Sophia Studies in Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures

Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures

Volume 19

Series Editors

Editor-in-Chief Purushottama Bilimoria, The University of Melbourne, Australia University of California, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, USA

Co-Editor Andrew Irvine, Maryville College, Maryville, TN, USA

Associate Editors Jay Garfield, The University of Melbourne, Australia Smith College, Northampton, Mass, USA

Editorial Assistants Sherah Bloor, Amy Rayner, Peter Yih Jing Wong The University of Melbourne, Australia

Editorial Board Balbinder Bhogal, Hofstra University, Hempstead, USA Christopher Chapple, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA Vrinda Dalmiya, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA Gavin Flood, NUS-Yale, Singapore Jessica Frazier, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Kathleen Higgins, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Patrick Hutchings, Deakin University, The University of Melbourne, Australia Morny Joy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada Carool Kersten, King’s College, London, UK Richard King, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Arvind-Pal Mandair, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA Rekha Nath, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA Parimal Patil, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA Laurie Patton, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, USA Stephen Phillips, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Joseph Prabhu, California State University, Los Angeles, USA Anupama Rao, Columbia University, Barnard College, New York, USA Anand J. Vaidya, San Jose State University, CA, USA The Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures focuses on the broader aspects of philosophy and traditional intellectual patterns of religion and cultures. The series encompasses global traditions, and critical treatments that draw from cognate disciplines, inclusive of feminist, postmodern, and postcolonial approaches. By global traditions we mean religions and cultures that go from Asia to the Middle East to Africa and the Americas, including indigenous traditions in places such as Oceania. Of course this does not leave out good and suitable work in Western traditions where the analytical or conceptual treatment engages Continental (European) or Cross-cultural traditions in addition to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The book series invites innovative scholarship that takes up newer challenges and makes original contributions to the field of knowledge in areas that have hitherto not received such dedicated treatment. For example, rather than rehearsing the same old Ontological Argument in the conventional way, the series would be interested in innovative ways of conceiving the erstwhile concerns while also bringing new sets of questions and responses, methodologically also from more imaginative and critical sources of thinking. Work going on in the forefront of the frontiers of science and religion beaconing a well-nuanced philosophical response that may even extend its boundaries beyond the confines of this debate in the West – e.g. from the perspective of the ‘Third World’ and the impact of this interface (or clash) on other cultures, their economy, sociality, and ecological challenges facing them – will be highly valued by readers of this series. All books to be published in this Series will be fully peer-reviewed before final acceptance.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8880 C.D. Sebastian

The Cloud of Nothingness

The Negative Way in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross C.D. Sebastian Philosophy Group, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

ISSN 2211-1107 ISSN 2211-1115 (electronic) Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures ISBN 978-81-322-3644-3 ISBN 978-81-322-3646-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-3646-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016954123

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This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer (India) Pvt. Ltd. Everything is right when śūnyatā is possible; Nothing is right when śūnyatā is impossible (Nāgārjuna, MK 24, 14). This knowledge in unknowing is so overwhelming (John of the Cross, SCE 6) For Professor Sebastian Thuruthel my grand-uncle who taught me to love wisdom Foreword

Nāgārjuna is a figure of legend. We know very little about him as a historical per- sonage, and there is considerable debate over which works attributed to him are authentic. Their interpretation is, to say the least, tricky. His dates are uncertain, although he is usually given as round about the second century CE. In Indian Buddhist philosophy Nāgārjuna is, of course, the philosopher of ‘emptiness’ or ‘nothingness’, ‘voidness’ (śūnyatā). This is generally well known. He did not originate the concept in Buddhism, and even the use of the concept to apply to all things without any exception almost certainly did not originate with him. Nevertheless, it is Nāgārjuna we tend to associate with the idea that ‘all things are empty’, or perhaps stated with more philosophical precision, ‘emptiness (nothingness, voidness) is nothing other than a universal property, a property that pertains to things, all things without exception’. This is the case no matter how rarified or spiritually central those things might be. For all X, X is empty. For all X, X has the property of emptiness (expressed in English with the ‘-ness’ ending). This applies even to nirvāṇa, a point made elsewhere by one of the [Mahāyāna] Buddhist scriptures quite probably before the time of Nāgārjuna. The same scripture adds that even if there were to be something greater than nirvāṇa, that too would not escape emptiness, nothingness, voidness. And it was Nāgārjuna who considered himself to be capable of showing, using impeccable logic and the principles and tenets accepted by those whom he sought to convince, that the universality of emptiness or nothingness was not just the insight of enlightened beings but also was rationally inescapable. This ‘emptiness’ or ‘nothingness’ is not a vague or imprecise concept. ‘Śūnyatā’ is a term that takes on a range of meanings across the history of Indian Buddhist philosophy. In different Buddhist traditions, these meanings are by no means always the same or compatible with each other. But it is a feature of Indian Buddhist thought that it thrives on conceptual precision. And for Nāgārjuna, ‘emptiness’ or ‘nothingness’ is to be understood very strictly as an equivalent for ‘absence of intrinsic nature’ (niḥsvabhāvatā, ‘essencelessness’), a concept that in Nāgārjuna’s own usage comes to entail ‘absence of intrinsic existence’. Thus, each and every thing, no matter how refined, lacks its own intrinsic nature, i.e. it lacks intrinsic existence. This

ix x Foreword property of lacking its own intrinsic nature, or its intrinsic existence, is its emptiness or its nothingness. Why would Nāgārjuna say such a thing? Indeed, why would this be a significant thing for a Buddhist to say? What has it to do with Buddhism as a religion, a path, a praxis with a salvific goal? What Nāgārjuna is saying here needs to be understood within the Buddhist discourse of his day and previous centuries going back to the Buddha himself. It should not be unthinkingly torn out from it. As a spiritual and intellectual soteriology, Buddhism originated in the idea that we suffer because we do not see things the way they really are. We are confused. We suffer as a result of profound ontological ignorance (avidyā). We misunderstand the nature of things in a very, very deep way. Hence, we act in a manner that causes us misery (suffering, duḥkha). And seeing things the way they really are (yathābhūtadarśana) – when it occurs in the deepest way, in a manner that is existentially ingrained in our minds at the deepest possible level – is totally life transformative. It is enlightening, liberat- ing, freeing us from all forms of suffering. It is nirvāṇa. And once attained, it will never be lost. The person who sees this way has prajñā, ‘wisdom’. At first in Buddhism, this meant seeing behind the apparent stabilities of the things we meet with in our everyday unenlightened experience, particularly the persons we are, and comprehending their evanescent nature. Our unenlightened seeing of stability when in reality there is change, seeing unity and identity when really there is diversity, is fundamental to the misperception that leads to misery. We hope for permanence, we crave it, but we are faced with change, collapse, decay and death. Understanding the way things really are, the Buddha pointed out, is to see in terms of ever-changing ‘aggregates’ (skandha) of, on the one hand, the flow of the physical world and, on the other, the mental flow, itself consisting of the flows of our feelings, perceptions, intentions/ volitions and that awareness which accompanies it all which we call consciousness. This psychophysical flow is the reality out of which we construct stability and, for those of us who are unenlightened to the way things really are, some sort of hoped- for permanence as a refuge from decay and death. Because it so contradicts the true nature of things, that hope is doomed to frustration and failure. As time passed, this analysis within Buddhism became more refined so that what is really there came to be expressed in terms of dharmas. In this context, ‘dharmas’ can best be thought of as conceptually irreducible ontologically fundamental ele- ments which, while in the main causally produced and hence impermanent, are nevertheless held to be really there, that is, to be the actual final reality (or, better, realities), in opposition to the constructed way things simply appear to be to us unenlightened folk. Most of these fundamental reals are part of a causally conditioned flow. Each is caused by a previous one and is radically impermanent. It gives rise to its successor in a stream, a flow, of conditionality. In the case of mental events such as sensations, perceptions, or whatever (the mental aggregates), they are fundamental mental moments of the relevant type (‘mental atoms’), each again normally the result of causes and giving rise to its successor. These fundamental reals (dharmas) by defini- tion, therefore, must have their natures ‘in themselves’ (since they are fundamental Foreword xi reals they have svabhāva, their ‘own intrinsic nature’, an ‘essence’). They are ontologically the very opposite of things that have their natures given to them simply for practical purposes, the stable everyday objects like tables and chairs that we unenlightened folk think are really there. Dharmas are ‘substantially existent’ (dra- vyasat), not merely ‘conceptually existent’ (prajñaptisat). They are ultimately real, not merely conventionally real, i.e. simply held to be real things for our practical everyday conventional purposes. But in stating that all things without exception, including all dharmas, lack fundamental ultimate reality, Nāgārjuna called into question this whole framework as an understanding of ‘the way things really (i.e. ultimately) are’. This is because the distinction between something having its own intrinsic nature, being substantially existent, and that which lacks its own intrinsic nature (niḥsvabhāva) and is merely conceptually existent is itself only an apparent distinction. This must be the case, Nāgārjuna argued, because if things are each one way or another the results of causes and conditions – and he felt this could be demonstrated through the careful use of critical reasoning – then they cannot in reality be ontologically fundamental. Put bluntly, caused existence cannot ever be ontologically fundamental existence. We might say, only something necessarily existent could be finally fundamentally existent. And nothing, Nāgārjuna thought, was necessarily existent. Each thing, no matter what, was no more than a product, one way or another, of its causes and conditions. Thus, there can be no fundamental reals. Hence, reason can demonstrate that all things whatsoever must lack their own intrinsic nature. So all things whatsoever must indeed be empty (śūnya) of their own intrinsic existence. And as we have seen, absence of intrinsic nature (niḥsvabhāvatā), for Nāgārjuna equivalent to absence of intrinsic existence, is the very same as emptiness, nothingness (śūnyatā). So when Nāgārjuna speaks of ultimate reality as emptiness, nothingness, what is meant here is that the true nature of things is that they lack any intrinsic and hence ultimate existence. That is, when things are understood in their ontologically final way, since they are the results one way or another of causes and conditions, so they are seen to lack fundamental, intrinsic, existence, to lack any ultimate existence intrinsic to them, any existence beyond that extrinsically given to them by their causal conditioning. That property of ‘lacking ultimate existence’ is their ultimate nature, i.e. what they truly, ontologically, are. That property itself is their nothingness, their emptiness. It should be clear that this way of speaking that we find in Nāgārjuna needs to be totally contextualised within his Buddhist world view and project. This is important because it is too easy for well-meaning cross-cultural comparisons to tear out of context Nāgārjuna’s assertion that the ultimate truth is emptiness, nothingness, and seek or hope to equate it with perhaps the intrinsically, fundamentally, absolutely existent Ultimate Reality of, e.g., Śaṅkara’s Brahman, or even the God or Godhead of theistic religions. In these cases, a necessarily existent Absolute Reality, hence necessarily intrinsically existent, is said in itself to be empty of something or another, empty of the relative, empty of creation, empty of ignorance, empty of all our conceptualities, or whatever. It was in order to avoid such a confused interpretation xii Foreword of the emptiness, nothingness, spoken of by Nāgārjuna and his tradition in Indian Buddhist thought that his great commentator Candrakīrti used the expression ‘a mere negation’ (abhāvamātra) to refer to emptiness, nothingness. ‘Emptiness’, ‘nothingness’, here is not vague, not obscure, not ‘mystical’ or open to guesses regarding its meaning. It refers for Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti says, to a mere negation of ultimate, intrinsic, necessary, fundamental existence, and this negation is universal, applies to all things without exception. In terms of the Buddhist salvific project, only through direct experiential cognition of this emptiness, nothingness, in the most refined way can a practitioner let go of all egoistic grasping, even the subtlest and most rarified attachment, and attain complete liberation. Within this perspective, to think that emptiness itself might be an Ultimate Reality, have some sort of ontological pre-eminence, be more real than other things, necessarily existent – as must be the case with Brahman, Creator God, or Godhead – would be a radical misunderstanding of Nāgārjuna’s intentions. This is no doubt one reason why he spoke of the emptiness of emptiness itself, nothingness of nothingness (śūnyatāśūnyatā), and declared those who would construe emptiness as more than that to be pretty well incurable. From the perspective of theology, in referring to emptiness, nothingness, voidness, Nāgārjuna cannot be construed as remotely talking about the Creator God, or anything even analogous to God. Well, but theologically, we are invited to bring into dialogue with each other, and also into our own contemporary inter-religious dialogue, all the great thinkers of religious history. Potentially, no one is left out! Dialogue does not necessarily mean agreement. It does not mean an ignoring of or dissolution of differences, differences that are often quite fundamental. But it does mean respect, a sympathetic attempt to understand, and a conversation which is open to mutual learning and – in ways which can be understood in their own terms and contexts by each dialogue partner – perhaps also transformation. And, in terms too of Catholic theology, dialogue might highlight or open us up to ‘seeds of the Word’ (semina Verbi) in the non-Christian dialogue partners, signs of the presence of Christ in their own searching and their own conceptualisation of that search and its results. Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross both themselves sought avidly for truth, and clearly that search touched them both in a very deep way. They were both convinced they had found truth, and indeed it is likely that they each considered they had in some way ‘touched’, experienced, truth ‘in their bodies’. In the light of this, when all is said and done, it must still be possible to bring such thinkers (such pray-ers, such medita- tors) into dialogue with each other, for they share a human concern with ultimate meaning and the search for spiritual understanding and security. Fundamental to the concerns of this present book, both Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross employed the concept of negation centrally in their theological/philosophical method and also employed it terminologically in describing the focus of their quest. Of course, there can be no grounds for any attempt simply to equate the loving, Trinitarian, Creator God of St John of the Cross, a God who comes to us as Jesus Christ, True God and true man, with the (quite literally, bloodless) emptiness, nothingness, mere absence of intrinsic existence, of Nāgārjuna. But as C.D. Sebastian shows, the fact that both thinkers use negation and negative terminology in their quest means that there is still Foreword xiii some sort of via negativa taking place here, and a great deal of creative dialogue and a constructive basis for further future dialogue can still be generated by a careful and respectful comparative treatment of them both. In choosing to focus on the role of negation and negative terminology in the writing of Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross (rather than perhaps naively suggesting that the goal of their spiritual striving might be similar just because it is described using negative terms or grammatical negatives), C.D. Sebastian makes a very real contribution to the appreciation of Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross each in the light of the other. I am unaware of a previous comprehensive and systematic comparative treatment of nothingness in Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross. It is unusual to find someone as sensitive and knowledgeable in this respect as C.D. Sebastian, who knows the Catholic theological context intimately and from the inside and at the same time has access to the Indian Buddhist Sanskrit sources for understanding Nāgārjuna. Hence, it is with very real enthusiasm that I welcome C.D. Sebastian’s book on nothingness, the result of work that he undertook with us during a mutually enriching period of sabbatical leave at the University of Bristol and its Centre for Buddhist Studies. This is a careful and frequently subtle attempt to engage in cross- cultural and inter-religious theological dialogue that will repay attentive reading. While not by any means saying the last word on either of the two dialogue partners or on the fruits of their conversation (could that ever be done?), this is a book that will surely feed into and enhance contemporary religious and scholarly understanding, appreciation and debate. Emeritus Professor of Indian Tibetan Philosophy Paul Williams Centre for Buddhist Studies University of Bristol Bristol, UK

*** C.D. Sebastian has done a great service to three different communities in the writing of this remarkable book. Those three communities are students of religion in general and then, more specifically, both scholars of Christian history and spirituality and scholars of Buddhist history and practice. In addressing these three communities, Sebastian actually inaugurates a fourth community, and one that is becoming increasingly important both in the academy and outside it: those concerned with Buddhist–Christian relations. This latter also builds a bridge that is all important between the scholarly community and actual religious practitioners outside the academy. One can now begin to take in the scope of Sebastian’s achievement in this work. Before saying something about the actual contents of the book, let me say a little about the theology of religions and the relation of that field to this work. The relation is in some senses tangential as Sebastian is a historian, philosopher and linguist, but he is also deeply sensitive to theology and spirituality. Approaching the book from a discipline out of which I work allows us another glimpse into the achievement of Sebastian’s book. The theology of religions started by focusing primarily xiv Foreword on how one religion views another, and it tended to be pejoratively in the early nineteenth century when it came to Christians and other religions. Inevitably, there was a complex reaction to that process in part because of increasing scholarship about religions that was developing in tandem during that period and because of an explosion in global travel and migration. No longer was it possible to think that non- Christians were savage heathens who lacked goodness and truth. In the aftermath of the collapse of the European empire, the emergence of various independent nation states that had often been shaped by the empire generated a new project: other religions began to provide a critique of Christian theology of religions, while at the same time such a critique was well under way within Christian theological circles at the heart of the empire. This resulted in a period where the dominant paradigm of conceiving the relations between religions was primarily shaped by what is some- times called the ‘liberal’ agenda: all religions are really paths to the same reality that can be known in many different ways. One great advantage of such a movement was that cultural imperialism was unmasked and made way for the possibility of really returning back to the key texts of the giants and shapers of religious traditions as the source of inter-religious engagement. In this respect, after liberalism, movements such as comparative theology initiated by a number of scholars, pre-eminently Francis Clooney SJ, have developed and are flourishing. Other movements, like the scriptural reasoning project which involves closely reading texts of another religion with those from that religion, have also been growing thanks to the pioneering work of scholars such as David Ford and Peter Ochs, amongst many others. For the comparative theologians, the reading is still mounted from a theological perspective. For the scriptural reasoning, likewise. In one respect, we could locate Sebastian’s work in this new movement, but while both are theological, his is more historical, phe- nomenological and philosophical. His work is better located in the comparative philosophy project that grew alongside the theological one I’ve just described. Sebastian’s work remains within the nineteenth-century comparative philosophy project that was initiated by the great Indologists who wanted to simply read pri- mary texts, understand them in their own proper historical and cultural context and present them with scholarly rigour and sensitivity. Max Müller and C. P. Tiele began the scientific study of religion,Religionswissenschaft , that flourished and developed in differing ways in Europe and then the United States. These scholars stepped back from truth claims, although in fact they often had strong convictions and some were religious, but they were equally convinced that these should not intrude into the study. I have some reservations about the epistemological underpinnings of such an endeavour, but the fruits of such studies are difficult to deny. It is within this stream of intellectual history that Sebastian’s project fits so well and continues that tradition with considerable ability, intellectual and philosophical sophistication, close textual study and huge imaginative empathy. When I was working with Sebastian on this project at the University of Bristol, I soon saw his care not to fall into all the traps that lurked around projects like these. The more he progressed, the more he opened my eyes to the remarkable value of such patient, textual attention. I learnt greatly from his work. I know readers also will. Foreword xv

With that methodological genealogy, we can turn to the main achievements of this study. This is, probably, one of the first full book-length comparative study of the Christian mystic and teacher St John of the Cross and the great Buddhist philosopher and spiritual ascetic Nāgārjuna, which treats both figures in such careful and systematic detail. While he is in mastery of a large body of secondary critical materials, they are used to push the basic concern of understanding and truthful hermeneutics. There have been studies of emptiness, nothingness and the apophatic, but in this work, all these concepts come together in an elaborate and thoughtful treatment of the two thinkers and practitioners. In bringing out the similarities and differences between John of the Cross and Nāgārjuna, refusing to encase them into some basic metaphysical framework that reduces them to something other than they intend, Sebastian walks a careful tightrope walk. He allows each to illuminate the other, he allows each to talk to the other, and he begins to delicately tease out the very substantial differences that underlie their similarities. This is done deftly, so we are left with a raft of challenging questions as to whether we should step forward and actually compare incomparables, or whether we should learn greatly that what might seem as similar is more profoundly dissimilar. It is precisely in keeping this acutely important question open that Sebastian’s greatest achievement is found. He realises that we cannot build up meta-theories and overarching frames of reference, for we are simply and starkly left with two profound visions of the world and its meaning, which have overlap and have difference about matters that seem of concern to both. Sebastian also coins the terms ‘philosophical epiphany’ and ‘theological epiphany’ for the idea of nothingness in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross, and this is hugely suggestive. The ‘negative way’ is an ‘enlightened-indifference’ in Nāgārjuna and a ‘positive and creative assertion’ in John of the Cross. The philosophical epiphany may even suggest some interesting speculation about nature and grace, were one reading this as a Christian theologian, as I do, for it suggests that Nāgārjuna’s towering achievement is one of the most profound philosophical explorations that opens up a space which reason cannot penetrate further. John seems to dwell in this space, but draws upon a different resource, not given immediately by reason but reasoned upon and explicated. This is a challenge that the book sets out to this reader and a vital one that requires answering. To arrive at this space is the great contribution Sebastian has made to the four communities I set out above. For this we should be most grateful. University of Bristol Professor Gavin D’Costa Bristol, UK 2015 Preface

I know that nothing has ever been real Without my beholding it. All becoming has needed me. My looking ripens things And they come toward me, to meet and be met. (Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of a Monastic Life, I, 1(p. 43)) The notion of ‘nothingness’ is the leitmotif of this work. Nothingness, śūnyatā in Nāgārjuna and (la) nada in John of the Cross, two representatives from two different cultural, religious and philosophical traditions of the East and West – Buddhism and Christianity – is the negative way that is discussed in this book. This study is not aimed at looking for the fashionable search for sameness in the scheme of thought that we find in the works of these two great past masters, but it attempts to identify the distinctiveness of each. There is similarity as well as dissimilarity in the negative way paradigms proposed by these two thinkers. There is a striking difference in their goals, for Nāgārjuna is a Buddhist philosopher, speaking from a Buddhist standpoint for whom the Buddha-vacana, the Word of the Buddha is of paramount importance, whereas John of the Cross is a Christian mystic speaking from a Judeo- Christian world view and belief for whom Dabar Yahweh, the Word of God, is the ultimate source. My attempt in this study is to look for the negative way employed by these two thinkers. Each of them is speaking from his own tradition, and each of them has the audience of his own religious order in mind. By presenting the negative way in this study in six chapters, I make a comparison and contrast between Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross by drawing attention to the tenets of their negative way, because, I believe, such assessments have been integral to the history of thought. Such attempts in cross-cultural philosophical traditions could ‘open a “new” way where concepts developed in different philosophical traditions “illuminate” each other and help us in understanding them better’ (Krishna 2006: xvii). In such an attempt, ‘without our necessarily having to agree with’ the beliefs of Nāgārjuna or John of the Cross, ‘when we have discovered’ their ‘standpoint and horizon’, their ‘ideas become intelligible’ to us (Gadamer 2005: 302).

xvii xviii Preface

In the scheme of Nāgārjuna, there is undeniably no interest in stating things affir- matively. He is more interested in negative expressions, but at the end of the day, even the via negativa is discarded, as the via negativa itself is another position as problematic as its opposite, the positive way. The negative way of śūnyatā in Nāgārjuna is not specific in articulating actually what it is all about, thus amounting to a sort of indifference to specifications. The negative way of Nāgārjuna does not subscribe to any ātma-nairātmya polarities and conceivable distinctions, and we call it an enlightened-indifference (see Chap. 5). This enlightened-indifference ultimately ushers in a realisation of the real nature of reality as niḥsvabhāvatā, essencelessness, with the propitious cessation of all hypostatisation (MK 1, 1: 4; MK 27, 30: 248–249). This is more philosophical in nature, and we call it philosophical epiphany (see Chap. 5) where one, being in the conventional (saṁvṛti), understands the real nature of the conventional (saṁvṛti), which is called the ultimate (paramārtha), and this is śūnyatā. But when it comes to John of the Cross, in his negative way, there is room for positive and creative facets. The negative way in John of the Cross is not purely negative; it has a positive element. He is like any other Christian thinker, because God is the centre of his experience, and not any abstraction. John of the Cross’s negative way will seek for a self-abnegation and emptiness, but the end result is all positive. There is a positive finality in the negative way of John of the Cross. The negative way beautifully expressed in the writings of John of the Cross is intended to do a stripping away of the created world where the ‘dark night’ helps the soul to be one with God. It is transcendence as it starts from something real in life and goes to something real, an unspeakable union with God. The negative way that we find in John of the Cross we call the theological epiphany (see Chap. 5), a divine manifes- tation and experience at the end of the dark night. This is an experience which the soul has in the divine union of spiritual marriage. There is ‘now that the perfect union of love between God and the soul’, and the soul says, ‘let us rejoice, Beloved’, ‘let us go forth to behold ourselves in your beauty’ ‘and further, deep in into the thicket’ (SC 36, 3: 611), which means deep into the mysteries of God. The book is divided into six chapters. Taking the reader’s convenience, when read in sequence, the preceding chapter paves the way for the succeeding one, and thus, it provides a comprehensive idea of the negative way found in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross with their respective traditions, namely Buddhism and Christianity. At the same time, the book is conceived and arranged in a manner that each chapter could be read independently. The first chapter answers the why of study with an introductory note on Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross and their most representative works. In the second chapter, I briefly present the trajectory of the concept of nothingness in the negative way in the Buddhist and Christian traditions with its culmi- nation in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross, respectively. In the third chapter, I consider the negative way of śūnyatā in Nāgārjuna, while the fourth chapter is devoted to nada and the negative way in John of the Cross. The fifth chapter I deem as the most important of the study where an attempt has been made to dwell on the similarities and dissimilarities between Nāgārjuna’s and John of the Cross’s negative way. The sixth chapter serves as conclusion to this entire work where I bring the Preface xix apophasis, metaphor, metonymy and semiotics in the idea of nothingness that one encounters in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross.

*** The present study is the outcome of my postdoctoral research carried out under the supervision of Professor Paul Williams (former Director, Centre for Buddhist Studies, and Professor of Indian and Tibetan Philosophy, University of Bristol, UK) and Professor Gavin D’Costa (Professor in Catholic Theology, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol, UK). I am immensely grateful to them for their scholarly guidance and timely help that made this project a success. I thank them for writing the erudite ‘Foreword’ (not one, but two fore- words, to be precise) to this book and, thus, endorsing this study. There are many others who contributed to the success of the project. May I keep on record my sincere gratitude and pay my respects to my affectionate Guru-ji the revered Professor A. K. Chatterjee and Professor Abhimanyu Singh (both from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi). I remember here with gratitude Late Professor Sebastian Karotemprel SDB (Rome and Shillong), Professor K. Valiamangalam, Mar Sebastian Vadakel MST (Ujjain), Mar Thomas Elavanal MCBS (Mumbai), Professor Thomas Parayady MST (London), Professor Kurian Ammanathukunnel MST, Professor James Athikalam MST, Professor Peter Vattapara MST, Professor Sebastian Kizhakkeyil, Professor Hans-Juergen Findeis (Bonn), Professor Annakutty V. K. Findeis (Mumbai), Professor Heinrich-Niehues Proebsting (Erfurt), Professor D. A. Gangadhar (Varanasi), Professor S. Vijayakumar (Varanasi), Professor D. B. Chaube (Varanasi), Professor Kripa Shanka Ojha (Varanasi), Late Professor Chinmay Goswami (Hyderabad), Professor Amitabha Dasgupta (Hyderabad), Professor C. A. Tomy (Delhi), Professor M. Krzysztof Byrski and Mrs Barbara Byrski (Warsaw), Professor William Edelglass (Marlboro), Anneli Litzka (Bonn) and Dr Olena Lutsyshyna (Lodz, Poland). Many friendly people like Rt Rev. Declan Lang (Clifton, UK), Canon Alan Finley (Clifton, UK), Msgr Gabriel Leyden, Dr Fernando Cervantes, Dr Domingo Tortonese, Dr Kieran Flanagan, Dr Isaac Chenchiah, Sharon Williams, Dr Lina G. Tahan, Dr Timothy L. Chambers FRCP, Beryl De Stone, Maureen Keeley, Carlotta Kramskoy, Mary Manners, Penny Chappell, Dr Matthias Adler, Anne and Tom Millington, Late Elizabeth Berry, Andy Russell and Andrew (all from Clifton, Bristol) made my stay all the more comfort- able in Bristol for this research project. I thank my colleagues and friends who gave me constant encouragement and support in this project: Professor L. M. Bhole, Professor A. Ramanathan, Professor Neelima Talwar, Professor P. R. Bhat, Professor Pushpa L. Trivedi, Professor Rowena Robinson, Professor D. Parthasarathy, Professor Sudha Shastri, Professor Haripriya Gudimeda, Dr Sharmila Sreekumar, Dr Ramesh Bairy T. S., Dr Azizuddin Khan, Dr Pravesh G. Jung and Dr Ratheesh Radhakrishnan (all from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay). My colleague and friend Dr Siby K. George has been part of this book project by the way of suggestions and critical remarks. I am appreciative of his great support. I thank my doctoral students xx Preface

Dr Gyan Prakash, Dr Sarita Kar, Dr Walter Menezes, Biju Antony, Jithin Mathew K. Jose, Konchok Nyima, Stalin J. Correya, Sujata Mallik and Manjit M. Bhatti for their sustained interest in my work. I am also very much thankful to the research scholars (IIT Bombay) Biju Antony Kollakompil, Caroline Rose Alukkal, Dinto Mathew, Jithin Mathew, Kiran Joy Irimpan and Maria Thomas who gave their pre- cious time, looked through the entire manuscript, made many helpful suggestions and corrected typographical mistakes. I wish to thank my friends and well-wishers at IIT Bombay who have been very supportive of this project: Akhila, Alice, Alwin, Anand, Aneena, Anoop, Anu, Arun, Fathima, Harsha, Honey Priya, Joe Cherry, Jibin, Maneesha, Merry, Mithila, Nandakumar, Priya, Rose, Roshan, Rupak, Russell, Satyanand, Sunanda and Vasudevan.

*** I must gratefully acknowledge the following works that are frequently referred to in this book: Garfield (1995), Inada (1993), John of the Cross (1991), Kalupahana (2004), MK (1960) and Siderits and Katsura (2013).

*** I thank the series editors of Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures for their acceptance to publish this book under the series. I am espe- cially grateful to Professor Purushottama Bilimoria (one of the series editors) for his critical comments and suggestions on the notion of nothingness in comparative metaphysics and Asian philosophy (see also Bilimoria 2012: 509–530). I am also beholden to him for rephrasing the title of the book from the initial ‘the idea of nothingness’ to ‘the cloud of nothingness’. I have benefited from his suggestions. I am also thankful to the learned reviewers of the manuscript who made important and insightful suggestions for the improvement of the book. Anita Fei van der Linden-Rachmat, Assistant Editor, Philosophy and Religious Studies, at Springer was an early supporter of this project. Shinjini Chatterjee, Springer’s Senior Editor, Human Sciences, and her team in New Delhi deserve my sincere thanks not just for their help in bringing this volume to fruition but also for Shinjini’s efforts to advance cross-cultural and comparative philosophical research. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Shinjini Chatterjee, Anita Fei van der Linden-Rachmat, Nupoor Singh, Shruti Raj Srivastava and all others at Springer for the careful supervision of the publication of this project. Mumbai, India C.D. Sebastian 27 June 2016 Preface xxi

Bibliography

Bilimoria, P. (2012). Why is there nothing rather than something? An Essay in the Comparative Metaphysics. Sophia, 51, 509–530. Gadamer, H-G. (2005). Truth and method. (Revised by J. Weinsheimer & D. C. Marshall, Trans). (2nd Rev. edn). London/New York: Continuum. Garfield, J. L. (1995). The fundamental wisdom of middle way: Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Inada, K. K. (1993). Nāgārjuna: A translation of his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā with an introductory essay. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications. John of the Cross, Saint. (1991). The collected works of Saint John of the Cross. (K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez, Trans). Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. Kalupahana, D. J. (2004). Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nāgārjuna: The philosophy of middle way. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Krishna, D. (2006). Preface (To the new collection of articles). In Indian philosophy: A counter perspective, by Daya Krishna. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications. MK: Nāgārjuna. (1960). Madhyamakaśāstra of Nāgārjuna with the commentary Prasannapadā by Chandrakīrti. Buddhist Sanskrit texts No.10. (P. L. Vaidya, Ed). Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute of Post-graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit Learning. Rilke, R. M. (2005). Rilke’s book of hours: Love poems to God. (A. Barrow & J. Macy, Trans). New York: Riverhead Books. SC: John of the Cross. (1991). The spiritual canticle. In The collected works of Saint John of the Cross. (K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez, Trans) (pp. 461–630). Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. Siderits, M., & Katsura S. (2013). Nāgārjuna’s middle way: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Boston: Wisdom Publications. Contents

1 Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross: An Introduction...... 1 1.1 Why This Study?...... 2 1.2 Significance, Scope and Subject Matter of the Study...... 5 1.3 The Works of Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross...... 8 1.3.1 Nāgārjuna...... 8 1.3.2 John of the Cross...... 10 1.4 A Mādhyamika Buddhist (Nāgārjuna) Reading of John of the Cross...... 12 1.5 The Similitude in Methodology and Approach: Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross...... 14 1.6 The Negative Way: Different Objectives in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross...... 15 References...... 16 2 Nothingness: Two Traditions and a Concept...... 19 2.1 The Negative Way Paradigms in the Buddhist and Christian Traditions...... 20 2.2 The Negative Way in Buddhism...... 22 2.2.1 Mahāyāna Buddhism...... 24 2.2.2 Nāgārjuna and the Mādhyamika School...... 26 2.2.3 The Conception of Śūnyatā: The Negative Way...... 28 2.3 The Negative Way in Christianity...... 32 2.3.1 The Christian Orient and the Negative Way...... 35 2.3.2 Neoplatonism and Pseudo-Dionysius...... 37 2.3.3 Aquinas, Marguerite Porete, Eckhart and The Cloud...... 39 2.3.4 John of the Cross and the Negative Way...... 43 References...... 46

3 Śūnyatā and the Limits of Saṁvṛti in Nāgārjuna...... 51 3.1 Conception of ‘Nothingness’ in Nāgārjuna...... 52 3.2 Śū nyatā and Nāgārjuna’s Philosophy of Language...... 57

xxiii xxiv Contents

3.3 Śū nyatā and the Doctrine of Two Truths...... 61 3.4 Śū nyatā and the ‘Eight Negations’ of Nāgārjuna...... 66 3.5 Śū nyatā and Silence...... 69 References...... 75 4 Nada and the Limits of Faculties in John of the Cross...... 79 4.1 Conception of ‘Nothingness’ in John of the Cross...... 80 4.2 Nada and John of the Cross’s Paradox of Language...... 82 4.3 Nada and the Doctrine of Three Faculties...... 86 4.4 Nada and the Unknowing in John of the Cross...... 93 4.5 Nada and Silence...... 97 References...... 104

5 Śūnyatā and Nada: Similarities and Dissimilarities...... 107 5.1 Similarities...... 108 5.1.1 The Limits of the Faculties and the Conventional Truth...... 108 5.1.2 Ineffability...... 110 5.1.3 No Outright Rejection of Rationality...... 113 5.1.4 Importance of the Worldly Life and Its Exercise...... 115 5.1.5 Negative Way and Silence...... 117 5.1.6 The Negation of Self...... 119 5.2 Dissimilarities...... 121 5.2.1 Absolute Difference in Goal and Apparent Similarity in Approach...... 122 5.2.2 The Negative Way and Its Goal: Divergences in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross...... 124 5.2.3 The Negative Way: An Enlightened-Indifference in Nāgārjuna and a Positive and Creative Assertion in John of the Cross...... 125 5.2.4 Philosophical Epiphany in Nāgārjuna and Theological Epiphany in John of the Cross...... 127 5.2.5 Difference in Content and Objective: A Possibility for Dialogue...... 129 5.2.6 Why Dissimilarity?...... 130 References...... 131 6 Of Nothingness: Apophasis and Metaphor...... 135 6.1 Apophasis, Metaphor and the Negative Way...... 136 6.2 Apophasis and Metaphor in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross...... 139 6.2.1 Apophasis and Metaphor in Nāgārjuna...... 140 6.2.2 Apophasis and Metaphor in John of the Cross...... 147 Contents xxv

6.3 Metonymy and Metaphor in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross...... 159 6.4 Semiotics, Apophasis and Metaphor in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross...... 161 6.5 Conclusion: Of Nothingness...... 163 References...... 166

Index...... 171 About the Author

C.D. Sebastian is Professor of Indian Philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Indian philosophy from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. He is the author of Metaphysics and Mysticism in Mahāyāna Buddhism (2005, Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica Series – 238) and Recent Researches in Buddhist Studies (2008, Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica Series – 248). He also edits the Journal of Sacred Scriptures.

xxvii List of Abbreviations

AKB Vasubandhu. 2012. Abhidharmakos̄a-bhāṣya of Vasubandhu, Vols I-IV. Trans, Louis De La Valle Poussin. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. AMC John of the Cross. 1991. The Ascent of Mount Carmel. In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 101–349. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. BWB John of the Cross. 1991. A Romance on the Psalm ‘By the Waters of Babylon’ (Ps. 137). In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, 68–70. DN John of the Cross. 1991. The Dark Night. In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 358–457. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. GSM John of the Cross. 1991. A Gloss (with a Spiritual Meaning). In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 71–72. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. L Letters. John of the Cross. 1991. The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, 735–764. LFL John of the Cross. 1991. The Living Flame of Love. In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 638–715. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. MK Nāgārjuna. 1960. Madhyamakaśāstra of Nāgārjuna with the Commentary Prasannapadā by Chandrakīrti. Buddhist Sanskrit Texts No.10. Ed. P. L. Vaidya. Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute of Post-graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit Learning. MKV Candrakīrti. 1970. Madhyamakavatāra par Candrakīrti. 1970. Ed. Louis de la Vallee Poussin. Osnabruck: Biblio Verlag.

xxix xxx List of Abbreviations

R John of the Cross. 1991. Romances. In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 60–68. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. SC John of the Cross. 1991. The Spiritual Canticle. In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 461–630. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. SC-CA John of the Cross. 1991. The Spiritual Canticle (First Redaction: CA). In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 44–50. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. SC-CB John of the Cross. 1991. The Spiritual Canticle (Second Redaction: CB). In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 73–80. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. SEC John of the Cross. 1991. Stanzas concerning an Ecstasy experienced in high Contemplation. In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 53–54. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications. SS Nāgārjuna. 1987. (Śūnyatāsaptati.) Nāgārjuna’s Seventy Stanzas: A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness. Trans. David Ross Komito, et al. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications. VV Nāgārjuna. 1998. Vigrahavyāvartanī: The Dialectical Method of Nāgārjuna- Vigrahavyāvartanī. Trans. Kamaleshwar Bhattacharya, and Ed. E. H. Johnston and Arnold Kunst. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publications.