The paper aims to clarify Ratnākaraśānti?s epistemological theory that mental images in a cognition are false (*alīkākāravāda) in comparison with Śāntarakṣita?s criticism of the Yogācāra position. Although Ratnākaraśānti frequently uses the neither-one-nor-many argument for explaining his Yogācāra position, the argument, unlike Śāntarakṣita?s original one, does not function for refuting the existence of awareness itself as the basis of mental images. This point is examined in the first two sections of this paper by analyzing Ratnākaraśānti?s proof of the (...) selflessness of entities (dharmanairātmya) and his application of the neither-one-nor-many argument for demonstrating the falsehood of mental images. On the other hand, the last section investigates into his defense of the alīkākāravāda against Śāntarakṣita?s severe criticism of it. Here, too, we can find his tactical usage of the neither-one-nor-many argument, or more precisely, one of its variants: the neither-identical-nor-different argument. Through the above procedure, we can see how Yogācāra philosophy survived in the late period of Indian Buddhism by blending the Madhyamaka opponent?s argument with its own thought. (shrink)

The doctrinal position of Ratnākaraśānti is a source of great controversy among modern scholars. As diversified as the modern understanding of Ratnākaraśānti’s doctrinal position is the traditional ways in which the gZhan stong view is defined in Tibet. This paper aims to argue, with special attention paid on his presentation of the three natures, that Ratnākaraśānti defines his own doctrine as Rang bzhin gsum gyi dbu ma / *Trisvabhāva- mādhyamika in his “Core Trilogy”: the Prajñāpāramitopadeśa, the Madhyamakālaṅkāropadeśa, (...) and the Madhyamakālaṅkāravṛttimadhyamapratipatsiddhi, demonstrate, by comparing Ratnākaraśānti’s view with that of the orthodox Jo nang authors represented by Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan and Tāranātha, that Ratnākaraśānti is arguably a gZhan stong pa in its strictest sense, and problematize Brunnhölzl and Sponberg’s classification of different accounts of the three natures in Indian, Tibetan and Chinese sources. (shrink)

The conflicting positions of the two early eleventh century Yogācāra scholars, Ratnākaraśānti and his critic Jñānaśrīmitra, concerning whether or not consciousness can exist without content are inseparable from their respective understandings of enlightenment. Ratnākaraśānti argues that consciousness can be contentless —and that, for a buddha, it must be. Mental content can be defeated by reasoning and made to disappear by meditative cultivation, and so it is fundamentally distinct from the nature of consciousness, which is never defeated and never (...) ceases. That mental content is thus separable from the nature of consciousness is unimaginable to Jñānaśrīmitra, who argues that all mental content cannot be so defeated, nor can it disappear completely, and who concludes that Ratnākaraśānti’s commitment to this idea can be based on nothing but faith. Contra Jñānaśrīmitra, I will suggest that Ratnākaraśānti’s view is based not only on faith, but is also driven by a certain theory of buddhahood, the implications of which he is committed to working out. Because Ratnākaraśānti’s theory of buddhahood is developed in part in his tantric work, our understanding of his position benefits from our reading it in this context, wherein buddhahood and the most effective techniques for attaining it are explored. (shrink)

The eleventh-century Indian Buddhist master Ratnākaraśānti presents a unique Yogācāra interpretation of tantric _maṇḍala_ visualisation in the _*Guhyasamājamaṇḍalavidhiṭīkā_. In this text, he employs the neither-one-nor-many argument to assert that the qualities of the mind represented by the deities in the _maṇḍala_ are neither the same nor different from the mind itself. He also provides five scenarios of meditation to explain the necessity of practising both the perfection method (_pāramitānaya_) and the mantra method (_mantranaya_) together in Mahāyāna. Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation (...) exerts a significant influence on the works of later Buddhist masters in India and Tibet, with parts of it being reused in the _*Śrīherukopadeśanāmasvādhiṣṭhānakrama_ by Śūnyasamādhivajra (c. the eleventh century), the eighteenth chapter of the _Āmnāyamañjarī_ by Abhayākaragupta (from the late eleventh to the twelfth century) and the tantric compendium _sNgags rim chen mo_ by the Tibetan master Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419). This paper explores how Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation has been reused and modified in these subsequent works. While Śūnyasamādhivajra faithfully reproduced Ratnākaraśānti’s Yogācāra explanation, Abhayākaragupta modified it to align with his Madhyamaka view. Abhayākaragupta in turn influenced Tsong kha pa, who accepted Abhayākaragupta’s Madhyamaka modification in his works. This paper also engages with current scholarly discussions on textual reuse and the underlying reasons behind it. While Śūnyasamādhivajra and Abhayākaragupta assimilated Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation without acknowledgement, Tsong kha pa quoted the text by name and acknowledged Abhayākaragupta’s reuse of Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation. This paper concludes by discussing the factors that determine whether the reused text is acknowledged or not, and the possible reasons behind textual reuse. (shrink)

This paper is a comparative study of two texts separated by a considerable temporal-spatial gap. The methodological approach is, as we would like to define it, a-philological. Five central concepts drawn from the Dàshèng qǐxìn lùn, traditionally associated with Aśvaghoṣa, Paramārtha, and Śikṣānanda, shall be examined against the related ideas found in Ratnākaraśānti’s Prajñāpāramitopadeśa. Our observations are the following: 1) The two dimensions of the single mind advocated in the QXL are doctrinally identical to the two forms of the (...) dependent nature in the PPU. 2) The intermingling mind which is taken as ālayavijñāna in the QXL, corresponds to the imagination of the unreal in the PPU. 3) The mutual perfuming of the real and the unreal is in essence the same as the false inseparability of clear light and image in the PPU. 4) The essence of perception and its synonyms used in the QXL, its commentarial literature and other related texts, find equivalents such as prakāśamānatā, prakāśātmatā, saṃvedyatā, buddhilakṣaṇa, in the PPU. 5) The concept of activated perception in the QXL sheds light on a puzzling word in the PPU, arvāk, which can be interpreted as the opposite of “suddenly” in the QXL. Our investigation reaffirms the philosophical value as well as the religious legitimacy of the QXL, and it underscores the significance of the late mādhyamika texts for Buddhist Studies. (shrink)

Abstract:Ratnākaraśānti (ca. 970–1040) holds three conflicting positions: luminosity (prakāśa) is the ultimately real nature of consciousness; luminosity and appearances (ākāras) are identical; and appearances are false (alīka) because they are targeted by the neither-one-nor-many argument. But why is luminosity not false, too, given its identity with appearances? In response to this worry, Ratnākaraśānti develops a notion of identity (tādātmya) that lets him claim that, although luminosity and appearance are composed of the same stuff, they are not identical in (...) every respect. On the basis of this, he limits the scope of the neither-one-nor-many argument such that it targets appearances but not luminosity. Other philosophers (and possibly Ratnākaraśānti himself) then further limit the argument's scope, showing that it also does not target experiences of pleasure (sukha) and, crucially for their buddhology, the innate bliss (sahajānanda) that characterizes the experience of buddhahood. (shrink)

This paper considers Jñānaśrīmitra’s defense of manifestation as the criterion of ultimate existence. In the first section, "Asatkhyāti and Adhyavasāya: making sense of manifestation as the criterion of the real", I show the way that, in response to Ratnākaraśānti’s Nirākāravāda, Jñānaśrīmitra argues for a sharp distinction between manifestation and determination in an effort to establish that the manifestation of something unreal is incoherent. The unreal, he thinks, is only ever determined; it is never manifest to consciousness, properly speaking. In (...) the second section, “To be manifest is to be locked away in a single awareness-event”, I turn to one of the consequences of this view that Jñānaśrīmitra embraces: what manifests is only what appears in a single moment of conscious awareness. In the third section, “The scope of neither-one-nor-many: Jñānaśrīmitra’s Interpretation of PV 3.220–221”, I consider one of the problems this raises: how is it that an appearance with mutually opposed parts manifests in one and the same unitary moment of awareness? Jñānaśrīmitra solves this problem by appealing to the nature of manifestation and its distinction from determination: what is manifest, even if it is variegated, is nondual and indivisible; distinctions arise only on the basis of determination. I trace the details of this solution in the context of his discussion of an important pair of verses from Dharmakīrti. Finally, in the last section, “The marvelous nonduality of variegated awareness-events”, I turn to the surprising buddhological consequences of this solution. (shrink)