CONZE ON BUDDHISM AND EUROPEAN PARALLELS
By ALEX WAYMAN
Philosphy East and West
volume 13(1964)
P361-364
(C) by the University of Hawaii Press
P361
DR. CONZE has contributed so much to make
Buddhism better understood in the West, especially
by extensive translation of Praj~naapaaramitaa
texts, that his views on correct and spurious
parallels to Buddhist philosophy deserve
consideration. Another reason is that thorough-going
comparisons of East and West philosophy have usually
been done out of good will, as an exploration of
areas of agreement between philosophical thinkers of
different cultural backgrounds; and Conze's two
articles have a bearing on this "will." In short, he
asserts that there are only three currents of
Western philosophical thinking which can be
legitimately related to Buddhist counterparts. This
is an important thesis (pak.sa); for, if he is
right, this poses a discouraging prospect for all
future philosophical ingenuity and insight,
condemned at the outset to be wrong by venturing a
Comparison outlawed by Conze. But I set no limit on
the valid comparisons that can and ought to be made.
Affirming my position in the opposite camp
(pratipak.sa), I begin by questioning his clarity in
assumptions about Buddhism.
These assumptions are not integrated into a
consistent framework. Thus, he holds (p. 11) that
Buddhism distinguishes a "triple world" and degrees
of "reality, " but holds as well (p. 20) that
Buddhism has a distinct affinity with the "monistic"
traditions of European thought. He is apparently
oblivious of any necessity to show consistency as is
attempted in the Hindu philosophical school called
Bhedaabheda (Monism and Plurality). And is not any
attempt to compare Eastern and Western thought an
exercise in demonstration of consistency or
inconsistency?
For judging "true" as against "spurious"
parallels, he has a remarkable criterion--measuring
the amount of supposed disagreement as a test of
mutual agreement; for example, "For pages upon pages
Shinran Shonin and Martin Luther in almost the same
words expound the primacy of 'faith,' and yet in
fact their two systems disagree in almost every
other respect" (p. 105). What Conze means is that if
two persons seem to agree on item
P362
x, and seem to disagree on items y1, y2,... yn--it
follows that they do not agree on x; for, if two
persons seem to disagree on several things, they do
not agree on anything. But, in fact, faith is the
most important, and virtually the sole, topic in the
writings of Shinran Shonin, while Shinran's revolt
against priestly celibacy is also comparable to
Luther's--therefore, specialists in Japanese
Buddhism quite rightly refer to Shinran as the
Martin Luther of Japan.
We must concede that Conze is consistent in
applying this criterion for "spuriousness" of
parallels, but he could have earned our admiration
if he had applied it also in the cases of his
claimed "true" parallels. Since he observes (p. 19),
whether rightly or wrongly, that Schopenhauer
differed from Buddhism on two points (he hopes "only
on two points") , he should have wondered if
Schopenhauer and Buddhism are really parallel
(parallel lines are not supposed to diverge). Again,
he does not investigate whether there are any
disagreements between Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism,
on the one hand, and Buddhism, on the other (p. 17).
Yet, it would be just as easy for anyone to assert
supposed disagreements in these cases of "true"
parallels as it was for Conze so to assert for his
"spurious" parallels. It is simply a matter of "will
to believe." With this same will, one can assert
that the celebrated work on logic,
Pramaa.na-samuccaya, by the Buddhist author
Di^nnaaga, is not a Buddhist work because the author
sets forth only two pramaa.nas (valid sources of
knowledge), whereas the Yogaacaarin Asa^nga has
three and the Maadhyamika Candrakiirti four. We
could find so many disagreements between the
Yogaacaara and the Maadhyamika schools of Buddhism
as to deny any possibility of their agreeing on
anything (to use Conze's criterion).
Conze chooses (p. 12) to be on Murti's side in
regarding the Maadhyamika as the central tradition
of Buddhism, and chooses (p. 107) to be opposed to
Murti as to similarities between Kant and the
Maadhyamika. He gives this reason (p. 107, note):
"But Kant never questioned the value of empirical
knowledge. In Buddhism, however, the sa^mv.rtisatya
(conventional truth) is a mere error due to
nescience (a-vidyaa, a-j~naana), and conventional
knowledge represents no more than a deplorable
estrangement from our true destiny." Certainly
Candrakiirti, in the greatest extant commentary on
the Madhyamaka-kaarikaa, provides an explanation of
sa^mv.rti quite at variance with Conze's exposition.
Candrakiirti writes, "I, like an elder of the world,
combat just you who are falling away from good
behavior of the world, hut [do] not [combat]
conventional things (sa^mv.rti) ."(1) Conze
apparently over-
------------------
1 Louis de La Vallee-Poussin, ed.,
Muulamadhya.makakaarikaas de Naagaarjuna avec la
Prasannapadaa commentaire de Condrakiirti,
Bibliotheca Buddhica, Vol. IV (St. Petersbourg:
Imperiale de
P363
looks the significance of the first chapter in this
work of Candrakiirti, which quotes the
AArya-Ak.sayamatinirde`sa-suutra about the two kinds
of suutras, those of provisional meaning (neyaartha)
and those of final meaning (niitaartha). The same
Suutra is quoted by Bu-ston as follows (my
translation) : "The suutras which demonstrate
sa^mv.rti are of provisional meaning; the suutras
which demonstrate paramaartha are of final
meaning."(2) In short, sa^mv.rti-satya (conventional
truth) is the truth of multiplicity, triple worlds,
steps of the path; while paramaartha-satya is the
truth of monism, the ultimate attainment. And, since
there are two truths (neither of which are
falsehoods), there are two kinds of discourses
(suutra).
Hardly better is a second reason given by Conze
for rejecting the Kant-Maadhyamika similarity. He
asserts that the Maadhyamika sa^msaara/Nirvaa.na are
identical, while the Kantian phenomena/noumena are
not identical. This argument involves an unwarranted
interpretation of a celebrated verse of
Naagaarjuna's Madhyamaka-kaarikaa (XXV. 19), which
is correctly translated by Stcherbatsky: "There is
no difference at all between nirvaa.na and
sa^msaara. There is no difference at all between
sa^msaara and nirvaana."(3) Granted, the verse does
not say that nirvaa.na and sa^msaara are identical.
Since that work by Naagaarjuna aims at reductio ad
absurdum of untenable epistemological positions,
this verse can be paraphrased: "Any argument to show
that Nirvaa.na and sa^msaara are different can be
reduced to absurdity." Does this imply that
Naagaarjuna intends the identity of Nirvaa.na and
sa^msaara? He may well be implying the identity
through mystic conversion, the transmutation
(paraav.rtti), of the Buddha's Enlightenment. That
is, Nirvaa.na and sa^msaara are identical during
transfiguration: then the turbulent world is the
peace of Nirvaa.na. But Conze wants the identity in
words. Surely Naagaarjuna could have said that if he
had wanted to. If he had done so, he might have
been, as Conze declares, searching for the own-being
of dharmas. But, since Naagaarjuna did not assert
the identity in words, it must be maintained that
Conze is unfair when he bases his argument on the
unwarranted interpretation, Furthermore, our
rejection of Conze's two reasons should not be
construed as an argument in favor of the
Kantian-Maadhyamika parallel.
An interesting feature of his first article is
his self-regard as the spokesman for Buddhism. There
is something, a body of data, called "Buddhism," and
Conze knows it. Therefore, "I now speak of the only
three currents of
----------
I'Academie des sciences, 1903-1913) , Japanese
photographic reprint, p. 69: lokav.rddha iva
lokaacaaraat paribhra`syamaana^m bhavantam eva
nivartayaami na tu sa^mv.rti^m.
2 Cf. E. Obermiller, trans., History of Buddhism
by Bu-ston, Part I, (Materialien zur Kunde des
Buddhismus, Heft 18) (Heidelberg: Carl Winter,
1931), p. 30.
3 Cf. S. Radhakrishnan and C. A. Moore, eds., A
Source Book in Indian Philosophy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1a57), p. 344. The
original Sanskrit word for "difference" is
"vi`se.sa.na."
P364
European philosophy which can significantly be
compared with Buddhism" (p. 15); "Buddhists [Conze
is the 'Buddhists'] must view all these tenets [of
'sciential' philosophy] with the utmost distaste"
(p. 13); "...human history, which Buddhists hold to
be utterly pointless" (p. 23). Then they were not
"Buddhists" who wrote the prophecies of the gradual
disappearance of Buddhism (mappo in Japanese); they
were not "Buddhists" who wrote the chronicles of
Ceylon.
A striking feature of his second article is his
confidence in knowing everything ever known or
believed in India. Therefore, "This tension [between
traditional values and natural science] was quite
unknown in India" (p. 107). Conze is unaware that
any tension was aroused in India by the introduction
of Greek science, later by the kind of science the
Mughals introduced (in part, returned to India), or
in modern times by the British introduction of
Western science. "This [Kantian] assertion of the
primacy of the subjective over the objective assumes
a separation between subject and object which is
alien to Indian thinking" (p. 108). Conze does not
explain why it should be more of a separation
between subject and object to suppose that objects
must conform to our knowledge than it is to suppose
that our knowledge must conform to objects. In any
case, Candrakiirti's Maadhyamika seems to adopt both
points of view: "When there are valid sources of
knowledge, there are the entities to be known; when
there are the entities to be known, there are the
valid sources of knowledge."(4)
Finally, it is not my intention by the foregoing
remarks to condemn everything that Conze has set
forth in the two articles, which are more
challenging than cogent. It is good that he set
forth his views; but I consider that he failed to
establish general criteria for judging "true" as
against "spurious" parallels.
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4 Louis de La Vallee-Poussin, ed., op. cit., p.
75: satsu pramaa.ne.su prameyaarthaa.h satsu
prameye.sv arthe.su pramaa.naani. Cf. Th.
Stcherbatsky, The Conception of Buddhist Nirvaa.na.
(Leningrad: Publication Office of the Academy of
Sciences of the USSR, 1927; reprinted in Shanghai,
1940), p. 163.
meiyu-chan