Richard H. Jones (Translator) - Indian Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy after Nagarjuna. Plain English Translations and Summaries ofthe Essential Works of Aryadeva, Rahulabhadra, Buddhapalita, and Bhavaviveka

Indian Madhyamaka Buddhism after Nagarjuna / translations withcommentaries by Richard H. Jones
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1460969892
ISBN-10: 1460969898
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Four Hundred Verses on Yogic Deeds.......................... 12
Summary of One Hundred Verses and its Commentary............. 57
Rahulabhadra, A Song in Praise of Perfected Wisdom................. 115
Buddhapalita, Summaries of Selections fromCommentary on NagarjunasFundamental Verses of the Middle Way......................... 121
Bhavaviveka, Summary of the Meaning of the Middle Way............. 142
Selections from Verses on the Heart of the Middle Way........... 146

The Death of Aryadeva.......................................... 187
Buddhapalitas Contribution to Madhyamaka Philosophy............. 188
Bhavavevikas Innovations....................................... 195

This book is the first of two companion volumes to my Nagarjuna: Buddhisms Most Important Philosopher (Jones 2010). It presumes that the readeris familiar with the earlier book and will contain no independent discussionof Nagarjuna. Rather, it presents the developments of the Madhyamakatradition in India after Nagarjuna. The texts selected for inclusion here beginwith authors alive during Nagarjunas lifetime (Aryadeva and perhaps Rahulabhadra) and continue with the most prominent authors of the next fewcenturies (Buddhapalita and Bhavaviveka). The next volume will containselections of the works of the most prominent authors in the culmination ofIndian Madhyamaka thought: Chandrakirti and Shantideva.

As with the earlier book, the translations from Sanskrit here areattempts to make the works understandable to members of the general publicwho are interested in philosophy. They are not literal translations designedfor scholars in Buddhist studies. The basic texts, unlike their commentaries,were pithy because they were designed to be chantedand memorized (andthey are still chanted and memorized today). Many texts were also notwritten down for a long time, and so they were intentionally kept short andrhythmic to make transmission easier. Longer texts with more explanationswould have been helpful for us today, but the workswere never meant to beunderstood independently of a teacher or a traditions commentary it wasunderstood that there would be a teacher there explaining the lines morefully. Extensive commentaries were usually only recorded later. The textsoften repeat the same word or a variation of it more than once in a verse ora passage to make memorization easier. Mostly the basic texts are in onestandardized form: verses of four lines of eight syllables each. But this meansmaking the number of syllables fit the meter count, and that leads toproblems for understanding the text: some lines are very condensedthoughts, while others contain some extra words thrown only in to keep themeter correct. Sometimes there is no verb in a line but only nouns andancillary words. That the listeners would share a common philosophicalbackground and thus already know the meaning of many of the technicalwords also made it less necessary for the authors to expand their thoughts.

In many lines, a pronoun is used to refer to a word in a previous verse or tosomething that the listener has been told but that the translator must nowsupply sometimes even a pronoun is omitted.

The objective here is to glean the philosophical content of the works andpresent it in an intelligible fashion for the reader today if some of theoriginal authors style is preserved, so much the better, but that is not thegoal. As with the earlier book, the basic works have been reformatted herefrom a series of verses into sentences and paragraphs grouped as the subjectmatter dictates. This makes the texts much easier to follow and understand.Changing the grammar and syntax (e.g., changing a passive voice to active)also helps clarify the meaning. Translations that attempt to follow rigidly theform and word order of the works end up stilted. For many translations, thereader still has to be able to look at the originalSanskrit in order to understand what the translator is saying and in that case, what is the point ofthe translation at all? Attempts to modernize the works e.g., translating aword that means unreasonable or unacceptable as illogical or logicallycontradictory or logically impossible have beenresisted because of thedanger that they distort the original works and mislead the modern reader.(One concession has been to change the experientialflavor of verbs denotingis not found or it not seen to the bare ontological claim does not exist.)Certainly, overtly reading in contemporary philosophy and science intopremodern texts has been avoided.

But if something can be said in one language, it should be translatableinto another, even if the translation must be longer to make what was beingsaid in the original intelligible in another language. What Ludwig Wittgenstein said in the preface to his Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus should apply totranslations too: What can be said at all can be said clearly. (Most peoplewho are not professional philosophers focus on the second half of thesentence:... and what one cannot speak of, one must be silent.) These textswere never deliberately obscure or mystical or esoteric they weremeant to be of practical value to practicing Buddhists. The problem raised bythe philosophical issue of whether all translations are indeterminate can bemitigated in practice if a wide enough sampling of an authors or a traditionsthought is studied. Like any translator, I hope I have succeeded in notimposing my own ideas or reasoning on these authors when making senseout of a passage, but all translations of necessity involve some interpretation,and translators cannot help but look at a past thinker through the lens oftheir own knowledge and presuppositions when trying to understand a text.