Buddhist Solipsism -A free translation of Ratnakirti's Sathtnfltaradsaiia By Yuichi Kajiyama According to the Vijnanavadins, Buddhist idealists, all phenomena in this world are the representations of our mind which do not depend for their origination on the external objects corresponding to them. Thus, they were unanimous in denying the existence of the external world and in admitting only ideas as real. However, there was no agreement among themselves as to the problem of whether ideas or minds other than one's own exist. In other words, they were determinate in denying matter, but they seerxi to have been oscilating between the monistic and the. plural- istic c view of mind. Buddhists think of the mind in terms of the stream of momentary psychic factors, denying the existence of a permanent soul. But this does not lessen the difficulties of the above-said problem. Some of the Vijnanavadins showed a bias towards solipsism, while otherss tended to affirm the existence of other people's minds (samtanantara) (1) risking logical consistency of idealism. They found, however, a way out (1) I just refer to some of the passages recognizing the existence of other people's minds and those denying it, found in the Vijfianavadins' texts. The enumeration is by no means exhaustive and expositions are omitted. Solipsism denied in: 1) Vimsatika v. 3, 18, 19; 2) Tattvasamgrahapanjika (Abr. TSP) p. 550, 1. 8 ff.; 3) ibid. 559, 13-14; 4) Bodhicaryavatara & Panjika (repro- ducing the Vijn.anavada) IX, v. 25 a-b; 5) Dharmakirti, Samtanantarasiddhi; 6) Ratnakirti, Isvarasadhanadasana (Ratnakirtinibandhavali, ed. A. Thakur) 40, 3 f. b. -41, 7. Solipsism affirmed in: 7) Sutralamkara, ed. S. Levi, 158, 1 fo- b.-159, 12; 8) Viriasatika v. 21; 9) TSP 568, 14-17; 10) Ratnakirti, Samtana- ntaradusana. In some of Jaina works the Vi jnanavada is represented as -435- Buddhist Solipsism (Y. Kajiyama) (10) of this embarassing situation, resorting to the theory of the two truths, which they shared with other Indian philosophers. Thus, in the sense of the highest truth (paramartha) or speaking of the Buddha's state of mind, they negated fundamentally the difference of the cognizer (grahaka) and the cognized (grahya) in cognition and accordingly the distinction of the self and others. In the sphere of relative truth (sarhvr- ti), however, they recognized as representations the dichotomy and the (2) existence of all other dinstinct objects including other people's minds. This distinction of the two truths, however, was not always made express when they discussed the existence of other people's minds. Hence, we find in the Vi jnanavadins' treatises, and not seldom in the writings of one and the same author, seemingly contradicting passages, some advocating the existence of another person's mind- and others ne- gating it. Since the inception of the Vijnanavada, the opponent would find a weak point of the idealism in that it 'could easily lead to solipsism. The idealists on their part had some reasons for trying to avoid solipsism as far as they could. For solipsism can easily weaken a religion, since, if no- (3) thing exists except the self, it is meaningless to preach to others. Besides this purely religious reason, another factor was their acceptance of the traditional belief that a Buddha or a Yogin can directly perceive another proclaiming solipsism, see e. g. 11) Nyayaviniscayavivarana (Murtidevi Jaina Granthamala) I), p. 385; 12) Prameyakamalamartanda, ed. Mahendur Kumar, 80, 3-5. I will' discuss the history of solipsism at the - earliest possible opportunity. (2) If we carefully examine, we come to know that the passages n., 1, 1-6 deal with the problem from the standpoint of the samvrtisatya, while 7-10 from that of the paramarthasatya. (3) Cf. Pramanavarttikabhasya (Abr. PVBh) 293, 21 ff. The opponent questions: If (the world) is none other than the single (self-consciousness), why do you exert yourself to teach others ? (advaite katham parabodhanaya pravartate ?) Prajnakaragupta declares that seen from the standpoint of the paramartha, there is no distinction of the self and others (ayath paro 'ham na para iti svasarhvedanam evaitad udayam asadayati natra paramarthato vibhagah) . -434- (11) Buddhist Solipsism (Y. Kajiyama) person'smind (paracittajna).This belief, which was' not only admitted by early Vi jnanavadins, but also preserved in the form of 'yogipratyaksa' by Buddhist logicians, put the idealists into a dilemma. If a Buddha can know another person's mind, it follows that another personality, which is as much external to him as other insentient objects, is existent; it could shatter the basic structure of radical idealism. If, on the contrary, the belief is negated, their tradition breaks down. In fact, Buddhist realists, especially the Sautrantikas made the criticism of solipsim a powerful weapon for at- tacking the idealists. They pursued the problem theoretically and argued: The idealist cannot prove the existence of another person's mind, because, according to him, all the phenomena in this world have the alayavi jn.ana (store-consciousness) as their sole cause and therefore another person- ality cannot be distinct from it. But if the idealist negates the existence of another personality and external objects, which are independent of the alayavijnana, he cannot explain why things occur only sometimes and not constantly, although their seeds are always at hand in the alayavijnana. It behoves him to admit that those things which occur occasionally in spite of the constant presence of the alayavijnana depend on other independent, external causes, as the speech and actions of another person depend on hi (5) s will and not on our own will. In the meantime, Buddhist logicians like Dharmakirti, Prajnakaragupta, Jnanasrimitra etc. who also called themselves ' Vi jnanavadins ' developed idealistic epistemology in a radical form. Since the content of cognition is (4) Out of the passages referred to in n. 1, the problem of paracittajna is dealt with in 4, 5, 9, 11, 12. (5) This kind of Sautrantika's criticism of the Vijnanavada is found in: Bhamati ad Brahmasutra 2. 2. 28(Kashi Skt. Sr. 280, 14-281, 12); Sarvadarsa- nasamgraha Chap. II, (V. S Abhyankar's ed., 37, 252-256); Nyayakanika, 258, 7f. b. ff.; Nyayavarttikatatparyatika (Kashi Skt. Sr.) 658, 7-659, 3. A similar criticism is quoted in TSP 574, 19-22 as of Bhadanta Subhagupta, though he does not directly refer to other people's minds. The ideal- ists had much to say 'against this criticism, but I cannot here discuss it in detail. -433- Buddhist Solipsism (Y. Kajiyama) (12) cognized necessarily with the cognition itself, it proves that there is no (s) difference between cognition and its object which is none other than a form of knowledge. Moreover, cognition, though it contains in itself various forms, is after all the uniform cognition, because we cannot divide our cog- nition into two parts. Thus, speaking in the sense of the highest truth, there is no difference in time or space in our cognition. The world is none other than the self -consciousness (svasarnvedana). This theory is called (7) a Citradvaitavada' or ' Vi jnanadvaitavada .' This philosophy had much to do with solipsism at least in the epistemological context. The circumstances stated above seem to have gradually driven the later Buddhist idealists to a confession of solipsism. That is to say, they came to talk of the non-exist- ence of another personality more often and more decidedly than the earlier Vijnanavadins, though they did not negate its existence as a represen- tation and its function in our common life. Although Dharmakirti expounded epistemological monism in his main works, he wrote separately a small treatise named A proof of the existence (8) of other people's minds (Samtanantarasiddhi) in which he showed that so far as logic-which is in the domain of the relative truth-is concerned, the existence of another person's mind can be proved in the idealistic system as well as in the realistic. For while the realists prove the existence of another mind on the ground that a person's speech and actions presuppose the existence of his wishful mind, the idealists do the same on the ground that the representations of the former are preceded by the representa- (6) Pramanaviniscaya, Peking ed., 263, b4 (Skt. text is quoted in various works): sahopalambhaniyamad abhedo nilataddhiyoh. The verse is discussed in Ratnakirti's Citradvaitaprakasavada (Ratnakirtinibandhavali) 122, 15 ff. (7) Pramanavarttika (Abr. PV), III, v. 389, 221, 222 etc.; PVBh 295, 2 f. b.; para- marthatas svasaihvedanam ekam eva...... ; 289, 22: citrabhasapi buddhir ekaiva bahyacitravilaksanatvat etc. etc. Jnanasrimitra and Ratnakirti discuss the citradvaitavada in Sakarasiddhi and Citradvaitaprakasavada respectively. (8) This work is translated into English by H. Kitagawa: A refutation of solipsism, journal of the Greater India Society, Vol. XIV, no. 1 and 2; Stcher- batsky gives a brief exposition in Buddhist Logic, I, 521-524. -432- (13) Buddhist Solipsism (Y. Kajiyama) tion of the latter. As such there is no logical difference between the two proofs. On the other hand, Ratnakirti, who proved in a work the existence (9) of another mind from the standpoint of the relative truth, wrote A refuta- (10) tion of the existence of other people's minds (Sarntanantaradusana) from the standpoint of the highest truth. However, his Sarntanantaradusana is par- ticularly interesting because it unreservedly declares solipsism as the final destination of idealism and because