Introduction to the Translation
Jang-gya Röl-bay-dor-jay (lCang-skya Rol-pa’i-rdo-rje), also known as the Second Jang-gya Hu-tuk-tu (Hu-thog-thu) was born in modern Xinghai province in 1717. In 1721 he was recognized as the incarnation of Jang-gya Nga-wang-lo-sang-chö-den (Ngag-dbang-blo-bzang-chos-ldan). At the age of nine he was taken to China, where he began his monastic studies and the study of Manchu, Chinese, and Mongolian. During this period, one of his fellow students was the fourth son of the Yung-cheng emperor who would later become the Ch’ien-lung emperor. In 1735, Jang-gya went to Tibet where he studied under the Seventh Dalai Lama and took his final monastic vows from the Second Panchen Lama. Upon his return to China in 1736, his boyhood friend, now Emperor, appointed him Lama of the Seal, the highest Tibetan clerical post in China. With imperial encouragement, Jang-gya began to compile an extensive Tibetan-Mongol dictionary. Upon its completion, he oversaw the translation and revision of the Mongolian edition of the Indian treatises (bstans ’gyur). Completed in 1749, the translation into Mongolian comprises 108, 016 folios. In 1744, the Emperor and Jang-gya established the Ganden Jin-chak-ling (dGa’-ldan Byin-chags-gling) in Peking, a teaching monastery modeled after the Ge-luk monastic universities of Tibet. Between 1736 and 1746 he composed his best known work, the Presentation of Tenets (Grub mtha’i rnam par bzhag pa). Between 1772 and 1779 Jang-gya supervised the translation of the entire Word of the Buddha (bka’ ’gyur) into Manchu. He died in 1786.1
Jang-gya was a prolific author, his collected works filling seven volumes. In addition to the Presentation of Tenets, his other well-known works include the Song of the View (lTa ba’i mgur), his commentary to the Deeds of Samantabhadra (Bhadracarī), and his commentary to Tsong-kha-pa’s Praise of Dependent Arising (rTen ’brel ’bstod pa).
The Presentation of Tenets begins with discussions of what constitutes a tenet (grub mtha’) and how Buddhists are distinguished from non-Buddhists. He then goes on to set forth briefly the tenets of nine non-Buddhist schools: Ayata (Cārvāka), Sāṃkhya, Brāhmana (which includes Vedānta), Vaiśṇava, Mīmāṃsaka, Aiśvara, Vaiśeṣika, Naiyāyika, and Nirgrantha (Jaina). The second section of the Presentation, which begins with a brief history of the Buddhist doctrine, is devoted to the two Hīnayāna schools, Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika. The third section provides a rather extensive treatment of the Cittamātra school, after dealing briefly with the rise of the Mahāyāna. The final section is devoted to Mādhyamika and concludes with a short presentation of Mantrayāna. Roughly half of the final section (and one fourth of the entire Presentation of Tenets) is translated here, beginning with Jang-gya’s discussion of Mādhyamika in general and proceeding through his presentation of Svātantrika.
In the first chapter (chapter divisions and titles have been interpolated by the translator), Jang-gya provides a brief biography of Nāgārjuna, drawn primarily from Bu-dön’s (Bu-ston, 1290-1364) History of the Doctrine (Chos ’byung). Jang-gya follows the traditional view that Nāgārjuna lived for 600 years. Tibetan scholars are not unaware of apparent disparities among the views set forth in the many works that they attribute to Nāgārjuna, which they account for by explaining that his work encompasses three periods or “great proclamations of the doctrine.” These disparities have caused Western scholars to posit the existence of at least two Nāgārjunas. Jang-gya goes on to list Nāgārjuna’s major works.2 The chapter concludes with a listing of the major works of the followers of Nāgārjuna: Āryadeva, Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka, Candrakīrti, Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, and Śāntideva.
After briefly explaining Bhāvaviveka’s etymology of madhyamaka, Jang-gya devotes the remainder of the second chapter to a discussion of various ways of dividing the Mādhyamika school. The first is the division into the Mādhyamikas of the Model Texts (gZhung phyi mo’i dbu ma pa) and the Partisan Mādhyamikas (Phyogs ’dzin pa’i dbu ma pa) with the former including Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva and the latter, all later Indian Mādhyamikas.
Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva are Mādhyamikas of the Model Texts because their writings either do not make reference to or are ambiguous with respect to the doctrinal positions upon which the later Mādhyamikas parted company. Consequently, their works can be accepted as valid by all later Mādhyamikas, thereby serving as models or prototypes for their systems. Jang-gya states the Ge-luk position that although the writings of Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva cannot be classified as Prāsaṅgika or Svātantrika, their final opinion or thought (dgongs pa) is Prāsaṅgika. That is, although the writings of Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva were commented upon cataphatically by Prāsaṅgikas such as Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti, Svātantrikas such as Bhāvaviveka, and even Yogācārins such as Sthiramati, the correct interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s writings, that is, the interpretation that accurately represents Nāgārjuna’s own view, is that provided by Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti. Tsong-kha-pa says in his Great Exposition of Special Insight (lHag mthong chen mo):
Which of those masters should one follow in seeking the thought of the Superior [Nāgārjuna] and his [spiritual] son [Āryadeva]? Seeing that the great elder [Atīśa] took the system of Candrakīrti to be chief, the great early lamas of these precepts also held that system to be chief. Candrakīrti saw that, from among the commentators on the Treatise on the Middle Way (Madhyamakaśāstra), it was the master Buddhapālita who elucidated completely the thought of the Protector [Nāgārjuna]. He [Candrakīrti] commented on the thought of the Superior, taking that system as his basis, while also taking many good explanations from the master Bhāvaviveka but refuting those that appeared to be slightly incorrect. Because I see the commentaries of those two masters [Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti] to be most excellent in explaining the texts of the Superior and his son, here the thought of the Superior will be delineated following the masters Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti.3
Tsong-kha-pa reached this conclusion after extensive study of the commentaries of Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka and Candrakīrti. It is reported in his biography that his decision to follow the Prāsaṅgika interpretation was confirmed in a vision in which Nāgārjuna and his five chief disciples appeared to Tsong-kha-pa. Buddhapālita blessed Tsong-kha-pa by placing his commentary to the Treatise on the Middle Way on Tsong-kha-pa’s head.
Three ways of dividing the Partisan Mādhyamikas are referred to by Jang-gya. The first and most important is that of Prāsaṅgika and Svātantrika, made from the point of view of the means employed to cause an opponent to understand and accept the Mādhyamika position. Jang-gya digresses to consider what it means to be a founder (shing rta srol ’byed) of a system, an important question since none of the Indian Mādhyamikas called themselves Prāsaṅgikas or Svātantrikas or seem to have considered themselves to be founders or members of a given “system” apart from their being Mādhyamikas. Jang-gya argues that although Buddhapālita was the first to use consequences in commenting on Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti is the founder of Prāsaṅgika. To be the first person to hold a view does make that person a founder. A founder must consciously distinguish his system from that of another. In support of his position that Candrakīrti rather than Buddhapālita founded Prāsaṅgika, Jang-gya notes that Bhāvaviveka discerned no fundamental difference between Buddhapālita and himself; he believed that Buddhapālita’s use of consequences was merely a misuse of autonomous syllogisms. Bhāvaviveka did not conceive of Buddhapālita as establishing a new school. Jang-gya concludes that it is therefore difficult to hold that Buddhapālita is the founder of Prāsaṅgika.
Two other ways of dividing the Partisan Mādhyamikas are mentioned by Jang-gya. The first is into those who assert the existence of external objects (bahyārtha, phyi don) and those who do not. This division is not coextensive with Prāsaṅgika and Svātantrika; the Prāsaṅgikas and Sautrāntika-Svātantrikas hold that external objects exist conventionally whereas the Yogācāra-Svātantrikas assert that they do not. This division was current in Tibet prior to that of Prāsaṅgika and Svātantrika, which only came into use during the period of the second dissemination (phyi dar). During the earlier dissemination (snga dar), the translator Ye-shay-day (Ye-shes-sde, c. 800) referred to the Sautrāntika-Mādhyamikas, who assert the conventional existence of external objects, and the Yogācāra-Mādhyamikas who teach that external objects do not exist conventionally.4
The third and most nebulous of the divisions is that into the Mādhyamikas who propound an establishment of illusion through reasoning (māyopamādvayavādin, sgyu ma rigs grub pa) and the Mādhyamikas who propound a thorough non-abiding (apratiṣṭhānavādin, rab tu mi gnas pa). These terms were used by Advayavajra in the eleventh century.5 According to some Tibetan scholars, those who propound an establishment of illusion through reasoning assert that an ultimate truth is a composite of two things—a basis, such as the aggregates, and the appearance of that basis’ lack of true existence. This composite is established by an inferential reasoning consciousness. This position is ascribed to the Yogācāra-Svātantrikas. Tsong-kha-pa rejects this, arguing that there is no Mādhyamika who holds that such a composite is an ultimate truth; an ultimate truth is a non-affirming negative that is the mere lack of true existence and that appears non-dualistically to a wisdom consciousness in meditative equipoise. There is no appearance of the basis that is empty—a conventional truth—whatsoever.
Tsong-kha-pa also rejects the definition of a thoroughly nonabiding Mādhyamika as one who asserts that emptiness is the mere elimination of elaborations. It is correct that emptiness is said to be free from elaborations (prapañca, spros pa) in the sense that all webs of the conception of true existence are pacified in the face of the wisdom realizing emptiness. However, it is not the eliimination of all elaborations, that is, it is not the absence of everything. Tsong-kha-pa rejects the view that emptiness is the mere negation of all qualities and cannot be known by any consciousness. If this is the position of the thoroughly non-abiding Mādhyamikas, there are no such Mādhyamikas. Tsong-kha-pa thus rejects the use of the terms “establishment of illusion through reasoning” and “thoroughly non-abiding” as they were defined by earlier Tibetan scholars.6
Jang-gya begins the third chapter with an important question: How do the myriad schools of Tibetan Buddhism correspond to the classical Indian Mahāyāna schools of Cittamātra and Mādhyamika? Specifically, he asks if all the sects of Tibetan Buddhism are either Cittamātra or Mādhyamika. If so, why are there so many different names? If not, how can they be proponents of the Mahāyāna? Jang-gya’s “brief’ answer constitutes the remainder of the chapter.
He begins by noting that the Tibetan sects do not take their names from their philosophical views; some are named after the place where they originated, some are named for a particular teacher, and some are named for a practice emphasized by the school. Jang-gya goes on to survey the important sects and masters from the time of Śāntarakṣita in the eighth century to Tsong-kha-pa in the fourteenth century in an attempt to classify their philosophical views as Cittamātrin, Svātantrika, or Prāsaṅgika. Although this if often difficult to determine with certainty, his general conclusion is that the Svātantrika position dominated during the period of the first dissemination due to the influence of Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla and that the Prāsaṅgika position prevailed from the time of the second dissemination onward due to the efforts of Atīśa, Ba-tsap-nyi-ma-drak, and their followers.
The chapter concludes with a paean to Tsong-kha-pa, revealing Jang-gya’s Ge-luk perspective.
In the fourth chapter, Jang-gya defines Mādhyamika and explains why only the Mādhyamika school truly holds to the middle way; all other schools fall to one or both of the two extremes of ultimate existence or utter non-existence.
Only the Mādhyamikas are capable of asserting that all phenomena are empty of ultimate existence while upholding the conventional, valid existence of all phenomena. Jang-gya argues that dependent arising means being empty of true existence and vice versa. That is, something that lacks ultimate existence cannot be independently established; it must be dependently established, a dependent arising. Furthermore, something that is a dependent arising cannot be ultimately established; it must be empty of ultimate existence. The very phenomena that are empty of ultimate existence are also dependent arisings and validly existent. This is what is meant by the compatibility of emptiness and dependent arising.
The chapter closes with a consideration of why the Svātantrikas are considered Mādhyamikas if they assert that all phenomena exist by way of their own character (svalakṣaṇa, rang gi mtshan nyid), something that the Prāsaṅgikas reject. Jang-gya explains that although the emptiness posited by the Svātantrikas is less subtle than that of the Prāsaṅgikas, it is nonetheless accurate and universal, applying to all phenomena. This cannot be said for the emptiness asserted by the Cittamātrins, for example. The Svātantrikas are able to uphold the compatibility (as they understand it) of emptiness and dependent arising and are able to refute the two extremes of true existence and utter non-existence. They therefore fulfill Jang-gya’s definition of Mādhyamika.
The fifth chapter is devoted to a brief consideration of scriptural interpretation in Mādhyamika. The Mahāyāna philosophical schools accepted a vast body of literature as the word of the Buddha (buddha-vacana, sangs rgyas kyi bka’) and consequently were faced with the problem of interpreting a formidable corpus of sacred scripture. Their task was complicated by a number of factors. First, it is a fundamental tenet of Buddhism that just as a physician does not prescribe the same medicine to cure all maladies, the Buddha did not teach the same thing to everyone; rather he taught doctrines appropriate to the interests and capacities of his listeners. Furthermore, his approach seems to have been facultive rather than dogmatic with regard to the acceptance of his teachings. It was the conviction of the various philosophical schools of Indian Buddhism that the Buddha was not an agnostic, that the antinomic character of his teaching was only apparent, and that his final view could be ascertained. Disagreements concerning that final view provides, to a great extent, the raison d’etre for the Mahāyāna schools in India.
Tsong-kha-pa takes this question of how to determine which sutras are of definitive meaning (nītārtha, nges don) and which sutras require interpretation (neyārtha, drang don) as the starting point of his Essence of the Good Explanations (Legs bshad snying po). This work is Jang-gya’s source here, where he focuses primarily on the Mādhyamikas’ use of interpretative principles provided in the Teaching of Akṣayamati (Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra) The principles are rather straightforward. Those statements in sutra whose subject is emptiness are definitive and those statements whose subject is a conventional truth require interpretation. The Svātantrikas and Prāsaṅgikas both accept this criterion but differ slightly over how the statements concerning emptiness must be expressed.7
The structure and practice of the path to enlightenment are generally dealt with only cursorily in the Ge-luk tenets texts, the structure of the path being delineated in great detail in monastic textbooks based on Haribhadra’s two major commentaries to Maitreya’s Ornament for Clear Realization (Abhisamayālaṃkāra) and the practice of the path set forth in a varity of “stages of the path” (lam rim) and “training of the mind” (blo sbyong) literatures. Jang-gya’s presentation of the general practice of the Mādhyamika path in the sixth chapter is characteristically brief, employing a vocabulary well-known to his audience. He speaks of beings of the three capacities, a typology employed by Atīśa in his Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment (Bodhipathapradīpa). Beings of small capacity are those persons who seek happiness within the cycle of birth and death. Those of middling capacity seek their own liberation from rebirth, the Hīnayāna motivation. Beings of great capacity seek enlightenment for all beings. He emphasizes the importance of the six perfections of giving, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom. The progression to enlightenment, whether Hīnayāna or Mahāyāna, takes place over five paths. The first is the path of accumulation (saṃbhāramārga, tshogs lam) which, in the case of the Mahāyāna, begins with the creation of the altruistic aspiration to achieve Buddhahood for the welfare of all sentient beings. The second path, the path of preparation (prayogamārga, sbyor lam), begins with the initial inferential realization of reality (with the various schools of tenets disagreeing as to the nature of that reality and by whom it is realized). The path of seeing (darśanamārga, mthong lam), the third path, marks the initial direct realization of selflessness. On the Bodhisattva path it also corresponds to the beginning of the first of the ten Bodhisattva grounds (bhūmi, sa). From this point on, the path is comprised of periods of meditative equipoise (samāhita, mnyam bzhag) in direct realization of selflessness and periods of subsequent attainment (pṛṣṭhalabdha, rjes thob), states following direct realization devoted to the accumulation of the perfections other than wisdom. These periods occur over the course of the fourth path, that of meditation (bhāvanāmārga, sgom lam), which culminates with the attainment of the fruition on the path of no more learning (aśaikṣamārga, mi slob lam), the fruition of the Mahāyāna path being Buddhahood, of the Hīnayāna path the state of an Arhat.
As mentioned, the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna paths are laid out in far greater detail in other Ge-luk commentaries and textbooks. Here Jang-gya follows a format that occurs in other tenet texts, drawing a correspondence among the bases, paths, and fruitions. The bases are the two truths, the paths are wisdom and method, and the fruitions are the Truth and Form Bodies of a Buddha.
The chapter on the path concludes Jang-gya’s general presentation of Mādhyamika.
Before turning to the presentation of the specific assertions of the two branches of Svātantrika, Jang-gya discusses the etymology of the terms svatantra and svātantrika and the reasons why this particular group of Mādhyamikas came to be designated in Tibet as the Svātantrika or Autonomy school. He provides a summary of the Ge-luk position as to why the use of autonomous syllogisms (svatantra prayoga, rang rgyud kyi sbyor ba) implies the assertion that phenomena exist by way of their own character (svalakṣana, rang gi mtshan nyid).
Jang-gya’s eighth chapter is devoted to a long exposition of Bhāvaviveka’s refutation of the Yogācāra, drawn from the fifth chapter of his Essence of the Middle Way (Madhyamakahṛdaya) and the autocommentary The Blaze of Reasoning (Tarkajvālā). Bhāvaviveka lived in a period of lively debate among the various Buddhist schools and seems to have been familiar with a number of Yogācāra texts, notably the Discrimination of the Middle and Extremes (Madhyāntavibhāga). In the fifth chapter of the Essence of the Middle Way and Blaze of Reasoning, he launches a strident attack on the Yogācāra, dealing with each of their major assertions in turn. Bhāvaviveka sets the tone for the chapter in the first stanza (not included in Jang-gya):
Others, boasting of their wisdom,
Proud of their own system say,
“Entry into the ambrosia of reality
Is set forth well by the Yogācārins.”8
Bhāvaviveka then goes on to refute the basic assertions of the Yogācārins: the three natures, the mind-basis-of-all (ālayavijñāna, kun gzhi mam shes), the non-existence of external objects, the existence of self-knowing awareness (svasaṃvedana, rang rig), and the presence of the doctrine of mind-only in the teachings of the Buddha. A thorough exposition and analysis of Bhāvaviveka’s arguments would require a separate monograph. He contends that the Yogācārins’ assertions are contradicted by scripture and reasoning, their assertions falling to one or the other extreme. But he also argues that the Yogācāra positions are contradicted by worldly renown; displaying a pragmatism evident in all of his writings, he finds the idea that external objects do not exist to be counterintuitive and hence untenable.
Jang-gya turns in the ninth chapter to the meaning of ultimate existence, the object of negation for the Svātantrikas. Jang-gya seeks to distinguish between something being ultimate and something being ultimately existent. The wisdom consciousness of hearing, thinking, or meditation is an ultimate, according to Bhāvaviveka, because it is the highest consciousness. It also exists. Emptiness is the object found by such analysis and is the ultimate truth. For something to ultimately exist, it must be able to withstand analysis by such a consciousness and it is Bhāvaviveka’s position that nothing can withstand such analysis. The mode of that analysis is the subject of the tenth chapter, in which Jang-gya summarizes the various reasonings used by Bhāvaviveka to prove that nothing ultimately exists.
In chapter 11, Jang-gya takes up the general topic of the two truths and considers a number of primary and secondary issues such as the relationship of ultimate truths and conventional truths, the division of ultimate truths into actual and concordant ultimates, the question of whether the selflessness of persons (pudgalanairātmya, gang sag gi bdag med) is an ultimate truth for Bhāvaviveka, the question of whether true cessations (nirodhasatya, ’gog bden) are ultimate truths, and the Svātantrika division of conventional truths into the real and the unreal. All of these issues have been discussed in chapter 6 of Part I of this work.
Jang-gya concludes his presentation of the Sautrāntika-Svātantrika in chapter 12 with a brief discussion of their uncommon tenets concerning the structure of the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna paths. As discussed at some length in chapter 3 of Part I, Bhāvaviveka identifies the conception of a self of persons (pudgalātman, gang sag gi bdag) as the chief of the afflictive obstructions (kleśāvarana, nyon sgrib) preventing liberation from suffering and rebirth. He identifies the conception of a self of phenomena (dharmātman, chos kyi dbag) as the chief of the obstructions to omniscience (jñeyāvaraṇa, shes sgrib) preventing the attainment of Buddhahood. Persons traversing either of the Hīnayāna paths must simply abandon the afflictive obstructions to achieve nirvana; Bodhisattvas must abandon both types of obstructions to become Buddhas. Jang-gya alludes to differences among the Sautrāntika-Svātantrikas, the Yogācāra-Svātantrikas, and the Prāsaṅgikas regarding the manner in which the two obstructions are abandoned. According to both branches of Svātantrika, Bodhisattvas begin to abandon both obstructions upon the attainment of the path of seeing and the first Bodhisattva ground. The Sautrāntika-Svātantrikas assert that Bodhisattvas complete the abandonment of the afflictive obstructions at the end of the seventh ground and proceed to then abandon the remainder of the obstructions to omniscience, whereas the Yogācāra-Svātantrikas assert that both obstructions are finally abandoned simultaneously with the achievement of Buddhahood. Differing from both of these views are the Prāsaṅgikas, who hold that Bodhisattvas work exclusively to abandon the afflictive obstructions during the first seven grounds and then turn their efforts toward the abandonment of the obstructions to omniscience on the eighth, ninth, and tenth grounds. Jam-yang-shay-ba, in his Great Exposition of Tenets (Grub mtha’ chen mo), provides Indian sources to support this differentiation.
Jang-gya begins his section on the Yogācāra-Svātantrikas with a discussion of the role played by the mind-only view in Śāntarakṣita’s philosophy. The syncretic character of the Yogācāra-Svātantrika, the last great development of Indian Buddhist philosophy, is evident here. Śāntarakṣita took a far more accomodating view of the Yogācārins’ position and their interpretations of the sutras that seem to teach mind-only than did Bhāvaviveka who, in his strident critique of Yogācāra, had gone to some length to demonstrate that the non-existence of external objects was not the message of any sutra. Candrakīrti took a less radical view. He says in the Supplement to the Middle Way (Madhyamakāvatāra, VI.96):
The Buddhas said that when there are no objects of consciousness
One easily finds the refutation of consciousness.
If there are no objects of consciousness, the refutation of consciousness is established.
Therefore, initially objects of consciousness are refuted.
The autocommentary says:
The Supramundane and Victorious Buddhas cause their disciples to approach non-inherent existence (niḥsvabhāva, rang bzhin med) gradually. Because it is a method for entering into reality (dharmatā, chos nyid), they talk initially about giving and so forth so that those accumulating merit may enter easily into reality. In the same way, the refutation of objects of consciousness is a method for fully understanding selflessness. Therefore, the Supramundane Victor spoke first only of the refutation of objects of consciousness so that those who understand the selflessness of objects of consciousness might easily enter into the selflessness of consciousness. Sometimes those who have understood that objects of consciousness do not inherently exist will come to realize that consciousness does not inherently exist through only [the teaching that objects do not inherently exist] itself; sometimes they will come [to realize it] by being taught just a little more. [Therefore] just the refutation of objects of consciousness is spoken of at first.9
Hence, rather than denying the presence of the doctrine of mind-only in the Mahāyāna sutras, Candrakīrti upholds its value as a propaedeutic for the understanding of the emptiness of inherent existence, the final nature of reality. Jam-yang-shay-ba seems to suggest that Śāntarakṣita was influenced by Candrakīrti’s explanation in the formulation of the Yogācāra-Svātantrika view.10 Indeed, Śāntarakṣita seems to echo Candrakīrti’s position when he says in the Ornament for the Middle Way (92):
The non-existence of external objects should be known
Through relying on mind-only.
[Then] relying on this [Mādhyamika] mode, it should be known
That this [mind] too is completely selfless.
Jang-gya discerns a threefold progression. First, one understands the selflessness of persons, the reality set forth in the Hīnayāna; second, one realizes the non-existence of external objects taught in Yogācāra; finally, one realizes the final view, the Mādhyamika view, that consciousness also is empty.
Jang-gya raises the knotty problem of whether Śāntarakṣita is being true to the Mādhyamika tradition, that is, following Nāgārjuna, in his assertion that external objects do not exist. Whereas Jang-gya earlier had called Nāgārjuna a Mādhyamika of the Model Texts because he did not express a clear position on such questions as the existence or non-existence of external objects, here he provides a stanza from the Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning and construes it as evidence that Nāgārjuna denies the existence of the physical elements as objects separate from consciousness.11
In the fourteenth chapter, Jang-gya discusses the object of negation for the Yogācāra-Svātantrikas, to the extent that it can be discerned from a passage from Kamalaśīla’s Illumination of the Middle Way. He provides a lengthy analysis of the metaphor of the magician’s illusion to demonstrate what it means for something “to exist by way of its own mode of subsistence which is established from the object’s own side without being posited through the power of appearing to a non-defective awareness.” This phrase has been unpacked in chapter 4 of Part 1. Ultimate existence is a mode of being independent of a perceiving consciousness. Conventional existence must then be dependent. In the phrase, “through the power of appearing to a non-defective awareness,” “appearing to” implies the existence of some objective status to which consciousness passively assents. A non-defective consciousness can be either a sense consciousness or a conceptual consciousness that is free from superficial and deep causes of error. Only valid consciousnesses can posit the existence of objects, objects about which those consciousnesses are, by definition, non-mistaken; what appears to such consciousnesses conventionally exists. Thus, two elements can be identified as necessary for positing the conventional existence of an object: the object itself and the positing consciousness; through the appearance of the object to a non-defective consciousness, the object may be said to attain its mode of being. A phenomenon gains its entity through the force of its appearance to a non-defective mind; its objective mode of subsistence does not exist independently of the consciousness to which it appears. Thus an object’s objective mode of being inheres in the object itself but is dependent on a mind to perceive it.
Jang-gya’s lengthy delineation of the reasoning of the lack of being one or many in chapter 15 is one of two largely original contributions he makes to the Ge-luk study of Svātantrika, the other being his summary of Bhāvaviveka’s refutation of Yogācāra. Much of the rest of the Svātantrika chapter is a compilation and elaboration of statements made by Tsong-kha-pa in a variety of works.
He uses his brief chapter on the two truths in Yogācāra-Svātantrika to discuss the division of that school into the those that accord with the True Aspectarians (satyākāravāda, rnam bden pa) and False Aspectarians (alīkākāravāda, rnam rdzun pa), two subschools of Yogācāra.12 Jang-gya also uses this chapter to comment briefly on a number of miscellaneous topics.
Jang-gya concludes the section on Yogācāra-Svātantrika in chapter 17 with a discussion of the paths and fruitions. Haribhadra, whose delineation of the structure of the path is considered orthodox by the Ge-luk-bas, is classified by them as a Yogācāra-Svātantrika. As with the Sautrāntika-Svātantrikas, Jang-gya’s description of the path is extremely brief, touching on a number of disconnected points of controversy. A full description of the Yogācāra-Svātantrika path would require a separate volume. There are several major points that may be mentioned here. The first is the alignment of the three selflessnesses with the three paths. According to Haribhadra, Hearers meditate on the selflessness of persons, Solitary Realizers meditate on the absence of a difference of entity of subject and object, and Bodhisattvas meditate on the emptiness of true existence. Second, toward the end of his Ornament for the Middle Way, Śāntarakṣita draws a distinction that was later incorporated into Tibetan “stages of the path” (lam rim) literature, that of Bodhisattvas of sharp faculties and Bodhisattvas of dull faculties. The former come to an understanding of emptiness before vowing to free all sentient beings from suffering while the latter are initially moved by the sufferings of others, vow to free them, and only later seek the knowledge of reality.
Jang-gya’s presentation of Svātantrika is extremely rich; it is impossible here to elaborate on all of his points. The major issues in the Ge-luk view of Svātantrika have been considered in Part 1 of this study. The following translation is provided to document the structure, method, and style of the work of one of the greatest Tibetan doxographers.
There are two available editions of the Presentation of Tenets, one published by the Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Press in Sarnath, India in 1970 and the other edited by Lokesh Chandra and published by Sharada Rani in New Delhi in 1977; they differ only in scribal errors. Both editions have been used in the translation of the Svātantrika-Mādhyamika chapter that follows. Page numbers in the notes refer to the Sarnath edition.