50 Prabuddha Bharata

Paving the Great Way: Vasu- Vasubandhu anticipated Vachaspati Mishra, who is bandhu’s Unifying Buddhist acknowledged to be a ‘sarva-tantra-svatantra; free Philosophy from being influenced by different disciplines that Jonathan C Gold one deals with’. That is, Mishra was a scholar with a mastery of every knowledge-domain he studied Columbia University Press, 61 West without becoming biased towards any one of those 62 Street, New York, NY 10023. usa. Website: https://cup.colum- archaeologies of knowledge. These shows of faux bia.edu. 2014. 336 pp. $65. hb. isbn scholarship, like comparing Vasubandhu to Berlin’s 9780231168267. ‘fox’, mar(k)s the book under review. To illustrate this point further, one needs to his book states: ‘This book is a study of the closely read Gold’s chapter ‘Agency and the Ethics philosophical work of Vasubandhu, a fourth/ of Massively Cumulative Causality’ (176–213). Like Tfifth-century Indian monk who was perhaps the his first endnote, where Gold writes, ‘I do not re- greatest Buddhist philosopher after the Buddha. ally believe’, and yet he believes enough to write on Vasubandhu’s works are well known in Indian, Ti- what he disbelieves; this chapter is another effort betan, and East Asian Buddhist traditions. From his at self-aggrandisement and contradictions, written time to this day, and without a break, his writings in the first person and reminiscent of his fetish for have been widely cited and commented upon, his heavy-sounding chapter titles that signify nothing. arguments used and debated, and his accomplish- The arrogant title of the first chapter should warn ments praised. He is a familiar figure in contem- any scholar to stay away from this book: ‘Summa- porary Buddhist studies as well … Everyone knows rizing Vasubandhu: Should a Buddhist Philosopher Vasubandhu. What is remarkable, then, is that we have a Philosophy?’ (1–21). Gold is certainly none do not, by now, know Vasubandhu very well’ (1). to summarise Vasubandhu’s works and someone And after reading this book, we neither know who does not understand what philosophy means, Vasubandhu nor his works, forget about know- leave alone Buddhist philosophy, is not worth our ing either ‘very well’. And the frivolity that is this time. Of course, Buddhism has a philosophy that is book begins with the contradiction that Vasu- distinct from other philosophies. Sunyata or emp- bandhu is admittedly stated as ‘perhaps the great- tiness is an argument or standpoint, vada, which est Buddhist philosopher after Buddha’ and then needs pramana, valid proof. Vasubandhu certainly in the same page, Jonathan C Gold goes on to had a particular world view that accommodated term Nagarjuna, Asanga, Dignaga and Dharma- his own spiritual journey from being a Sautrantika kirti to be of ‘comparable stature’ to Vasubandhu. to being a Yogachara Buddhist. These twovada s, Gold insults the Buddha, we are unsure which found their greatest advocate in Vasubandhu, who Buddha, as being a mere philosopher in the first provided their suitable pramanas. paragraph of the book to ultimately compare the Like all Eastern philosophies, Vasubandhu’s Buddha and Vasubandhu to Nietzsche and Freud works arose out of his experiences as a Buddhist (221). Is it not ironical that first this Princeton monk. Thus, they need to be assessed by someone savant of Buddhism praises Vasubandhu as the who is within this experiential Buddhist tradition. greatest Buddhist philosopher above all others As will be shown shortly, Gold, being just a dry and then says that four other Buddhist thinkers structuralist ivory-tower scholar, does not under- are as good as Vasubandhu? Then to prove his stand Vasubandhu at all. This, in spite of his linguis- non-existent domain-expertise in continental phi- tic and other academic credentials. Contrast this losophy, Gold says in his first endnote that Vasu- book under review with Malcolm Smith’s transla- bandhu was a ‘fox’ of Isaiah Berlin (249). tion in Buddhahood in this Life: The Great Commen- Within the context of the Jatakas and other tary by Vimalamitra (Somerville, MA: Wisdom, Buddhist corpora, to even think of comparing Va- 2016). Smith, though not teaching at Princeton, subandhu to a metaphorical fox shows, to put it or, mayhap, because he is not teaching or learning mildly, a reprehensible lack of Eastern epistemology. there, has something original and constructive to

574 PB July 2019 Reviews 51 say in his translation. For the problematics and pol- admission, and one wants to know who is this ‘us’ itics of Ivy League education and by extrapolation, here? And exactly what ‘kind of agency’ is available professorial appointments, see Evan Gerstmann, to these elite us? Last this reviewer checked; even ‘The Irony of the Elite College Admissions Bribery the Christian Martin Heidegger is not sure much Scandal’, Forbes, 13 March 2019 accessed 05 June 2019. now. It is now clear that Gold is seeking academic Now we turn to the narcissistic, hotchpotch, scores by making generalisations that mean noth- and hilarious chapter, ‘Agency and the Ethics of ing in particular. He is another Orientalist desper- Massively Cumulative Causality’, to illustrate why ate for academic validation from his quid quo pro Gold should not be read by anyone serious about white peers. Gold writes of salvation. This is an idea Buddhism and Vasubandhu. The chapter begins not to be found in Eastern religions. Gold mixes cat- thus: ‘We are trapped, and destined to suffer, by egories that have no similarities except the fact that the fact of our birth. Our suffering has, in fact, be- one suspects that Gold knows more about the topos ginningless causes, and is properly conditioned of salvation than he knows of Buddhist nirvana. to continue endlessly. What’s more, the Buddhist Gold belittles the insights of the Tibetan sage denial of the personal self—ordinarily the seat of Milarepa (180). He begins to talk on and on about freedom—seems to deny as well the possibility of his daughter Etta, whom he jokingly says in this meaningful human agency. Vasubandhu, as we have supposedly serious treatise, Milarepa never met. seen, is repeatedly found denying agency—even This shows that Gold has no clue about the yogic agency in a single momentary event. Yet salvation siddhis, which Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains know is possible. It is proposed not through a new kind all seers of the stature of Milarepa to have. Milare- of agent, but through the very causal, karmic ef- pa’s and the Buddhist tradition’s emphasis on re- fects that have kept us imprisoned for so long. This nunciation is also mocked by Gold: ‘I am supposed chapter seeks to explain how this can work’ (176). to realize that my attachment to my daughter is de- Gold is incorrect in saying that Vasubandhu re- luding me and preventing me from renouncing my peatedly denies agency and we are confused about home and family and pursuing nirvāṇa. But from which Buddhism is Gold speaking of when he says a conventional perspective, the actual perspective that Buddhism denies ‘the personal self ’? Depen- from which I view my own life, to see my daughter dent origination is not a denial of the personal (or my son, or my wife, or my work, etc.) as a fet- self. Further, it is well understood within Buddhist ter would be to deny what I experience to be the Studies that the Buddha(s) spoke the same truth in meaning of my life. This is a stark example, and that different ways for different audiences. TheLotus makes for some of the humor in Milarepa’s poem. Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra are two distinct Surely there must be some positive karmic benefit sutras meant for two distinct groups of subjects from caring for a daughter’ (180). with agency. For without agency, these sutras, in- Instead of talking of Vasubandhu’s ideas of cluding Vasubandhu’s religious practices qua texts, karmic bonds or Milarepa’s insights into karma, which arose out of Vasubandhu’s agency, would be we now get to hear of what Gold thinks has kar- useless and impossible respectively. When these mic benefits! Because there is ‘some positive kar- and other sutras, after being heard, are acted upon, mic benefit from caring for’ Etta, who likes play- only then do we have a Vasubandhu arising, the ing basketball (205), Gold will harangue us about pratityasamutpada of Vasubandhu. how great a parent he is, and how lucky all of them Thus, Gold is way off the mark when he accuses are to be born in the United States: ‘As a parent I Vasubandhu of denying agency to the Buddhist sub- can take some of the credit, for having provided ject. Gold’s hubris as a non-Buddhist white man as- food and insisting on sleep. I also bought the piring to teach Buddhism to the world is given away basketball. I might like to take credit also for my by his declaration that: ‘For Buddhists, the kind of daughter’s genetic heritage … having-been-born- agency that is available to us sits very close to moral in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time’ (206). nihilism’ (176). So Gold is not a Buddhist by his own But while Buddhists and Vasubandhu would

PB July 2019 575 52 Prabuddha Bharata

credit karma as part of Etta’s actions, Gold con- cannot counsel others. To write a novel means cludes that in the final analysis, all these are pos- to carry the incommensurable to extremes in sible due to America’s scientific progress. What the representation of human life. In the midst this reviewer finds in this book is the same old of life’s fullness, and through the representa- refrain of American exceptionalism. Only here, tion of this fullness, the novel gives evidence American exceptionalism is contrasted in a posi- of the profound perplexity of the living. Even tive light to Gold’s American non-experiential the first great book of the genre, Don Quixote, understanding of Vasubandhu’s philosophy. teaches how the spiritual greatness, the bold- The depth of this book can be summarised by ness, the helpfulness of one of the noblest of quoting Gold himself: ‘All that we need is to know men, Don Quixote, are completely devoid of the rock we kick with our foot is empty space’ counsel and do not contain the slightest scin- (221). All that we need to know of this book is that tilla of wisdom. If now and then, in the course it is bereft of coherence and meaning. of the centuries, efforts have been made … to Subhasis Chattopadhyay implant instruction in the novel, these attempts have always amounted to a modification of the Illuminations novel form (87). Walter Benjamin Benjamin’s implicit yearning for ‘spiritual Bodley Head, Penguin Random greatness’ and ‘wisdom’ is precisely what accord- House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, ing to Benjamin is missing from Don Quixote. Like London, SW1V 2SA. UK. Website: Simone Weil and the popular Jacques Derrida https://www.penguin.co.uk/. 2015. 272 of aporias and of eternal différances, Benjamin pp. £16.99. pb. isbn 9781847923868. yearns for the spiritual within ‘The Work of Art he mysterious Monsieur Chouchani, as it in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (211–44). were, fashioned the thinking of Emmanuel It is a different matter that this seminal and oft- TLevinas among others. The less mysterious, but quoted essay has influenced thinkers ranging from for Hannah Arendt’s intervention, Walter Benja- Marshall McLuhan to Jean Baudrillard. Baudril- min now exerts an influence over us that is more lard’s contempt of popular culture as simulacra is pervasive but this reviewer finds that our under- informed by Benjamin’s rejection of the popular; standing of Benjamin has been narrow in scope. of the cultural perversity of the masses: We tend to slot him as an atheist whose Marxism The growing proletarianization of modern man is akin to Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor Ador- and the increasing formation of masses are two no’s rabid anti-populist rants. The book under aspects of the same process. Fascism attempts to review, which is part of the ‘Bloomsbury Revela- organize the newly created proletarian masses tions’ series, includes Benjamin’s essay ‘The Story- without affecting the property structure which teller’. Unless Benjamin is quoted at some length, the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its his difference from other atheistic existentialists salvation in giving these masses not their right, will not be clear: but instead a chance to express themselves. The The earliest symptom of a process whose end masses have a right to change property relations; is the decline of storytelling is the rise of the Fascism seeks to give them an expression while novel at the beginning of modern times. … The preserving property. The logical result of Fas- storyteller takes what he tells from experi- cism is the introduction of aesthetics into politi- ence—his own or that reported by others. And cal life. The violation of the masses, whom Fas- he in turn makes it the experience of those who cism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, are listening to his tale. The novelist has iso- has its counterpart in the violation of an appara- lated himself. The birthplace of the novel is the tus which is pressed into the production of ritual solitary individual, who is no longer able to ex- values (234). press himself by giving examples of his most im- portant concerns, is himself uncounseled, and (Continued on page 582)

576 PB July 2019