the rationalist position of some Buddhist modernists that emotions have no place in Theravāda apart from their simple suppression, Chapter 4 of KATZ, Buddhist Images, pp. 147-164, ought be required reading. Katz's position on Hīnayāna as a polemical term is also relevant here.
[16] For English-language sources, from Rnying-ma-pa perspective, we could recommend NAMKHAI NORBU, Rigbai Kujyug and Dzog Chen. For Mahāmudrā sources, see the words of Lce-sgom-pa as translated in BENTOR, 'Mantra', p. 338 and the words of Sgam-po-pa in TAKPO, Mahāmudrā, pp. 111-2.
[17]Cited according to the translation of DORSCH, Classical Literary Criticism, pp. 38-39.
[18]DORSCH, Classical Literary Criticism, p. 17.
[19]Aristotle in the Poetics is primarily concerned with mimêsis on the level of artistic production, but he does not neglect audience response. That Aristotle's use of the word does not always mean simple 'imitation', but something close to 'assistance in accomplishing something', see DORSCH, Classical Literary Criticism, p. 26.
[20]See HABERMAN, Acting (especially chapter 2: 'Religion and Drama in South Asia', pp. 12-29), for a very insightful discussion of the linkage between religious and dramatic actions in India, including some suggestive remarks about the similarities and differences between classical Greek and Indian dramatic theories, the rasas and so forth.
[21]BOSE, Principles, p. 82.
[22]SNELLGROVE, Hevajra Tantra, vol. 1, p. 111.
[23]See KVAERNE, 'On the Concept' and KVAERNE, Anthology, pp. 61-64.
[24]KVAERNE, Anthology, p. 62, doubts that Buddhist tantras ever use the term as a noun except as shorthand for longer expressions. I have not been able to make up my mind on this point, but prefer to give Kvaerne the benefit of any doubt. In the Tibetan language itself the question is largely irrelevant, since adjectives, as in many languages, may be employed as nouns (we know they are doing this when there isn't any noun nearby for it to qualify).
[25]Not just magical feats, since in the absence of Buddhist goals we could hardly call it Buddhism, not that Buddhist Vajrayāna denies to those who desire them the pursuit of magical feats; it refuses to stop at them. See the discussion of magic and magical motivations by Sog-bzlog-pa to follow.
[26]MI-PHAM-DGE-LEGS-RNAM-RGYAL, Snyan-ngag-gi Bstan-bcos, p. 18.
[27]TĀRANĀTHA, Collected Works, vol. 13, p. 427.5.
[28]See SA-SKYA PAÔflI-TA, Mkhas-pa-la 'Jug-pa'i Sgo, p. 108.
[29]Ten folio blockprint in personal possession entitled Don Rnam-par Nges-pa Shes-rab Ral-gri (folio 7 verso, line 4).
[30]SOG-BZLOG-PA, Collected Writings, vol. 1, pp. 555 ff. Compare discussion in SANGS-RGYAS-RDO-RJE, Responses, p. 460.5 ff., which will be referred to in following notes; it is quite similar, but sometimes supplies additional explanations.
[31]Tibetan title — Dbu-ma Snying-po by Bhavya, translated into Tibetan by Atiśa and Tshul-khrims-rgyal-ba (TOH. 3855). I have made some small efforts to locate cited passages, which were not always successful.
[32]TOH. no. 3903. Tibetan title — Thub-pa'i Dgongs Rgyan. This work was composed in the thirtieth year of king Rāmapāla, which would place its composition in about 1130 CE. It was translated by the author himself at Nālandā in collaboration with the Tibetan translator of Spyong-sho (=Dpang-sho), Gsal-ba-grags. The author is known in Tibetan as 'Jigs-med-'byung-gnas-sbas-pa (i.e., Abhayākaragupta). The particular passage quoted here may be located in the Sde-dge Bstan-'gyur, vol. 110 (Tibetan key-letter 'A'), fol. 237r.
[33]This quote is entirely lacking in the version in SOG-BZLOG-PA, Collected Writings, and has been supplied from SOG-BZLOG-PA, Gsung Thor-bu (p. 197). This latter version has been consulted, and sometimes followed, in the following translation.
[34]The translation 'intentional' for dgongs-pa (abhiprāya) is perhaps not adequate. See the discussion in BROIDO, 'Abhiprāya'. I think it is important to note here that what I take to be something working on the level of literary analysis Broido carries onto the very high and perplexing levels of linguistic philosophy. I have no wish or present need to follow his trail. I assume that this discussion by Sog-bzlog-pa is telling us the same general types of things that a Christian theologian might say about the literality of a scriptural passage, or that a literary critic might say in an effort to divine the significance of a novel. Still, I would not deny that the discussion might have some extrinsic interest or implications for linguistic philosophy. I would especially recommend BROIDO, 'Killing', to anyone who would like to further pursue the issues of Vajrayāna interpretation. Still other discussions of Vajrayāna hermeneutics have been published in THURMAN, 'Vajra Hermeneutics,' STEINKELLNER, 'Remarks', ARENES, 'Hermèneutique,' BROIDO, 'Hermeneutics' and LAMOTTE, 'Assessment' (I am aware of still other works on the subject, which are not at present available to me). Some of these works are based primarily on interpretation under the rubric of the 'seven ornaments' of the Guhyasamāja (see also WAYMAN, Yoga, pp. 114-118), which will not be considered in the present paper, even if it is of considerable relevance. Lamotte, in his article originally published in French in 1949, the four intentional and four flexibly intentioned statements are discussed, with references to the original sources (for which, see especially LAMOTTE, Somme, vol. 2, pp. 129-32 and the Tibetan-language version in vol. 1, p. 41).
[35]These statements are specifically aimed at Hearers (Śrāvaka), according to SANGS-RGYAS-RDO-RJE (Responses, p. 461.1), who are unable to comprehend teachings about "form empty of form" (gzugs gzugs-kyis stong-pa).
[36]'Substantiality' (ngo-bo-nyid) in a Buddhist context is synonymous with voidness. Buddhist philosophy is generally counter to materialist and essentialist positions (see, for example, the "knows the absence of essence as essence" in a following quote), and the fact that they employ the terms of those positions should not be allowed to obscure the very different way they are used in Buddhist writings. This is a quite consistent Buddhist practice, and should by no means be mistaken for anything so trivial as 'playing with words.'
[37]SANGS-RGYAS-RDO-RJE (Responses, p. 461) supplies the example (which he also gives for 'intention of indicating sameness'), "I myself became in those times the Buddha Vipaśvī." According to him, this was said in order to neutralize the doubts of those who might think that Śākyamuni was inferior to other Buddhas just because he lived in an impure environment and had a shorter lifespan than the earlier ones.
[38]SANGS-RGYAS-RDO-RJE (Responses, p. 461.6) explains 'transmuted flexibly-intentioned statements' by saying that the Buddha spoke in a transformed way in order to avoid the censure of some who might think that the particular teaching is too lofty, and therefore not as good for them as other teachings.
[39]This is the famous Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra by Maitreya. Usually agreed to be a circa fourth-century text, it was translated, along with a commentary on it, into Tibetan in the early ninth century by Ka-ba Dpal-brtsegs together with the Indian scholar Śākyasiṃha. This appears to be the most important Indian treatise for the transmission into Tibet of this particular method of explaining Mahāyāna hermeneutics. The reference to the original text as published by Lamotte has already been supplied above.
[40]For some reason, Sog-bzlog-pa does not cite the passage from the Sūtrālaṃkāra that actually lists the four types of flexibly-intentioned statements. This verse has therefore been supplied from the parallel discussion in SANGS-RGYAS-RDO-RJE, Responses, p. 460.5. For another, different, citation of this latter passage, see DPA'-BO, Mkhas-pa'i Dga'-ston, p. 542.
[41]The bracketed statement is taken from SANGS-RGYAS-RDO-RJE, Responses, p. 460.1.
[42]SANGS-RGYAS-RDO-RJE (p. 460.3), gives a different example here: "By holding (remembering) the name of Tathāgata Rin-chen-zla-'od, you are Enlightened."
[43]A possible source for the quote is the Sarvadurgati Tantra (SKORUPSKI, Sarvadurgati, p. 102).
[44]Snrel-zhi is an unusual word used in older Tibetan translations (BLANG, p. 287.6) which later became nearly obsolete. It is used in a citation from the Avataṃsaka Sūtra collection (a sūtra which, by the way, was never entirely made to conform to the New Translations standards) found in KONG-SPRUL, Shes-bya Kun Khyab, vol. 1, p. 176.13. It means 'oblique, transverse' ('phrel) or 'reversed, transposed' (logs). It may also mean to bypass steps or states that would ordinarily be considered indispensable (thod-rgal-ba), or to switch the order of those steps around ('chol-ba). The corresponding Sanskrit word must be vyatyaya, or vyatyasta.
[45]TOH. no. 127.
[46]See the recent books on the subject of this sūtra by John Powers.
[47]One could cite here the passage from the Suvikrāntacinta Devaputra Paripṛcchā Sūtra (TOG PALACE, vol. 69, p. 814.3):
When one bears with the anger, killing, and bondage of all sentient beings
and does not reject those sentient beings,
this is the perfection of Method.
[48]'Words of pleasing aesthetic impact' (nyams dga'-ba'i tshig). This passage underlines the strategic use of misunderstanding that was alluded to earlier.
[49]TOH. 444. The Dgongs-pa Lung-bstan-pa zhes bya-ba'i Rgyud (Sandhivyākaraṇa Tantra), translated by Rin-chen-bzang-po together with Dharmaśrībhadra. This is an 'explanatory tantra' (bshad rgyud) connected with the Guhyasamāja Tantra.
[50]TOH. 480. The Vajraśekhara, translated by Karmavajra and Gzhon-nu-tshul-khrims (an associate of 'Brog-mi). This is said to be an explanatory tantra of the Yoga class.
[51]TOH. 2503. This is a commentary by Śākyamitra on the Tattvasaṃgraha, translated by Rin-chen-bzang-po.
[52]The Pradīpoddyotana by Candrakīrti. See discussion in BROIDO, 'Killing', pp. 91-93.
[53]TOH. 481. It is an explanatory tantra for the Catuḥpītha. The Tibetan title is Thams-cad Gsang-ba'i Rgyud, translated by Padmākaravarman and Rin-chen-bzang-po. For a translation of the following quote, see WAYMAN, 'Sarvarahasya Tantra', p. 526 (verse 15).
[54]The same tantra previously cited.
[55]Note the ambiguities due to conflicting readings in the two textual sources at this point.
[56] For the specific passages in the Hevajra and Guhyasamāja tantras to which allusion is being made, see Newman, Outer Wheel, pp. 36-7.
[57]TOH. 213. It may be that these words are actually from the mouth of Aṅgulimāla.
[58]For the source of this quote, not indicated in the passage, see the scriptural anthology UDĀNAVARGA, chapter 29 (Yugavarga), verse 24. It is all the more shocking that this verse is in the Dhammapada, which Buddhist modernists have championed as a core 'gospel' of Buddha's purely rational moral teachings. The context supports Sog-bzlog-pa's interpretation that follows. Where Sog-bzlog-pa's citation reads:
pha dang ma ni bsad-bya-zhing //
rgyal-po gtsang-spra-can gnyis dang //
yul 'khor 'khor dang bcas bcom-na //
mi de dag-par 'gyur zhes bya //
the original text reads, with two slight differences:
pha dang ma ni bsad-byas-shing //
rgyal-po gtsang-spra-can gnyis dang //
yul 'khor 'khor dang bcas bcom-na //
mi ni dag-par 'gyur zhes bya //
Compare also UDĀNAVARGA, chapter 33 (Brāhmaṇavarga), verse 72. One of the general points of the verse in the context of the latter is that the external purificatory practices (etc.) of brahmin priests are ineffectual. To be a 'true' brahmin, one must get to the mental roots of suffering. It is interesting that SPARHAM, Tibetan Dhammapada, p. 217, note 244, gives (on the basis of his Tibetan informants) explanations very similar to those of Sog-bzlog-pa.
[59] For the verse in the context of the Mahāyānasaṃgrana, see LAMOTTE, Somme, vol. 1, p. 42. This same passage exists in the form of a quotation from an unidentified scripture in Asaṅga's Abhidharmasamuccaya (toward the very end of the text; for a French translation, see RAHULA, Compendium, p. 185, with some significant discussion in the notes). Here it is immediately followed by two other sūtra passages that some (example JOSHI, Studies, p. 249) have perceived as proto-Vajrayāna. In fact, in the context, they continue the theme that Bodhisattvas have certain kinds of mental complexes, more specifically having to do with generosity and sexuality which, finally, are useful on the Path. Intuitively and in some sense, it surely could be considered 'proto-tantric [Vajrayāna].' Still, the very term 'proto-' assumes we know what Vajrayāna is 'in the first place' (see for example HUNTINGTON, 'Note,' who finds early 5th-century evidence of a proto-maṇḍala, calling it 'proto-Vajrayāna,' which rather begs the question whether circular arrays of Buddhas, as such, are somehow defining characteristics of the set of Vajrayāna tantras). As is well known, a passage in the Maitreya's (or Asaṅga's) Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra (chap. 9, verse 46), which likewise concerns sexuality, caused many earlier scholars (for references, see WINTERNITZ, History, vol. 2, p. 378 and SNELLGROVE, Indo-Tibetan, pp. 127-8) to veer into entertaining but hardly warranted arguments that its author might also have authored the Guhyasamāja Tantra (neither Winternitz nor Snellgrove follow this idea). This passage has a similar sense to the Abhidharmasamuccaya passage, entailing the transformation of sexuality into something else (like Vajrayāna transformation through reversal, and in that sense only perhaps proto-Vajrayāna). On the Sanskrit word parāvṛtti, here translated as 'reversal,' see Bagchi, Studies, pp. 87-92.
[60]For those who might wish to pursue more research on Tibetan understandings in this field, by far the most extensive coverage of this same material is in 'BA'-RA-BA, Bka'-'bum, vol. 5. The first work, entitled Mdo dang Rgyud-sde dang Bstan-bcos-rnams-kyi Ldem-por Dgongs-pa Gsal-bar Phye-ste Bshad-pa Dgongs-bshad Rin-po-che'i Gter-mdzod is divided into two parts, the first (pp. 1-134) on sûtric Buddhism, the second (pp. 135-241) on Secret Mantra. The second and last work in the volume (pp. 224-661) is entitled Gsang-ba Nges-don Dgongs-bshad Rin-po-che Lung-gi Gter-mdzod. It, also, is a hermeneutical study of both Pāramitayāna and Vajrayāna, including oral precepts as well as scriptures. Although the entire volume 5 is relevant, particularly the last pages of the Vajrayāna part of the first work (pp. 221-240) largely parallel, although in a more extensive form, Sog-bzlog-pa's treatment on Intentional Statements. The dates of 'Ba'-ra-ba Rgyal-mtshan-dpal-bzang-po are 1310 to 1391. His work may be the proximate source for both Sog-bzlog-pa and Sangs-rgyas-rdo-rje, although this point needs study.
[61]These sorts of theories are especially common among recent Indian scholars, who trace a few Vajrayāna elements back to the Vedas, but then tend to credit 'Dravidian backlash' with the main impetus for the 'tantric movement'. See CHATTOPADHYAYA, Reflections, as an example.
[62]See SNELLGROVE, in the introduction to his edition of the Hevajra Tantra (vol. 1, p. 12 et passim) where he emphasizes the 'elitist' nature of the movement, denying it was 'popular' in the sense of a broad-based phenomenon, saying rather that it was a radical movement.
[63]SNELLGROVE in introduction to Hevajra Tantra (vol. 1, p. 17), but in order to better divine Snellgrove's intentions, one ought also to read what he said earlier on (ibid., pp. 8-9). I am quite aware that this author's thinking developed over the years, and that the account of Buddhist Vajrayāna's emergence in this early work has little in common with the much more nuanced portrayal found in SNELLGROVE, Indo-Tibetan, pp. 146-7, for example. The later Snellgrove does indeed emphasize the value of literary interpretation (ibid., pp. 173-4), while at the same time denigrating those who, along with "many Tibetan Lamas, explain them ['objectionable' aspects of Vajrayāna practice] away as 'symbolic'." He also (ibid., p. 186; also, 188 et passim) bifurcates tantra texts into those that he believes were composed within monastic compounds and those that originated among lay followers of 'tantric' (Vajrayāna or Shaivite) yogins, but it is within the second class that he places the Anuttarayoga Tantras (the latter being the tantras primarily at issue in this paper). However, the particular scholarly complex criticized here, that there was, at the time of Vajrayāna origins, a group of lay Siddhas who wrote hermeneutic-free texts that literalistically advocated giving free reign to passions, to afflictive mental states, remains even in his later works, and has often been more or less followed by others. Miranda Shaw, Passionate, is one of these followers ("Tantric Buddhism arose outside the powerful Buddhist monasteries as a protest movement initially championed by lay people rather than monks and nuns," p. 20; "wandering lay tantrics carried Buddhism to the villages, countryside, tribal areas, and border regions," p. 21, this scenario being the polar opposite of 'Dravidian backlash') although she differs from Snellgrove primarily in, first and most obviously, giving much greater responsibility to the women Mahāsiddhās, and secondly, while accepting the multivalence of expressions in Vajrayāna texts (p. 149), quite consistently tucks all other meanings into the physical expressions of lust (not, it may be noted, of aggression). Furthermore, even as she recognizes the intentionality and 'shock value' of the tantra's statements about uniting with mother, sister, and daughter, she does not recognize that intentionality and 'shock value' might also have something to do with some of the other behaviors which, unlike incest, she sees as basic to her particular understanding of Vajrayāna as it was, and therefore still ought to be, practiced.
[64]We also know of a work by Ye-shes-sde, one of the most prolific of the eighth-century Tibetan translators, on the subject of the flexibly-intentional statements. This work, entitled Dgongs Ldem Dgongs Bzhi'i Brjed-byang, is listed in DPA'-BO, Mkhas-pa'i Dga'-ston, vol. 1, p. 402.
[65]SNELLGROVE in his introduction to Hevajra Tantra (vol. 1, pp. 33-34, note 3). The quotation just given continues: "One is then placed in the predicament of explaining away much that is unacceptable, and one manner of doing this is an appeal to symbolism and esoteric interpretation; but these are notions that have no meaning in a genuine tradition." The implication here, although it does seem that he is 'thinking outloud,' would be that a genuine tradition is not self-reflective, that it must be subjected to critical reflections by outsiders before it becomes valid to speak of symbolism and interpretation. This very idea seems to be at the root of the problem. With the definition given, Buddhism was never a genuine tradition, since it always valued critical analysis of the very idea of the 'self'.
[66]The Sūtrālaṃkāra is listed, along with two commentaries, in the Ldan-dkar-ma catalog. For the levels of interpretation, see ANGDU, Tibeto-Sanskrit, pt. 1, pp. 110-112. A reference to the 'elasticity' (ldem-po) of Vajrayāna expressions is also found in the often-cited opening pages of the Sgra-sbyor Bam-po Gnyis-pa (see SNELLGROVE, Indo-Tibetan, p. 443). For the work by Ka-ba Dpal-brtsegs, active in the early ninth-century Tibet, see rikey, Manual, pp. 91-93.
[67]MARTIN, 'Illusion Web'.
[68] Based on 'BA'-RA-BA, Works, vol. 5, p. 230, supplying both citations, which are indeed to be found in the text of the Kāśyapaparivarta Sûtra (at sections 49, 72-73), as I could know by consulting a draft translation by Jonathan Silk (New Haven), an excellent work which will certainly be published someday. See also DALAI LAMA, World, p. 101, where His Holiness makes use of nearly the same metaphor to explain Vajrayāna methods for dealing with negative emotions: "just as a town's manure, although it is dirty, is helpful as fertilizer on a farm, in the same manner the delusions of bodhisattvas can be beneficial for the well-being of others."
[69] SNELLGROVE, Hevajra, introduction, p. 10.