This is my term paper for Buddhist Philosophy class taught by Dr. Milos Hubina in 2015. This one is difficult to write, as well as to read by general readers who know nothing about the subject. Some trivial citations are given only books’ title and years with their authors.
Nāgārjuna, the founder of Mādhymaka school, is a great Buddhist philosopher. His idea has been interpreted in many ways by Western scholars. From the early time of Buddhist Studies, Eugene Burnouf and Louis de La Vallée Poussin put nihilism to Nāgārjuna’s position, and recently Thomas Wood (Nāgārjunian Disputations, 1994) follows the same line. Also, I think, Paul Williams (Mahāyāna Buddhism, 1989) more or less takes the same stance.
Stanislaw Schayer and Theodore Stcherbatsky take another way. They put “radical monism” to Nāgārjuna’s position. Schayer is Hegelian when he speaks of “ultimate totality of existence.” Stcherbatsky leans forward Kantian; he thinks śūnyatā is the relativity of things, but that the universe viewed as a whole is the Absolute. T. R. V. Murti (The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, 1960) sees in the same way, but by his Indian influence he puts Nāgārjuna close to Vedantic idealist. Frederic Streng (Emptiness, 1967) takes a mystic position by insisting that there is no Absolute in Nāgārjuna’s idea and śūnyatā is the openness of the world to personal transformation, not metaphysics or an object of cognition.
Andrew Tuck has compared scholars’ approaches to Nāgārjuna’s philosophy. He sees interpretations of Nāgārjuna undergo three phases: (1) the Kantian phase, exemplified by Stcherbatsky and T. R. V. Murti, (2) the analytic phase, represented by Richard Robinson, and (3) a post-Wittgensteinian phase, such as Frederic Streng. By implication, we can put nihilist phase before the three items, making it all four phases reasonably, hence nihilist, Kantian or idealist, analytic, and post-Wittgensteinian. These are not phases that have succession in time strictly. We can see as groups or schools of interpretation that can exist at the same time.
Yet, there are other interpretations, such as ‘anti-realist’ by Mark Siderits, ‘skeptic’ by Jay Garfield, ‘empiricist-pragmatist’ by David Kalupahana, and much more. In this essay, I ask a simple question: “Since we have many interpretations up to now, can we really understand Nāgārjuna?” To find out the answer, I will focus only on David Kalupahana’s interpretation and analyze his approach in a hope that we can find some comprehensible idea about the way we read religious text. I call my approach “meta-interpretive analysis.” This essay is an experiment to assess the possibility of my future research.
Kalupahana’s interpretation of Nāgārjuna
The major points that David Kalupahana understands Nāgārjuna’s philosophy will be summarized and evaluated as follows:
(1) Nāgārjuna is an empiricist par excellence. The reason Kalupahana gives to this claim is that Nāgārjuna rejects the notion of ‘self’ not on the basis of dialectical argument but on the ground of its non-availability. This sounds very similar to David Hume when he says he does not see any ‘self’ in his perception but only a rise and fall of psychological components. Kalupahana differentiates Nāgārjuna from Hume by saying that Nāgārjuna also rejects momentariness as a consequence of his rejection of motion and time.
Moreover, Kalupahana pushes Nāgārjuna as an empiricist to its extreme. He claims that Nāgārjuna leaves out any special intuitions such as extraordinary perception (ESP) because such perceptions are not related to sense experience. Nāgārjuna does not reject special intuitions, according to Kalupahana, but rather he thinks this kind of perceptions still in some way relates to ordinary sensory faculties. He also supports his point by saying that no evidence found in the case of clairvoyance developed by one who is blind from birth, or clairaudience developed by a deaf person. We can say that, for Kalupahana, Nāgārjuna is a radical empiricist. Self-nature (svabhāva) is not evident, because it is not available in experience.
This is a big claim. Most scholars, as far as I know, do not classify Nāgārjuna as an empiricist. When we say there is no ‘self’ because we cannot see one, it sounds too simple. What kind of ‘self’ we expect to see? If we target at the ultimate self (suppose there is one), we are jumping to conclusion when we say there is no such a thing because we cannot find it. The ultimate self might be found in some subtle way (say, meditation or an subconscious state of mind). And if conventional or psychological self is our target, we cannot help seeing ‘self’ at some level, because, according to cognitive science, we have agency-detective mechanism by nature. Kalupahana’s argument about special intuitions that relate to ordinary sense faculties is also weak—no evidence found yet does not rule out possibility to be find one if no one did not talk about it (the case happens but not being recorded) or in the future (the case has not happened yet).
(2) Ontologically, Kalupahana’s Nāgārjuna proposes pragmatic theory of truth. Nāgārjuna accepts that the way to identify an event can be made on the basis of ‘fruit’ or ‘effect.’ In the absence of fruit, one cannot speak of condition or non-condition. This means he explains dependent origination in practical way, not as the ultimate reality. Fruit is dependent on condition(s), whereas substance is not. Because if we say substance depends on something else, it is a self-contradiction. Pragmatic theory of truth is closely related to radical empiricist stance. Kalupahana insists that the notion of substance is rejected because it cannot be identified with anything in experience, hence it is empty. However, there is no excuse to see ‘emptiness’ as substance itself. For Nāgārjuna, emptiness is no more than what is implied in “All this is empty” (sarvam idaṃ śūnyam), not, in any case, in “All is empty” (sarvam śūnyam), which can mean absolute nothing. Kalupahana points out that Nāgārjuna uses ‘this’ (idaṃ) to eliminate the absolute interpretation.
I find his explanation a bit confusing. When Kalupahana uses the word ‘pragmatic’ or ‘practical,’ he seems to mean it is useful to take it this way. When there is no effect to be found, it is false to postulate any causality. Once there is an effect, some condition(s) can be also found. I agree with him when he says that emptiness cannot be held as substance itself, and his defense of nihilist attack is insightful. But the empiricist claim put him in an awkward position, because in what way can we verify out experience of ‘emptiness’?
(3) To Kalupahana, Nāgārjuna has something to say positively—not just no position. This means he does not agree with Candrakīrti who sees Nāgārjuna has no thesis of his own to present. Kalupahana associates this interpretation with Vedantic view which ascribes Nāgārjuna as an analytical philosopher. He insists that Nāgārjuna clearly indicates that philosophical enterprise consists not only of analysis (vigraha) but also explanation (vyākhyāna).
That Kalupahana sides with Svātantrika school is a matter of what he means by ‘explanation.’ We cannot say he is right or wrong on this point. But it is doubtful when he associates Prāsaṅgika school with Vedanta and analytical tradition. To me, conceptual analysis is not specifically bound to any school; even the Buddha himself used this kind of analysis a lot.
(4) About language used in everyday life (sammuti, vohāra), Kalupahana makes a point that Nāgārjuna sees language as the moral conventions of good and bad (he even traces back to the Buddha himself). This means that language is not mere conventions agreed upon by consensus but it is pragmatically grounded. He sees similarity between Nāgārjuna and William James in this respect. When we refer to something as ‘good,’ there must be concrete concepts to be referred, not just the notion of ultimate or ideal good which can be not only meaningless but also fruitless and terribly harmful.
Tying language to morality on the ground of pragmatism makes Kalupahana’s argument weak. We can interpret his practical good as useful, and language does many useful jobs—good and bad (good speech does not necessarily mean preferable speech). What makes it ethical is not language itself but its intention. In some condition, postulating an ideal good can make a desirable outcome practically. Ethical issue in Nāgārjuna’s works is really problematic, especially when we see from emptiness point of view—how morality makes sense when it is empty? Kalupahana does not address this point.
(5) Nāgārjuna recues the Buddha’s discourse on moral responsibility from the substantialist thinkers who assume karma to be either substantial or performed by a substantial agent. Kalupahana sees this approach to karma has nothing to do with Mahāyāna thought. Rather than advocating the ethics of ‘extreme altruism’ as the Bodhisattva ideal, Kalupahana sees the middle way of avoiding suffering for oneself as well as others from Nāgārjuna’s stance. By this line of reason, Nāgārjuna becomes a Hīnayānist, so to speak.
An attempt to read Hīnayāna ethics out of Nāgārjuna’s works is simply counter-evidence, because he does talks about bodhisattva morality in Ratnāvalī (Precious Garland). So, this claim is selective and biased.
Kalupahana under investigations
When David Kalupahana published his Nāgārjuna: The Philosophy of the Middle Way (a translation of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, MMK onwards), there are some scholars reviewed and criticized his work. I will show some interesting points from these scholars.
Chr. Lindtner is the most critical one. From a Sanskrit scholar’s point of view, he says that Kalupahana’s Sanskrit text of MMK “contains more than one hundred misprints, omissions, interpolations and wrong readings in the blue—violating the authority of manuscripts, grammar, syntax and common sense, be it ancient or modern.” Lindtner also points out some mistranslations and says that Kalupahana seriously lacks of “understanding of basic ideas in Nāgārjuna’s thought.” Kalupahana tends to interpret by his own way rather than consulting the existing commentaries properly, and his lack of philosophical training renders his work almost valueless.
Karen Christian Lang seems more sympathetic to Kalupahana’s work. However, she points that the claim which MMK is a grand commentary of the Kaccāyanagotta sutta is oversimplification. Because this can mean Nāgārjuna built up everything from only early sources, and this is simply not the case. Lang also points out some of Kalupahana’s mis-understanding of Sanskrit terms that affects his translations. He also ignores the importance of meditation as a method of knowing truth. Lang concludes that Kalupahana’s arguments lack force. Between Candrakīrti’s interpretation and Kalupahana’s she choose to trust the former, even though the traditional commentators are not infallible. So, Kalupahana’s translation of MMK is not recommended as a philologically sound translation.
What have we learned so far?
If Kalupahana’s translation of MMK is bad (“real bad”) and not a sound translation, as Karen Christian Lang puts it, how can we, who have no idea how Sanskrit works, understand Nāgārjuna? This is a crucial question one. Up to now, we have several translations of MMK other than Kalupahana’s. Some names come to my mind, such as Kenneth Inada, Frederic Streng, Mervyn Sprung, Jay Garfield, and recently Mark Siderits and Shōryū Katsura. And we have many stances of interpretation as mentioned earlier. Who is to say which translation/interpretation is the best representation of Nāgārjuna? Or the one who masters Sanskrit indisputably? Can we really find one? Chr. Lindtner himself explains Nāgārjuna’s soteriological system as follows:
Really the entire universe is nothing but emptiness beyond all conceptions and limitations. However, owing to avidyā we find ourselves confined in a manifold world of duhkha … [A]vidyā can be abolished by jñāna. Therefore we should strive to arouse ourselves, and all others from the nightmare of ignorance. But we shall not obtain ‘enlightenment’ before we have prepared ourselves morally and intellectually for bodhi … Such are the simple frames of Mahāyāna’s view of the world, and indeed, mutatis mutandis, of several other major ancient Indian (Hindu) soteriologies.
Are we satisfied with this Hinduized interpretation? This makes me think hard about the role of translation and interpretation. Of course, we cannot do interpretation without translation. But, translation is by and large a kind of interpretation. This means we inevitably have many versions of it. Some version may be better than others in some way, but no version is the best or the most accurate. Bad translation does not necessarily mean wrong interpretation and does not entail useless explanation (this is my claim).
Does Kalupahana’s translation make sense in some way? Absolutely, it does. Even though some of his argumentations lack a strong force and lead to counter-argument, it is not uncommon to any philosophical enterprise. Once someone asserts his position, he also opens a spot to be attacked. However, I think Kalupahana has done in the spirit of Nāgārjuna himself. What do I mean by this? The primary job of all Buddhist teachers including Nāgārjuna, and of course the Buddha himself, is to demolish any attachment to any kind of stuff including the notion of un-attachment itself. This is the only way to liberation, but there are many approaches.
The main task of all Buddhist teachers, I think, is to harmonize insight and morality (or wisdom and compassion, if you like). It is very understandable that, from his Theravāda background, Kalupahana interprets Nāgārjuna in this framework, and he sees it as a tool that can yield a practical result. That is why, I think, he takes the empiricist-pragmatist interpretation, which is in the same line of modern science. It is possible that he may not understand the basic ideas in Nāgārjuna’s thought as Chr. Lindtner points out, but he has enough understanding of the basic idea of Buddhism, I think. Kalupahana’s interpretation is more Buddhist than Lindtner’s, so to speak. From this angle, reading Kalupahana’s work is unquestionably rewarding to all Buddhists.
Conclusion
As I have shown so far, the answer to “Can we really understand Nāgārjuna?” is not an easy one. Because no one can really say for sure that he or she definitely understands Nāgārjuna. Scholars read his works just in the way that “maximizes the rationality of the material.” No one has absolute authority to claim that his Nāgārjuna is the accurate one. More research from textual and philosophical points of view still have to be done. But I think it is far to come up with any completely consensus. The more studies we have the more stances we get. And it will go forever this way if we approach the subject as an intellectual enterprise, which steps gradually apart from the Buddhist spirit.
To understand the subject more comprehensively, we must also consider the context of interpreters. What is their background, how they come to those points, which framework they use, and so on. Then we must analyze interpreters together with the texts. Therefore, to me, interpretation is not merely about text, but rather it is a conversation between the interpreters and their audience. So, we cannot really say any interpretation is totally wrong and useless, it is just one set of information. From Nāgārjuna’s case, I hope that we can go further to tackle a trickier question: “Can we really understand the Buddha?”
Notes