Kamalaśīla and Bhāvanākrama: An Informative Study (Das 2024)
From Bodhicitta
< Articles
Articles/Kamalaśīla and Bhāvanākrama: An Informative Study (Das 2024)| 🤓 Admin Zone 🛠️ hidden to non-admins | |
Kamalaśīla and Bhāvanākrama: An Informative Study
Journal Article
Please note that many items in our library are simply pages that represent a detailed library catalog entry and citation of someone else's work, presentation, or performance. Read our General Disclaimer for more information.
Description
Kamalaśīla, a disciple of Śānarakṣita, was an eighth centurion Indian Buddhist master from Nālandā Mahāvihāra. He was the one who accompanied Śānaraknita to Tibet at the request of King Thrisong Deutsan. He went to Tibet in the eighth century and stayed there for three years. During his stay, the famous philosophical debate known as ‘Samye Debate’ between Kamalaśīla and Hashang Mahāyāna (Moheyan) was held. In the debate, Kamalaśīla negated the distorted view introduced and spread by Hashang. By refuting his wrong views he reformed and established the right views there. As a result, he became famous as a great reformer. Kamalaśīla composed seventeen texts which are preserved in Tengyur Collection. Among them, Bhāvanākrama (Stages of Meditation) is the masterpiece. The text is actually adorned with a set of three texts of meditation, better say compendium of three parts of meditation, written into Sanskrit residing in Samye, the first Buddhist Monastic Institution in Tibet. Later, it was translated to Tibetan by the Indian Paṇḍita Prajñāvarma and Tibetan translator Jñānasena. Though the text was composed in Sanskrit language, but it was not accessible in India for about 10-15 years. In 1939, Prof. G. Tucci had a visit to Tibet and discovered the manuscript of the first chapter of the text in its Sanskrit original from Pökhang Monastery and third chapter from Russia. After that he published them in Roman scripts. Later on, realizing the necessity, importance and preciousness, Late Ven. Gyaltsen Namdol, former restorer and researcher of Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, transcribed the Roman manuscripts into Devanagari. After that he restored the rest part, did the Hindi translation of the entire text and got it published in 1985 from the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Apart from this Sanskrit restoration and Hindi translation several modern Tibetan and western translators have also translated it to English. The text particularly contains the subject matter of meditation, especially calm abiding (śamatha) and special insight (vipaśyanā). In addition, importance of compassion, pāramitā, four means of conversions etc., is also discussed in it.
Citation
Das, Sanjib Kumar. "Kamalaśīla and Bhāvanākrama: An Informative Study." Bodhi International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science 8, no. 3 (2024): 15–20.
Interconnections
3 Scholarship on
[I]n the first Bhāvanākrama, Kamalaśīla sets forth the three forms of wisdom (prajñā): the wisdom derived from learning (śrutamayīprajñā), the wisdom derived from reflection (cintāmayīprajñā), and the wisdom derived from cultivation (bhāvanāmayīprajñā), explaining that the last of these gradually destroys the afflictive obstructions (kleśāvaraṇa) and the obstructions to omniscience (jñeyāvaraṇa). (Source: "Bhāvanākrama." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 113. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
The second Bhāvanākrama considers many of [the] same topics [as the first], stressing that the achievement of the fruition of buddhahood requires the necessary causes, in the form of the collection of merit (puṇyasaṃbhāra) and the collection of wisdom (jñānasaṃbhāra). Both the first and second works espouse the doctrine of mind only (cittamātra); it is on the basis of these and other statements that Tibetan doxographers classified Kamalaśīla as a Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka. (Source: "Bhāvanākrama." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 112–13. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
The third and briefest of the Bhāvanākrama is devoted especially to the topics of śamatha and vipaśyanā, how each is cultivated, and how they are ultimately unified. Kamalaśīla argues that analysis (vicāra) into the lack of self (ātman) in both persons (pudgala) and phenomena (dharma) is required to arrive at a nonconceptual state of awareness. The three texts are widely cited in later Tibetan Buddhist literature, especially on the process for developing śamatha and vipaśyanā. (Source: "Bhāvanākrama." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 112–13. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
