William Montgomery McGovern - A Manual of Buddhist Philosophy

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Trbners Oriental Series

BUDDHISM
In 16 Volumes

I	The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang
Samuel Beal
II	Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World Vol I
Samuel Beal
III	Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World Vol II
Samuel Beal
IV	Texts from the Buddhist Canon
Samuel Beal
V	The Life or Legend of Gaudama Vol I
P Bigandet
VI	The Life or Legend of Gaudama Vol II
P Bigandet
VII	The Life of Gotama the Buddha
E H Brewster
VIII	The Milinda-Questions
Mrs Rhys Davids
IX	Buddhist Birth Stories
T W Rhys Davids
X	Life and Works of Alexander Csoma de Krs
Theodore Duka
XI	Early Buddhist Monachism
Sukumar Dutt
XII	Chinese Buddhism
Joseph Edkins
XIII	A Manual of Buddhist Philosophy
William Montgomery McGovern
XIV	Udnavarga
W Woodville Rockhill
XV	The Life of the Buddha
W Woodville Rockhill
XVI	Tibetan Tales
F Anton von Schiefner

First published in 1923 by
Routledge, Trench, Triibner & Co Ltd

Reprinted in 2000, 2002 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1923 William Montgomery McGovern

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers,

The publishers have made every effort to contact authors/copy right holders
of the works reprinted in Triibners Oriental Series.
This has not been possible in every case, however, and we would
welcome correspondence from those individuals/companies
we have been unable to trace.

These reprints are taken from original copies of each book. In many cases
the condition of these originals is not perfect. The publisher has gone to
great lengths to ensure the quality of these reprints, but wishes to point
out that certain characteristics of the original copies will, of necessity, be
apparent in reprints thereof.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

A Manual of Buddhist Philosophy
ISBN 0-415-24480-3
Buddhism: 16 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-24286OC
Trbners Oriental Series
ISBN 0-415-23188-4
ISBN 978-1-136-37916-1 (ePub)

CONTENTS

PARTICULAR AUTHORITIES SELECTED FOR THE
PRESENT WORK

2. THE LAW OF CAUSALITY APPLIED TO THE
INDIVIDUAL

THE LAW OF CAUSALITY APPLIED TO THE
ELEMENTS OF EXISTENCE

A LL forms of Buddhism, however divergent, claim to have but three objects of worship, viz. The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sagha. The first is the founder of the faith, the second the teaching which he gave, and the third the order which he founded. Regarding each of the Ratnas or jewels, as they are called, an enormous amount of speculation has grown up, with many different opinions concerning the proper method of interpretation.

Questions concerning the Sagha are largely dealt with in the various versions of the Vinaya Piaka, or books of Canon law, and their later commentaries. These are concerned with the proper organization of the monasteries, the rites which should accompany the reception of men and women into the order, and the food, clothing, and furniture which should be used by them afterwards. All these questions lie entirely outside the scope of philosophy, and hence outside the scope of our present undertaking.

Speculations concerning the Buddha, or, rather, the Buddhas, together with less elevated beings such as Pratyeka Buddhas and Arhats, have played an even greater part in Buddhist history, for fierce controversies have been waged concerning the nature and powers of each type of Being, and the means by which such rank might be achieved. But as all such problems are more closely associated with religion than with philosophy, they are equally foreign to our present work.

The dharma or law taught by tike Buddha to his disciples and thence transmitted to later generations who gradually modified and reinterpreted the older doctrines, was the basis upon which Buddhist philosophy, properly so called, was later erected. Primitive Buddhism was much more a simplereligious and ethical code than a metaphysical attempt to solve the problems of the universe, but as time elapsed and later commentators, delighting in subtlety, strove to further truth and enhance their own reputations by applying the old formulae to a rational explanation of the whole universe, the old Dharma was supplemented by a new Abhidharma. Abhidharma is usually called metaphysic, but the first Abhidharma works were but dogmatic treatises, giving a would-be systematic classification of the older doctrinal categories, gradually fitting in others as these came to be formulated.

As yet there was little formal logic or even rational argument from universally accepted data. The basis of truth was considered to be the body of doctrines laid down by an omniscient teacher, and the most that a commentator could do was to give a new and better arrangement to the old dharma-paryyas, and to bring out the ideas which were considered to be inherent in the older statements. Consequently the old or Canonical Abhidharma is more to be ranked with what we should call theology (save that Buddhism theologized without a thesis) than with philosophy.

Controversy between the various Buddhist sects necessitated the introduction of more abstract reasoning, but appeal could still be made to the stras, or, at least, to those stras which were held to be sacred by all the schools, so that the most important developments of Buddhist philosophy were made when the Buddhist speculators came into violent conflict with fully developed alien philosophies. This took place, as far as India is concerned, between the first and the fifth centuries A.D., and in China between the fifth and ninth centuries A.D.

Beginning with Buddhaghosa, the Pali school of Buddhism in Ceylon and later in Burma made many important doctrinal additions to the Buddhist lore, but for the most part the Pali school remained sufficiently sheltered to make it predominantly theological rather than philosophical in tone.

tradition of India proper, we must look to the Sarvstivdin school, including therein the Mahvibha, and the works of Vasubandhu and Saghabhadra. For the Mahynists of India we have the great representatives of the two principal Mahyna schools, the Mdhyamika and the Yogcrin systems, including Ngrjuna, rya Deva, and Candragomin for the former, and Asaga, Vasubandhu, Dignga, Dhaimapla, and Dharmakrtti for the latter. The mainsprings of the Chinese Buddhist philosophy are to be found in the writings of the patriarchs of the Tien Tai and Hua Yen schools.

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