Journal of Abhidharma Studies
Online ISSN : 2435-5682
Print ISSN : 2435-5674
Volume 2
Displaying 1-8 of 8 articles from this issue
Articles
  • Norisato Aohara
    2021 Volume 2 Pages 1-28
    Published: 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper, I examine how Saṃghabhadra demonstrates the existence of the reflected image (pratibimba) in his work, Nyāyānusāriṇī (NA).
    The reflected images in a mirror, water, and so forth are often used as a simile within the contexts of unreality, consciousness-only, and so forth in many Buddhist scriptures. In the third chapter of the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (AKBh), Vasubandhu who discusses the existence of antarābhava mentions the simile of the reflected images as the evidence that his opponents state the discontinuity between death and rebirth. Then, Vasubandhu criticizes them through claiming that the comparison is impossible because the reflected images are not the real existence. Saṃghabhadra, refuting the discourses in AKBh, establishes his own theory to demonstrate that the reflected images absolutely exist. The argument in NA is, however, too complicated to understand the Saṃghabhadra’s entire opinion. I tentatively conclude as follows based on my research.
    First, the point of Saṃghabhadra’s argument is his own definition of true existence, that is “To be an object-field that produces cognition”, which is frequently found in his multiple discussions in NA. In this case, he asserts that there actually exist the reflected images as far as our eyes recognize them.
    On the other hand, however, it is obvious that the reflected images which are merely two-dimensional visions have the characteristics different from general rūpas. In the current discussions, Saṃghabhadra frequently explains that the reflected images consist of the particular materials called “extremely clear rūpas” (qingming se 清 妙 色 , *accha-rūpa?). According to him, these rūpas exist without obstructing the other rūpas and make the images to be seen multiply from the different directions. Based on this concept, Saṃghabhadra demonstrates the existence of the reflected images. His statement is, however, too fragmented to understand the overview of those rūpas in detail.
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  • Hironori Tanaka
    2021 Volume 2 Pages 31-60
    Published: 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In 2016, a new manuscript of the Sanskrit text of the Abhidharmakośakārikā in the Potala Palace (AKK-Potala), along with photographs, was published by the Tibetan Palm Leaf Manuscript Institution ( 西蔵貝葉経研究所 ), and it was determined to be identical to the Tibetan translation of the AKK. However, I have discovered that this manuscript contains various deviations from the Gokhale manuscript. This paper presents a translation of a portion of the original Sanskrit text, namely two interesting passages (IV.3, V.27) that have been rewritten to fit the doctrine of Sarvastivada. The Abhidharmakośakārikā (Potala Palace collection) (AKK-Potala) also rewrites AKK IV.3, which preaches exactly the form (saṃsthāna), and AKK V.27, which preaches all phenomena in the three times truly exist. Furthermore, the *Abhidharmakośasamayapradīpikāśāstra (『阿毘逹磨蔵顕宗論』) rewrites the AKK IV.3 and removes AKK V.27. In addition, the Abhidharmakośakārikā (Chinese translation of Paramārtha) (AKK-PA) does not contain revisions of the AKBh, but only the verses in AKK IV.3 and AKK V.27 have been rewritten. From this evidence, we can see that the AKK-Potala and the AKK-PA may have been rewritten to preserve the face of Kashmiri Vaibhāsika. Moreover, we can understand the possibility that the different readings of AKK-PA were not rewritten by Paramārtha.
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  • — Sthiramati’s Tattvārthā on Abhidharmakośa 4.35—
    Kazuo Kano, Jowita Kramer, Takeshi Yokoyama, Hironori Tanaka, Sebastia ...
    2021 Volume 2 Pages 63-98
    Published: 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The present paper is the first of a series of textual studies on Sthiramati’s Tattvārthā on Abhidharmakośa(bhāṣya) 4.35–44. The series will provide a Sanskrit text and an annotated Japanese translation of the Tattvārthā together with texts and translations of Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośabhāṣya and Saṃghabhadra’s *Nyāyānusāriṇī 順正理論 . The *Nyāyānusāriṇī, the earliest available commentary on the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, is frequently quoted by Sthiramati explicitly and silently. Therefore it is one of the most important witnesses for understanding the Tattvārthā. Abhidharmakośa 4.35–44 deals with the attainment and the abandonment of the three kinds of the unmanifest (avijñapti), i.e., restraint (saṃvara), non-restraint (asaṃvara), and neither-restraint-nor-non-restraint (naiva-saṃvara-nāsaṃvara). This paper focusses on Abhidharmakośa 4.35 and its commentaries, which mainly discuss the scope of the three kinds of restraint (i.e. prātimokṣasaṃvara, dhyānasaṃvara and anāsravasaṃvara).
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  • Jeffrey Kotyk
    2021 Volume 2 Pages 101-108
    Published: 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Chinese Buddhists adopted Indian cosmology based on Mount Sumeru and the Four Continents, which differed from native Chinese models. The four continents (Jambūdvīpa, Pūrvavideha, Avaragodānīya, and Uttarakuru) are positioned on a flat disc-shaped world. This was a type of flat earth cosmology that was documented in Abhidharma literature. The Buddhist canon does not mention a spherical earth, but Chinese monks were actually aware of an alternative cosmological model based on a spherical earth framework through the Jiuzhi li 九執曆 , a manual of Indian astronomy which was translated by Gautama Siddha in 718. This text introduced into Chinese the first instance of the concept of latitude (Skt. sva-deśa-akṣa). This sort of scientific theory based on a spherical earth model was already known by the mid-Tang. The Xiuyao jing 宿曜經 , compiled by Amoghavajra (705–774) in 759 with a subsequent revision in 764, not only adopts the cosmology outlined in Abhidharma texts, but also cites the Jiuzhi li. The issue at hand is why Amoghavajra and also the astronomer Yixing (673–727) never adopted cosmology based on a spherical earth. The present study will address these points.
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  • : From Opening Remarks to the Section on Envelopment (paryavasthāna)
    Takeshi Yokoyama
    2021 Volume 2 Pages 111-138
    Published: 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Saṃskṛtāsaṃskṛtaviniścaya (SAV) of Daśabalaśrīmitra (12th–13th c.), preserved only in a Tibetan translation, is a treatise that expounds the essential doctrines of major Indian Buddhist groups such as Sarvāstivāda, Sthaviravāda, Sammitīya, as well as Mahāyāna in general. Although the author says at the beginning of this text that he wrote it as memorandum for himself, it is also an important source for modern scholarly investigation into Buddhist theories that had been transmitted to the latest period of Indian Buddhism.
    Among the thirty-five chapters that constitute the SAV, Chapters II–XII are devoted to Sarvāstivāda theories. It is well-known that the Sarvāstivādas were one of the most influential groups in Indian Buddhist tradition and that they provided a doctrinal basis for the entire tradition. These eleven chapters in the SAV contain concrete explanations of the Sarvāstivāda theories that comprised the basic Buddhist knowledge of that period. This paper presents a Japanese translation of Chapter IX, which expounds the system of elements (dharmas), a fundamental theory in the Sarvāstivāda system. For want of space, this paper deals with only the first half of Chapter IX, from the opening remarks to the section on envelopment (paryavasthāna).
    In a previous paper, the author has pointed out that the Sarvāstivāda system of elements presented in the SAV was transmitted in a textual tradition as follows: *Skandhila’s Abhidharāvatāra → Candrakīrti’s *Madhyamakapañcaskandhaka → Abhayākaragupta’s Munimatālaṃkāra (MMA) → Daśabalaśrīmitra’s SAV. Parallel and related passages in those texts, particularly the Sanskrit text of the MMA, are helpful for translating the SAV from the Tibetan version. The relevant texts are included in the notes.
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  • Chang Liu
    2021 Volume 2 Pages 141-165
    Published: 2021
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper focuses on the theory of dependent arising in Candrakīrti’s Yuktiṣaṣṭikāvṛtti, and aims to analyse how Candrakīrti, who claims himself a Pratītyasamutapādavādin and Mādhyamika, considers the stages and role of dependent arising in his practice system.
    In his commentary on the Yuktiṣaṣṭikākārikā, Candrakīrti assesses Nāgārjuna’s motivation for composing the work with reference to Nāgārjuna’s understanding of dependent arising, namely: insight into dependent arising is the cause for people to arouse belief and bring about good accumulations, and to become a noble person or a “chief of Munis” (Munīndra, i.e., Buddha).
    In his Yuktiṣaṣṭikāvṛtti, there are two kinds of dependent arising to which Candrakīrti refers: (1) the traditional theory of dependent arising related to arising and ceasing, and spread out over a span of three lives; and (2) dependent arising equating to emptiness as emphasized in Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.
    
For Candrakīrti, people who had cultivated an understanding of emptiness in their past lives, such as Śāriputra, can know directly dependent arising in the second sense of emptiness above, even if what they heard were the teachings of dependent arising characterized by the first sense above, i.e., arising and ceasing.
    As for those who have not yet cultivated an understanding of emptiness in a previous life, Candrakīrti mentions two kinds of path (mārga) regarding dependent arising. One is the “path of arising and ceasing” (skye ba dang ’jig pa’i lam, *utpādavyayamārga), in which people study traditional dependent arising, the four noble truths, as well as other Abhidharma teachings. This path is applied to eliminate their view of non-existence, thereafter to understand the nature of impermanence, and to serve as an antidote to attachment to conditional factors. The second path is the “thorough knowing” of the non-arisen nature of dependently arisen things, related to traditional dependent arising, viz. karma and its fruit and so forth, and aims to serve as an antidote to the “knot of psycho-physical complex of attachment to one’s clinging that ‘this is true’(idaṃsatyābhiniveśa- parāmarśa-kāyagrantha)”. This path, in which people finally take all of the four noble truths as non-arisen through understanding that all dependently arisen things are not arisen by their intrinsic nature, leads people to liberation through the realization of reality in one moment.
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