Nagarjuna

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
Paññāsikhara
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Re: Nagarjuna

Post by Paññāsikhara »

tiltbillings wrote:
Paññāsikhara wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:
You mentioned above a Chinese commentary on Nagarjuna, which I believe is the same one Kaluphana mentions, which take a bit of a different take on Nagarjuna than what we find in the Tibetan sources. If you are working with that commentary, are you translating it?
A Chinese biography? Yes, quite different from the Tibetan, and of course, much earlier too.
Not biography, but commentary. You wrote above:Due to source bias in western scholars, they almost always overlook the earliest sources we have on this, namely the Zhong Lun, translation of the Madhyamakakarika by Kumarajiva, in ~400, with it's commentary (centuries before Candrakirti, etc.)

Not being at home, I do not have access to Kaluphana's book were he talks about the Chinese commentary to the MMK and it certainly is not the Mahaprajnaparamita Upadesa.
Oh! Sorry, I was posting about the commentary (upadesa) on the Prajnaparamita, and then got confused.

Yes, this is indeed the version that Kalupahana refers to. In his Preface, p. vi, he says: "... I began to realize how Candrakirti was gradually leading me away from Nagarjuna's philosophical standpoint" ... "meeting with some scholars who were brought up in the Vedic tradition, I found them to be extremely comfortable with Nagarjuna as expressed by Candrakirti, and less impressed by the teachings of early Buddhism as recorded in the Nikayas and Agamas". ... "I found no justification whatsoever in looking at Nagarjuna through Candrakirti's eyes when there was a more faithful and closer disciple of Nagarjuna in Kumarajiva".

How many publications do we see about Nagarjuna that take this commentary as a key element are there? Very few indeed.

There is a translation by Bocking: Nagarjuna in China A Translation of the Middle Treatise
http://www.amazon.com/Nagarjuna-China-T ... 823&sr=8-1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Eesh! $139-! and only one review. Obviously shows that it is kind of rare, nobody takes this as the standard place to start looking, despite it being a quality book.
My recently moved Blog, containing some of my writings on the Buddha Dhamma, as well as a number of translations from classical Buddhist texts and modern authors, liturgy, etc.: Huifeng's Prajnacara Blog.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Nagarjuna

Post by tiltbillings »

Paññāsikhara wrote: How many publications do we see about Nagarjuna that take this commentary as a key element are there? Very few indeed.

There is a translation by Bocking: Nagarjuna in China A Translation of the Middle Treatise
http://www.amazon.com/Nagarjuna-China-T ... 823&sr=8-1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Eesh! $139-! and only one review. Obviously shows that it is kind of rare, nobody takes this as the standard place to start looking, despite it being a quality book.
Thanks. It is too bad that this look at Nagarjuna is not more readily available. It would probably be a more appropriate door for those steeped in the Nikayas/Agamas into his thought in the MMK than the later works, which just are a bit too sterile for my tastes.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

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mikenz66
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Re: Nagarjuna

Post by mikenz66 »

Dear Venerable,
Paññāsikhara wrote: So, getting back to the issue of "should check everything for consistency against the Tipitika (sic) and Canonical Commentaries", one still has to ask the question of - The Tripitaka and commentaries of which school? Now here, it is going to be Theravada, but if one wishes to open things up to a broader perspective, and in my view, this is really necessary, then one is going to have to go further than that. Given Walser's comments, the Mahasamghika Tripitaka would be the place to start, but we don't have this. Can we really ever do justice to Nagarjuna, then? Or, are we just going to measure him by the standards of some other school?
Thank you for your input (I must learn to spell "Tipitaka"...). I don't want to take this too much off topic. However, the statement:
but if one wishes to open things up to a broader perspective, and in my view, this is really necessary
goes to the heart of some of the apparent disagreements (AKA "sectarianism") that can arise in discussions such as this. Personally I'm very grateful to have clarifications along the lines of: "according to sect X, Y is true", whether X is Theravada, Sarvastivada, or Aotearoavada. To me this is a quite separate issue from the question of which ideas one chooses to implement, or reject, in one's practise. Personally, I find these discussions helpful in clarifying to me exactly what it is I am implementing/rejecting...

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BlackBird
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Re: Nagarjuna

Post by BlackBird »

Thank you Bhante

Food for thought :popcorn:

:anjali:
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Nagarjuna

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Here is another translation of N.'s Mula, with an old Tibetan commentary: http://www.snowlionpub.com/html/product_10243.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also Bhikshu Dharmamitra is translating again, during his slow recovery from serious health issues. He is working on N.'s Treatise on the Ten Grounds of a bodhisattva, dasabhumika-vibhasa. He is about 1/3 of the way through and expects it will be in two volumes, with Chinese on facing pages, perhaps 1600 pages or so.
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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tobes
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Re: Nagarjuna

Post by tobes »

This is a really excellent thread.

Ven. Huifeng has got me wondering if there are good philological reasons to support the claim that the Ratnavali has a different author to the MMK and the Vigrahavyavartarni. And perhaps the possibility that it is a later text.

It seems to be taken as a given in most scholarship that even though there is quite a lot of ambiguity about other texts, these three are taken to be authentically attributed to this mysterious figure "Nagarjuna".

But I must say that prima facie, without hearing his reasons, I can definitely understand Gombrich's sense that the MMK may not be a Mahayana text. In terms of content, there is nothing distinctly Mahayana asserted. I think the Vig is very similar in this regard, and it seems very plausible that both were written by the same author...if only because there is such a cogent philosophical continuity between them.

Yet the Ratnavali is manifestly Mahayanist in orientation, with constant references to the Mahayana as a vehicle, as well as constant accounts of bodhicitta.

It seems like something of a lazy inference to say: well, the first two are about metaphysics and epistemology, and the third is about ethics; that is what explains the difference.

If it is the case that the Ratnavali has a different author, then what does this do to Walser's thesis? i.e. Which Nagarjuna are we talking about and which context!

:anjali:
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