The Role of Oral Instructions as Exemplified in Kong sprul’s Twenty-Three Mistaken Concepts Regarding the Great Madhyamaka of Definitive Meaning

Abstract

This article aims to explore the role of oral instructions in Tibetan Buddhism as a living religion, based on the author’s extensive fieldwork in India and Nepal. A text is examined: Kong sprul’s (1813–1899) A Golden Hammer of Fine Explanations that Crush Twenty-Three Mistaken Concepts Regarding the Great Madhyamaka of Definitive Meaning (Nges don dbu ma chen po la 'khrul rtog nyer gsum gyi ’bur ’joms pa legs bshad gser gyi tho ba) together with an oral commentary by Khenpo Karma Gendun of the Karma Bka’ brgyud tradition. The text expounds extrinsic emptiness in the context of the Mantrayāna stance of the inseparability of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. The opponents whose concepts Kong sprul refutes are logicians who argue from non-implicative negation in support of intrinsic emptiness. In the logical context, extrinsic emptiness is what implicative negation points to. Emptiness, which is not nothingness, is synonymized in the text with various other terms, such as the Buddha-nature, primordial wisdom, and the naturally abiding lineage. The commentary interprets it as goodness. Kong sprul expounds Mahāmudrā and rDzogs chen as well in the context of the Great Madhyamaka of definitive meaning, i.e. extrinsic emptiness. The opponents’ misconceptions pertain to the Two Truths, the two kinds of negation, and the two chariots of Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga, and are said to have arisen from a misguided methodology based on textual interpretation. This text is instructive for students of Tibetan Buddhism. Among other things, it clearly testifies to the critical way in which a master’s oral instructions are able to illuminate the interpretation of texts. This clearly points out that the wrong methodology engaged in would lead to mistaken concepts.