Metaphor ( Upacāra ) in Early Yogācāra Thought And its Intellectual Context Roy Tzohar Submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2011 © 2011 Roy Tzohar All rights reserved ABSTRACT Metaphor ( Upacāra ) in Early Yogācāra Thought and its Intellectual Context Roy Tzohar The dissertation addresses a lacuna in current scholarship concerning the role and meaning of figurative language in Indian Buddhist Mahāyāna philosophical discourse. Attempting to fill part of it, the dissertation explicates and reconstructs an early Yogācāra Buddhist philosophical discourse on metaphor ( upacāra, nye bar ‘dogs pa ) and grounds it in a broader intellectual context, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. This analysis uncovers an Indian philosophical intertextual conversation about upacāra that reaches across sectarian lines, and since it takes place before the height of systematized alakāra-śāstra in India, stands to illuminate what may be described as one of the philosophical roots of Indian poetics. The dissertation proceeds by providing translations and analysis of key sections on upacāra from a variety of Indian philosophical sources. The first part (chapters I-II) examines the concept’s semantic and conceptual scope in the theories of meaning and fundamental works of the Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā schools, and in the school of grammatical analysis (focusing on Bhartṛhari’s Vākyapadīya ). The second part (chapters III-V) examines the understanding of the term in some Yogācāra śāstras and sūtras against the background of their broader Buddhist context. It looks at such texts as the Tattvārthapaala chapter of the Bodhisattvabhūmi and the Viniścayasagrahaaī, both ascribed to Asa:ga; Vasubandhu’s Triṃśika and its commentary by Sthiramati; the Abhidharmakoabhāya and its commentary by Sthiramati; Dignāga’s Pramāasamuccaya ; and the Lakāvatārasūtra. This analysis reveals a Yogācāra account of upacāra that, because of its underlying referential mechanism, understands the term above all as diagnostic of a breach between language and reality and therefore as marking the demise of a correspondence theory of truth. Moreover, it is shown that some Yogācāra thinkers developed this theme into a sophisticated theory of meaning that enabled the school both to insist on this lack of grounding for language and, at the same time, to uphold a hierarchy of truth claims, as required by the school's philosophical soteriological discourse. It is argued that a common feature of all these accounts is their understanding of upacāras not just as content carriers (that is, as informative) but also as performative – actively manifesting and invoking the groundlessness of language through the fact of their proliferation. Table of Contents : Abbreviations ………………………………………………………………………iii-iv. Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………….. ..v-vii. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 1-25. 1. The Textual Field and Methodology 2. What is Upacāra ? 3. An Outline Chapter I Figurative Meaning and the Denotation of Words in the Early Nyāya and MīmāCsā……................................................... 26-43. 1. Figurative Meaning and the Denotation of Words in the Mīmāsā Sūtra and Śabara Bhāya 2. Figurative Meaning and the Denotation of Words in the Nyāya-Sūtra and the Nyāya-sūtra-Bhāya and Vārtika 2.1 The denotatum of the noun is the individual ( vyakt i) 2.2 The denotata of the noun is the generic property ( jāti ) and applies to the individual only figuratively Chapter II Bhart[hari on Figurative Meaning in the Second and Third KāGas of the Vākyapadīya ………………………………………44-100 1. Introduction 2. Figurative Meaning in the Vākyapadīya (VP ): The Second Kāa 2.1 Kārikās 2.250-256: some preliminary distinctions 2.1.1 The Ekaśabdadarśana view 2.2 Kārikās 2.285-297: figurative meaning and the analogy with perceptual error 2.3 Appendix A: a running translation of VP kārikās 2.285-297 3. Figurative Meaning in the Vākyapadīya : The Third Kāa Chapter III AsaEga on Upacāras in the Tattvārthapaalam of the Bodhisattvabhūmi and in the ViniścayasaCgrahaGī……………101-184. 1. Introduction 1.1 The authorship and dating of the Tattvārtha chapter of the Bodhisattvabhūmi and its relation to the Viniścayasagrahaī 1.2 Vastu and prajñapti in the TApa: Buescher’s interpretation 1.3 Vastu and prajñapti in the TApa: Willis’ interpretation 2. The Upacāra -Related Arguments in the TApa and VS : An Outline 3. The Upacāra -Related Arguments in the TApa and VS : A Close Reading i 3.1 Demonstrating the inexpressibility of an essential nature in the TApa: some preliminary distinctions 3.2 Demonstrating the inexpressibility of an essential nature in the VS : some preliminary distinctions 3.2.1 The magical creation analogy 3.2.2 The argumentative strategy 3.3 The TApa "first argument": the argument from polysemy 3.3.1 A critique of Asa:ga’s argument from polysemy 3.4 The TApa "second argument": an essential nature is not apprehended or determined by the designation 3.5 The TApa "third argument": an essential nature is not apprehended or determined by the object 3.6 An interim summary of Asa:ga’s three arguments 3.7 Part I of the VS account: the designation is not dependent on the sign-source 3.8 Part II of the VS account: the argument from polysemy as viewed through the magical creation analogy 3.9 Part III of the VS account: the essential nature is not apprehended or determined by anything other than the designation and the sign-source 3.10 Part IV of the VS account: designations do not even “illuminate” or reveal an essential nature 3.11 The opponent’s objection: the claim that the essential nature is inexpressible is itself an expression of it 4. Conclusion Chapter IV Upacāra in the Abhidharmakoabhāya , LaEkāvatārasūtra, and PramāGasamuccaya ………………………………………….185-217 1. Upacāra in the Abhidharmakoabhāya 2. Upacāra in the Tenth Chapter (Sagāthaka) of the Lakāvatārasūtra 3. Upacāra in the Fifth Chapter of Dignāga’s Pramāasamuccaya Chapter V Sthiramati’s Pan-Figurative View of Language in the TriCśikabhāya ………………………………………………….. 218-253 1. The Triśika, i ts Commentary, and the Question of the Yogācāra Idealism 2. Upacāra, the Transformation of Consciousness, and their Relation Defined 3. Sthiramati’s Refutation of the View of Upacāras as Based on Qualitative Similarity between Existent Entities 4. The Pan-Figurative Account and the Possibility of Meaningful Language 5. Sthiramati’s Arguments against the Mādhyamika Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….......... 254-268. Bibliography …………………………………………………………………….. 269-280. ii Abbreviations: AKBh : Abhidharmakoabhāya. [Vasubandhu]. AKBh : Abhidharmakoabhāyaīkātattvārthanāma ( chos mngon pa'i mdzod kyi bshad pa'i rgya cher 'grel pa don gyi de kho na nyid ces bya ba ). [Sthiramati]. AS : Abhidharmasamuccaya . [Asa:ga]. ASBh : Abhidharmasamuccyabhāya . [Sthiramati]. BBh : Bodhisattvabhūmi. [Asa:ga]. KP : Kāśyapaparivartasūtra. KP : Kāśyapaparivartaīkā. ('phags pa dkon mchog brtsegs pa chen po chos kyi rnam grangs le'u stong phrag brgya pa las 'od srungs kyi le'u rgya cher 'grel pa ). [Sthiramati]. LAS : Lakāvatārasūtra. LK : Lhasa edition of the Tibetan Kanjur. MBh : Mahābhāya. [Patañjali]. MBhD : Mahābhāyadīpikā . [Bhartṛhari]. MīS : Mīmāsā-sūtra. [Jaimini]. MS : Mahāyānasagraha (theg pa chen po bsdus ba). [Asa:ga]. MSBh : Mahāyānasagrahabhāya (theg pa chen po bsdus pa'i 'grel pa ). [vasuabandhu]. MSA : Mahāyānasūtrālakāra. [Maitreya/Asa:ga]. MSABh : Mahāyānasūtrālakārabhāya. [Vasubahdu]. MV : Madhyāntavibhāgakārikā. [Maitreya/Asa:ga]. MVBh : Madhyāntavibhāgabhāya. [Vasuabndhu]. NyS : Nyāya-sūtra. [Gautama]. iii NySBh : Nyāyasūtra-bhāya [Vātsyāyana]. P. : Peking Edition of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon. Otani Number. PS : Pramāasamuccaya. [Dignāga]. PSV : Pramāasamuccaya-vtti. [Dignāga]. ŚāBh : Śabarabhāya . [Śabara]. SNS : Sadhinirmocanasūtra . TApa : Tattvārthapaalam of the Bodhisattvabhūmi. [Asa:ga]. TD : Sde dge (Derge) edtion of the Tibetan canon. Tôhoku number. Triś : Triśikakārikā. [Vasubandhu]. TriśBh : Triśikabhāya. [Sthiramati]. TSN Trisvabhaāvanirdeśa. [Vasubandhu]. Vārtika : Nyāyavārtika. [Uddyotakara]. VP : Vākyapadīya (Trikāi ). [Bhartṛhari]. (VP)Vtti : Vākyapadīya-vtti. [?]. (VP)īkā : Vākyapadīya- īkā [Puṇyarāja]. (VP ) Prakāśa : Prakīraprakāśa . [Helārāja]. VS : Viniścayasagrahaī (mam par gtan la dbab pa bsdu Ba). [Asa:ga]. VV : Vigrahavyāvarttaī. [Nāgārjuna]. Vy : Vyākhyāyukti (rnam par bshad pa'i rigs pa ). [Vasubandhu]. YB : Yogācārabhūmi (rnal ‘byor spyod pa’i sa ). [Asa:ga]. iv Acknowledgments This project could simply not have been realized without the generous assistance and support of numerous individuals and institutions, whose help I wish to acknowledge. My first debt of gratitude is owed to the members of my dissertation committee: foremost, to my advisor, Gary Tubb, who taught me Sanskrit and whose compassionate ways and exceptional knowledge and love of Sanskrit literature are an always present source of inspiration; to Robert Thurman, a true kalyāa-mitra , who has guided me with unending patience and skill in means through the intricacies of Tibetan Buddhist texts; to Laurie Patton, whose graduate seminar on metaphor during her Fulbright at Tel-Aviv University a full decade ago was in many ways the intellectual point of departure for this project, and whose guidance and candid interest in my intellectual welfare have accompanied me ever since; to Wayne Proudfoot for his advice and comments in countless discussions about philosophy of religion and