Prasaṅgika

As perceived within Tibetan Buddhism, Prāsaṅgika is a subschool of Madhyamaka, and positioned in opposition to the Svatantrika approach. The distinction was introduced by Je Tsongkhapa, distinquishing Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti Prasaṅga, a method of logical inquiry which deconstructs any ground for positive (affirmative) statements, from Bhavavivekas approach. Its adherents assert that all phenomena, although existing in a conventional sense, are empty of any inherent, unchanging identity or self-characterizing essence.

Origins and history

The name is derived from Prasaṅga, a method of logical inquiry which deconstructs any ground for positive (affirmative) statements. Nagarjuna is regarded as the founder of Madhyamaka, while the Prāsaṅgika-Svatantrika distinction applies to the commentaries upon the work of Nagarjuna and his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Buddhapalita was an early adopter of syllogistic and consequentialist methods in his writings, although of a particularly limited form. Bhavaviveka later commented upon and critiqued Buddhapālita's interpretation of Nagarjuna. Candrakirti later responded to Bhāvaviveka's criticisms.

When Buddhism was established in Tibet the primary philosophic viewpoint established there was that of Śāntarakṣita (725–788), a synthesis of Chittamātra and Madhyamaka called Yogācāra-Svatantrika-Mādhyamika. Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) established Candrakirti's work as primary, and introduced the outspoken distinction between Prāsaṅgika and Svatantrika, a distinction which was not made in India. Candrakirti's responses became regarded as exemplary of the Prasangika approach and view, while Bhāvaviveka's approach became designated as svatantrika.

The distinction centered around the role of 'prasaṅga' (consequence) in formal debate. While the Prāsaṅgika view holds it to be the only valid method of demonstrating emptiness of inherent existence, the Svātantrika felt that assertions about the nature of the ultimate were also necessary. The Prāsaṅgika counter that when attempting to find the correct object of understanding - which is a mere absence or mere negation of impossible modes of existence - one should not use positivist statements about the nature of reality. Positing an essencelessness rather than merely negating inherent identity creates a subtle linguistic and analytic barrier to finding the correct understanding.

Svātantrika views

The Svātantrika are primarily using syllogistic reasoning to arrive at emptiness. While this approach is effective, it leaves room to affirm that there is a real, true, and inherent Essencelessness or Emptiness "out there." The Prāsaṅgika approach rejects this reification of emptiness.

Related to this problem, Svātantrika assert a type of shentong, "other-emptiness," based on a particular reading of Chandrakirti. An other emptiness is the idea that an object is empty of inherent existence, but not empty of itself. The inherence being negated is "other-than" the conventional misapprehended appearance of the object or the naive, everyday appearance of the object. For the Svātantrika, a table is not empty of being a table, it is empty of being inherently existent. From the Svātantrika viewpoint, there is - in fact - a conventionally arising self apart from the observer or mental imputation - the constituents of a table, for example - which are thought to be a natural basis for the term "table."

The Svātantrika assert the table is empty of a true self or a truly existent table, while simultaneously asserting that the undesignated object - through the causal nexus that brought it about - is a natural basis for the term. Not only is it a natural basis for the term, but they insist that a practitioner is negating only 'inherence' and should not be negating the 'identity of the table as it appears.' For the Svātantrika, the table still has a self, which is not negated and appears conventionally, but that self is not 'true' in the sense that it is not findable at the material level and that it is nominally designated. This view - in effect and practice - means that the table is already a table before it is mentally designated, from the Prāsaṅgika interpretation of Chandrakirti.

Prāsaṅgika critique

The Prāsaṅgika see the Svātantrika mode of thinking as a subtle form of grasping at inherent existence: one's mind is still searching for some way to hold on to an essence, self, or identity for the table.

For the Svātantrika, some 'inherent identity which is other than that conventional appearance' is negated, because the conventional appearance is valid from their viewpoint. For the Prāsaṅgika, when analysing a table, the object being negated is not some abstract intellectual concept apart from the table which can be called 'inherent existing', but the conventionally appearing table itself, which appears to naive perception as being inherent, is negated. The table is not just empty of inherent existence in some abstract way, but the identity of the table as it appears to normal, everyday perception is also negated.

Prāsaṅgika-Svātantrika distinction

Bhāvaviveka's commentary on Nagarjuna is categorized by Lama Tsongkhapa as Svātantrika, in opposition to Candrakīrti's Prāsaṅgika. According to Kanakura, Tsongkhapa's thesis is that

The opponents of Candrakīrti's Prasannapadā are both (a) the essentialists, who accept that things ultimately have intrinsic nature, and (b) the Svātantrikas, who refute that, but accept that things conventionally have intrinsic character or intrinsic nature.

— Lam Rim Chen Mo

While Svātantrika-Prasangika distinction was a later distinction, and no schools with those names historically existed, it was useful for students, as an aid to study the viewpoints as a set of tenets and subsequent metaphysical consequences, that could be debated and discussed.

Contemporary views

Lama Tsongkhapa's approach to Madhyamaka is still viewed as authoritative in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, though the Dalai Lama has published works like The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra which are clearly closer to the views of Shāntarakshita and Padmasambhava, and contain a blend of Tantric theory, Chittamātra, and Madyamaka-Prasangika. Other teachers of the various lineages of Tibetan Buddhism also adhere to Prāsaṅgika views, but hold different opinions with regard to the best way to explain emptiness.

Philosophy

Designation

Designation is, in the basic Buddhist sense, the application of a conceptual image or term to a selected object of mere experience. Prāsaṅgika asserts that something exists validly designated, that is, exists conventionally, if it meets all of the following three conditions:

1. It is known to a conventional consciousness;
2. No other conventional cognition (within that convention) contradicts it from being thus known;
3. Reason that accurately analyses reality does not contradict it.

Whatever fails to meet those criteria does not exist.

Emptiness

Empty of inherent existence or essence

Prāsaṅgika asserts that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence or essence, because they are dependently co-arisen. All phenomenon in all possible worlds lack inherent existence, and come into existence only relative to a designating consciousness.

At the time of Candrakīrti, the Prāsaṅgika included three dependencies:

1. Pratītyasamutpāda or 'dependent arising' - all phenomena come to be in dependence on causes and conditions, and cease when those causes and conditions are no longer present.
2. All wholes are dependent upon their parts, and the parts of wholes are dependent for their existence on the wholes of which they are parts.
3. Prajñaptir upādāya or 'dependent designation' - entities are also dependent for their existence as entities on conceptual imputation.

According to Tsongkhapa, the most important and primary relationship of co-dependent arising is the third relationship, dependent designation. According to Tsongkhapa, Prāsaṅgika are not stating that nothing exists, but hold that nothing inherently exists. They argue that phenomena only come into existence relative to conscious observers who are applying conceptual and nominal conventions to mere experiences. Things and phenomenon do exist co-dependently, based upon a relationship with a knowing and designating mind, but nothing exists in an independent, self-arising, or self-sustaining manner.

The emptiness of emptiness

Emptiness is also empty of inherent existence: emptiness only exists nominally and conventionally. Emptiness is co-dependently arisen as a quality of conventional phenomenon, and is itself a conventional phenomenon. There is no Emptiness just "floating around out there" or a "great Emptiness from which everything else arises." For example, a table is empty of inherently being a table from it's own side. This is referred to as "the emptiness of the table." The Emptiness of the table exists conventionally as a property of that particular table. It is the same with all types of emptiness. There is no "independent Emptiness" or "ultimate Emptiness." Therefore, emptiness is an ultimate truth or reality (a fact which applies to all possible phenomena, in all possible worlds), but it is not an Ultimate Phenomenon (something which has always existed, is self-created, and is self-sustaining).

Debating arguments

Non-Affirming Negation

A prominent and important feature of the Prāsaṅgika approach is their use of the non-affirming negation. A non-affirming negation is a negation which does not leave something in the place of what has been negated. For instance, when one says that a Buddhist should not drink alcohol, they are not affirming that a Buddhist should - in fact - drink something else. One is merely negating the consumption of alcohol under a particular circumstance. The Prāsaṅgika argue that the philosophical position of Emptiness is itself a non-affirming negation: a lack of inherent existence.

Emptiness is a mere absence of impossible modes of existence. If one were to describe Emptiness as the presence of some quality, it would linguistically and philosophically contradict the nature of the object which it is attempting to characterize. The Prāsaṅgika rarely use words like "Essencelessness," "Thusness," or "Selflessness." Emptiness itself is a non-affirming negation, so the term being applied to Emptiness should not imply that the object itself has an essence or an independent existence.

Logical Consequence

Prāsaṅgika translates as "Consequentialist," which means that a Prāsaṅgika uses the logical consequences of Essentialism to negate Essentialism in debate, leaving the opponent with a non-affirming negation. For example, an Essentialist may argue that "causing pleasure" is a quality which resides within chocolate, and that the chocolate itself creates the pleasure in the recipient. The Prāsaṅgika will reply, that if chocolate "causes pleasure from its own side," then therefore, it must cause pleasure in all recipients. Therefore, everyone must experience pleasure when they eat chocolate. Further, the pleasure of the recipient should increase the more chocolate they consume, because it is in the nature of chocolate to cause pleasure. The opponent who holds that chocolate causes pleasure from within its own nature is stuck with the logical consequences above. In effect, the Prāsaṅgika debater has left the opponent with a non-affirming negation: "the mere absence of the chocolate's inherent ability to cause pleasure."

Criticism

Svātantrika in disguise

According to the Padmakara Translation Group,

The Gelugpa interpretation of Prāsangika has often been described by its critics as a form of Svātantrika in disguise, since its presentation of "conventional," as distinct from "true," existence seems very close to the "existence according to characteristics" that Bhavya had ascribed to phenomena on the relative level.

This position is, however, contradicted in Lama Tsongkhapa's "Ocean of Reasoning." The Svātantrika posit that a unique, conventionally existing identity arises on the part of each individual phenomenon which makes that phenomenon a natural basis for the designation of a particular term or identity. The Prāsaṅgika reject this idea given that, even if such a natural identity were findable with analysis (which it is not) such an identity cannot account for the various properties of identity and fails in a very similar way to inherent identity to provide an explanatory picture for our normal everyday experience.

For example, since a specific table has a unique conventionally arising characteristic of 'being that unique and specific object,' that unique characteristic does not provide the object with the natural identity of being the very general object "Table." That unique characteristic does not have an element to its natural identity which allows it to belong to the general class of objects. Since this is the case, it does not provide that object with a table identity or make it a natural base to be a table, in any way, shape, or form. This and many other arguments by the Prāsaṅgika show that there are legitimate ontological differences between the two schools of thought. While they do have similarities, it is very clear that they are not a rose by any other name. The differences are as subtle as they are cogent, and extremely important in terms of Buddhist thought and practice.

Nihilism

The criticism of the Prāsaṅgika in Buddhist scholarship - and much later by Western scholars - is that it is actually a form of Nihilism: since the Prāsaṅgika have negated the inherent identity of object but have not affirmed anything else, haven't they negated the object's existence completely? Lama Tsongkhapa argues that the Prāsaṅgika have not negated the object completely, but rather have merely eliminated an impossible mode of existence misattributed to the object. (See Ignorance; Search "Object of Negation.") By negating inherent existence through Emptiness and inherent non-existence though Dependent Origination, we have negated modes of existence which would have made the valid conventional arising and existence of the object impossible. Therefore, we have provided argumentation in favor of the conventional arising and existence of the object. This is a critical point for Je Tsongkhapa, which is emphasized repeatedly in Ocean of Reasoning, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, and various other texts and commentaries authored during his lifetime.

See also

• Buddhapālita
• Svatantrika
• Shentong

Commentaries

• The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path of Enlightenment, Vol. 3 by Tsong-Kha-Pa, Snow Lion Publications ISBN 1-55939-166-9
• Lopez, Donald. A Study of Svatantrika. Snow Lion Publications. Ithaca, New York. (1987)
• della Santina, Peter. Madhyamaka Schools in India. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi. (1986)
• Shantarakshita and Ju Mipham (2005) The Adornment of the Middle Way Padmakara Translation ISBN 1-59030-241-9

External links

• The Buddha Within by S. K. Hookham on Rangtong and Shentong