The Complete Works of Sangharakshita, Volume 14: The Eternal Legacy / Wisdom Beyond Words

Sangharakshita The Eternal Legacy / Wisdom Beyond Words

E D I T E D B Y V I DYA D E V I

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foreword

This volume of the Complete Works gives testament to Sangharakshita’s love of language, especially the language of the Buddhist scriptures. It’s a celebration of words that are expressions of ‘the fullness of our spiritual realization’, arising from a mood of inspiration; words spoken out of compassion, for the salvation of living beings; words that cannot fully communicate experience but only point the way; words that lead us to a state beyond our ordinary thinking; words that lead beyond words themselves.

From his very earliest days, words were crucial in shaping the way Sangharakshita thought and what he did with his life. Confined to bed for two years from the age of eight with heart problems, he read voraciously. From his own room, words enabled him to travel the world in his imagination, from Egypt to India, China to Africa. When he was able to walk again he carried on this habit, reading whatever he was given or could find in local bookshops and libraries. When he was fifteen he read H. P. Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, which opened up his emotional and intellectual world, and made him realize he was not a Christian. This gave him ‘a foretaste of that freedom which comes when all obstacles are removed, all barriers broken down, all limitations transcended’. 1 When he was seventeen he read the Diamond Sūtra and the Sūtra of Wei Lang (or Platform Sūtra) and realized not only that he was a Buddhist, but that he had always been one. He said that he joyfully accepted the truth the sūtras expressed, that reading them ‘woke me to the existence f o r e w o r d /

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of something I had forgotten’.2 Many years later, despite over seventyfive years of subsequent Buddhist study and practice, he said that he ‘never felt the need to revise or modify that original insight’, adding, ‘I do realize that is quite a claim to make!’3 His reading continued, and when, due to macular degeneration, he was no longer able to read, his friends read to him.

In an essay included in this volume, The Glory of the Literary World, Sangharakshita quotes the third-century Chinese writer Lu Ji: In a sheet of paper is contained the Infinite, And, evolved from an inch-sized heart, an endless panorama.

The words, as they expand, become all-evocative, The thought, still further pursued, will run the deeper, Till flowers in full blossom exhale all-pervading fragrance, And tender boughs, their saps running, grow to a whole jungle of splendour.

Bright winds spread luminous wings, quick breezes soar from the earth, And, nimbus-like amidst all these, rises the glory of the literary world.4

In quoting this homage to the potential of literature, Sangharakshita indicates his vision of true literature as emerging from a higher state of mind, words as expressing thoughts arising from creative, skilful mental states, characterized (as Buddhists would see it) by love, wisdom, and inspiration. As the words are spoken or written down, they communicate that state of mind to others, and expand upon themselves, leading to a deeper, richer experience of the mind that expressed them. For Sangharakshita, the creative use of words arising from a skilful mind finds its ultimate expression in Buddhavacana, the word of the Buddha, words that lead to the liberation of beings because they are an expression of the Enlightened mind itself.

Sangharakshita’s way of seeing literature is at odds with the modern view, as he acknowledged when he said that poetry seems to have become not ‘the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds’, but, ‘in the hands of some recent practitioners of the art, the record of the worst and most depressing moments of the worst and most deeply disturbed minds’,5 a trend he obviously xii / f o r e w o r d

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steered away from. If literature in general serves many purposes, from imparting knowledge to expressing emotion, positive or otherwise, what Sangharakshita is pointing us to is that Buddhist literature has a specific purpose: to express skilful states of mind, even Enlightened states of mind, and enable living beings to develop those states. The closest he found to his own view of literature is the statement of J. W. Mackail that it is ‘language put to its best purpose, used at its utmost power and with the greatest skill’.6 Sangharakshita hoped that Buddhist literature, serving the highest purpose of all, Enlightenment, would have an effect on literature throughout society and would raise the standard of what literature can be: Buddhist canonical literature is, in fact, literature ‘writ large’, in the sense that by approaching Buddhist canonical literature as literature we in fact endow the concept of literature with a fuller and richer content than it possessed before.7

Sangharakshita’s exploration of Buddhavacana as the zenith of literature is represented in this volume by three texts. The first, The Eternal Legacy: An Introduction to the Canonical Literature of Buddhism, examines the full range of Buddhist literature from its beginnings as an oral tradition, through the earliest written texts, to the later tantras and its continuing expansion into the future. It began as a series of articles for an encyclopaedia that grew too lengthy for inclusion and became a book in its own right. Sangharakshita published it in 1985 to help his students who had found typewritten copies of the same material helpful for their own study.

The Eternal Legacy is complemented by Sangharakshita’s paper, The Glory of the Literary World: Reflections on the Buddhist Canonical Literature, which was presented in August 1985 at Friends House, London. The occasion was the launch of Tharpa Publications, The Eternal Legacy being the first book they published. (Tharpa is now the publishing house of the New Kadampa Tradition, publishing works

by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, but originally it was a general Buddhist publisher.) The paper that Sangharakshita read at the launch offered ‘a few reflections on Buddhist canonical literature as literature’, rather than summarizing the breadth of Buddhist literature as he had done in the book. The reflections consisted of examining definitions of literature in f o r e w o r d /

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the Western tradition, and discussing what treating Buddhist literature as literature would involve.

Wisdom Beyond Words, first published in 1993, is an edited version of transcripts of seminars and talks by Sangharakshita on the literature of the Prajñāpāramitā tradition. The Prajñāpāramitā literature expresses not just wisdom, but supreme wisdom, as summarized in the word prajñāpāramitā itself, prajñā coming from the Sanskrit root jñā, which means ‘to know’, and pra- being an emphatic prefix. This is not just knowledge, but great knowledge, knowledge par excellence. Pāramitā means ‘that which goes beyond’, and in this context refers to supreme knowledge that goes beyond all distinctions, all words and concepts, all ideas and dualities, the wisdom of Nirvāṇa, or Enlightenment, itself.

The Prajñāpāramitā literature is composed of words that lead beyond words, words that undo themselves.

Why might we need words to go beyond words at all? Why not settle for a deep meditation experience without the mediation of language?

Sangharakshita shows us how words enable us to think, to reason, and to question. Applying our rational mind in this way to the Prajñāpāramitā takes us to the edge of our reason. We enter into paradox, where reason breaks down and logic is repudiated, unable to endure ultimate reality.

We need words and concepts, we need to think, in order to get to the point where reason is transcended. We cannot get to that point by intellectual confusion or dispensing with reason prematurely. ‘The point is that you overrun the positions of reason – you don’t retreat from them’.8 The Prajñāpāramitā intentionally uses our intellect to show us how little we really understand. ‘It is not going to make things easy for the logical mind by putting things in a logical form. This sūtra is going to be confusing, irritating, annoying, and unsatisfying – and perhaps we cannot ask for it to be otherwise’.9 It is only when we know how little we understand, when our reason is confounded, that we can abandon our ordinary knowledge, and enter into the wisdom that goes beyond.

In his commentaries on the Prajñāpāramitā literature, Sangharakshita makes no attempt to offer an academic discourse to explain the texts definitively. Above all he evokes the Prajñāpāramitā. We are at times left challenged, confused, and annoyed by the commentary, and at the same time energized and attentive. As in the story of Nāgārjuna, the Mahāyāna sage who is credited with revealing the Prajñāpāramitā, reading Wisdom Beyond Words is like diving into the ocean and finding xiv / f o r e w o r d

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a strange and marvellous submarine world that does not conform to our previous expectations and imaginings. It takes us somewhere new.

The introductory talks to two of the main Prajñāpāramitā texts, the Heart Sūtra and the Diamond Sūtra, were given in 1967 and 1969 respectively. The order Sangharakshita had founded, the Western Buddhist Order, was new, and he was sowing seeds, getting his audience interested in a body of literature that could be explored in more depth at a later date, introducing the forms of the sūtras rather than dwelling extensively on their content. In the Diamond Sūtra, the form is ‘strangely ordinary’, showing that Reality is to be experienced in the midst of ordinary life. From its ordinary beginning, the Diamond Sūtra becomes more and more uncompromising, culminating in ‘a derangement of construction’.10 Reality will not conform to our expectations or to logic.

The Heart Sūtra, we are told, is a drama, a dialogue, even a clash between two main characters: Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva who, out of the depths of Perfect Wisdom, looks down on the world with compassion, and Śāriputra, who in this context represents wisdom in a limited, scholastic sense. Out of their meeting, the lower, intellectual wisdom gives way to the higher, perfected wisdom. Sangharakshita followed up his introduction to the Heart Sūtra with a seminar given in 2007 at Taraloka, a women’s retreat centre in the uk, but unfortunately this was not recorded.

The introduction to the Diamond Sūtra was followed in 1982 by a seminar given in Tuscany on a long ordination retreat for men joining the Western Buddhist Order. This seminar is included in Wisdom Beyond Words along with a seminar on the Ratnaguṇa-saṃcayagāthā which took place in 1976 at Padmaloka retreat centre, and extracts from a seminar on Outlines of Mahāyāna Buddhism by D. T. Suzuki, given in 1974. The seminars evoke the radical and challenging nature of the Prajñāpāramitā literature. The editor of Wisdom Beyond Words was Jinananda, who skilfully wove together text drawn from all these sources to make a coherent whole. According to his editor’s preface, one of those who attended the 1974 seminar was Nagabodhi, then a young Order member, who reported that it was both exhilarating and upsetting to take part. The reader of the edited text should be prepared for a similar experience, for Sangharakshita challenges the very foundation of our knowledge, deconstructing the way we see the world, and the way we understand Buddhism itself. f o r e w o r d /

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The first idea he challenged in the 1976 seminar was the work ethic that pervaded the members of his new Buddhist movement as they worked incredibly hard to get its institutions started. The London Buddhist Centre was being established at this time, and so was the women’s community Amaravati. Two retreat centres in Norfolk, Mandarava and Padmaloka, were just being formed, along with other projects. Sangharakshita called this period ‘the decade of expansion’.11 His message in this context was that wisdom was not a set of ideas to be learned, or an attainment to be gained, but an openness to aesthetic appreciation and maitrī, love. Any work for the Dharma was to be undertaken in this spirit. ‘Perfect Wisdom comes softly, gently, unobtrusively.’12 But the seminar on the Diamond Sūtra told a different story. The sūtra’s full name is the Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā, ‘The Wisdom that Cuts like a Diamond Thunderbolt’, because it cuts through delusion.

Sangharakshita described it as ‘powerful, thrusting, and effective’,13 and he challenged the seminar participants’ understanding of wisdom by saying that the effect of it is to be humiliated. Wisdom in this sense is something so sublime and awe-inspiring that, when we hear it, we are moved to tears. We are ‘smashed’, ‘destroyed’, our conditionings ‘pulverized’.

When reading this volume of the Complete Works it is worth keeping in mind that Sangharakshita, as well as being a scholar and practitioner, was above all a teacher of the Dharma. The best teachers are those who love what they teach, and the fact that Sangharakshita loved the Buddhist literature of all schools comes through in all his teaching.

As he explains in his preface to The Eternal Legacy, he wasn’t trying to give a comprehensive and final commentary, a scholarly work to supersede all others. He was sharing his enthusiasm, opening the doors of the suttas and sūtras and asking us to look inside for ourselves. An epithet for the Buddhist teachings is that they are ehipassiko, ‘of the nature of a personal invitation’. Sangharakshita offers us an invitation to explore the world of Buddhist literature. He gives us some approaches to understanding that literature, some suggestions about practising it, but it is up to us to enter that world ourselves.

Sangharakshita’s overview of Buddhist literature is remarkable not only for his love of the texts, but also for the breadth of his knowledge.

Few Buddhist teachers are able to elucidate the meaning of such a wide xvi / f o r e w o r d

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range of texts from all Buddhist schools. Sangharakshita opens up the entire world of Buddhist literature, from the very earliest teachings of the Pāli canon to the paradoxes and riddles of the Prajñāpāramitā.

This he does with the same sense of ease and wonder, taking each text as pointing to, though not entirely encompassing, the mystery of the mind of Enlightenment. Each text is a crystallization of a particular expression of the Enlightened consciousness, but no words could fully express the fullness of what dwells in that consciousness. Words are not enough. He does not prioritize some texts over others as being more authentic, but sees that each is pointing to Enlightenment in a way that serves or served people from particular cultures and at particular times. This process continues today, and will continue into the future. ‘One may therefore speak of there being in Buddhism a progressive revelation of sacred literature from the inexhaustible reservoir of the Dharma. This revelation, while it indeed culminates in the Tripiṭaka, does not come to an end there, but finds further expression in various other works continuous with and akin to those generally regarded as canonical.’ 14 Buddhist canonical scriptures form a vast collection of texts, and the question facing any practising Buddhist is how to choose what to read and study. Sangharakshita recommends that we choose to read those scriptures we enjoy reading, rather than reading things because we feel we have to. In reading Buddhist literature, we are looking to awaken insight, imagination, and inspiration, not just increase our knowledge. We read Buddhist scriptures because doing so puts us in a positive state of mind. Through our inspiration, we will find what meets our own spiritual needs, and the needs of our time and culture.

To do this means relating our study to our own spiritual lives, and regarding the scriptures as giving us a living message that ultimately will change us. In Wisdom Beyond Words, Sangharakshita says that to understand the Buddhist scriptures is to be shaken by them. ‘You can sometimes read or hear something – whether a Perfection of Wisdom text or something completely different – that has this sort of existential effect on you, so that you are never the same again.’ 15 This is the purpose of reading Buddhist literature: to be changed, to grow, to leave the words behind and enter into the wisdom and compassion that gave birth to them. This is what Sangharakshita offers us in this volume. As he says in his conclusion to The Eternal Legacy, ‘Though f o r e w o r d /

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the door of the Cave of Treasures may not have been flung wide open, it at least now stands ajar, and it is possible for us to obtain a glimpse of the untold wealth that sparkles within.’ 16 Dharmacharini Vajratara Tiratanaloka Women’s Retreat Centre August 2019

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a note from the editor

As Vajratara explains in her foreword, it is several decades since the writings and teachings this volume contains were first produced and published. The Complete Works are intended to gather together the full range of Sangharakshita’s literary work, in the course of which the author himself takes a number of different approaches to some subjects, the work having been produced in the course of more than half a century and in a wide variety of contexts. We are taking the approach of presenting the teachings as originally given, simply correcting errors made in previous editions and adding notes and references to help the reader locate the text in the Buddhist tradition as a whole and the context in which books were written and talks and seminars given. It will be for present and future generations of readers and scholars to make their own assessments of the work; our job is just to make it accessible.

The translation and study of Buddhist texts is of course an evergrowing field. In Sangharakshita’s preface to the second edition of The Eternal Legacy, for example, he lists some of the English translations that had appeared since the first edition was published, and since then a great deal more scholarly work has been done. By happy chance, I discovered that the works on which Wisdom Beyond Words is a commentary have recently been translated by Śraddhāpa, a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order and Sanskrit scholar. I was intrigued to find out how that experience, as both scholar and disciple, has affected his view of Sangharakshita’s commentary, based as it is on translations a n o t e f r o m t h e e d i t o r /

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that are being reassessed in the light of more recent studies. Śraddhāpa has kindly written his illuminating answer to that question, and you will find it as the ‘note on the translation’ which appears on pages 327 to 338 of this volume by way of preface to Wisdom Beyond Words.

Many thanks to Śraddhāpa for this valuable contribution to this volume.

Much gratitude, too, to the translator of the texts discussed here, Dr Edward Conze, whom Sangharakshita described (in his talk on ‘Great Buddhists of the Twentieth Century’) as ‘one of the great translators’.

While I’m on the subject of gratitude, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those involved in the production of this volume: Shantavira for copy-editing, Maitiu for checking Pali and Sanskrit terms, Tarajyoti for typesetting, Kalyanasri for proofreading (lots of diacritics in this one, Kalyanasri!), Satyalila for indexing, Michelle Bernard for overseeing production, and Dhammarati for designing the cover. I also want to give special thanks to Priyananda, who is about to hand on the directorship of Windhorse Publications, for everything he has done to help bring the Complete Works to press. As the volumes are being produced a few at a time, and not in numerical order, there isn’t an obvious place to express appreciation to all of those who are working on them. We’ll have a great jamboree of gratitude for the final volume, but in the meantime, my heartfelt thanks go to everyone who has worked on this and other volumes with such dedication. It feels strange not to be able to express in person the thanks always due to Sangharakshita himself, it being a year now since his death (so this was the last volume I was able to discuss with him in detail) – all the more reason to be grateful for this ‘eternal legacy’.

Vidyadevi Herefordshire, October 2019

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note from the editor

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the eternal legacy An Introduction to the Canonical Literature of Buddhism

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Dedicated to the memory of william gemmell and wong mow lam17

Shakyamuni renounced nobility and devoted his life to Preventing others from falling into ruin.

On earth eighty years, Proclaiming the Dharma for fifty, Bestowing the sutras as an eternal legacy; Today, still a bridge to cross over to the other shore.18 Ryōkan (Japanese hermit monk, circa 1758–1831)

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preface to the first edition

The student of Buddhism will naturally want to know about the sacred books of Buddhism. He will want to know what their names are, how they came into existence, and what they actually contain. Unfortunately, even though Buddhism itself is beginning to be quite well known in the West, no book exists in any Western language able to meet this vital need. There is a history of Indian literature, published more than fifty years ago, and there are several histories of Pāli literature, but there is no one work that gives the student of Buddhism a straightforward and comprehensive account of the Buddhist canonical literature as a whole.

There is no one work devoted exclusively to what tradition terms the Buddhavacana or word of the Buddha.

It is this state of affairs that is responsible for the appearance of The Eternal Legacy. Like its predecessor The Three Jewels (1967), it began life as a series of articles for the Oriya Encyclopaedia that, in the process of writing, considerably outgrew the purpose for which they had been commissioned.19 During the last few years copies of the English draft of these articles have circulated in typewritten form among my own students under the title The Word of the Buddha. Some of these students, finding the work of great help to them in their study of Buddhism, repeatedly urged me to revise it and publish it in book form. For a long time I resisted their friendly importunity. I resisted it for two reasons. Firstly, I was extremely busy, and did not really have time to give the work the thorough revision it needed. Secondly, p r e f a c e t o t h e f i r s t e d i t i o n /

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I was conscious of the shortcomings of the work and hoped that, if I only waited long enough, someone better qualified than myself would produce a work more worthy of its great subject. Since no such work has appeared, and since an introduction to the canonical literature of Buddhism is more urgently needed than ever, I have at last decided to give this sequel to The Three Jewels such revision as I could and send it forth into the world.

In so doing I would like to make it clear that The Eternal Legacy is not meant for scholars, who in any case will have access to the Sanskrit, Pāli, Chinese, Tibetan, and Khotanese texts on which it is ultimately based. Though not (I hope) unscholarly, the work is meant primarily for the student of Buddhism who is not in a position to explore for himself a canonical literature fifty times more extensive than the Bible and two-hundred-and-fifty times more extensive than the Koran. Obviously it has not been possible for me to deal with so vast a mass of material in the way it deserves. It has not even been possible for me to deal with the different canonical texts at a length proportionate to their comparative historical and spiritual significance, with the result that within the limited perspective of this work some of the grandest monuments of Buddhist canonical literature may appear strangely foreshortened. It has also not been possible to indicate the special connections existing between certain Mahāyāna sūtras and certain Far Eastern schools of Buddhist thought and practice. (I have done this, to a limited extent, in A Survey of Buddhism, chapter 3.)20 Despite these and other deficiencies, however, I hope that until such time as it is superseded by a more adequate treatment of its subject The Eternal Legacy will be of use to all students of Buddhism, as well as to students of Religion and students of Literature. Even though one cannot actually enter the Cave of Treasures, the fact that one is able to run a few of its diamonds and rubies through one’s fingers will give one at least an idea of the inexhaustible riches it contains.

Since The Eternal Legacy is a book about Buddhist canonical literature, I have not thought it necessary to give much information about translations from that literature, whether ancient or modern, or in the languages of the Orient or the Occident. Information about the great ‘classical’ Chinese and Tibetan translations has been given only to the extent necessary to determine the age of the original texts, or as a matter of general interest. For the benefit of the more serious 6 / THE

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student, however, I have compiled for each chapter of the book a short bibliography of works pertaining to the subject matter of that chapter and/or modern translations (mainly English) of canonical texts belonging to the class of texts dealt with therein. Such students will, however, notice that the translations listed in the bibliography are not always the same as the ones actually used in The Eternal Legacy. This is because in the case of certain texts, notably the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka and the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa, the old translations are in some respects better than the more recent ones – at least so far as the passages actually quoted are concerned.

An understanding of Buddhism cannot be divorced from a knowledge of the Buddhist sacred books. It is therefore with great satisfaction that I see The Eternal Legacy at last available in book form.

Sangharakshita Padmaloka Norfolk 1985

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preface to the second edition

Since the publication of The Eternal Legacy in 1985 interest in Buddhism has grown steadily in the West. Centres and groups affiliated to this or that branch of the Buddhist tradition have multiplied, and more and more people are practising meditation in one form or other. Enterprising publishing houses on both sides of the Atlantic have moreover continued to bring out books on Buddhism – both popular and scholarly – in everincreasing numbers.

Much of this secondary literature is of a higher standard than would have been the case forty or fifty years ago. Nonetheless, for the serious student of the Dharma an acquaintance with the Buddhist scriptures remains indispensable. The difficulty is that the Buddhist scriptures are vast in extent and varied in content and exist in several canonical languages. Where shall the student begin? How is he to gain an overview of the whole field of what is known as the Buddhavacana or word of the Buddha?

It was with such questions in mind that I wrote The Eternal Legacy.

In the preface to the first edition of the work I expressed the hope that it would soon be superseded by a more adequate treatment of its great subject by someone better qualified than myself. Though I have now waited twenty years, that hope has not been fulfilled. I have therefore decided to bring out this new edition of The Eternal Legacy.

Since the original publication of the work, translations of many Buddhist texts have appeared. Among the more important of these are 8 / THE

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Bhikkhu Bodhi’s Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (1995) and Connected Discourses of the Buddha (2000), Thomas Cleary’s The Flower Ornament Scripture, and some of the volumes published in the Bukkyō Dendō Kyōkai English translation series.

I would like to thank Windhorse Publications for agreeing to bring out a new edition of The Eternal Legacy, and Dharmachari Shantavira in particular, for his help in correcting errors and regularizing diacritics.

May this work help awake students of Buddhism to the unparalleled riches of that legacy!

Sangharakshita Madhyamaloka Birmingham 14 October 2005

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1 buddhism and language

Before essaying a rapid survey of Buddhist canonical literature we must briefly discuss our principal terms. By canonical literature is meant the written records of the Buddhavacana or living word of the Buddha, or what purports to be such, whether original or translated, or what is traditionally regarded as such by the Buddhist community or any section thereof. The whole of the vast derivative literature, in the form of commentaries and expositions, is thus excluded from our purview.

Now the term ‘word of the Buddha’, and therefore the expression ‘canonical literature’ also, can be understood either in a wider primary sense, or in a narrower secondary one, depending upon our definition of the word ‘Buddha’. If we mean by Buddha simply the state of supreme Enlightenment by whomsoever experienced, then by Buddhavacana is to be understood any expression, or better reflection, of this transcend­ ental state in the medium of human speech. If, on the other hand, Buddha means the historic Buddha Gautama, the initiator of the spiritual movement now known as Buddhism, then Buddhavacana will be confined to the literary record of the sayings of this teacher.

Buddhism as a whole tends to oscillate between the two extremes. Even the Theravādins, who are committed to a pedantically narrow and rigid doctrine of Buddhavacana, include in their Tipiṭaka discourses which, though delivered by disciples, are regarded as Buddhavacana inasmuch as the Master had approved them, thus making them, as it were, his own.

Conversely, the Mahāyāna, which in principle maintains that ‘Whatever b u d d h i s m a n d l a n g u a g e /

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is well said is a word of the Buddha’,21 in practice certainly hesitates to accept as such any teaching that conflicts with the scriptures.

In whichever way it may be interpreted, Buddhavacana consists of an assemblage of words in a particular language or languages. This introduces the extremely important question of the relation of Buddhism to language in general which, also, can be understood in various ways. Philosophically, the question is that of the relation between the purely spiritual import of the teaching – ultimately coinciding with the transcendental state of Enlightenment itself – and its conceptualcum-verbal formulations: historically, that of the language spoken by Gautama the Buddha. It will be convenient to deal with these two senses in reverse order, proceeding from the narrower to the broader one.

Modern Theravādins are fond of making such statements as ‘the Buddha taught in Pāli’ or ‘Pāli is the language of the Buddha’.

The problem of what linguistic medium the Buddha adopted in communicating his teaching to mankind does not, however, admit of so straightforward a solution. To begin with, Pāli is not the name of a language at all. The word means, literally, ‘a line, a row (of letters)’ and thus, by extension of its meaning, ‘the (canonical) text’. Early Western students of Theravāda literature, finding in the commentaries expressions such as pālinayena, ‘according to the (canonical) text’, took the word for the name of the language of the texts and, through their writings, gave currency to this misunderstanding. According to Theravāda tradition the Buddha spoke Māgadhī which, since the Tipiṭaka is regarded as a verbally faithful record of his teaching, for them also designates the language of the canonical texts. In uncritical usage, therefore, Pāli and Māgadhī have become synonymous, both of them now being applied by the Theravādins indiscriminately to the Buddha’s personal language and the language of the Tipiṭaka.

But even to say that the Buddha spoke Māgadhī does not really help us. Māgadhī is the language of Māgadha just as Spanish is the language of Spain, and, in the absence of independent literary records in that tongue, to tell us that the Buddha spoke Māgadhī leaves us no wiser than we were before. Though born among the Śākyas, who were feudatory to the kingdom of Kośala, the Buddha spent much time after his Enlightenment in the adjacent kingdom of Māgadha. The language of Māgadha, or ‘Māgadhī’, was therefore undoubtedly his normal means of communication within that area. When in Kośala he must have spoken 12 / THE

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Kośalese. Being enlightened, he was exempt from linguistic prejudice, and his attitude, exemplified by a well-known episode, was tolerant and practical: Two monks [it is related] of fine (cultivated) language and fine (eloquent) speech, came to the Buddha and said: Lord, here monks of various (names, clan-names, races or castes, and families) are corrupting the Buddha’s words by (repeating them in) their own dialects. Let us put them into Vedic (chandaso āropema). The Lord rebuked them: Deluded men, how can you say this? This will not lead to the conversion of the unconverted.… And he delivered a sermon and commanded (all) the monks: You are not to put the Buddha’s words into Vedic. Who does so would commit a sin. I authorize you, monks, to learn the Buddha’s words each in his own dialect [sakkāya niruttiyā].22

As Edgerton points out, it is clear from this passage that in addition to Sanskrit, the language of the upper classes, there existed a number of popular and more or less mutually intelligible Middle Indic dialects (among them Māgadhī and Kośalese), in one or more of which the Buddha himself was accustomed to preach, and that it was in those dialects, therefore, that the monks were to learn, recite, and (according to the Chinese versions) to disseminate the Buddhavacana.23 In this way the teaching, instead of being confined to a Sanskrit-educated elite would, as befitted its universal character, be accessible to all. There was no question of compiling a single standardized version of the teaching in a learned tongue, such a procedure being expressly prohibited. The freedom which the Buddha had allowed his followers promoted, after his parinirvāṇa, the growth of parallel versions of the teaching, first in different local vernaculars and afterwards in different languages. The oldest and most authentic portions of the ‘Pāli’ Tipiṭaka are based, ultimately, on one of these versions, being a literary recension of a Middle Indic version originating not in Māgadha but somewhere in western-central India.

The insistence of the Theravāda that the Buddha spoke Pāli, the language of the Tipiṭaka, stems less from ignorance of historical facts than from a doctrinal misunderstanding. This misunderstand­ing, which is of the essence of the Theravāda, consists in the belief that the import of the teaching is inseparable from its original conceptual-cumb u d d h i s m a n d l a n g u a g e /

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verbal formulations, or what is believed to be such. Hence sweeping pronouncements such as ‘It is impossible to understand Buddhism properly without studying Pāli,’ or ‘How can the Tibetans be real Buddhists? They don’t know Pāli.’

Reinforced by the belief that in the Tipiṭaka they possess the only complete and accurate record of the ipsissima verba of the Buddha, this literalistic attitude has given rise to that spirit of bigotry, exclusiveness, and dogmatic authoritarianism for which some modern Theravādins are notorious. Yet such an attitude is clearly incompatible with a number of passages in the Tipiṭaka itself, including the one quoted. From the latter it is, indeed, obvious that according to the Buddha the spirit of his teaching, far from being dependent on any particular form of words, could be given equally valid expression in languages other than the one in which it had originally been propounded.

Buddhavacana was not to be identified exclusively with any one of its linguistic versions. Hence for Buddhists there can be no scripture, no canon, in the sense of a single finally definitive, universally authoritative text of the teaching such as the Bible constitutes for Christians and the Koran for Muslims. The word of the Buddha, it must be emphasized, has from the beginning been extant in a multiplicity of alternative versions – some more and some less complete – no one of which is a priori more reliable than the rest, or can claim superiority over them on any grounds other than that of greater depth and comprehensiveness of content. This is not to deny that early versions of the teaching, especially when their language approximates to the language used by the Buddha (assuming this to be known), will always possess a special historical significance.

They will obviously be of greater help, moreover, in reconstructing the original form of his teaching than the later versions. What we deny, and deny emphatically, is that by an extraordinary coincidence the language used by the Buddha (whatever it may have been) happens to be intrinsically more capable of conveying his meaning than any other and that, therefore, a knowledge of the letter of the Dharma is indispensable to an understanding of its spirit. Indeed it has been suggested, by a close and critical student of the Tipiṭaka, that the Buddha found the linguistic resources of his day inadequate, being in particular hard pressed for want of a stronger word for ‘will’ than the feeble cetanā.24 Taking this as a starting point, one might even argue that classical Chinese, or modern English, being more highly developed languages, are 14 / THE

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intrinsically more capable of giving expression to the spirit of Buddhism than ancient Middle Indic or medieval Pāli. Some do, of course, maintain that it is impossible to translate Buddhist texts satisfactorily into modern European languages. This is to confuse fidelity to the spirit with capacity to reproduce the letter of the Buddha’s teaching. Moreover, were it in reality impossible to disengage the former from the latter and give it an independent expression it would mean, in effect, that the Buddha’s spiritual experience, far from transcending thought and speech, had on the contrary been conditioned by them. Thus his Enlightenment would be no enlightenment at all.

Contradictions of this sort can be precluded only by recognizing, once and for all – as the Mahāyāna has done – that the spirit of the teaching is capable of expressing itself in a variety of forms, no one of which, however authentic or however excellent, is perfect or final, or can possibly exhibit in full the infinite riches of its transcendental content.

The Buddha himself, as one might have expected, was as keenly aware of the limitations of words in respect of spiritual reality as the poet Marlowe was in respect of sensuous beauty: If all the pens that ever poets held Had fed the feeling of their masters’ thoughts, And every sweetness that inspired their hearts, Their minds, and muses on admired themes; If all the heavenly quintessence they still From their immortal flowers of poesy, Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive The highest reaches of a human wit; If these had made one poem’s period, And all combined in beauty’s worthiness, Yet should there hover in their restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, Which into words no virtue can digest.25

Evidence of the Buddha’s awareness is provided by the list of ten ‘inexpressibles’ (avyākṛtavastu, Pāli avyākatavatthu), according to which it is impossible to declare (1) whether the world is eternal or not, (2) whether the world is finite (in space) or infinite, (3) whether the Tathāgata exists after (physical) death, or does not, or both, or b u d d h i s m a n d l a n g u a g e /

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neither, and (4) whether the soul is identical with the body or different from it.26 Moreover, in communicating his spiritual experience even a mediocre religious teacher has a definite advantage over the poet, however gifted.

By virtue of the very conditions of his art the poet is entirely dependent upon words. The religious teacher, on the other hand, can supplement any deficiencies of language – whether intrinsic or due to his own inadequate command over that medium – by the direct impact of his personality on the hearts and minds of his auditors, whether through looks and gestures, or in ways still more subtle and indefinable. In the case of the Buddha, the perfectly enlightened Teacher of teachers, this impact is out of all proportion to either the number or the actual import of the words spoken. It may, indeed, be entirely independent of words. The Dhyāna (Ch. Chan, Jap. Zen) school, which claims to represent ‘a special transmission outside the scriptures’,27 is believed to have originated from an unverbalized communication of this kind.

According to a late Chinese legend: Śākyamuni was once engaged at the Mount of the Holy Vulture in preaching to a congregation of his disciples. He did not resort to any lengthy verbal discourse to explain his point, but simply lifted a bouquet of flowers before the assemblage, which was presented to him by one of his lay-disciples. Not a word came out of his mouth. Nobody understood the meaning of this except the old venerable Mahākāśyapa, who quietly smiled at the master, as if he fully comprehended the purport of this silent but eloquent teaching on the part of the Enlightened One. The latter perceiving this opened his gold-tongued mouth and proclaimed solemnly, ‘I have the most precious treasure, spiritual and transcendental, which this moment I hand over to you, O venerable Mahākāśyapa!’28

The Tibetan branch of the Vajrayāna, no doubt following Indian traditions, reckons three different ‘lineages’ of the Dharma corresponding to the three different planes on which its transmission may take place.

On the highest, the purely spiritual plane, that of the mind-lineage of the Jinas (or Buddhas), the transmission consists in a communication of spiritual experience directly from the heart or mind of the enlightened 16 / THE

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master to the heart or mind of the disciple without recourse to language or gesture. On the intermediate plane, that of the sign-lineage of the Vidyādharas or ‘Tantric initiates of high spiritual attainment’, it takes place by means of gestures only (according to some, through study of the written, as distinct from the spoken, word). It was in this way, apparently, that the Dharma was transmitted to Mahākāśyapa. Finally, on the third and lowest plane, that of the word-lineage of the ācāryas or ‘teachers profoundly versed in the scriptures’, the Dharma is transmitted orally by means of language. The treasure handed over to Mahākāśyapa and the two higher Vajrayāna lineages represent, in different ways, the living spirit of the Dharma which, unless it vivify the letter, the letter is dead.

In studying the canonical literature it is important to remember that Buddhism is not to be understood by words alone, not even when those words are authentically the Buddha’s. If misunderstandings are to be avoided, it must be studied, not in isolation, but with reference to the tradition of spiritual experience out of which it sprang, to which it returns, and to which it all the time belongs. Moreover, besides the fact that the teaching expresses itself in a multiplicity of forms, it should also be remembered that before its reduction to writing the canonical literature existed in the form of oral tradition.

b u d d h i s m a n d l a n g u a g e /

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