Kenyon College

From the SelectedWorks of Joy Brennan

Spring May 9, 2018

The Three Natures and the Path to Liberation in Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda Thought Joy Brennan, Kenyon College

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/joy-brennan/8/ 1

The Three Natures and the Path to Liberation in Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda Thought1 Joy Cecile Brennan

Abstract

This paper provides a new interpretation of the three natures theory of Yogācāra- Vijñānavāda thought by means of an examination of the path theory associated with it, which has not been previously examined in scholarly literature. The paper first examines this path theory in a number of foundational texts to show that the widely accepted pivotal model is not in fact the three natures model that predominates in foundational Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda literature. Second, the paper offers a new interpretation of the three natures theory as providing a new causal model of the arising of suffering, and a corresponding theory of its cessation. This new causal model both makes possible the continued use of the kind of dharma analysis that Abhidharma thought employs to provide a causal analysis of the arising of suffering, and also couches such dharma analysis within the Mahāyāna framework of the emptiness of dharmas.

Key Terms: Buddhism, three natures, Yogācāra, Vijñānavāda, Mahāyāna, emptiness, path.

Introduction

Buddhist philosophy as a discursive tradition is rooted in a motivating set of problems: the fact of suffering and the causes of its arising. These problems are first articulated, so the story goes, in the historical Buddha’s first teaching moment, when he describes the four noble’s truths to his former ascetic companions and first students. Anchored in these truths, the central task of this discursive tradition is to analyze to the fullest extent the nature of suffering, its arising, and the path to its cessation. For its central role in this set of concerns, causation becomes an essential problematic for Buddhist thought. The range of questions found within the purview of this problematic is extensive: not just ‘whence suffering’, but also what categories of causes are there; what kinds of phenomena (dharmas) give rise to which other kinds; what conditions are associated with a given cause; where does causal power lie; how can the causes of suffering be extinguished; and, finally, in the Mahāyāna schools, how can causation, usually described through the method of dharma analysis characteristic of Abhidharma literature, be squared with the emptiness of dharmas? A number of these questions are elegantly answered within the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda school by the three natures theory, in particular by its associated path theory. But the possibility of discerning these answers remains obscured by the standard interpretation of the

1 “This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in the Journal of Indian Philosophy. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-018-9356-4.

2 theory upon Anglophone scholarship of the past few decades has settled. The commonly embraced name for that standard interpretation is the “pivotal model”, according to which the dependent nature is understood to be a basic ontological reality, itself morally neutral, underlying two distinct cognitive orientations towards it, one defiled (the constructed nature) and one purified (the perfected nature). Ever since Alan Sponberg coined this name for the model and deemed it the classical Indian presentation of the three natures by distinguishing it from the “progressive model”, identified as a later conceptual innovation, the pivotal model has been taken as the standard three natures theory model from which later models are thought to deviate (Sponberg 1983, pp. 97-119).2 But in fact a survey of the primary source materials shows that the predominant three natures model as represented in foundational Yogācāra- Vijñānavāda literature is more like the progressive than the pivotal. Taking up this progressive model – indeed it is more appropriately called a path model, for reasons discussed below – we may then pose the fundamental interpretive question: what is the three natures theory for? This paper has two goals: first, to use an exegetical method to show that the pivotal model is not in fact the three natures model that predominates in early and foundational Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda literature, and second, to offer an interpretation of the three natures theory that answers the fundamental question of the theory’s purport. To answer the latter question, this paper shows that the three natures theory offers a new causal model of the arising of suffering, and a corresponding theory of its cessation. The basic insight of this new causal model is that causation itself is characterized as the false attribution of causal powers to the identifying characteristics (svalakṣaṇa) of dharmas, where it is this very activity of false attribution, rather than the identifying characteristics of dharmas, that possesses causal efficacy. This false attribution is the essence of delusion, for its very nature is to serve as the cause of the arising of suffering through a mis-identification of the cause of its arising. This new causal model both makes possible the continued use of the kind of dharma analysis that had previously been understood as providing a causal analysis of the arising of suffering and also couches such dharma analysis within the Mahāyāna framework of the emptiness of dharmas. In short, this paper puts new textual discoveries about the three natures theory to work in interpreting the theory as proffering a novel causal model of the arising of suffering and its cessation, one that reconciles dharma analysis with the principle of the emptiness of dharmas. The path towards these two goals moves through a consideration of the path theory associated with the three natures. An unrecognized but crucial feature of the three natures theory as presented in early and foundational Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda source texts is that it is invariably accompanied by a path theory. That path theory, moreover, directly parallels the path theory traditionally taught with regard to the first three noble’s truths. The canonical narration of the historical Buddha’s statement of the four noble’s truths has it that the truth of suffering should be thoroughly known, the arising of suffering abandoned, and the truth of cessation directly realized. These three processes serve as a ballast to the traditionally recognized path theory formulated in the fourth noble truth, for they provide the meta-ethical framework – the ontology of delusion and liberation – within which the prescriptions of the fourth noble truth may unfold. The three natures path theory repurposes those three processes,

2 For interpretations that present this viewpoint see for example: Nagao 1991, p. 64; Boquist 1993, p. 17; Williams 2009, 90-91; and Hamilton 2001, p. 102-103. 3 describing the constructed nature (parikalpita-svabhāva) as the object of thorough knowledge, the dependent nature (paratantra-svabhāva) as the object of abandonment, and the perfected nature (pariniṣpanna-svabhāva) as that of direct realization. Just as the first two noble truths describe the chief characteristic of the constructed world, suffering, and the causes of its arising, so too does the constructed nature describe the chief characteristic of the constructed world and the dependent nature describe the cause of its arising. And in both cases, cessation or perfection is the absence of that arising. From this three natures path theory emerges a new interpretation of the purpose of the three natures theory: it is a novel causal description of the arising of suffering and the possibility of its cessation, but one that accords with the view that dharmas are empty. The commonly held view that the pivotal model best represents the predominant three natures theory is therefore both inaccurate and obfuscatory. It wrongly identifies the dependent nature as the basic ontological reality rather than the causal description of the arising of delusion and suffering. And it wrongly identifies the constructed nature as the source or activity of delusion, thereby misunderstanding its ontological status as non-existent and its relationship to the dependent nature. Finally, it obscures the way that the three natures theory serves as re-formulation of the realities represented by the first three noble’s truths – and the processes to be undertaken with regard to those realities – that is Mahāyānic in its careful delineation of the emptiness of dharmas. Before proceeding, let me offer two notes, one about texts and one about terminology. About texts: the ideas here will draw upon a swath of Mahāyāna Buddhist scholastic literature, in particular a set of texts that are generally agreed upon to form the foundation of Yogācāra- Vijñānavāda thought.3 This paper draws upon this set, rather than focus on one or two texts or one or two thinkers’ presentations of the theory, for two reasons. First, the three natures path theory was neither peculiar to a given text or author nor a mere footnote to the three natures theory. Every single one of the texts examined here discusses the three natures path theory as a central facet of the discussion of the three natures.4 The path theory is then an essential

3 The Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts examined here include: those that were first composed in Sanskrit and of which there exists a Sanskrit version (the Mahāyāna-sūtra-ālaṃkāra and its commentary, the Madhyānta-vibhāga and its commentary and sub-commentary, and two treatises generally attributed to Vasubandhu, the Triṃśikā and the Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa, as well as the commentary on the former by Sthiramati); those that were composed in Sanskrit but are preserved in their entireties only in other languages, namely Tibetan and/or Chinese (the Saṃdhnirmocana-sūtra and the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha); and those that were composed in Chinese while clearly in conversation with the Sanskritic textual corpus of the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda school (the San wuxing lun of Paramārtha and the Cheng weishi lun of Xuanzang). The reader will note a significant absence in the present discussion: I do not consider texts preserved only in Tibetan or composed in Tibetan. This is simply because of a personal limitation: I lack the ability to read Tibetan. The only exception is the information about the Mahāyāna- sūtrālaṃkāra-ṭīkā, itself preserved only in Tibetan, gathered from an important footnote found in the Jamspal et al English translation of the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra and its commentary. This study would benefit from a consideration of Tibetan texts as well, and I hope that someone in the future is able to carry it out. 4 Indeed some of our source texts are explicit about the intrinsic relationship between the three natures theory and the path theory. The Madhyānta-vibhāga corpus introduces the truth of the path as that which is “established with the three-fold reality” where the latter is thorough knowledge, abandonment and direct realization. Sthiramati’s sub-commentary goes further in listing as one of the reasons why the three natures theory must be taught the necessity of teaching the objects of the three processes of thorough knowledge, abandonment and 4 feature of the three natures theory, whose status as a key Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda concept is recognized by multiple authors over the roughly five centuries that these texts span.5 Second, the exegetical part of this paper highlights general trends in presenting the theory through a consideration of a number of texts, while the interpretive part of this paper is interested in conceptual possibilities. The only way to take account of general trends is to widen one’s scope, and the best way to consider conceptual possibilities is to study more than one presentation of the theory, and in particular to assess the significance of the conceptual variations the theory undergoes throughout this set of texts. A survey of a number of important texts, rather than a focus on one thinker or one text, serves these purposes. About the term Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda: Hartmut Buescher has provided criteria that help us determine whether a given concept or text should be categorized as Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda. Buescher uses the term Yogācāra to connote “the origin and early development of the tradition,” and the term Vijñānavāda to signal “the same tradition’s novel ontological and epistemological turn.” This means that he distinguishes Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts and concepts from those of the Yogācāra school, which do not necessarily contain the concepts, enumerated below, reflective of this “novel turn.” Buescher also distinguishes Yogācāra- Vijñānavāda from Vijñānavāda proper, which in his words “largely dissociate[s] itself from much of the traditional ballast,” while Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda in fact “reassimilates” it (Buescher 2008, pp. 1-2).6 Here by “traditional ballast” Buescher refers to the concerns and systematic conceptual grammar that constitute some Abhidharma traditions of thought and are the main wellspring from which Mahāyāna scholastic traditions flow, even when Mahāyāna traditions reject certain features of the former. The term Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda as used here signals endorsement of Buescher’s criteria: Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda refers to the conceptual matrix, and the texts in which this conceptual matrix is elaborated, which introduces the novel concepts of the three natures, the storehouse consciousness, and mind-only, but does so in a way that seeks to re-assimilate the conceptual grammar and concerns of the broader Buddhist philosophical tradition, including primarily the desire to explain bondage and liberation, as well as the path that connects them, by using the concept of dharma, understood as an event or occurrence, as central to these explanations. The idea of re-assimilation is important, for it a key part of the argument here is that the three natures theory in effect coheres the dharma-analytic framework and methodology with the Mahāyāna commitment to the emptiness of dharmas. Thus it cannot do without the “traditional ballast”, largely comprised of commitment to the method of dharma analysis. But the focus here is only on the three natures theory and unlike Buescher’s work, the aim is not primarily to determine the history of the theory (such as what text it first appeared in, or the

direct realization. (See, respectively, Pandeya 1971, p. 92 and Pandeya 1971, p. 85.) And the San wuxing lun’s discussion of the three natures theory comes within its treatment of the truth of the path (mārga-satya). 5 In fact interest in the theory continued well beyond these five centuries. For example, Alan Sponberg references debates about the theory in medieval Japan (Sponberg 1983, pp. 115-116, fn. 9), while Jeffrey Hopkins discusses Tsong kha pa’s debates with the Jo nang pas about the three natures theory in 14th century Tibet (Hopkins 1999, pp. 104–113 and 272–273). 6 Buescher notes that the stand-alone term vijñānavāda is introduced with the advent of pramāṇa writings, with regard to which I concur with Buescher’s point that they leave behind much of the conceptual framework that Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda thought inherited from Yogācāra and from Abhidharma, Mahāyāna and non-Māhāyana alike. 5 temporal relationships between different texts that present it).7 Instead, the goal is to identify the key conceptual functions of the three natures theory by means of a study of its associated path theory, as well as to consider the conceptual possibilities and philosophical concerns raised by variations in the theory.

The Three Natures Path Theory: Textual Sources and Conceptual Variations

That the three natures theory pertains to the path to awakening is not a new or surprising claim. Most reflections on the theory accurately identify it as describing the transition from delusion to realization, and most recognize that it does this through some kind of movement between or relationships among the three natures themselves.8 However, it has thus far remained unrecognized that Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda source texts employ very specific path language when discussing the three natures theory, and that this language purposefully situates the three natures at the center of Buddhist soteriological thought. I refer here to the use of the concepts of thoroughly knowing, abandoning, and directly realizing as the processes to be undertaken with regard to, respectively, the constructed, dependent, and perfected natures. Readers well versed in Buddhist thought will recognize these as the very terms used in the Dhammacakkapavattanasutta, and indeed in many other contexts in which the four noble’s truths are systematically described, to denote the processes prescribed with regard to the first three noble’s truths. And indeed a number of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda source texts extant in Sanskrit employ the Sanskrit cognates to the Pali terms used in that text for these three processes: parijñā, prahāṇa, and sākṣāt-kriyā. Others use closely allied terms, and our Chinese language source texts use translations that closely reflect the meanings of these terms. The three natures theory thus grounds itself within the four noble’s truths as a statement of Buddhist soteriology, while replacing the objects that the first three noble’s truths describe – the whole mass of suffering, its arising, and its cessation – with distinct facets of each and every individual dharma. But the three natures path theory is not simply a retooling of the path proposed with regard to the first three noble’s truths; it is equally an expression of the pan-Mahāyāna emphasis on the fact that all dharmas are empty,9 or in the language more commonly used in our source texts, selfless (nairātmya). The animating force behind this path theory is two-fold:

7 By designating my own work as conceptual rather than historical, I seek for the moment to side-step the debate between Buescher and Lambert Schmithausen regarding the historical relationship between the ideas that Buescher identifies as key to Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda. While Buescher sees them – in particular the ideas of mind- only, the three natures, and the eight consciousnesses – as necessarily connected, Schmithausen notes that they have in fact been treated separately and argues that they are not intrinsically connected. Schimthausen also raises an important hypothesis regarding the historical origins of the three natures theory (2017, pp. 8-9), with regard to which I again merely note that the theory put forth here is primarily conceptual in nature. 8 The contemporary interpretations that most effectively foreground the three natures as pertaining to path theory are Mario D’Amato’s in both 2005, p. 204 and 2012, pp. 17-18. 9 Let it be noted that the Mahāyāna was not the first Buddhist tradition to recognize and value the truth of emptiness. Non-Mahāyāna sources also propose this as the ultimate truth. But two things are clear: the Mahāyāna clearly thought that at least some preceding non-Mahāyāna texts and schools had failed to fully embrace this insight and all of its implications, and that Mahayanists believed that this is – and was all along – the correct way to understand the scriptural teaching about dharmas. 6 all dharmas are empty, which is the Mahāyāna’s most insistent philosophical assertion, and yet there is delusion (first noble truth), it has a cause (second noble truth), and its cessation is possible (third noble truth). How does emptiness work such that these three truths are indeed true? The three natures theory, including its path theory, is one Mahāyāna reply. As recounted above, the “pivotal model” of the three natures theory has it that the constructed nature is the source of error or delusion and so should be the object of abandonment, while the dependent nature is a neutral ontological reality upon which the constructed nature is superimposed under the condition of delusion. To abandon the constructed nature would then be the purification of the dependent nature and the accomplishment of the perfected nature. But this model is inconsistent with the three natures path theory found in the core set of foundational Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts examined here. To begin, the three natures theory should be situated within this shared project of establishing the selflessness of dharmas. Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā (as well as Sthiramati’s Triṃśikā-vijñapti-bhāṣya), Paramārtha’s San wuxing lun (Treatise on the Three Naturelessnesses), and Xuanzang’s Cheng weishi lun all open with an assertion of the necessity of establishing the selflessness of dharmas. These texts assert that the view that a person has or is a self is an obstacle of affliction, whereas the view that dharmas possess selves is an obstacle to knowledge, and that the abandonment of both kinds of obstacles is a condition of full liberation. Paramārtha takes a further step, identifying the establishment of the selflessness of dharmas as a specifically Mahāyāna task. The San wuxing lun’s (which takes the form of translated treatise and Paramārtha’s commentary) discussion of this topic is representative, and so I quote it here in full:

The treatise says: in the chapter on establishing emptiness, the emptiness of persons has been established, but dharmas have not yet been established as empty. In order to demonstrate the emptiness of dharmas, here is discussed the chapter that teaches that all dharmas lack self-nature. The commentary says: the chapter on emptiness is taught first, and then the chapter on naturelessness is taught. Why? The chapter on emptiness is taught first in order to demonstrate the emptiness of persons. But this abandons only the obstacles of affliction, and as such it is merely a partial path. The chapter on naturelessness is taught next in order to demonstrate the emptiness of dharmas. This passes beyond and abandons all obstacles to knowledge and obstacles of affliction, and as such it is a complete path.10

Here the reader encounters a common Mahāyāna critique of non-Mahāyāna philosophy: that while the latter correctly and ably shows that the person is empty of a self, it does not show that, as all Mahāyāna philosophies concur, the constituents of the person – dharmas – are also not selves, meaning they do not have essences that distinguish them from one another, perdure through time, or serve as the causes of arising. As such, Mahāyānists hold that the non- Mahāyāna concept of emptiness has not overcome the chief obstacle to liberative gnosis, which

10 T no. 1617, 31: 867 b06-b10: 論曰立空品中人空已成未立法空爲顯法空故説諸法無自性品釋曰前説空品後説 無性品欲何所爲答曰前説空品爲顯人空但除煩惱障是別道故後説無性品爲顯法空通除一切智障及煩惱障是 通道故. [All citations of T refer to Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō.] 7 is the view that dharmas possess intrinsic natures. Establishing the emptiness, naturelessness, or selflessness of dharmas is a key and shared task of Mahāyāna philosophy,11 and a number of the texts examined here, like Paramārtha’s representative discussion quoted above, this shared task is embraced.12 For Paramārtha, the establishment of the selflessness of dharmas provides a “complete understanding of the path.” This line neatly encapsulates his commitment to the idea that the three natures theory, which is itself the text’s articulation of the selflessness of dharmas, is above all a vehicle for articulating a path theory. In the core set of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts examined here, the explication of the selflessness of dharmas always proceeds by means of an analysis of the three natures of dharmas, and these analyses invariably turn to a more or less formulaically intoned assertion about which process should be undertaken with regard to each nature or, in other words, to a description of the path processes that take the three natures as their objects. The formula, with allowances for two important conceptual variations13 that appear in a minority of the source texts, is usually written thusly: the constructed nature of dharmas is that which is to be thoroughly known (parijñeya, object of parijñā), the dependent nature of dharmas is that which is to be both thoroughly known and abandoned (prahātavya, object of prahāṇa), and the perfected nature of dharmas is that which is to be both thoroughly known and directly realized (sākṣāt-kartavya, object of sākṣāt-kriyā). This formula is given in indirect forms in both the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra and the Yogācārabhūmi, the two earliest texts examined here and likely the earliest and thus formative texts of both the Yogācāra and Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda textual traditions. While the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra does not provide a direct association of each of the three natures and the three path processes like the scholastic Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda treatises do, its indirect statement of that connection leaves us in no doubt about which path process should be applied to which nature. Drawing directly on the common Abhidharma idea that the general path process is one of abandoning impurities, which takes the form of abandoning the arising of dharmas characterized by suffering, the following passage from the sūtra provides its account of a three natures path theory:

11 The term “emptiness” is more frequently encountered in Prajñāpāramitā literature as well as in Mahāyāna philosophical texts associated with the Madhyamaka school. Texts associated with the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda school generally opt for the terms naturelessness or selflessness, though they do at times use emptiness as a synonym, as Paramārtha does in this passage. 12 Jonathan Gold makes just this point about the Mahāyāna in 2015, p. 148. In addition, his discussion of Vasubandhu’s turn towards Yogācāra indicates that Vasubandhu shared this project. I read Gold’s treatment of Vasubandhu’s shift from the focus on demonstrating the selflessness of persons in the Abhidharma-kośa-bhāṣya to, as Gold describes it, “eliminating, in addition, a subtler form of self-projection: the subjective self that appears within every apparent perception and consciousness” as another way of describing Vasubandhu’s Mahāyānistic commitment to explaining and arguing for the selflessness of dharmas. See Gold, 2015, p. 134. The Triṃśikā- vijñapti-bhāṣya’s opening passages discusses the necessity of establishing both the selflessness of persons and of dharmas (Buescher 2008, p. 38), and Xuanzang describes both the clinging to self and the clinging to dharmas in the Cheng weishi lun, T no. 1585, 31: 48c06-c07. This text even asserts that clinging to dharmas is the basis of clinging to self (see T no. 1585, 31: 48c18-c19), which makes the establishment of the selflessness of dharmas all the more pressing. 13 I refer to these as conceptual variations, rather than simply textual variations, because I think each of these two variations represents a different way of thinking about and conceptually situating the three natures theory. Thus, these variations are philosophically significant. 8

Good son, if all bodhisattvas thoroughly know, in accordance with reality, the characteristic that is grasped by the imagination [the constructed nature] as it is with regard to the characteristic that arises in dependence upon another [the dependent nature], then they can thoroughly know, in accordance with reality, the characterlessness of all dharmas. If all bodhisattvas thoroughly know, in accordance with reality, the characteristic that arises in dependence upon another, then they can thoroughly know, in accordance with reality, all dharmas as having a defiled characteristic. If all bodhisattvas thoroughly know, in accordance with reality, the completely accomplished real characteristic, then they can thoroughly know, in accordance with reality, all dharmas as having a pure characteristic. Good son, if all bodhisattvas can thoroughly know, in accordance with reality, the characterlessness of all dharmas with regard to the characteristic that arises in dependence upon another, then they can abandon the defiled characteristic of all dharmas. If they can abandon the defiled characteristic of all dharmas, then they can accomplish and realize the pure characteristic [perfected nature] of all dharmas.”14

Two aspects of this passage command attention: its rendering of the dependent nature as defiled and the perfected nature as pure, and its rendering of the defiled aspect of dharmas as the object of abandonment and the pure aspect as the object of direct realization. These two assertions conduce to the view that the dependent nature of dharmas is the proper object of abandonment on the path, since it is the defiled aspect of a dharma, and that the “pure characteristic” here stands in for the perfected nature as the object of direct realization. Note too that all three natures are objects of thorough knowledge, but only the constructed nature is the object of just this path process and no other. Here then is the first instance of a Yogācāra primary text in which it is the dependent nature – not the constructed nature, as the consensus in Anglophone Buddhist studies scholarship currently has it – that produces distorted reality and must be abandoned on the path to attaining the non-distorted vision of a Buddha. The Yogācārabhūmi joins the same set of path processes with the three natures in the same way. This text’s encyclopedic pages provide an early and exhaustive explanation of the central concepts of the Yogācāra and Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda schools. It is moreover closely allied with the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, as major portions of the latter are incorporated, apparently verbatim, into the former. Two of the concepts distinctive of the Yogācāra-

14 Translated from Xuanzang’s Chinese translation, found at T no. 676, 16:693 b25-c03: 善男⼦若諸菩薩能於諸法 依他起相上如實了知遍計所執相即能如實了知⼀切無相之法若諸菩薩如實了知依他起相即能如實了知⼀切 雜染相法若諸菩薩如實了知圓成實相即能如實了知⼀切清淨相法善男⼦若諸菩薩能於依他起相上如實了知 無相之法即能斷滅雜染相法若能斷滅雜染相法即能證得清淨相法. See also Lamotte’s back-translation (1935, p. 64): “tatra guṇākara bodhisattvā dharmāṇāṃ paratantralakṣaṇe parikalpitalakṣaṇaṃ yathābhūtaṃ prajñāyālakṣaṇadharmān yathābhūtaṃ prajānanti/ tatra guṇākara bodhisattvāḥ paratanatralakṣaṇaṃ yathābhūtaṃ prajñāya saṃkleśalakṣaṇadharmān yathābhūtaṃ prajānanti/ tatra guṇākara bodhisattvāḥ pariniṣpannalakṣaṇaṃ yathābhūtaṃ prajñāya vyavadānalakṣaṇadharmān yathābhūtaṃ prajānanti/ tatra guṇākara bodhisattvāḥ dharmāṇāṃ paratantralakṣaṇe ‘lakṣaṇadharmān yathābhūtaṃ prajñāya saṃkleśalakṣaṇadharmān prajahati/ saṃkleśalakṣaṇadharmān prahāya vyavadānalakṣaṇadharmān adhigacchanti/” C.f. Lamotte’s French translation at 1935, p. 190 and Powers’ translation at 1995, pp. 87-89. 9

Vijñānavāda school, the three natures theory and the idea of mind-only, appear only scantly in those sections of the text that proceed the Viniścaya section on the Bodhisattvabhūmi, but are elaborated more fully in that latter section.15 This text’s first statement of the three natures path theory reads:

How many of the natures are to be thoroughly known? All three. How many are to be permanently cut-off? One. How many are to be realized and attained? One.16

These lines straightforwardly render the three natures as objects of these three path processes, yet their elliptical quality may leave the reader unclear about which nature is the object of which process. A few lines later comes this helpful elaboration:

If a practitioner of vision truly awakens to and enters into the nature that is grasped by discrimination [the constructed nature], at that time, which nature should we say she accords with and enters? The answer is the completely realized true nature [perfected nature]. When a practitioner accords with and enters the completely realized true nature, which nature should we say is abandoned? The answer is the nature that arises in dependence on another [dependent nature].17

The only path process in this second passage directly paralleled to a process of that first elliptical passage is abandonment or “cutting off”. Its object is, moreover, the dependent nature, just as it was in the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra. As for the other natures and the path processes that take them as object, this explanatory passage uses the common Buddhist metaphor of awakening, as well as the spatial metaphor of entering, to characterize thorough knowledge of the constructed nature. This knowledge, when attained, is also direct realization of the perfected nature, which is described here as ‘accordance with’ and ‘entry into’ that nature. Finally, the passage describes this motion of entry into the perfected nature as temporally coincident with the abandonment or cutting-off of the dependent nature. That the dependent nature is the object of abandonment in both the Saṃdhinirmocana- sūtra and Yogācārabhūmi may be surprising if we base our knowledge of the three natures theory on the common view that the constructed nature is the source of distorted reality and thus the only nature that needs to be relinquished or extirpated. But it should not be surprising, for in all of these early Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts the dependent nature is understood as the cause of the arising of delusion. As such it directly parallels the second noble truth, which identifies dependent arising as the cause of suffering or delusion: both the dependent nature and the second noble truth are the objects of abandonment in their two respective path theories. And while the terms used are not identical, ‘awakening’ is in this passage used

15 There are two brief references to the three natures theory before the Viniścaya section on the Bodhisattva- bhūmi. They are at T no. 1579, 30: 345 c01-c05 and T no. 1579, 30: 387 c26. In addition, it should be noted that the Viniścaya section’s treatment incorporates large chunks of text, apparently verbatim, from the Saṃdhinirmocana- sūtra. 16 T no. 1579, 30: 705 a09-a10: 問三種自性幾應遍知答一切問幾應永斷答一問幾應證得答一. 17 T no. 1579, 30: 705 b4-7 問若觀行者如實悟入遍計所執自性時當言隨入何等自性答圓成實自性問若觀 行者隨入圓成實自性時當言除遣何等自性答依他起自性. 10 synonymously with thoroughly knowing, while ‘according with’ is used synonymously with directly realizing. This same path theory, expressed more directly, is found in all but two of the other foundational Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts examined here. Those two texts incorporate one important conceptual variation that indeed introduces a model more like the pivotal model, as discussed below.18 The Madhyānta-vibhāga corpus, for example, uses Sanskrit cognates for the Pali terms for the path processes used in the Dhammacakkapavatansutta and contextualizes its discussion of these three processes as a description of the truth of the path (mārga-satya). The verse text and commentary read:

Verse 9ab commentary: “How is the truth of the path established within the threefold fundamental reality?”19 Verses 9cd-10a: “In thorough understanding [parijñā], abandonment [prahāṇa], and the attainment of direct realization [sākṣāt-kṛta]: this is how the truth of the path is explained.”20 Verses 9cd-10a commentary: It should be understood that the truth of the path is established within thorough understanding, abandonment, and the attainment of direct realization as follows: within thorough understanding of the constructed; within thorough understanding and abandonment of the dependent; and within thorough understanding of and the attainment of direct realization of the perfected. Thus, it is within thorough understanding, abandonment, and the attainment of direct realization that the establishment of the truth of the path should be known.”21

Here the text uses the locative case to connote the conditions within which the truth of the path is established, or better yet actualized, and there are three such conditions to correspond with the triune nature of fundamental reality – or the reality of each single dharma – as constructed, dependent, and perfected. Like the Madhyānta-vibhāga verse text and commentary, the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra verse text and commentary also employ these terms. The verse text prioritizes three path processes, here understood as knowing, abandoning and purifying, but it does not explicitly join its discussion of the nature of reality and the imperative of undertaking these three processes to the three natures. The commentary, however, does connect these three processes to the three natures. The verse text and commentary read:

MSA chapter 11 verse 13: Reality is always devoid of duality, it is the ground of error, it is inexpressible, and it is naturally unfabricated. It is understood as that which should be known [jñeyaṃ], abandoned [heyam], and purified [viśodhyam], and as that which is

18 See pages 11-12 below. 19 Pandeya, 1971, p. 92. mārgasatyaṃ trividhe mūlatattve kathaṃ vyavasthāpyate? 20 Ibid., p. 92. parijñāyāṃ prahāṇe ca prāptisākṣātkṛtāvapi// mārgasatyaṃ samākhyātam. 21 Ibid., p. 92. parikalpitasya parijñāne paratantrasya parijñāne prahāṇe ca pariniṣpannasya parijñāne prāptisākṣātkaraṇe ca. evamatra parijñāprahāṇasākṣātkriyāyām mārgasatyavyavasthānamiti veditavyam. 11

naturally pure [amalaṃ prakṛtyā]. Its purification of defilements is known as being like that of space, gold, and water.22 MSAB on chapter 11 verse 13: Reality that is always devoid of duality is the constructed nature, because of the absolute non-existence of the characteristics of subject and object. The dependent is the ground of error, because of the construction by it [the dependent] of that [the constructed]. That which is inexpressible and naturally unfabricated is the perfected nature. Of these, the first reality is to be known, the second is to be abandoned, and the third is to be purified of adventitious defilements and is naturally pure.23

As with the Yogācāra-bhūmi, the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, and the Madhyānta-vibhāga verse text and commentary, the constructed nature here in the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra verse text and commentary is the object of thorough knowledge and the dependent is the object of abandonment. And here also, as in the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, the perfected nature is characterized in terms of its purity, though the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra is the only text for which the perfected nature is both intrinsically pure and the object of purification, a point taken up just below. Here let us note the first major conceptual variation among the examined source texts’ treatments of the three natures theory. The Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra corpus is the first of our sources to maintain that only the constructed nature is the object of thorough knowledge. For the other three textual corpora examined thus far, all three natures are objects of thorough knowledge. This distinction is of philosophical import, as it likely reflects varying conceptions of what thorough knowledge itself is and of which of the three natures are themselves possible objects of perception or conception. The Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra-ṭīkā contains the second major conceptual variation in the rendering of the three natures path theory. The sub-commentary on chapter 11, verse 13 asserts that it is not the entirety of the dependent nature that is to be abandoned, but only the defiled portion of it (Jamspal et al 2004, p. 121, fn 34). It thus proposes that the dependent nature is partially pure and partially defiled, and that abandonment takes only the impure aspect as its object. A comparison of this sub-commentarial point to the verse text and commentary reveals this to be an innovation in the theory. Not only does it introduce something new into the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra corpus, but this new interpretation actually conflicts with the claim made in the verse text and commentary that the perfected nature is both naturally pure and the object of purification. One may be tempted to reconcile the verse text and commentary with the sub-commentary by proposing that for the latter, the perfected nature itself is just the pure aspect of the dependent nature. But this too produces contradiction, for the verse text and commentary clearly render the dependent nature as a

22 Lévi 1907, p. 58. tatvaṃ yatsatataṃ dvayena rahitaṃ bhrānteśca saṃniśrayaḥ/śakyaṃ naiva ca sarvathābhilapituṃ yaccāprapañcātmakaṃ/ jñeyaṃ heyamatho viśodhyamamalaṃ yacca prakṛtyā mataṃ/yasyākāśasuvarṇavārisadṛśī kleśādviśuddhirmatā. 23 Ibid., p. 58. satataṃ dvayena rahitaṃ tatvaṃ parikalpitaḥ svabhāvo grāhyagrāhakalakṣaṇenātyantamasatvāt/ bhrānteḥ saṃniśrayaḥ paratantrastena tatparikalpanāt/ anabhilāpyamaprapañcātmakaṃ ca pariniṣpannaḥ svabhāvaḥ/ tatra prathamaṃ tatvaṃ parijñeyaṃ dvitīyaṃ praheyaṃ tṛtīyaṃ viśodhyaṃ cāgantukamalādviśuddhaṃ…. 12 whole the object of abandonment rather than purification. It should therefore be understood as a conceptual innovation, not as a clarification or inference. This comparison between the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra-ṭīkā and its verse text and commentary shows this change for the innovation that it is. But in fact this is not the only text to make the assertion that the dependent nature has both defiled and pure aspects, for the Yogācāra-bhūmi also makes this assertion, as does Xuanzang’s Cheng weishi lun, discussed below. Yet these two texts make no allowances for the claim that only the defiled part of the dependent nature is the object of abandonment, insisting instead, in keeping with the predominant three natures path model, that the whole dependent nature is to be abandoned. This combination of features is puzzling at first glance. How can the dependent nature be partially pure and yet to be entirely abandoned? One basic point about the Abhidharmic milieu from which the Yogācāra-bhūmi emerges and with which Xuanzang is very familiar is helpful: some dharmas are pure and others are impure, but all are ultimately subject to abandonment on the path, even those pure ones that are cultivated as aids on the path. Indeed, this feature of the path is the source of puzzlement about the nature of nirvana itself: if it is the abandonment of all of the dharmas that constitute samsara, even those recognized as pure insofar as they are conducive to liberation, what is left in nirvana? In addition to being consistent with the basic framework (and ensuing perplexities) of Abhidharma thought, this reading of the Yogācāra-bhūmi is internally consistent, since the text defines the dependent nature as the characteristics (svalakṣaṇa) of dharmas, and these characteristics are described in Abhidharma thought as either pure or defiled. The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha is the only other of the foundational texts examined here that makes the same assertion as that found in the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra-ṭīkā and it too alters the three natures path theory accordingly. For both texts, the dependent nature is partially defiled and partially pure and only the defiled part of the dependent nature is the proper object of abandonment. But while the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra-ṭīkā and Mahāyāna-saṃgraha do assert that only the impure part of the dependent nature is to be abandoned, their’s is a minority position in relation to the Yogācāra-bhūmi, Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, Madhyānta- vibhāga and Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra verse texts and commentaries, as well as the texts discussed below, including the works of Vasubandhu, Paramārtha’s San wuxing lun and Xuanzang’s Cheng weishi lun. Moreover, the idea that only the impure aspect of the dependent nature is abandoned on the path is also a departure from the three natures path theory as a direct adaptation of the path theory articulated in the first three of the four noble’s truths, wherein the entirety of dependent-arising, which is to say the whole complex of dharmas that constitute samsara, is abandoned on the path. Sponberg’s “pivotal model” of the three natures theory is based on this second conceptual variation. Indeed in establishing the pivotal model as the predominant three natures model, Sponberg takes the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha as “the most systematic and comprehensive work of Classical Indian Yogācāra” (Sponberg 1983, p. 99) and on the basis of this establishes the pivotal model as predominant for Indian Yogācāra. While the text certainly has a high status as representative of early Indian Yogācāra, in this instance it turns out to have been a mistake to take it as representative for as shown here its three natures model occupies an extreme minority position among early Yogācāra texts. Nevertheless, once this minority position is established, the question of whether the dependent nature in its entirety or only its 13 impure aspect is the proper object of abandonment on the path is pervasive. For example, Sponberg identifies it as a topic of debate in the Hossō school of medieval Japan (Sponberg 1983, pp. 115-116, fn. 9), while Jeffrey Hopkins discusses Tsong kha pa’s debate with the Jo Nang pas regarding the same issue (Hopkins 1999, pp. 104–113 and 272–273). This conceptual variation, and thus the pivotal model itself, is not just of historical and textual importance, but is also philosophically significant. It seems likely that it is motivated by the concern that the total abandonment of the arising of dharmas, in the form of their dependent natures, might indicate that perception and conception, indeed lived and experienced reality itself, would be entirely absent in one who has undergone liberation from delusion. By rendering the dependent nature as partially pure and designating only its impure aspect as the object of abandonment, the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra-ṭīkā and the Mahāyāna- saṃgraha proffer a resolution to this threat of nihilism. But this resolution sacrifices the elegance and power of the parallel to the three noble’s truths’ path theory. And, as has been argued elsewhere (Brennan, 2015, chapter 6), it also elides an essential problematic that the theory highlights as a key feature of the path itself. This problematic may be called the paradox of purity, which is that the achievement of the purity of the perfected nature can only be accomplished by means of gaining insight into each moment of arising in the form of the defiled dependent nature of dharmas. Such insight demands, paradoxically, that purity is achievable only with regard to and by means of correct cognition of the defiled dependent nature of dharmas. If the dependent nature is itself partially defiled and partially pure, the paradox either loses its force and significance, or is simply displaced and becomes a dynamic internal to the dependent nature itself, rather than one that pertains to the relationship between the dependent and perfected natures. The latter option, however, suggests that dharmas can arise in a pure mode, itself vitiating the three natures theory’s original insistence on the impurity of all arising. It also renders the perfected nature redundant. But for present purposes, the point is simply that despite not being the predominant three natures model, the pivotal model is both philosophically motivated and important to a complete understanding of the historical development of the three natures theory. Turning now to Vasubandhu’s oeuvre, we find that it presents a series of puzzles with regard to the three natures path theory. Accepting the traditional attribution of his authorship of both the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra and Mahāyāna-saṃgraha commentaries leads immediately to an interpretive problem, for the former embraces the predominant three natures model, while the latter text accords with the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra-ṭīkā. As for Vasubandhu’s independent Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda treatises: the Trimśikā contains no direct statement of the three natures path theory, despite a number of verses that address the three natures theory, whose representation there is consistent with the predominant model, while the Viṃśatikā does not even directly address the three natures theory, though it is situated with a Mahāyāna metaphysic in which dharmas are selfless,24 which is the reality whose structure the three natures theory serves to describe.

24 The claim that the Viṃśatikā embraces the selflessness of dharmas is a modest one: it amounts to the claim that the text is committed to a Mahāyāna metaphysics of emptiness, which is uncontroversial. But I actually think this text’s core set of arguments concerning the nature of matter (rūpa) functions to establish the truth of the selflessness of dharmas. That is, I am claiming that it does not demonstrate that there is no matter – in contrast to the existence of the non-material – but instead that it seeks to demonstrate that if dharmas do possess intrinsic 14

Vasubandhu’s great commentator Sthiramati interprets the Triṃśikā’s treatment of the three natures theory as consistent with the path theory widely represented in foundational Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda literature. The text of his commentary contains indirectly supports it. We find this support in the commentary to verse 22, which asserts that the dependent nature is entirely defiled, suggesting that it should be the object of abandonment.25 The verse and commentary address the relation between the perfected and dependent natures, which is declared to be one of neither sameness nor difference. This might be thought to contribute to the view that the dependent nature is partially defiled, insofar as it is different from the perfected nature, and partially pure, insofar as it is the same as the latter. But in fact in this text defilement is the factor that distinguishes the dependent from the perfected nature: if the perfected were at all defiled (saṃkleśa) it would not be differentiable from the dependent nature, and if the dependent were not entirely defiled, it would not be differentiable from the perfected. They are alike insofar as both are distinct from the constructed nature. So in keeping with the standard three natures rendering, here the dependent nature is entirely defiled. The inference may then be made that it should be the object of abandonment in its entirety. The Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa provides the clearest assertion of the three natures path theory of any of Vasubandhu’s independent texts, yet it is still indirect, couched within the extended analogy to the illusion of a magician conjuring the appearance of an elephant from the raw material of wood. This analogy likens the processes by which a samsaric being comes under the sway of delusion to the perceptual and cognitive processes by which an observer falls under the spell of the magic. In the analogy, the magic spell conjures the image of a real elephant from the bare element of wood. Verses 28, 32, and 35 together give a complete understanding of which process takes which nature as object in this text. Verse 28 analogizes the constructed nature to the elephant, the dependent nature to its appearance, and the perfected nature to the non-existence of the elephant. Verse 32 calls thorough knowledge non- apprehension, while verse 34 renders the elephant the object of non-apprehension. In the terms of the analogy then, the constructed nature is the object of thorough knowledge. Verse 32 calls abandonment non-appearance, while verse 34 glosses abandonment as “the vanishing of the appearance of that [the elephant].” Again in the terms of the analogy, the dependent nature is the object of abandonment. And the perfected nature is analogized in the text to both the wood and the apprehension of the non-existence of the elephant, which is, in either case, the reality that is the object of direct realization. This text’s careful delineation of the terms of natures that both distinguish them from other dharmas and possess causal efficacy (it is no accident that the arguments are couched within a discussion of the āyatanas, themselves understood as dharmas functioning as the causes of the arising of mental episodes), then matter would have to be either atomically composed or a unitary whole, both of which, the argument seeks to show, are impossible. This is in effect a reductio of the view that dharmas possess intrinsic natures that distinguish them from one another and possess causal efficacy, rather than a proof of the non-existence of matter independently of its appearance. This interpretation, however, requires a lengthy demonstration. For present purposes, the more modest claim is enough. 25 Buescher, 2008, p. 124. yadi hi pariniṣpannaḥ paratantrād anyaḥ syād evaṃ na parikalpitena parantantraḥ śūnyaḥ syāt| athānanya evam api pariniṣpanno na viśuddhālambanaḥ syāt paratantravat saṃkleśātmakatvāt| evaṃ paratantraś ca na kleśātmakaḥ syāt|pariniṣpannāt ananyatvāt pariniṣpannavat| [“If the perfected were different from the dependent, then the dependent would not be empty of the constructed. But if the perfected were not different, it would not have a pure basis, because it would be defiled, like the dependent. In this case the dependent would not be defiled, but would be like the perfected, because of not being distinct from it.”] 15 the analogy leaves no room to confuse the constructed nature for the object of abandonment or to construe the dependent nature – the false appearance or perception of the elephant – as reality itself. The same interpretive problem found in Vasubandhu’s treatments of the three natures appears in Sthiramati’s writings. While the received version of the latter’s Mahāyāna- sūtrālaṃkāra-ṭīkā innovates upon the verse text and commentary, changing the three natures path theory to something like the pivotal model, we have seen that his Triṃśikā-bhāṣya implicitly embraces the predominant three natures path theory. His Madhyānta-vibhāga-ṭīkā moreover, reproduces it exactly. There, in the clearest statement by any of our authors that the constructed nature absolutely cannot be the object of abandonment, he writes: “Because the constructed is absolutely non-existent, there is only thorough knowledge of it and not abandonment, for abandonment of the non-existent does not make sense. It should be known that the dependent does not exist as it appears, but that it is not entirely non-existent like the constructed. And it should be abandoned, because its nature is the arising of karma and defilements.”26 Here again, the reason the dependent nature in its entirety is the object of abandonment is because its nature is that of affliction. Returning now to the text discussed at the open of this section, Paramārtha in his San wuxing lun is unequivocal that the dependent nature is entirely defiled and the object of abandonment. As do the Madhyāntavibhāga-bhāṣya and ṭīkā, Paramārtha introduces the three natures path theory during his discussion of the truth of the path (mārga-satya, daodi, 道諦 ), itself discussed under the alternative title of the suchness of correct practice (zhenxing ruru, 正 行如如 ), one of seven suchnesses discussed in the treatise. The three natures are here introduced as a way of describing reality that is intrinsically connected to the path of practice. He writes:

Furthermore, the suchness of correct practice refers to the truth of the path, and it also has three kinds. The first is the path of knowing, which occurs with regard to the discriminated nature. This nature does not exist; one must know that it lacks anything that is susceptible to cessation. Thus it is called the path of knowing. The second is the path of elimination, which occurs with regard to the other-dependent nature. This nature exists. Thus, one must know that because it is the class of afflictions that are in accord with cessation, it is called the path of elimination. The third is the path of authenticating and obtaining, which occurs with regard to the real and true nature. Because this nature is the two emptinesses, one must know that it should be attained based on elimination and cessation. This is what is called the suchness of correct practice.27

26 Pandeya 1971, p. 93. parikalpito ‘tyantamasanneveti tasya parijñānameva na prahāṇam/na hyasataḥ prahāṇaṃ yujyate/[Quoting the commentary: paratantrasya parijñāne prahāṇe ca]/paratantro hi yathā khyāti tathā ‘sattvaṃ vijñeyaṃ na tu sarvātmatvenāsattvaṃ kalpitavat/karmakleśāyorbhāvātmatvāt prahātavyāśca. 27 T no. 1617, 31: 0872c18-c24. 復次正行如如者所謂道諦亦有三義一知道謂約分別性此性無體但應須知無有 可滅 故名 知道二除道約依他性此性有體是故應知是煩惱類所以須滅故名除道三證得道約真實性此性是二空 故應知除滅故應得故名正行如如也 16

Paramārtha makes here the point that Vasubandhu has made before him and that Sthiramati makes later: the constructed nature cannot be the object of abandonment because it is entirely non-existent.28 The dependent nature, on the other hand, is the defiled object of abandonment. The other great transmitter and translator of Yogācāra and Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts in China, Xuanzang, also presents this standard three natures path theory, though as discussed above his Cheng weishi lun (Treatise on the Establishment of Mind Only) presents a puzzle shared by only one other of the texts examined here. The Cheng weishi lun makes a straightforward statement of the predominant three natures path theory, couching it as the San wuxing lun does in a discussion of the truth of the path:

The truth of the path is threefold. The first is the path of thorough knowing, which takes as its object that which is grasped by construction. The second is the path of eternally cutting off, which takes as its object that which arises in dependence upon another. The third is the path if direct realization, which takes as its object the completely perfect and real. The path of thoroughly knowing also incorporates the latter two.29

This text’s standard presentation of the three natures path theory is oddly coupled with the claim that the dependent nature is partially defiled and partially pure, a pairing also found in the Yogācāra-bhūmi. This odd pairing could perhaps be a result of the multi-layered aspect of both works – the former a compilation and consideration of a variety of often divergent views on key mind-only teachings, the latter an early comprehensive compendium of Yogācāra and Yogācāra-vijñānavāda teachings. Or as proposed above in discussion of the Yogācāra-bhūmi, it may be a nod to the fact that even the dharmas classified as pure in Abhidharma literatures are still susceptible to the delusive activity of the dependent nature. Either way, the path theory makes clear that the dependent nature in its entirety is to be abandoned on the path. This textual evidence, spanning approximately the second through the seventh centuries and extending from South to East Asia, leads to two conclusions. First, the path theory articulated using the concepts of thorough knowledge, abandonment, and direct realization is an intrinsic feature of the three natures theory. Of the texts examined here, only the independent treatises of Vasubandhu fail to explicitly introduce the three natures path theory during their discussions of the three natures theory. Moreover, a number of these texts either explicitly render the three natures theory a path theory by introducing it as an explanation of the truth of the path, or subordinate the idea that dharmas possess three natures to the necessity of identifying the objects of these three path processes, again subordinating the ascertainment of the nature(s) of dharmas to the exigencies of the path itself.30 Second, the idea that the dependent nature is both pure and defiled and that only the defiled part of it is the object of abandonment is a minority position within the foundational

28 See page 14 above for Sthiramati’s claim to this effect in the Madhyānta-vibhāga-ṭīka. 29 T no. 1585, 31: 47b19-b21. 道諦三者一遍知道能知遍計所執故二永斷道能斷依他起故三作證道能證圓成實 故然遍知道亦通後二. C.f. Cook 1999, p. 292. 30 E.g. Asvabhāva’s sub-commentary on the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha and Sthiramati’s sub-commentary on the Madhyānta-vibhāga both say just this. 17 texts of the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda. Only the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha and the sub-commentary to the Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra introduce this idea. For all the rest of the texts examined here (which number eleven, counting commentarial strata as distinct) the constructed nature is the object of thorough knowledge, the dependent nature in its entirety is the object of abandonment, and the perfected nature is the object of direct realization. These facts should prompt a reconsideration of the predominance of the pivotal model in our interpretation of the three natures. The features of the pivotal model do reflect the minority position, but for most foundational Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts, the dependent nature is the object of abandonment in its entirety and thus cannot be the neutral ontological foundation of both delusive and awakened cognition.

From Three Noble’s Truths to Three Natures

A philosophical rather than exegetical mode best suits the next goal, which is to offer an interpretation of the three natures theory that both makes sense of its associated path theory and is productive insofar as it reveals conceptual connections between the three natures theory, other important Yogācāra and Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda concepts, and the broader contexts of path theory and Mahāyāna thought. The path theory as discussed in the foregoing textual analysis shows that the predominant form of the three natures theory in early Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda thought is incompatible with the pivotal model. I will instead here take my bearings from the conceptual parallel between the first three noble’s truths and the three natures. This parallel is implicit in the adaptation of the path theory to the three natures theory, and further strengthened by the conceptual similarity between, in particular, the dependent nature and the second noble’s truth – both understood as the source of the arising of deluded phenomena – and the perfected nature and the third noble’s truth – both characterized as pure, peaceful, quiescent. To begin, this parallel conveys a sense of the centrality of the three natures: to render them the objects of three processes that are themselves key features of the most foundational teaching of Buddhist philosophy – the four truths of the nobles – is precisely to signal a shift to a new understanding of the foundations of Buddhist philosophy. Moreover, a number of our texts introduce and explain the three natures theory in order to describe the objects of the three path processes first staked out with regard to the first three truths of the nobles. The clearest such statement comes from Sthiramati’s Madhyāntavibhāga-ṭīkā, where he provides four reasons why the three natures theory is taught. The third reason listed is: “to teach the entities of abandoning, knowing and directly realizing, with the intention of separating from the obstacles of the bodhisattva.”31 The Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra links not the three natures but the three naturelessnesses – themselves the emptiness of each nature – to the necessity of correctly identifying the objects of these three path processes. Indeed while somewhat more indirect than Sthiramati’s straightforward statement, this text’s connection between the three

31 Pandeya, 1971, p. 85. bodhisattvānāmāvaraṇavisaṃyogārthaṃ prahāṇaparijñāsākṣātkriyāvastupradarśanārtham. The other three reasons cited are: first, to teach what is ultimate (paramārtha), what is conventional (vyavahāra), and what is the basis of them; to teach distortion (viparyāsa), its marks and its antidote; and to teach errorlessness by means of the doors of the three natures. 18 path processes and the three natures is perhaps more illuminating. The three naturelessnesses are here taught by the Buddha in response to questions asked by the Bodhisattva Paramārthasamudgata. The latter begins his line of questioning by noting that the Buddha has taught the characteristics of the aggregates, spheres, dependent-arising, the nourishments, as well as their arising and passing away, and their abandonment and realization, thus invoking two of the three path processes. He then places the three natures path theory in its original Buddhist context, noting:

The Bhagavan has also spoken in many ways of the [own-] character of the [four] truths and further spoken of the realization [of suffering], abandonment [of the source of suffering], actualization [of the cessation of suffering], and meditative cultivation [of the path]. [Powers, 1995, p. 95.]

Paramārthasamudgata notes a few other foundational aspects of the Buddhist understanding of reality with regard to which the Buddha has posited characteristics or “own-character” (svalakṣaṇa), and finally asks “Of what was the Bhagavan thinking when he said, ‘All phenomena lack own-being; all phenomena are unproduced, unceasing, quiescent from the start, and naturally in a state of nirvāṇa.’” [Powers, 1995, p. 97]. In other words, Paramārthasamudgata brings to the Buddha’s attention an apparent contradiction in his own teaching: on the one hand, he has taught that phenomena possesses characteristics, and on the other he has taught that they are empty of intrinsic natures, or “own-being.” How to make sense of this? And importantly, in building up to his question Paramārthasamudgata makes note of the teaching that phenomena (like the aggregates and sense spheres) arise and cease, as well as the teaching relevant to our purpose: that suffering must be thoroughly known, its arising must be abandoned, and its cessation directly realized. For these teachings too appear to contradict the teaching that all phenomena are “unproduced, unceasing, quiescent from the start, and naturally in a state of nirvāṇa.” How can there be any kind of path at all, or anything to be done at all, when all phenomena are naturally in a state of nirvāṇā? The theory of the three natures and their corresponding naturelessnesses appears intended to resolve this problem. In this sense, it does not signal a change from the path theory associated with the first three noble’s truths so much as the articulation of the ontology that makes those path processes work as described in that original formulation. How then should we interpret this shift from three noble’s truths to three natures with regard to these three processes? To begin, the shift preserves the analytical framework of dharma discernment (dharma-pravicaya) common to Abhidharma literatures while changing its scope. The four noble’s truths describe a shared characteristic of conditioned reality, its causes, and the possibility of its cessation. In the Abhidharmic view, conditioned reality is conceived of as an aggregation of all causally produced dharmas. For this reason, the analysis of its chief characteristics, the causes of its arising, and the possibility of its cessation takes place through a study of the varieties of dharmas, including their individual characteristics, their purity or impurity, and their inter-relationships. This study occurs within the broader context of dharma theory understood as an analytical discourse that describes, among other things, the person and other beings, the world, and the path. The three natures theory likewise takes dharmas as its objects of analysis, but it transforms the nature, cause, and cessation of suffering from 19 features that apply to a consideration of all of conditioned reality into three distinct natures (svabhāva) of every individual dharma. This shift dramatically narrows the scope that any path theory needs to take into its view. In Abhidharma thought, a path theory must account for the nature, causes of and cessation of the aggregation of all dharmas called conditioned reality. But the path theory associated with the three natures is articulated in terms of the distinct natures of each individual dharma. The consequences of this change in scope are far reaching, for it effectively enfolds Buddhist dharma theory within a Mahāyāna metaphysics of emptiness. It does this by introducing a new analytical language that describes the dynamics of the process of conditioning differently from descriptions of what kinds of dharmas give rise to what other kinds of dharmas, accompanied by what features, and under what conditions. Non-Mahāyāna Abhidharma dharma theory excels at that latter sort of description. Its literature contains numerous sophisticated causal theories that implicitly or explicitly link the causal role of a dharma to its identifying characteristic. This linkage is intimated in a general form by the basic description of dependent-arising: there being this, that arises (asmin sati, idam bhavati). The juxtaposition of ‘this’ and ‘that’ suggests a causal connection, a point explicitly worked out in those Abhidharma texts for which a dharma’s nature is also that in virtue of which it possesses causal efficacy. By maintaining the concept of the dharma as the basic feature of dharma theory, the three natures theory allows for the preservation of the phenomenology of arising associated with these causal descriptions. But it joins this phenomenological account with a novel causal theory of the mechanism of delusion’s arising.32 Certain important features of the three natures path theory should constrain and guide any description of this novel causal theory. First, because the path theory identifies it as the object of abandonment on the path, it follows that the dependent nature should be understood as the cause of the arising of delusion and suffering. It is thus impure. Next, the constructed nature is entirely non-existent. As detailed above, a number of our texts are absolutely clear about the non-existence of the constructed nature, with Sthiramati stating most directly that it cannot be the object of abandonment because it does not exist. However, the necessity of asserting its non-existence suggests that our delusive inclination is to take it as existent. Somehow then, the relationship between the eternally non-existent constructed nature and the impure and existent dependent nature should make sense of both the absolute and eternal non-existence of the constructed nature and the propensity to take it as existent. These features should not only guide and constrain a good account of the three natures theory, they should also be recognized as precisely the theory’s purpose: it gives theoretical language to the human drive towards delusion, the structure of that delusion, and the way to end it. Because the three natures theory is articulated within the framework of dharma theory, sketching an account of it may helpfully begin with a consideration of the language used to characterize dharmas and causal arising. Dharma analysis in Abhidharma literatures commonly employs one or both of these two essential terms to define individual dharmas: svalakṣaṇa or

32 On my read of Gold’s work on Vasubandhu, my own point here is consistent with his claim that the multiplicity of natures (svabhāva) that the three natures theory attributes to each individual dharma is a way of establishing the emptiness of dharmas, and that it effectively accepts “the Mahāyāna framework of universal emptiness around the Abhidharma.” I take Gold’s “around” to be equivalent to what I here refer to as the three natures theory’s preservation of the phenomenology of arising as described in Abhidharma literatures. See Gold 2015, p. 149. 20 identifying characteristic and svabhāva or nature. The meaning of these two terms occur somewhere along a spectrum from the purely phenomenological to the purely ontological. On a phenomenological read, a dharma’s identifying characteristic and its nature may be understood as synonymous, both referring to that by means of which dharmas or basic events can be distinguished one from another within perception or conception. At the other end of the spectrum, an ontological read might differentiate a dharma’s identifying characteristic from its nature, the former understood phenomenologically and the latter as that the possession or presence signifies that dharma as a basic existent and a vehicle of causal efficacy. The three natures theory anchors itself in the basic concept of a dharma in order to newly interpret the term nature (svabhāva). It does this while staking out multiple points on that spectrum from the phenomenological to the ontological. The following four features of the three natures theory describe its novel causal theory of arising. First, the characteristic by which a dharma is differentiated within perception or conception is, when taken to possess causal efficacy, that dharma’s constructed nature. Second, the assertion that the constructed nature is absolutely non-existent announces a complete severing of the relationship between the identifying characteristics of a dharma and its causal efficacy with regard to the arising of delusion and suffering. In other words, to say that the constructed nature does not exist is to say that the identifying characteristics of dharmas are not wedded to causal power to produce the arising of further conditioned dharmas. Third, that causal power now lies with the dependent nature, whose function is – in a paradox itself constitutive of the three natures theory’s account of delusion – none other than the false attribution (samāropa) of causal efficacy to the identifying characteristics of dharmas. For this reason, this attribution of causal efficacy to the identifying characteristics of dharmas is in certain texts called the construction (parikalpa) of the constructed nature (parikalpita-svabhāva) or the construction of the unreal (abhūta-parikalpa).33 Finally, the absence of that false attribution is the perfected nature itself. In order to understand the significance of this new Buddhist theory of the dynamics of delusion and the path to liberation it helps to contextualize it with regard to what kind of path theory it rejects. The trajectory of the Buddhist path to liberation common across genres and

33 Importantly, the construction of the constructed nature is not to be considered an intentional action performed by a person or other being. Instead, construction is understood to be the manifestation of the storehouse consciousness: the dynamics of the process in any individual case are informed by the conditioned, historical consciousness that serves as the receptacle of the potential for results for past actions. Construction should therefore be understood as a process guided by unconscious forces, and its inclusion in this theory signals the psychological nature of the process of construction and of its undoing. We should then take care not to confuse recognition of the non-existence of the constructed nature and the delusive character of the dependent nature as the results solely of reason, though the latter can of course prompt a person towards insight. With these considerations in mind, let it be noted that the first feature of the three natures theory outlined above replicates within the psychology of an individual the philosophical view of the relationship between individual characteristics and causal efficacy commonly attributed to the Sarvāstivādins, the second feature rejects this philosophical view and helps the practitioner relocate the source of delusion from the dharmas that comprise her own psycho- physical being and her object world to the activity of false attribution itself, and the third feature offers a causal theory to replace it. But the Yogācāra school, especially as seen in its description of the stages of the bodhisattva, suggests that the work of reason is not sufficient to actually bring about thorough knowledge of the constructed, abandonment of the dependent, or direct realization of the perfected.

21 texts is well expressed by the idea of shedding the impure and cultivating the pure. In this context, the pure is conducive to liberation while the impure further entrenches suffering and bondage. In non-Mahāyāna Abhidharma dharma theory, individual types of dharmas are themselves categorized as pure or impure. The three poisons, for example are impure objects to be abandoned, while the three wholesome roots are pure objects to be cultivated. Corresponding causal theories describe how impure dharmas may give rise to one another and entangle the person in delusion and sorrow, and how they may be abandoned while pure dharmas may be cultivated. But this vision of the path creates two puzzles. Most pure dharmas are also features of compounded, conditioned reality, for they too are impermanent and arisen through causal processes. The goal therefore is not the replacement of all impure dharmas with pure dharmas, but the abandonment of all conditioned dharmas. But if impure dharmas are abandoned through the cultivation of pure dharmas, how are pure dharmas abandoned? At this point, the ethical description of the reformation of character and the cultivation of virtue expressed by the idea of replacing the impure with the pure turns, in the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda corpus, into a gnoseological theory of the transformation of the structure of awareness itself so that it is no longer constituted by constructed dharmas. Second, if the goal of the path is the cessation of all conditioning, and the non-arising of all conditioned dharmas, then what could the experience of awakening possibly be like, for dharma theory treats dharmas as the constituents of all ordinary perceptual and conceptual experiences. But what then is nirvana on this account? How can we make sense of it as still counting as an experience? These problems occupy well-frequented terrain for Buddhist philosophers, and the three natures theory offers a novel answer to each problem. The new causal account of bondage, its arising, and its cessation proffered by the three natures theory maintains the language and structure of abandoning impure and cultivating pure. But it does this precisely through narrowing the scope of work to be done on the path to awakening from the aggregation of all conditioned dharmas to each individual dharma. The features of this causal account locate impurity not with the identifying characteristic of a dharma, but instead with the false attribution of causal power to the identifying characteristic of a dharma. This attribution is itself delusion because it is the activity of attribution itself that has causal power, not the thing to which this power is attributed. And (again here lies the paradox) this attribution is causally efficacious precisely because in attributing causal power to the identifying characteristic of a dharma, it allows for and bolsters the unfolding of a causal web that functions as if powered by the identifying characteristics of individual dharmas. The resulting causal relationships look precisely as they would if the identifying characteristics of dharmas were indeed the possessors of causal efficacy. But the solution is not the characterological work of slowly replacing impure dharmas with pure ones, with the final goal of ceasing the production of all conditioned dharmas. Instead, the work is to withdraw from each arisen dharma the false attribution of causal powers to it. The cessation of this false attribution is itself the abandonment of the impure, which is simultaneous with the direct realization of the perfected, itself pure insofar as it is entirely un-conducive to delusion and the bondage that follows from it. Direct realization of the perfected is in turn the three natures theory’s concept for nirvana or liberation, and it is envisioned not as the absolute cessation of the whole arisen mass of conditioned dharmas, but as the abandonment of impurity with regard to each and every arisen dharma. As such, the 22 three natures theory is a good companion to the Mahāyāna equation of samsara with nirvana. On the three natures account, nirvana is achieved each and every time the false attribution of causal power is withdrawn from individual dharmas. But of course this can only occur when such dharmas arise and have causal power falsely attributed to them. In other words, nirvana can only occur in the midst of samsara. Perhaps a translation of this technical language for describing the arising and cessation of delusion into everyday psychological language will help. Taking a cue from the Puggala- pannatti’s description of people of different character types, imagine a person in whom anger predominates. Her character is marked by a habituated tendency towards enmity, from which follows, as the Puggala-pannatti tells us, a tendency towards vengeance. The kind of dharma theory that associates individual dharmas with the causal power to give rise to other dharmas – the kind of dharma theory that the three natures theory rejects – might produce a causal narrative that describes the set of dharmas as causes and conditions from which any given dharma of anger within this person arises, and which other dharmas that anger may give rise to in turn. On this account, when a dharma like anger arises, it carries within itself strong pressure towards the arising of other kinds of dharmas, like vengeance. For such a person the path towards liberation will have two movements: first, a deliberate re-direction of the current of habit away from the arising of anger and its associates and towards the arising of goodwill and its associates, and second, the cultivation of insight that will lead to the non-arising of all conditioned dharmas, even the pure ones like non-enmity.34 This account envisions the path as a long process of self-perfection and self-purification, at the end of which is a movement of an entirely different sort, a break not only with delusion and impurity, but with the dynamic struggle between purity and impurity itself. The three natures theory gives a different account of the causal efficacy of a dharma like anger. Here, a characterologically angry person has the capacity to completely strip any given occurrence of anger of its causal power. She does this by, first, gaining the insight – or thoroughly knowing – that the dharma of anger is not what contributes to the arising of an occurrence of vengeance. Anger is then understood as “merely that” (tanmātra) or merely anger, without the added power to perpetuate arising. Instead, she knows that it is the attribution or transference (samāropa) of causal power to that anger that contributes to the arising of vengeance. In other words, the dharmas that constitute a person’s psychological field have the causal power to perpetuate conditioned suffering only if that casual power is invested in them. Moreover, under the condition of such investment, it is not the dharmas themselves that have causal power, but the act of investment or false attribution that does. On this account, the angry person’s path to liberation requires not the slow work of changing the course of the stream of self (saṃtāna) away from the impure channel whose landmarks are greed, hatred and delusion and towards the pure channel marked by generosity, loving kindness and wisdom. Instead, her path requires the cultivation of insight into the dharmas that populate each moment: the recognition that they contribute to the perpetuation of delusion and bondage only if they are invested with the ability to do so and the simultaneous withdrawal of that investment. Thoroughly knowing that the individual characteristic of a given dharma lacks any

34 It is no accident that these two goals are largely the same as the respective goals of the two forms of meditative technique introduced in early Buddhist practices: calming and insight. 23 causal power is coincident with the full abandonment of the (false) attribution of such causal power to that dharma. This, in turn, is coincident with directly realizing the true nature of the dharma.35 According to this theory, so long as the angry person ignorantly continues to grant causal powers to her moments of anger (and any other conditioned dharmas that appear in her psycho-physical continuum), the chain of arising of conditioned reality will appear for her exactly as if those dharmas do possess the causal power to perpetuate arising. In this way, the three natures theory preserves a place for the kinds of causal narratives that do link causal efficacy to the characteristics of individual dharmas. Indeed it not only preserves a place for these narratives, but requires them, since in psychological terms, these narratives describe what it is like to be under the spell of delusion: it is as if the psychological occurrences that constitute ourselves as persons do have the power to give rise to the next occurrences in the series, and thus do contribute to further delusion, bondage and suffering. In a theory that attributes causal power to dharmas, habituation or characterological tendencies are accounted for precisely because certain sequences of occurrences tend to perpetuate themselves. Anger, for example, gives rise to vengeance, which may produce harmful actions that in turn strengthen anger, give rise to more vengeance, etc. This is a cycle of motivation, feeling,

35 The three path processes are here described as simultaneous. This is consistent with Sthiramati’s assertion that all three processes are simultaneous, as well as with Paramārtha’s assertion that the path of seeing, which he defines as the thorough knowledge of the constructed nature, is not different from the path of abandonment, which is abandonment of the dependent nature (“Therefore the paths of seeing and abandoning are one and not two.” T no 1617, 31: 870 c28: 今見除二道亦一而無兩也 ). This also indicates that the three natures path theory provides a resolution to a major issue that emerges through Abhidharma discussions of the relationship between parijñā and prahāna: are they two distinct things or two aspects of the same thing? For if they are the same thing, it follows that they are not successive parts of the path but the same part of it. These path processes are variously treated throughout Abhidharma corpora. Ghoṣaka’s Amṛtarasa gives a straightforward statement of the relationship between the three path processes (prahāṇa and parijñā, plus sākṣāt-kriyā) and the first three truths of the nobles, identical to the scriptural statement found in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, and states that these processes are successive (Broeck, 1977, p. 212). Other Abhidharma texts treat prahāṇa and parijñā during the discussion of anuśayas and kleśas, in keeping with the general idea that the defilements are the objects of abandonment. Dharmaśrī does this in his Ambhidharmahṛdaya-śāstra, where he clarifies that abandonment (prahāṇa) should be properly referred to as prahāṇa-parijñā, because it is an effect of knowledge (jñāna) (Armelin, 1978, p. 113). The Vaibhāṣikas likewise treat of the compound prahāṇa-parijñā during a discussion of the defilements, as one of two kinds of parijñā, the other being jñāna-parijñā. Here too, the cause is distinguished from the effect: jñāna-parijñā is the cause that brings about the effect of prahāṇa-parijñā (Dhammajoti, 2007, pp. 420-421). It is perhaps not surprisingly Vasubandhu who paves a new way when, despite maintaining (at least here in his great Abhidharma treatise) that prahāṇa is the effect of parijñā, he nevertheless clearly identifies suffering and its arising as different only in name, for arising is the upādāna-skandhas when functioning as cause and suffering is the upādāna-skandhas when functioning as effect (see chapter 5 verse 64 on prahāṇa and parijñā; see chapter 6, commentary on verse 2 for the relationship between suffering and its cause). This both suggests that thoroughly knowing and abandoning are in fact the same process, and clarifies the relationship between suffering and the dharma ontology itself: suffering is any dependently arisen dharma in its role as effect. Perhaps, in finding a way to render the constructed nature a characteristic of every dharma, and in making all three processes simultaneous occurrences with regard to every individual dharma, the three natures theory is the first theory of sudden awakening. 24 thought, and action that any reflective person is well aware of. In the three natures theory, this kind of habituation can be accounted for in the same way, because this kind of causal account is preserved as the causal narrative that occurs under the condition of delusion. It is only the source of delusion that is re-described, not what causation looks like under it. For the three natures theory, the paradox of delusion is precisely the way it encourages the mis-location of itself. Delusion encourages the angry person to think that anger itself is her problem, rather than recognizing that the delusion is just this misidentification of the problem. This in turn is a way to understand the three natures theory’s account of emptiness. Insofar as a dharma’s individual characteristic exists in its mere-ness, and not as a vehicle of causal power, it is empty. This is the emptiness of the constructed nature. And insofar as delusion does not have its source in anything other than a misidentification of itself, it is empty. This is the emptiness of the dependent nature. Finally, insofar as delusion itself is dispelled once the misidentification of its source is withdrawn, its true nature – existing before, alongside, and after any such misidentifications – is realized. This is the emptiness of the perfected nature. By preserving the phenomenology of arising found in forms of dharma analysis that locate causal power with individual dharmas themselves, and yet couching this phenomenology within a new understanding of both the dharma itself and the path to liberation, the three natures theory imports dharma theory into the framework of the Mahāyāna metaphysic of emptiness. The three natures theory is itself just one small piece of the grand edifice of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda thought. But for its elegant re-framing of dharma theory and of the path itself, it is a piece that we should attend to with care.

Conclusion

The foregoing interpretation of the three natures theory is not an argument about it based on any one text or thinker. Instead, it uses a close reading of a core set of foundational Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts and takes its bearings from two points drawn from those readings to build an interpretation of what each nature is, how they relate to one another, and the import of the theory as a whole. The first point is that the three natures are three natures of dharmas, which are understood as cognizable occurrences that possess some mark that distinguishes them from each other. As such, the three natures theory becomes a new framework within which the dharma analysis of the Abhidharma textual tradition can unfold. Indeed, the theory should be understood as a further working out of what a dharma is within a Mahāyāna perspective that emphasizes the emptiness of dharmas. The second starting point is the path theory associated with the three natures theory: the three natures are the objects of three path processes – thoroughly knowing, abandoning, and directly realizing – which take the first three noble’s truths as their objects in the early Buddhist tradition. From this we may infer not only the inadequacy and indeed inaccuracy of the pivotal model as the predominant three natures theory, but also an understanding of the purpose of each nature: the constructed is the non-existent reality conjured by delusion, the dependent is that impure delusion itself, and the perfected is the absence of that delusion. The interpretation proposed here should therefore be considered both on its own conceptual merits, and with regard to where it either succeeds or fails in helping us understand the theory as presented in any given text. 25

This paper is just a beginning step towards a complete understanding of the theory, for it leaves in its wake hosts of questions and problems, historical, exegetical, and conceptual. Historical investigation requires not only scrutiny of each of the source texts examined here to assess this interpretation in its light, but also an extension of this study beyond the seventh century and into all source languages available. Exegetically, each text and each author should be studied in their singularity as well as in relation to one another. So for example, this study raises the question of the internal consistency of Vasubandhu’s and Sthiramathi’s writings with regard to the three natures theory and its associated path theory. It also points to variations within the theory’s presentation in different texts that need further accounting. Conceptually and philosophically, the remaining questions are immense, but can be summarized by two problems: first, how to relate the three natures theory and its path theory to the other significant concepts within Yogācāra and Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda thought, and second, how best to identify and describe the moral and psychological realities and dilemmas that the three natures theory seeks to articulate? Questions raised by these problems include: How do the three natures relate to the storehouse consciousness and its ripened manifest contents? How does subject-object duality relate to the interpretation of the three natures presented here? What do we learn about the three natures theory from the mind-only theory, and about the latter from the former? How does the three natures path theory relate to other sorts of path theories found in this literature, most especially the stages of the Bodhisattva? I have footnoted brief thoughts on some of these matters above, but I should like to conclude with a thought that I hope highlights the conceptual productivity of considering the three natures in relation to its associated path theory. The thought pertains to the relationship between the three natures and the assertion of mind-only. Once the three natures’ associated path theory is recognized, we may spot a parallelism between it and another sort of movement distinctive of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda thought: the progression from taking objects (artha) as existent, through the simultaneous denial of objects and recognition of mind-only, to the state of resting in “no-mind” (acitta, wuxin 無心). This latter movement is also described in many of the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda texts examined here, at times either directly before or after the text’s presentation of the three natures path theory. If these two movements are paralleled, we find that mind-only equates to “dependent nature only”. This is in keeping with the vocabulary of vijñapti-mātra, since in some of our source texts the dependent nature is defined as vijñapti.36 And, crucially, this parallelism also casts new light on what is meant by “mind,” at least in early (pre-epistemological turn) mind-only theory: it appears that rather than referring to the locus of cognition, mind here refers to the locus of delusion and thus as that which should be abandoned, as the entry into no-mind suggests. In this way, the three natures theory and its associated path theory may be used to open new avenues of insight that may refine or even change our understanding of important Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda concepts, even its distinctive mind-only theory. This is but a brief discussion of one example of the kind of conceptual relationships and insights to be gained from further study of the three natures as a novel causal account of the arising of suffering and of the path to its cessation. There is much more work to be done.

36 The Mahāyāna-saṃgraha defines the dependent nature as vijñapti (see chapter two, verses 2-4 as well as an elaboration at chapter 2, verse 15). Other texts define it as vijñāna. 26

References

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Abhidharmakośabhāṣya Edited by Swāmī Dwārikādās Śāstrī in Abhidharmakośa and Bhāṣya of Ācārya Vasubandhu with Sphuṭārthā Commentary of Ācārya Yaśomitra. 2 vols. Varanasi: Bauddha Bharati, 1998. Amṛtarasa T no. 1553. Text attributed to Ghoṣaka. Translated and commented by José Van Den Broeck in La Saveur De L’immortel. Louvain-La-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain Institut Orientalist, 1977.

Cheng weishi lun (成唯識論 ). T no. 1585. Text attributed to Dharmapāla. Translated by Xuanzang.

Translated by Francis H. Cook in Three Texts on Consciousness Only. Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1999.

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Translated by Mario D’Amato in Maitreya’s Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes (Madhyāntavibhāga) Along with Vasubandhu’s Commentary (Madhyāntavibhāga- bhāṣya). New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University’s Center for Buddhist Studies and Tibet House US, 2012.

Mahāyāna-saṃgraha and commentary She dasheng lun ben (攝大乘論本 ). T1594. Text attributed to Asaṅga. Translated by Xuanzang.

She dasheng lun shi (攝大乘論釋 ). T1597. Text attributed to Vasubandhu. Translated by Xuanzang.

27

She dasheng lun shi (攝大乘論釋 ). T1598. Text attributed to Asvabhāva. Translated by Xuanzang.

Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra Edited and translated by Sylvain Lévi in Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra, vol. 1. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1907.

Translated by Jamspal L., R. Clark, J. Wilson, L. Zwilling, M. Sweet, R. Thurman in The Universal Vehicle Discourse Literature (Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra) by Maitreyanātha/Āryāsaṅga, Together with its Commentary (Bhāṣya) by Vasubandhu. New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and Columbia University’s Center for Buddhist Studies and Tibet House US, 2004.

Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō. Edited by Junjirō Takakusu and Kaigyoku Watanabe. Tokyo: Taishō Issaikyō Kankōkai, 1924–1932.

Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra Jie shenmi jing (解深密經 ). T no. 676, translated by Xuanzang.

Translated and edited by Étienne Lamotte in Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, L’Explication Des Mystères. Louvain: Bureaux Du Recueil, Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1935.

Translated by John Powers in Wisdom of Buddha: The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1995.

San wuxing lun (三無性論 ). T no. 1617. Text attributed to Paramārtha.

Triṃśikāvijñapti-bhāṣya Edited by Hartmut Buescher in Sthiramati’s Triṃśikāvijñaptibhāṣya, critical editions of the Sanskrit text and its Tibetan Translation. Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007.

Trisvabhāvanirdeśa Edited and translated by Louis de La Vallée Poussin in “Le petit traité de Vasubandhu- Nagarjuna sur les trois natures.” In Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques, vol. 2 (1932-33): 147-161.

Yogācārabhūmi Yuqie shidi lun (瑜伽師地論 ). T no. 1579. Text attributed to Maitreya. Translated by Xuanzang.

Studies

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Boquist, Åke. Trisvabhava: A Study of the Development of the Three-nature-theory in Yogacara Buddhism. Lund: Department of History of Religions, University of Lund, 1993

Brennan, Joy. “Like a Lotus in Muddy Water: Achieving Purity in an Impure World According to the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda Three Natures Theory.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2015.

Buescher, Hartmut. The Inception of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda. Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008.

D’Amato, Mario “Three Natures, Three Stages: An Interpretation of the Yogācāra Trisvabhāva- Theory.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 33 (2005): 185-207.

Dhammajoti, Bhikkhu KL. Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Centre for Buddhist Studies, 2007.

Gold, Jonathan C. Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.

Hamilton, Sue. Indian Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Hopkins, Jeffrey. Emptiness in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Nagao, Gadjin. Mādhyamika and Yogācāra, A Study of Mahāyāna Philosophies. Translated by Leslie S. Kawamura. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

Schmithausen, Lambert. “Some Remarks on the Genesis of Central Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda Concepts.” In the Journal of Indian Philosophy, December 2017.

Sponberg, Alan. “The Trisvabhāva Doctrine in India and China: A Study of Three Exegetical Models.” In Ryūkoku Daigaku Bukkyō Bunka Kenyūjo Kiyō 22 (1983): 97-119.

Williams, Paul. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, 2000.