Mūlamadhyamakavṛttiprasannapadānāma
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Description
If we proceed from the premise that an act of reading always approaches the text from a particular vantage point—that reading cannot truly occur in the abstract or encompass the text fully—we will expect to encounter particular or even idiosyncratic instances of reading. In such particular acts of reading, questions of who the readers are, the assumptions and points of view that they bring to the text, and how they interpret the text all become relevant.
When we turn to Indian Buddhist sūtras, even while much of the corpus appears to consist of texts without recorded histories of use from the land of their origin, instances of reading can still be recovered from several kinds of sources. In this connection, Jonathan Z. Smith has warned historians of religion against what he calls "ultimate acts of imperialism," which he describes as religion scholars' "removal of all rights to interpretation from the native,
and the arrogation of all such rights to themselves."[2] In the same influential essay, Smith emphasizes the utility of traditional exegeses in aiding religion scholars' work of interpreting canonical texts and charting their creative uses.
Dozens of sūtra commentaries in Tibetan and Chinese translation and the Pāli exegeses of the Sutta Piṭaka have preserved for us readings of the sūtras from South Asia. Further traces of reading can be recovered from sūtra citations, scriptural anthologies, and
even occasional incorporation of isolated verses and sentences from sūtras into ritual texts. Some of these sources—especially citations and anthologies—require careful analysis before we can obtain usable information about reading practices. Many of these texts also show that readings discernible in them have been filtered through particular perspectives. The interpretations of sūtras in the commentaries are normative and thus sometimes not truly indicative of typical acts of reading; śāstras' uses of sūtras in the form of citation may reveal more of the former texts' own interest. Scriptural anthologies arrange sūtra passages according to their own organizing principles or for purposes of religious programs. However, as elitist or less than transparent as they might be, these sources still contain some of the best evidence we have of how sūtras were read in premodern South Asia.
This paper will focus on sūtra citation in the śāstras as a source for the study of reading practices in premodern South Asia. Immediately, the situation of sūtra passages in the context of śāstras and their commentaries brings the relationship between sūtras and śāstric texts into focus.[3] The setting of a citation presumes at least some degree of śāstric mediation in the reading of the sūtra passages. While it is necessary to be particularly conscious about this śāstric angle of vision and its implications, one can still detect reading habits that lie beyond śāstras' doctrinal concerns. As the selected sūtra passages are brought to bear on the contents of a śāstra or a śāstra commentary, the features of the sūtra's language also become particularly visible (arguably in the eyes of both writers and readers), set in relief against the environment of the śāstric texts. For our purposes, the language of sūtras encompasses not only their linguistic peculiarities but their rhetorical and literary features as well.
A further factor that could contribute to a Buddhist's sūtra-reading experience is his or her view on the nature of language. In the specific case that I have selected for this study, a Madhyamaka articulation of the philosophy of language addresses both the nature of a buddha's enlightenment and the intimate connection between language and conventional truth (saṃvṛtisatya), or the world as it is experienced by ordinary beings. Using examples of citation by the Madhyamaka writer Candrakīrti, this paper will demonstrate that it is the cumulative effect of the sūtras' language that emerges most distinctively in the environment of the śāstric text, although selected contents from the sūtras also contribute to the formation of new philosophical and theological ideas. (Li, preliminary remarks, 231–33)
Notes
- I would like to thank the Mangalam Research Center for hosting me during "The Language of the Sūtras" conference in June 2015, when the initial version of this essay was discussed. Professor Luis O. Gómez nurtured and supported me around the time I finished my dissertation and began a career as a junior scholar. This study on the citations from the Samādhirāja-sūtra is a tribute to him, who contributed himself to an earlier fine work on the first four chapters of the sūtra. Natalie Gummer's editorial assistance has significantly improved the presentation of the materials. The revision of this essay was also supported by the Major Program of National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 17ZDA235).
- Jonathan Z. Smith, "Sacred Persistence: Toward a Redescription of Canon," in Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 43.
- I use the phrase "śāstric texts" to refer to both śāstras and their commentaries. The similarities between these two groups of texts in contents and methods warrant placing them in the same category. One may argue that sūtra commentaries also share many features with śāstras and their commentaries, at least in methods, but they are excluded here because they are primarily concerned with the contents of the sūtras that they comment on.
