The Meaning of
Unwisdom (Avidya)
By ALEX WAYMAN
Philosophy east and west
volume 7:1/2(1957)
p.21-26
(C) by the University of Hawaii Press
P.21
THE WORD "avidyaa" is crucial in Indian
philosophy. It is usually mistranslated into English
as "ignorance." Some might ask concerning my
rendition as "unwisdom"'--why is this any better;
indeed, what is meant by the word "unwisdom"? The
very question implies the superiority of the latter
translation. People think they understand
"ignorance." They would not ask, "What is the
meaning of the word `ignorance?" But the word
"avidyaa" is not understood at the outset. How much
better to translate it by a word that might arouse
the question, "What is the meaning of the word
'unwisdom'?"
I THE FIRST KIND OF UNWISDOM
In the Buddhacarita, A`svagho.sa casts in
poetical form the visit of the future Buddha to the
sage Araada, who imparts his Saa^mkhya doctrines to
the resolute youth who has left home for the ascetic
life and is destined to become a religious
genius.(1) Presumably A`svagho.sa believes these
doctrines to antedate Buddhism. Whether he is
correct in this view or not, it is certain that for
A`svagho.sa, who lived in either the first or second
century, A.D., these doctrines were ancient ones. In
Canto XII, verses 33-37, the sage describes the five
varieties of unwisdom: darkness, delusion, great
delusion, obscuration, and blind obscuration, and
these are explained, respectively, as torpor, birth
and death, passion, fury, and weariness.
The `Sriimadbhaagavata (the Bhaagavat-puraa.na),
III. vii. 2, calls those five varieties the modes of
non-knowledge (aj~naana-v.rtti) and represents them
as of primordial creation. The Maitri Upani.sad
(also called the Maitraaya.ni Upani.sad) states,
"Verily, in the beginning this world was Darkness
(tamas) alone. That, of course, would be in the
Supreme. When impelled
-------------
1 So translated in my "Noter on the Sanskrit
Term J~naana, Journal of the American Oriental
Society, Vol. 71, No. 4 (October-December, 1951).
215-268. This will be referred to as "Notes."
2 E. H. John, ton, The Buddhacarita: or, Acts of
the Buddha, Panjab University Oriental Publications
Nos. 31 and 32 (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press,
1935 and 1936) , I, Sanskrit Text, and II,
Translation.
P.22
by the Supreme, that goes on to differenuation."(3)
The Kaalacakra school(4) sets the zodiac in
correspondence with the twelve members of the
Buddhist doctrine of Dependent Origination, and
labels each with one of the three "virtues"
(guna)--darkness (tamas), excitement (rajas), and
lucidity (sattva); and here unwisdom, the first
member of Dependent Origination, corresponds to
Makara (Capricornus) and is labelled "darkness." In
the language of the Gubyasamaaja school, unwisdom is
the balanced merger of instrument (upaaya) and
insight (praj~naa), symbolized by the junction of
day and night." According to the Lalitavistara, "By
the wrong procedure engendered by [former]
discursive thought and imagination, unwisdom arises;
and there is no one who is its producer," while this
unwisdom member of Dependent Origination does not
constitute a transmigration.(6)
Since the Bhaagavat-puraa.na, as cited above,
refers to the fivefold unwisdom as the modes of
non-knowledge, this permits an immediate passage to
the Vedaanta explanations. Dasgupta, in his
exposition of the `Sa.mkara school of Vedaanta,
writes, "Aj~naana, the cause of all illusions is
defined as that which is beginningless, yet positive
and removable by knowledge."(7) However, "Aj~naana
is not a positive entity (bhaava) like any other
positive entity, but it is called positive simply
because it is not a mere negation (abhaava)."(8)
Again, "Aj~naana defined as the indefinite which is
neither positive not negative is also directly
experienced by us in such perceptions as `I do not
know, or I do nor know myself or anybody else,' or
'I do not know what you say,' or more particularly
'I had been sleeping so long happily and did not
know anything.' Such perceptions point to an object
which has no definite characteristics, and which
cannot properly be said to be either positive or
negative."(9)
Considering all those accounts, the first kind
of unwisdom is a passive something, the original
cause of illusion, darkness to our understanding,
and alluded to by the recollection "I was in deep
sleep and did not know anything."
------------
3 Maitri Upanisad V. 2, in Robert Erness Hume,
The Tbirteen Principal Upanisbads (madras
4 I first found these correspondences neatly set
forth in a native Tibetan work on astrology, the
Bstarn rtsis by Blo bza^n tshul khrims rgya mtsho,
in the section entitled "Rtsis hgrel." Later I
traced out the places oof presentation in the
Kaalacakra commentary Vimalaprabhaa (derge Tanjur,
No. 1347, in Vols. Tha and Da of Rgyud). For
example, correspondence of Makara (Tibetan: chu
srin) with avidyaa, (Tibetan: ma rig pa), etc., Vol.
Tha. 212b-4. f.; correspondence of the zodiac with
the gu.nas, Vol. Da, 206a-1, f.; discussion of
Dependent Origination and in relation to the zodiac,
Vol. Da, 261a-1, f.
5 "Notes," p. 260. 6 Ibid., pp. 266-267n.
7 Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian
Philosophy (Cambridge: the University Press, 1932),
Vol. I, p.452.
8 Ibid., p.453. 9 Ibid., p.454.
p.23
II THE SECOND KIND OF UNWISDOM
Dasgupta(10) shows that the Majjhima Nikaaya of
the Paali Buddhist canon sets forth a fourfold
"ignorance" (avijjaa), "ignorance" of the four Noble
Truths. As is well known, these Truths are,
Suffering, the Source of Suffering, the Cessation of
Suffering, and the Path Leading to that Cessation.
He continues, "The avidyaa, which is equivalent to
the Paali word avijjaa, occurs in the Upani.sads
also, but there it means ignorance about the aatman
doctrine, and it is sometimes contrasted with vidyaa
or true knowledge about the self (aatman)."
Unwisdom (avidyaa) is defined in Pata~njali's
Yoga Suutra (II. 5) as flolows: "Unwisdom is taking
impermanence, impurity, suffering, and nonaatman to
be, respectively, permanence, purity, bliss, and
aatman." Pata~njali's explanation of unwisdom is
precisely the four varieties of "delusion"
(viparyaasa) , an ancient doctrine of Buddhism,
uipallaasa in Paali.(11)
The four varieties are discussed in
AAryasa^nga's Yogaacaarabhuumi. In Stages VIII-IX,
"With Thought and Without Thought" (sacittikaa
bhuumi, acittikaa bhuumi), he has a section entitled
"Establishment of Thought Illusion and Non-Illusion"
(cittabhraanti-vyavasthaana), where he states,(12)
"Any thought deluded by one of the four delusions
has Thought Illusion." He had stated earlier(13) the
four delusions, and exactly the same as the standard
list, in the order of impermanence, suffering,
impurity, and non-aatman. In the commentarial
portion of the Yogaacaarabhuumi, AAryaasa^nga
writes,(14) "In the `Sraavakabhuumi it is expounded
that the Four Truths are observed under sixteen
aspects. In that case, why is the Truth of Suffering
observed under four aspects? It is said: as the
antidote for the four forms of delusion. Among
those, one aspect is the antidote for one delusion.
One aspect is the antidote for two delusions. The
two last aspects ate the antidote for the last
delusion." He means that of the four aspects of the
Truth of Suffering, "There is impermanence" is the
antidote for the delusion that impermanence is
permanence; "There is suffering," for the delusion
that suffering (du.hkha) is bliss (sukha)(15) and
chat impurity is purity; "There is voidness" and
"There is non-aatman, " for the delusion that
non-aatman is aatman.
--------
10 Ibid., p.111.
11 This has been pointed our by Louis de La
Vallee Poussin, "Le Bouddhisme et le Yoga de
Pata~njali," Melanges Chinois et Bouddhiques, V
(1936-1937). 233. The oldest reference he gives is
to the A^nguttara Nikaaya of the Paali canon. The
four viparyaasa have been recently expounded: Edward
Conze, "On 'perverted views.'" East and West, VII,
No. 4 (Jan., 1957), 313-318.
12 The original Sanskrit for these two brief
Stages is on a folio which intruded into the Bihar
manuscript of the `Sraavakabhuumi, which I am
editing.
13 Yogaacaarabhuumi, "Bahubhuumika" section,
Derge Tanjur, Sems tsam, Tshi, 7a-2,3.
14 Yogaacaarabhuumi, "Vini`scayasa^mgraha"
section, Sems tsam, Zhi, 66b-5.6.
15 This exposition certainly supports Charles A.
Moore's position in his paper "The Meaning of
Du.hkha" presented at the meeting of the Western
Branch of the American Oriental Society held at
P.24
It follows that Pata~njali's "unwisdom" is, in
Buddhist terminology, unwisdom concerning the Truth
of Suffering in its four aspects. This use of the
word "unwisdom" is fully consistent with the
Upanisadic usage of false knowledge, contrasted with
true knowledge, about the self.
The second kind of unwisdom is the positive
impediment of false knowledge. The individual is
deluded, misled, thinks he knows but does not know.
III THE BUDDHA AND THE COMPLETE BUDDHA
When commenting on the expression sa^ns rgyas
(the Tibetan translation for buddha) as occurring in
the Vajravidaarana-dhaara.nii, J~naanavajra
writes, (16) "Regarding the term sa^ns, having
eliminated all the hindrances of corruption and of
the knowable, he has awakened (buddha) from the
sleep of unwisdom, for which reason he is called
"awakened" (sa^ns, buddha). He is like a person
awakened from sleep. Regarding the term rgyas, his
knowledge (j~naana) has been expanded (vibuddha) to
all the knowable, for which reason he is called
"expanded" (rgyas, vibuddha) . He is like the
expanded (or, full-blown) Kumuda flower. He has the
perfection of elimination and of knowledge."(17)
Now, this question is obvious: "Is the
'unwisdom' from which he has awakened (buddha) one
or both of the two unwisdoms already expounded?" The
key words are "elimination" and "knowledge." Briefly
answering the question, only the second kind of
unwisdom affords something to be actively
eliminated. Otherwise stated: to whatever extent the
first kind of unwisdom offers anything to be
eliminated, this elimination cannot take place
through effort. In the case of this first kind it is
simply a matter of knowing everything in the
situation where formerly one recognized that he did
not know anything.
But the topic warrants more explanation. Early
Buddhism, now represented most completely, but not
exclusively, by the Paali texts, amounts to the four
Noble Truths in their extensive exposition. Here, by
following
-------
University of California, Los Angeles, May 3-4,
1957. Since Jdu.hkha is contrasted with sukba both
in Pata~njali's Yoga Suutra and in Buddhism, one
cannot translate Ju.hkha with such a rendering is
"uneasiness," and the like, without also finding
tome comparable contrasting translation for sukba.
The fallacy of such a translation as "uneasiness" it
that the translator assumes that a word ceases to
hive its ordinary concrete significance because it
is employed in a metaphysical context. Still,
apples, for example, can be referred to in
philosophy books.
16 The commentary Bbaa.syav.rttipradiipa, No.
2687 in the Derge Tanjur, Rgyud, Thu, 246b-3,f.:
sa^ns zhes bya ba ni / ~non mo^ns pa da^n / jet
bya.hi sgrib pi mtha.h dag spa^ns nas / ma rig ph.hi
g~nid las sa^ns pas na saris zhes bya.ho / dper na
skyes bu g~nid las sa^ns pa bzhin no /rgyas zhes bya
ba ni /`ses bya mtha.h dat la ye `ses rgyas pa na
rgyas zhes gsu^ns so / dper na ku-mu-da rgyas pa lta
bu.ho / spa^ns pa dad ye `ses phun sum tshogs pa.ho /
17 For further information on the material of
this passage, see "Notes," pp. 257-258n, and Nils
Simonsson, Indo-tibetische Studien (Uppsala:
Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri Ab, 1957), pp.
265-266.
P.25
the Noble Eightfold Path, one attains the Cessation
of the Sources of Suffering. This is the basic path
of "elimination," later rewritten, with additions,
as the Bodhisattva path. Recalling that the aspect
of the Truth of Suffering "There is Suffering" is
the antidote for both the delusions that suffering
is bliss and that impurity is purity, the familiar
lotus symbolism becomes relevant. The lotus takes
its rise from mud, and, becoming cleansed in the
intermediate space of water, presents the sun with a
pure flower, which the sun opens. In terms of some
Chinese Buddhist schools-although they might not
look at the matter in this light--the path of
purification of the lotus is the "gradual path"; the
full expansion of the flower is the "sudden
enlightenment." To speak of "sudden enlightenment"
without the "gradual path" amounts to teaching that
a flower can open without support of a stem that
takes its rise from roots in soil. Thus, those
Buddhists who rejected the "gradual path" rejected
as well the bulk of the Buddha's teaching.
In terms of the Indian situation, one might
explain the Buddhist reform by the example of baking
a cake. Instead of the way of exposition that dwells
on the loveliness and tastiness of the cake, the
Buddha wrote a cook-book posaically stating how to
bake the cake. Or, rather than spend time expanding
the topic of heaven's glories, he showed the ladder
that enables the candidate to transcend earth. In
short, the Buddha showed the way of becoming a
Buddha by the method now called "elimination." This
method is sometimes called "works" (karma) as
contrasted with "knowledge" (j~naana), and it is
frequently set forth in terms of "merit" (pu.nya).
Because Buddhism has fully treated this phase, one
may understand that Pata~njali's Yoga Suutra has
borrowed from Buddhism in the matter of a certain
"unwisdom"--the second kind.
On the other hand, the borrowing goes the other
way in the matter of the opening of the flower, or
complete Buddhahood. The broad treatment of this
topic in the Mahaayaana Buddhist texts cannot be
traced to the Paali scriptures, except perhaps in
stray and rare passages that were not stressed in
Paali Buddhism. The Upanisads provide abundant
information about this; and one may tentatively
state that these and the Puraanic literature, added
to early Buddhism and recast in language, have
resulted in Mahaayaana Buddhism.
Apparently with good reason A`svagho.sa
expressed the "fivefold unwisdom"--the first kind of
unwisdom--in the words of the sage Araa.da. In my
view, Buddhism has not contributed, although it
contains, the instruction of the particular
knowledge or knowledges that replace the fivefold
unwisdom.