Chinese Buddhist Causation Theories: An Analysis of the Sinitic Mahyna Understanding of Pratitya-samutpda Author(s): Whalen Lai Source: Philosophy

East and West, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Jul., 1977), pp. 241-264 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1397998 . Accessed: 19/01/2014 22:36
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WhalenLai Chinese Buddhist causation theories: An analysis of the sinitic Mahiayna understandingof Pratitya-samutpada

INTRODUCTION: BASIC ISSUES

Karl Potter in Presuppositions in Indian Philosophies has underscored the fact that causation is a key and basic Indian philosophical concern. To achieve liberation from the cycles of rebirth, samsira, and to break away from the endless process of karma, it is important to realize the weak link in the chain of causation and thereby to break from the world of cause and effect.' Joseph Needham, in his Science and Civilization in China, volume 2, points out, on the other hand, that the Chinese did not have native concepts comparable to the English terms of "cause" and effect." It was, he notes, the Buddhists from India who first introduced such "causative" framework of analyzing relationships to the Chinese.2 Needham's observation does not imply that the Chinese in pre-Buddhist times had no sense of temporal sequence concerning what went before and what came after as a consequence. For all practical purposes, the Chinese knew of antecedents and consequents, and her scientists in ancient times were not ignorant of the working of the universe. What might distinguish the Chinese perception of the sequential relationships, however, was her tendency to use a organistic (Needham) or, biogenerative or procreatory model to understand the same relationship. Instead of the Western mechanical model of "A as the cause produces B as the effect," the Chinese used a biological model instead: A as origin, pena, produces B as end, mob. The Chinese concepts of pen/mo acted as the analytical tools to understand sequential relationships. Representative of such an outlook would be the I Chingc concept of Change as life giving birth to life, or the (Confucian) notion of Heaven and Earth procreating the myriad things or the Taoist idea of the Tao as the Mother of all. The East-West difference is this: the mechanical model of cause and effect tends to assume two distinguishable entities;3 the biogenerative model of pen and mo suggests instead a fluid, organic continuum.4 The mechanical model might be related to the notion of God as Creator and of Law, divine or natural.5 The pen-mo relationship recalls a fertility motif. The termspen-mo were derived from the pictograph of fertility: mother Earth or tree or wood. As the branch is to the tree trunk, mo (the tip) is a natural outgrowth of pen (basis): that is, the branch is an extension of the trunk. Similarly, Chinese cosmology repeatedly invokes the notion that the many are ultimately originated from, fathered by, and basically in harmony with, the One. "From the one pen came the myriad mo," characterized Han thought in general.6 Considering the fact that Indian philosophy was committed to the analysis of causative relationships and that the Chinese were more prompt to see the fluidity between origin and end, it would appear that the Chinese Buddhists would have some initial difficulties in digesting the particulartheory of causation proposed by Gautama the Buddha. Cultural boundaries, however, are never absolute, and it is to the credit of the Chinese Buddhists that they did make
WhalenLai is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Davis.
Philosophy East and West 27, no. 3, July 1977. ? by The University Press of Hawaii. All rights reserved.

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an effort and succeed, in many ways, in understanding the implication of Gautama's theory of causation. However, the Chinese had to come up with some innovative terms to translate cause (hetu) and effect (phala). They chose the words yind and kuoe, originally meaning approximately "the basis for" and "the fruit" for cause and effect. Even in modem Chinese usage, yin-kuo (commonly used to designate karmic retribution) does not fully correspond to the English concepts of cause and effect.7 Given the indigenous Chinese proclivity for an organic world view, it would hardly be surprising that China would eventually modify the Buddhist theory of causation to fit her own taste. Knowingly or unknowingly, that modification did take place when Chinese Buddhist traditions attained maturity and ventured independently toward a new articulation of older Indian Buddhist insights. The new articulation, the modifications, should not be seen as a distortion, for in a very subtle way, the Chinese gave an ingenious native twist to Gautama's initial insights. This twist was inspired or facilitated by the fact that Gautama's causation theory criticized a naive cause-and-effect sequence. The final result might seem un-Indian to an Indological purist. It is clearly sinicized, but it should be remembered that the same end product would equally appear nonChinese and evidently Indic to a Sinological purist. It would be best to regard the final Chinese Buddhist formulations of causation theories as reflective of an Indo-Chinese synthesis, better still, as the expression of sinitic Mahayana speculations on the nature of ultimate reality.8 Since causation is at the heart of Buddhist thought as well as of Hindu thought in general, a full treatment of the sinicization of this Indian aspect would be practically impossible. In this short essay, I will focus primarily on the way in which mature Chinese Buddhists reviewed, in retrospection, the various causation theories within Buddhism. I will analyze, in a philosophical manner, the implications of the Chinese retrospective evaluations and the origins of the "hierarchial" structures. I will leave the more historical aspects to another occasion.9 It will be shown that the kind ofpen-mo fluidity outlined earlier and the Chinese inclinations toward cosmic monism transformed the Indian Buddhist theory of causation. At the same time, Chinese metaphysics inherited the philosophy of identity, infinity, and spontaneity (what Garma Chang calls Totalism) via the Hua-yenf school's understanding of the Madhyamika critique of temporality. In the Hua-yen school (which later influenced Neo-Confucianism10) we will see an extravagant theory of a cosmic, infinite, ceaseless autogenesis of the universe by the universe itself. Buddhist causation theory has been the object of much study. Recently David J. Kalupahana in Causality. The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1975) has provided us with an in-depth study of the Indian side of the story and dispelled some myths and misunderstandings of paticcasamuppada.According to Kalupahana, the early Buddhists were empirical phenomenalists and cause was seen as the sum total of coexisting

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factors that gave rise to a consequent. Early Buddhist texts did not differentiate between cause (hetu) and condition (pratyaya). The distinction between the pair (with which I shall begin the discussion in the study) began with the Sarvastivadins. Cause was then seen as comparable to a seed, and condition as comparable to auxiliary factors (moisture, sun etc.) needed to bring the seed to fruition as the result (phala). In adopting a theory of self-nature (svabhdva)the Sarvastivadins risked reviving the old satkaryavada philosophy (see following discussion, herein). Their attempt to salvage the Buddha's denial of that philosophy with recourse to a new theory of momentariness (ksana) led to a doctrine of the reality of static past, present, and future. The reaction was the Madhyamika critique of Nagarjuna that denied any substance to the socalled self-nature of things. Nagarjuna's emptiness philosophy (sunyavada) then led to a transcendental critique that went beyond the earlier phenomenalism. The three times and causality were reinterpreted.1l The meaning of causation clearly was at the heart of the Buddhist philosophy. How the Chinese understood and reformulated that insight is therefore crucial to Chinese Buddhist developments. Although the Chinese Agamas may preserve some early Buddhist insights, by the time they were sophisticated enough to move beyond the Taoistic exegesis, the Chinese fell under the later influence of the Sarvastivada/Madhyamika phase. Shoson Miyamoto's "A Reappraisal of Pratitya-samutpada"12 can introduce us to the issues at hand.
THE MEANING OF PRATITYASAMUTPADA

The theory of causation ascribed to Gautama has to be understood, at first, in the context of other options in Indian thought.13 Gautama apparently challenged the Upanisadic notion of a permanent soul or self, itman, and posited what came to be known as the andtman tradition of no-self or no-soul. Steering the Middle Path between extremes, Gautama equally avoided the other alternative of the Ucchedavadins (annihilationists), who held the idea that reality is totally fragmentated, and nothing ever lasts or affects what comes after. In so steering between the extremes, Gautama, often time impatient with and indifferent to metaphysical speculations, gave no definitive answer. He left the problems to his followers to ponder upon in their metaphysical spare time. Closely related to the preceding, is Gautama's similar denial of parindmavdda (evolutionism) on one hand, and irambhavdda (compositionism) on the other. The former assumes that all phenomena evolve out of a basic ontological source; the latter denies the existence of any basic substance/substances and posits instead a plurality of coexisting entities that have no reference to antecedent causes. The former aligns itself easily with the Vedanta or the Samkhya traditions, the latter with the outlook of the Ucchedavadins. Gautama, in following the Middle Path, steered between the eternalism of basic substance source and the randomness of cut-up component elements that had absolutely

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no links to one another. He wanted neither determinism nor indeterminism, fatalism nor nihilism. He proposed then his theory of pratTtyasamutpida. Basically, his theory proposes concomitancy: "There being A, there is B. There being not A, there is not B." There being cravings, there is suffering. There being the cessation of craving, there is cessation of suffering.14PratTtyasamutpdda has been translated variously as dependent coorigination, interdependent causation or simply as causation. Speaking probably from within the "northern path" and Far Eastern tradition, Miyamoto notes: Pratitya-samutpada is sometimes rendered 'causality' in English, but this is very misleading because it is not mere cause-effect relationship; rather, it is an attempt to interpolate pratitya (auxiliary factor, condition) as the most -- condition -> effect.15 important condition in the formula of cause Pratltyasamutpada literally means conditioned coarising. Pratyaya refers to the condition or auxiliary cause or concomitant factor; samutpada refers to arising together. The Chinese had, not incorrectly, used the term yiian-ch'i9: yiian for pratyaya and ch'i meaning rising for samutpida. Pratyaya is neither the cause nor the effect, but, as Miyamoto points out, the key intermediate factor in the normal sequence of cause -+ condition -> effect. Cause is hetu (Chinese, yin), and effect is phala (Chinese, kuo). Hetu would bear phala or cause, effect, when and only when the favored condition (pratyaya, yuan) is present. Thus, for example, the seed (cause) would require moisture and earth (the conditions, auxiliary causes, or concomitant factors) before it can produce fruit (the effect). By interpolating this intervening factor, Gautama very ingeniously avoided the parindmatradition (evolutionism, that is, things evolve from a basic material cause) by insisting that secondaryconditions are necessary. Similarly, Gautama avoided the irambhavada option (plurality of entities coexisting with no reference to antecedent causes), by insisting that things arise concomitant to and with one another (samutpada) because the mutual conditions are ripe. Gautama, the philosopher-and-therapist,16 avoided causal determinism on the one hand and acausal coexistence on the other. The reader by now realize that (1) the theory of pratTtyasamutpila is not simply causation like A causes B, that is, not the naive cause-and-effect relationship, and (2) it was proposed within an Indian context out of a peculiar range of options as was just explained. The difficulties facing an Englishspeaking reader unfamiliar with the Indian concerns for various causalities within their philosophical context, in this regard, are not very different from the difficulties that faced the Chinese in the fourth to sixth centuries A.D. China then had to acquire "causative relationships" which she never had use for in her biogenerative (pen/mo) world view. China had to learn it outside the philosophical context of the Indian obsession with causality. Finally, having no prior notion of cause or effect (hetu phala), she had maybe double the difficulties understanding the nuance of pratyaya as something between cause and effect. China chose the right (right, perhaps by convention) term to

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translate the Sanskrit original. She used the word yuan, which originally meant "rim, along side" to evoke the meaning of "condition, auxiliary factor, concomitant cause." Like the choice of kuo for phala, the choice was forced but eventually yiian serves its designated purpose. Miyamoto however wonders: PratTtyasamutpidais translated into Chinese as yiian-ch'i; it remains a gravely doubtful question whether the Buddhists and the intellectuals of the Far East grasp the philosophical contents [of the original concept].17 Miyamoto notes that yiian-ch'i has been liberally used in China to simply signify what is synonymous to yu-laih, which means whence-come, that is, a theory of origination. Yiian-ch'i, like the English word "causality" used to translate pratltyasamutpada, loses its more specific nuance in such common usage. For example, prologues to treatises which tell us the reason for writing, are often called yiian-ch'i or yin-yiiani (cause-and-condition)-the book being the result. The latter term was used in that liberal and nonliteral sense for "preface/reason for writing" as early as the sixth century A.D. in the Chinese fabricated work, Awakening of Faith in Mahayana.18 Japanese Buddhists followed similar practices. Legends of temples are called temple engi (engi being the Japanese pronounciation for yiian-ch'i). as theory of oriBy such shorthanded understanding of pratTtyasamutpdda gination, the Chinese very likely, at times, missed the nuances of the original Sanskrit. The absence of a native tradition of cause-effect thinking might have been responsible for this reduction of a unique theory of causation to a general term for any causation. On the other hand, I also suspect that the very lack actually allowed the Chinese to formulate their own theory of Buddhist causation outside the mechanical cause-effect framework, so that they reinterpreted pratttyasamutpddain an organistic manner. China in fact came up with her own Middle Path that avoided causal determinism and acausal indeterminism-just as Gautama did-but in her own unique Hua-yen theory of a mysterious, spontaneous, efforescence of reality.19 To add to the complexity, Chinese Buddhists not only have to intuit what Gautama meant by the idea ofpratltyasamutapdda, they also had to incorporate what the Indian Buddhist philosophers thought that Gautama had meant by it. In short, the issues involved are complicated. Generally speaking, Indian The AbhidharBuddhists offered three interpretations of pratTtyasamutapdda. and the each have their the mists, Madhyamika philosophers, Yogacarins slightly different rendition of Gautama's insight. These slightly different emphases by each of these, however, were enough to cause heated controversies and schisms. As a whole, especially northern Abhidharmists were the rationalizers who wanted to work out, in minute analysis, the conditions under which different elements (dharmas) would arise together. They tended to interpret as (to wit) Conditioned Causation. In order to sustain a pratTtyasamutpdda theory of anatman, the Abhidharmists adhered to a doctrine of a plurality of

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elements (dharmas) which, in combination-that is, following pratTtyasamutpada-produced the nominal existence of realities. They were the causalist philosophers. Although they look for causal antecedents only in the immediate moment-entity preceding the oncome of the next moment-entity, nonetheless, they demonstrated a skill of causalistic analysis in listing different pratyaya factors.20 [Incidentally, medieval pious scholasticism in the West and Islamic kalam were also interested in causuality as they too sought for the gate of liberation from the world.]21 Nagarjuna, the founder of Madhyamika, questioned the assumption of the elements (dharmas)in the Abhidharmic system and proposed instead an overall The theory of self-nature was shown by theory of emptiness (svabhdva-iuinya). him to be self-defeating. Conceptions of independent existents are empty. Among the realities that he denied and showed to be isunyawere the qualities of time past, present, and future which his opponents, the Sarvastivadins, held to be distinct categories. Nagarjuna was able to show the interdependence of past, present, and future, how each by itself had no claim to independent existence as such and how any statement asserting their being intertwined (the present preexists in the past, for example) would end up in inner contradictions or antinomies. It is said that Nagarjuna developed the notion of pratltyasamutpida in the direction of what Stcherbatsky would call relativity, or better, interdependence (paraspari peksa) hsiang-i hsiang-tuij. If we use the English term interdependent causation to designate prat7tyasamutpada,then we can say that Nagarjuna would accept interdependence but negate causation. Nagarjuna also emphasized the reality (or, to be exact, the emptiness) of the whole, dharmatd,as opposed to the Abhidharmist fixation with the particulars; the change was from dharmavdda to advayavdda,from dristivadato sunyavdda.22 The Yogacara tradition offered its own understanding of the principle of within its particular focus on the working of the [human] pratTtyasamutpada Thus psyche. Yogacara was most able to show the interdependence of consciousness [as subject] and name-and-form [as object], or the intricate relationship between the false sense of the self and the false sense of the object in the seventh consciousness [manas], that is, the emptiness that was in the structure ofparatantra [dependent] level of reality i-t'a-hsing ch'ik. Intricate relationship of interdependence or simultaneity was seen also in the mind's reception of the external impressions. The impressions come simultaneously through the senses. There is beginningless and apparently interminable mutual perfumation of mind upon defilement and defilement upon mind. Yogacara, however, basically elaborated upon Madhyamika understanding. Reality is without substance and dependent on the subject-perceiver.23 The Indian Buddhist expositions on pratTtyasamutpidawere not unknown to the Chinese. However, in most cases, we will not encounter the Chinese understanding of the Abhidharma, the Madhyamika, and the Yogacara interpretation as has just been presented. Instead we find a peculiar phenom-

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enon or division basic to Chinese self-understanding of those philosophies. Among the Chinese Buddhist schools, the San-lun' (Three Treatises, Mddhyamika) school and the T'ien-t'ai school are grouped as the shih-hsiangm schools that philosophize upon the Dharmata (insofar as Dharmati is often translated as shih-hsiang in Chinese.) Shih-hsiang philosophy is generally acausative. The Hinayana and the Yogacara schools are classified as the yiian-ch'i or causation schools. These two major streams should theoretically not overlap, since the shih-hsiang wing was supposed to be "noumenalist" concerned with dharmatd or the absolute-in-itself, whereas the yiian-ch'i wing was usually depicted as being fixated only with causative phenomena involving a plurality of dharmas or dharma-characteristics (laksana). However, it is recognized that Madhyamika transcendentalism was reached only through a thorough critique of phenomenalism and transvaluation of pratTtyasamutpida into the paramirtha-void. Also, Chinese made the sinitic distinction between Wei-hsinn (Mind Only) and Wei-shih0 (Consciousness Only). The former, represented by Ch'an (Zen), was supposed to be "noumenalist, dharmatiorientated." The latter, represented by the school of Fa-hsiang, founded by Hsiian-tsang, was relegated to a crypto-Hinayana, phenomenalist school. The Chinese Buddhist school that achieved the highest synthesis of yiian-ch'i and the noumenalist wei-hsin was the Hua-yen school. That synthesis had been referred to as Wei-hsinyiian-ch'iP (Mind-Only Causation, noumenal phenomenalism) or as hsing-ch'iq (Essence Arousal; to be analyzed later). How all these came about would require a complementary study.24 I would simply suggest the unique Chinese rearrangements of the three basic Indian schools in the following diagram. Indian Buddhism Abhidharma Madhyamika Yogacara-< (all three above are phenomenal schools) \ Chinese Re'arrangements/Developments a. Causative schools (phenomenal) Abhidharma > Consciousness only \ b. Noumenal schools (acausative) i) shih-hsianggroup San-lun Madhyamika \ T'ien-t'ai Madhyamikaii) mind-onlygroup Ch'an
> Hua-yen < Hua-yen < (noumenal causative)

Resynthesis

It can be noted that (Chinese) Madhyamika is traditionally not considered as a causative school. There is some basis for this Chinese reading, namely, that

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(1) Madhyamika is critical of the particularism of dharm-analysisand supportive of the universalism of sunyata and dharmata-intuition, (2) the Chinese understood and defined causationism largely as what is born or as origination. This as interdepenreading excluded the more intricate idea of pratTtyasamutpada dence, as interpreted by Stcherbatsky. Madhyamika is thus not included in the Chinese criteria of yiian-ch'i.25 Madhyamika indeed does not fall under such naive causationism. Furthermorecausation (pratityasamutpiada, yiian-ch'i), understood as theory of origination (yu-lai), is responsible for the peculiar hierarchial classification of four origins for causative realities.
THE HIERARCHYOF CAUSATION THEORIES

Takakusu in Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy gives a clear English summary of the four causation theories;26 that classification ultimately dates back to the writings of Fa-tsang. The four are (1) causation by action-influence, or karma causation, (2) causation by the ideation-store, or ilayavijniina causation, (3) causation by thusness, tathatd, or, better, by the womb of the Buddha, tathigatagarbha-causation, and (4) causation by the Universal Principle, or Dharmadhdtucausation. These are not four separate theories but rather each higher one incorporates the lower one(s) within itself. The first, yeh-kan yiian-ch'it, is rather straightforward. All realities are due to action producing necessary reactions. As such, it is not particularly Buddhist since all Hindus would subscribe to it. However, Chinese often lump this outlook on the Hinayana school (on the assumption that the higher theories, beginning with ilayavijnana causation of Yogacara, are beyond Hinayana). Karma causation is not the same as causation in classical Western physics. There is no beginning and no end to samsira, that is, no firstcause, no telos as with Aristotle. Since the chain of rebirth is circular, every stage is a cause when viewed from its effect, while it is also an effect of an anticedant cause.27 In that general sense, cause and effect blend together. It may then be said that there is a cause in the effect, and an effect in the cause. Strictly speaking, the satkaryavdda position (effects preexist in causes) usually is denied by Buddhism, although it does come into its fold. Next is the ilaya(vijndana) causation of the Yogacara school lai-yeh yuanch'iu. We will not find any corresponding compound like alaya (vijniina) in Sanskrit. The term causation in alaya causation is actually pratTtyasamutpada used in the liberal sense that Miyamoto suggested earlier, namely, its origination traced to a source in the alayavijntna, the storehouse consciousness. Takakusu gives a rather general explanation why consciousness or mind is selected. "Actions (karma) are divided into three groups, i.e., those by the body, those by speech and those by volition .... But the mind being the inmost recess of all actions, the causation ought to be attributed to the mind-store or Ideation store [alayavijndina]" (italics mine).29 It seems that Takakusu, in his explana-

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tion, recalls the favorite Shingon (Mantrayana) theme of "body, speech, and mind" and associates alayavijn'dna freely with the centrality of mind-karma in the first verse of the Dharmapada.30 The reason why the Chinese created causation as a causation theory is due to the recognition that, in alayavijndana the Yogacara system, the origin of all illusions (and enlightenment too) is traced to certain seeds (bUjas)in the alayavijiina. These seeds lie in the alayavijniina, and sprout into the object-realm, which in turn influences the mind by planting a new seed ... in an endless process of mutual dependence.31 causation theory in Indian Mahayana Although there is no explicit alayavijniana still can be as such it accepted as a legitimate inference philosophy (sastra), last two is in the it from Yogacara. However, types of causation that we see something that Fa-tsangv of the Hua-yen school discovered. These two types are unknown to Indian schools. These two are unique to sinitic Mahayana and deserve our scrutiny. Tathatacausation or tathigatagarbha causation is the next causation which is higher than that of ilayavijndana.Just as karma is traced, according to the Chinese, to the mind or consciousness, the alayavijnina too has its basis in tathata (thusness, suchness) or the tathigatagarbha (womb of the Buddha, matrix of the Thus-come, embryonic buddhahood). This is how Takakusu explains it: Thusness [the noumenon] in its static sense is spaceless, timeless, all-equal, without beginning or end, formless, colorless, because the thing itself without its manifestation cannot be sensed or described. Thusness in its dynamic sense can assume any form; when driven by a pure cause it takes a lofty form; when driven by a tainted cause it takes on a depraved form. Thusness, therefore, is of two states. The one is the Thusness itself; the other is its manifestation, its state of life and death.32 Thusness causation, therefore, means that from out of the static noumenon itself, the phenomenal life and death arise. Because it traces the root of reality, the origin of all things, beyond the alayavijniina (considered in this scheme as corresponding to a phenomenal consciousness),33 to thusness itself, it is regarded, therefore, as superior to alayavijnina causation and is known as or chen-juyiian-ch'iX,34 causation, or better, origination ju-lai-tsang yiuan-ch'iw from the womb of the Buddha (ju-lai-tsang, tathigatagarbha) or thusness (chen-ju, tathati, also translated as suchness). The person who first discovered this theory was Fa-tsang. He found it basically in the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana, a work suspected to be a Chinese fabrication. Takakusu's description of thusness given earlier draws basically upon the Awakening of Faith, where it is said: The (Suchness) Mind has two gates: the gate of Suchness and the gate of is grounded on the tathagatasamsira. The Mind as phenomena (samsadra) garbha. What is called the alayavijniinais that in which "neither life nor death" (nirvana) fuses with "life and death" (samsira) in a neither-identical-nordifferentiated manner.35

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I have demonstrated, elsewhere, that Fa-tsang was clearly influenced by the Taoist paradox of active inactivity (wu-wei erh wu-pu-weiy)as well as by the logic in the I Ching (Book of Changes).36 The Buddhist absolute, tathati, was apparently seen as something similar to the TaoZ: in one aspect, static; in another, dynamic. Just as the Chinese would see all activities as emerging out of a primordial passivity (the Tao produces all things), the tathata causation theory, regarded as a more profound causation, also is seen to be proposing that life-and-death emerged from out of the static noumenal suchness itself. There is no comparable (explicit) theory in Indian Mahayana. In fact, generally the Indian Buddhist schools would state that Dharmata (tathata) supports phenomena; it does not create phenomena.37 Tathatd causation as developed by the Chinese would find a closer affinity with the bhedibheda Vedantaschool in Hinduism, which regards all things as somehow being generated from Brahman (the India counterpart to the Taoist idea of Tao).38 The Chinese Buddhist, however, would legitimatize their interpretation by finding support in Buddhist scriptures like the SrTmald sitra (Sheng-men-chingaa). Therefore, O Lord, the tathdgatagarbha is the foundation, the support, the substratum of the immutable Buddha-dharmas which are essentially connected with, indivisible from (the Absolute) and unreleased from wisdom. [Similarly, it the tathdgatagarbhais the foundation etc.] of the worldly dharmas,produced by cause and conditions, which are by all means disconnected, differentiated (from the Absolute) and separate from wisdom.39 Yet, it can be shown that the Srlmaii sitra did not support a theory of the tathigatagarbha creating the phenomenal realities or causing them to come into being as the Chinese would see it. It only supportsthem in an epistemological way, that is, the mind is the seat of enlightenment as well as of nonenlightenment.40 Basing himself upon the controversial Awakening of Faith, Fa-tsang came up with a theory of tathdgatagarbhacausation. In the Awakening of Faith, there is a key metaphor that eventually prompted Fa-tsang to see an identificationof cause and effect. That metaphor lies at the heart of the third and fourth causation theories in the Chinese review of causationism. That metaphor, henceforth on the lips of oriental Buddhists compared the relationship between Suchness and phenomenal realities to the relationship between water and the waves. All forms of mind and consciousness are products of ignorance. Forms of ignorance do not exist apart from the essence of enlightenment. They cannot be destroyed and yet they cannot be not destroyed. This is like the water of the sea being stirred up by the wind.... So too it is with the innately pure mind of sentient beings. The wind of ignorance stirs it. The pure mind [water] and ignorance were [originally] formless. [Now] the two [mind and form of ignorance, water and wave] are inseparable.41 Using this metaphor, found in the Awakening of Faith, Fa-tsang was able to

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argue that the phenomenal world [waves that rise and fall, analogy to life and death, samsara] is generated out of Suchness [the water]. Fa-tsang went on to underline that in essence, the two are not different-waves are still water. The implication of this interpretation was very great for subsequent Chinese Buddhist philosophies (especially, Ch'an),42 but in this discussion we will only underline its ramifications for the Chinese understanding of causationism. The water is the cause (strictly speaking, the material cause) and the waves are the result. The wind that ruffles the water plays the role of the efficient cause (in Aristotelian terms) or the condition, concomitant factor (pratyaya). Since the Awakening of Faith says that the wetness of the water is not changed whether it be static (water) or dynamic (wave), Fa-tsang said that the nature of Suchness (the water's wetness) is none other than, or fully present in, phenomena (the waves). "Chen-jusui-yiianpu-pienab:Suchness follows pratyaya (the wind) without changing its essence" was the credo of suchness causation.43 The waves (phenomena) are none other than the water (noumena). It also follows that, when Fa-tsang applied this to his understanding of causation, cause (water) and result (waves) are simultaneously present or coexisting, ontologically fluid and intrinsically nondual (advaya). From this emerged the very fascinating Hua-yen doctrine of totalistic simultaneity that can be found in articles one, five and nine in the "Ten (Hua-yen) Mysteries or Profound Theories" completed by Fa-tsang. I will cite again from Takakusu primarily for his relative availability. 1. The theory of co-relation, in which all things have co-existence and simultaneous rise. All are co-existent not only in relation to space but also in relation to time. There is no distinction of past, present and future, each of them being inclusive of the other. Distinct as they are and separated as they seem to be in time, all beings are united to make one entity-from the universal point of view. 5. The theory of complementarility by which the hidden and the manifested will make the whole by mutual supply. If one is inside, the other will be outside, or vice versa. Both complementing each other will complete one unity. 9. The theory of 'variously completing then time-periods creating one entity.' Each of past, present and future contains three periods, thus making up nine periods which altogether form one period-nine and one, ten periods in all. The ten periods, all distinct yet mutually penetrating, will complete the onein-all principle ....44 All these contributed to the Hua-yen doctrine of simultaneity, t'ung-shihac. All are at the same tun-ch' id, time, wu-aiae, t'ung-shih phenomena arising together with no obstruction between one another, and hu-sheaf, subsuming each in each, completely and wholly. The first article proposes the simultaneous appearance of and correspondence between cause (hetu) and effect (phala). The fifth article, influenced by the I Ching tradition of the latent and the manifested, applies the same to the complementation of the hidden (organic germ) and the actualized (fruit,

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result) in their yin-yangag harmony. The ninth article followed the T'ien-t'ai practice of creating a square of the number three (3 x 3) to produce nine, which united in a One, forms the favored round number of ten (the perfect number) in the Hua-yen world view. What is significant here, for our concern, is the curious interpresence of past, future, present in each other (3 x 3) and all nine in one (the final absolute inclusive tenth). We can feel that here, in the elimination of temporal sequence Fa-tsang was reasserting the organistic, noncausative, native Chinese outlook outlined in the beginning of this essay. (The elimination of spatial distinctions can be found in articles two, six, and seven; the rest deal more with quality and quantity.45)
ACAUSATIONISM:THE MADHYAMIKACONTRIBUTION

I would like to return, at this junction, to the issue of the conflict and confluence of Indian Buddhist and Chinese native assessment of time, and the curious in sinitic Mahayana at its peak. fate of pratTtyasamutpdda We said that Gautama very innovatively departed from a simple cause-effect temporal sequence by interpolating the key component of pratyaya, auxiliary condition or concomitant factor between cause and effect. The classical formulation is that "A being present, B happens." Craving being present, suffering happens. From an early date, there was a debate on whether the chain of causation (usually twelve in number from ignorance through cravings to life and death) involves time sequence. The usual classification is to regard it as spanning past, present, and future. (Takakusu made this clear by seeing two past causes, five present effects, three present causes, and two future effects leading back to rebirth and a full circle.46) There were others who argued that the twelve chains occur in a ksana, a split second. They would deny that there was craving earlier and therefore there is now suffering, but admit that there being craving, there is suffering. The denial of the reality of past, present, and future by the Mahasafighika, which influenced the Mahayana and the Madhyamika school, is crucial in the abolition of time sequence, that is, the discrete past, present, and future as held by the Sarvastivadins. Nagarjuna of the Madhyamika school showed, through his dialectics, the emptiness of the concretized realities of past, present, and future. Since he apparently had no positive statement, it is hard to say what his position on time was. His position after all was to have no position. Because of his criticism of time sequentialism, Nagarjuna was regarded by scholars as not proposing the usual causation scheme. It is from a writing attributed to him, rightly or wrongly, that the Chinese derived the theory (found, for example, in T'ien-t'ai) that the three times are one: san-shih i-shihah.47The Chinese harmonizing tendency or love for a final complementary Oneness is innate to the T'ien-t'ai understanding of Madhyamika for its own purpose. The transformation discussed may be depicted in the following manner:

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Gautama's interpolation ofpratyaya between cause and effect. Absence of cause and effect concepts in China.

Nagarjuna's emphasis on > interdependence (paraspardpeksa) of the three times. a biogenerative > sequential model of origin and end

Chih-i'sai appropriation of Nagarjuna: the harmonism of the three times. the fluidity > and harmony of origin and end

There is, I think, an important difference between interdependence and harmonism. Things can be mutually dependent without necessarily adding up to a whole, to a unity. Yin-yang harmonism, however, implies this oneness through complementation. It can be seen that this sense of oneness or harmony in T'ien-t'ai was derived unconsciously more from the native Chinese cosmic monism than from Nagarjuna who might not agree with such a theory of mutual penetration. In this sinicization process, however, Chinese Buddhists incorporated something which was alien to their own world view: namely, the notion of immediate identity, hsiang-chiai (A = B). Reserving this issue for another detailed discussion, I can only briefly, if somewhat dogmatically, state this: the Chinese had the notion that the many emerged from the one. The One is the origin (pen); the many, born of the one, is the end (mo). The origin and the end, the one and the many are not disjointed like cause and effect, but fluid like the Great Tao and myriad things. Yet, prior to the Buddhist, there was not a native theory that claimed that the Many is immediately identical with the One or that Being is immediately Nonbeing. The evidence seems to show show that the Chinese Buddhist initiated this mutual identity concept.48 Yet, paradoxically, it would be difficult to find Indian Buddhists saying that Being is Nonbeing (Sat is Asat) or that the One is the Many in any logical/philosophical (as distinct from inspirational/scriptural) context. How then did the philosophy of immediate identity (hsiang-chi) begin in China? It began with a particular Chinese translation of the prajrnparamiti sitra, especially in Kumarajiva's choice of the word chi-shihak as the copula that has to be interpolated in the translation of "rupam iunyam eva" (form [is] empty only).49 The Chinese word for "is"-namely, chi-shih-is not required in Sanskrit in this instance. Apparently, the Buddhist usages such as samsira is nirvana or form is emptiness introduced a strength or magnitude of meaning (signifying symmetrical identity), perhaps not available in earlier usage of the Chinese chi B. (which usually means, that is, as in "A, that is, B"). Now A is B: A of the into the sitra's Nagarjuna's exposition prajniparamitd insight emptiness of all things is known as the first nondual philosophy in India. This nonduality is generally used intentionally to negate and not to affirm: that is, things neither come nor go, are neither the same nor different. Only in a special

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context, when this neither/nor logic is applied to the whole of wholes, to Dharmata as suinyata,nirvana as samsara, nama-rupaas sunya, would it mean a philosophy of total symmetrical identity (A B).50 A kind of monism of intent, of intuitive insight, or of didactic negatation of Hinayana dualism is then proposed. Chinese Buddhists, however, extended its usage, and we begin to hear of the One is the Two, Being is Nonbeing, the One is the Many, and in our discussion here, the Water is the Wave, the Substance is the Function, the Origin is the End, the Cause is the Effect, the Part is the Whole. Some of these would be too extravagant to Indian logicians.51 Now if we follow the early Taoist pen-mo logic in which total identity is not involved, it would be more proper to say, with reference to the Awakening of Faith, that the passive water (pen) was in time ruffled up by the wind. Initial passivity preceded the mo, activity. However, that would not be in the best tradition of the Buddhist mutual identity theory. It is to the credit of the commentator Wonhyo (Yiian-hsiaoal) that he underlined firmly the paradox that (1) the wind of ignorance has no beginning, therefore one cannot say that at one time there was pacificity before the advent of activity, and (2) the whole body of the water as one unit moves, that is, not just the surface of it as if the substance or the pen remains immobile. In other words, there might be a logical priority of passivity but there is not a chronological priority. Thus Wonhyo says, ... the whole body of water moves, therefore the water is not separate from the form of the wind [the wave-form].52 ... The forms of samsara [like the wet waves] are none other than the enlightened essence [the wet water] .... The immutable Mind itself is one with mutability. It is not mutability fuses with immutability.53 This unity of activity and passivity should be underlined because the same notion occurred later in Neo-Confucian thought as the idea of activity and passivity having one source (tung-ching i-yiianam).54 The Buddhist elimination of a naive concept of time sequence (that is, the logic of pen-mo, or there is the passive origin and then comes the active end) and the substitution of a paradoxical unity of passivity and activity in one substance is significant because it introduces into Chinese thought, not just the notion of spatial identity (chi, as just mentioned) but also temporal simultaneity or spontaneity. The latter led to the fourth theory of Dharmadhatu Causation, spontaneous generation of the universe in every split second-a theory unknown to India and more extravagant than traditional Chinese cosmogonic pen-mo theories. In the Dharmadhatu Causation, the One is immediately identical to and is spontaneously the Many. We may summarize the preceding discussion on the Indian contribution to native Chinese outlook in the production of sinitic Mahayana notion of time and causality in the following way: Indian Buddhist thought, directly or

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indirectly, introduced to the Chinese the notion of (1) immediate identity, (2) transtemporal simultaneity, (3) interdependence or matrix-relationship. The following diagram shows how the Indian Madhyamika influence and the Chinese pen-mo monism were synthesized into the Dharmadhatu Causation theory: Madhyamika Indian contribution: -identity -simultaneity total-matrix of dependence Chinese native cosmogonic view: "From the passive one comes the active Many in harmony." Substantive Monism. [sequential; finite] Dharmadhatu causation: "The One is the Many, simultaneously active and passive, each generating itself and all others in split second." [nonsequential; infinite]

I will explain below what Dharmadhatu Causation is, reserving the historical issues for the last section of this essay.
THE CROWN OF CAUSATION: DHARMADHATU CAUSATION

Dharmadhatu Causation is so extravagant in conception that logical language or explanation sometimes cannot depict it as well as analogies, metaphors, or diagrams (especially mandala). Dharmadhatu is the realm of the Dharma, the absolute, transcendental reality which, like the tathigatagarbha described earlier, has both the noumenal and the phenomenal aspect. Takakusu calls it the Universal Principle. He writes: Buddhism holds that nothing was created singly or individually [but through pratyaya, always with one another]. All things in the universe-matter and mind-arose simultaneously, all things in it depending upon one another, the influence of each mutually permeating and thereby making a universal symphony of harmonious totality. If one item were lacking, the universe would not be complete; without the rest, one item cannot be. When the whole cosmos arrives at a harmony of perfection, it is called the 'Universal One and True,' or the 'Lotus Store.' In this ideal universe all beings will be in perfect harmony, each finding no obstruction in the existence and activity of another.55 As usual, the Dharmadhatu Causation subsumes all the previous causation theories within itself. It is "the climax of all the causation theories; it is actually the conclusion of the theory of causal origination [pratTtya-samutpdda] and is already within the theory of universal immanence, pansophism, cosmotheism,

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or whatever it may be called."56 The reader who finds it hard to picture what these mean should perhaps imagine the scene of "all beings, from the highest to the lowest, are parts of one and the same Mandala."57 The world view here is not static but extremely dynamic, not finite but infinite. Pascal's line-"the center being everywhere, the circumference nowhere"-describing the aweinspiring and intimidating Infinite that threatened his ego, would be appropriate. However, for the Buddhist, it would be a leap of joy to behold the endless world of light. (Had Pascal only let go of his self!58) This is because in the Dharmadhatu, everything can be the center, the whole, the One that absorbs within itself the essence of all other entities, "like the net of Indra, where one jewel reflects all others," or comparable to the realm of the stars in Plotinus, where one star captures the light of all other stars.59 Takakusu describes the implications for causation: It is the causation by all beings themselves and is the creation of the universe itself, or we can call it the causation by the common action-influence [karma] of all beings. Intensively considered, the universe will be a manifestation of Thusness or the Matrix of Tathagata (Thus come). But extensively considered it is the causation of the universe by the universe itself and nothing more.60 It is an endless causation or ontogenesis of the universe in all its parts in a mysteriously concerted manner of mutual influence and penetration. One has to visualize something like a spontaneous, instantaneous, never-ceasing, self-generating universe to catch a glimpse of Dharmadhatu causation. How is this causation superior to the tathigatagarbha causation that precedes it? The water-and-wave metaphor may be a very good illustration of their differences and relationship. In the tathdgatagarbha causation, the water (tathati, the noumenal) generates the waves (the phenomenal samsdra) through the action of the wind of beginningless ignorance. It is said that the water and the waves are one in substance, in being wet and watery. The principle of the identity of the noumenal and the phenomenal, in a causatively immediate manner, was established. (This is different from the dictum, "samsdra is nirvana, nirvana is samsara," which by itself does not involve causality.) The wave is water; the water, in toto, moves as waves. The universal water and the particular individual waves are one. Dharmadhatu Causation, however, is not satisfied with just this identification. It asks: What about the identity of one wave with all the other waves, and one drop of water with the whole body of water? It, therefore, goes one step further to establish the principle of the interpenetration of every particular wave with all other particular waves, individually or as a whole. This is known, in the Hua-yen scheme, as the shih-shih wu-aian. phenomenal fact and fact are not obstructed. This is the basic new ideology of the One-is-All-All-is-One philosophy.61 One is All is like the reflection of a candle in a hall of mirrors: the one light is reflected in all the mirrors, and all mirrors reflect one another in an infinite manner. All is One is like the telescoping of all the mirror images

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into a crystal ball placed in the center. Fa-tsang, it is said, actually used these two means to demonstrate to Empress Wu the mystery of this new world view.62 Readers can also turn to his sermon on the Golden Lion for another exposition of the same.63
THE SOURCE OR INSPIRATION FOR THE DHARMADHATU CAUSATION

Indian Mahayana philosophy (sistra) does not know of a Dharmadhatu causation theory. That theory is derived from a creative Chinese reading of the Buddhist sitras. Already the tathdgatagarbha causation-based on the Awakening of Faith-points toward this higher theory of Dharmadhatu causation. Fa-tsang of the Hua-yen school had discovered this theory within the scriptural (sutra) tradition, particularly, the Hua-yen or Avatamsaka sitra. The superiority of the Dharmadhatu theory over the tathdgatagarbhacausation theory lies in the new insight into the extreme mystery that the part is the whole, that the One is the All. In the English language, there is one essay on the Hua-yen sutra by D. T. Suzuki on "The Gandavyiha."64 The Gandavyuhadepicts the pilgrimage of Sudhana under the direction of Mafijusri. The pilgrim finally encounters Samantabhadra. The Gandavyiuhais an independent work in Sanskrit that forms now the last chapter of the 80-chapter Chinese Hua-yen (Avatamsaka) sutra. The pilgrimage of Sudhana leads eventually to the Dharmadhatu, the is thus known also as dharmadultimate realm of reality. The Gan.davytuha into the realm of the dharma. I will hitupravesa, ju fa-chieh p'iena?, entering select two metaphors in the Dharmadhatu-vision to illustrate what this ultimate realm is like. One metaphor is that of light or total luminosity. Suzuki's study describes this well: Therefore, the Dharmadhatu is a world of lights not accompanied by any form of shade. The essential nature of light is to intermingle without interferring or obstructing or destroying one another. One single light reflects in itself all other lights generally and individually.65 The intermingling of one and all, singly and totally, is precisely the motif basic to the notion of Dharmadhatu Causation, the realization of the One as the All, and vice versa. Sudhana, the pilgrim, journeyed toward the world of the infinite until he came face to face with Samanthabhadra. Eventually, like in Plotinus' description of the ascent of the soul, the seer (Sudhana) and the seen (Samantabhadra) merged into one. Sudhana literally expanded in his physicospiritual stature until he became one with the highly luminous body of the cosmic Buddha.66 This theme of an enlightened person (in fact, all enlightened persons, buddhas) being an emanation of the cosmic Buddha can be seen in an early Mahayana siutra,the Lotus sfitra. In the Avatamsaka sutra, this theme is given the ultimate expression.

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All these Bodhisattvas from the ten quarters of the world together with their retinues are born of the life and vows of Samantabhadra the Bodhisattva .... they are also able to expand their own bodies to the end of the universe ... they reveal in each particle of dust all the worlds, singly and generally... emitting a deep, full sound form every pore of the skin, which reverberates throughout the universe... By means of their pure wisdom-eye they see all Buddhas of the past, present and future....67 This uncanny scene defies all our normal senses of dimension or time. Repeatedly we see the description that in every dust particle (the smallest) are millions and millions of buddha-worlds (the infinite). Repeatedly we are confronted with Sudhana's observation, that in every pore of the skin of the Buddha, there are millions and millions of buddha-worlds. It is as if one has stepped into a shadowless world of supreme luminosity and is confronted with the impossible: that the smallest is immediately the greatest and vice versa. That world is the world of the Dharmadhatu. It is based on this vision in the scripture and not on any formal philosophical doctrine of Indian Mahayana thinkers that we know of, that the Hua-yen school of Fa-tsang developed the final theory of causation: Dharmadhatu Causation. (Sometimes the Esoteric schools tops it with its own causation of the Five Elements but the crown of causationism really belongs to Hua-yen.68) However, philosophically and historically, the Dharmadhatu causation passed through some key doctrinal hurdles before it became articulated. As may be evident in our previous description, one of the characteristics of Dharmadhatu Causation is that it is self-generative, autogenetic. Each of the particular entities initiated its own emanative evolution. Fa-tsang referred to this as hsing-ch'i, essence arousal or causation due to the Dharmata in itself. The Absolute is so absolute that it requires no external help to generate causal phenomena. This means, in effect, that the Absolute requires no pratyaya, concomitant factors or auxiliary conditions, since it is its own generator. In other words, strictly speaking, the Dharmadhatu Causation is no longer but is hsing-ch'i, or yiian-ch'i, dependent coorigination (pratTtyasamutpaida) intended independent self-origination. Indeed, Fa-tsang hsing-ch'i to be superior to yiian-ch'i,just as he intended Dharmadhatu causation to be superior to tathdgatagarbhacausation. At this point I will briefly review the latter. In the latter, tathata as water is churned into waves of phenomena under the stimulation, that is, the condition, (pratyaya) of the wind of ignorance. The absolute, tathata, still requires condition (the wind) and still depends on something other than itself to become creative. Not satisfied with this dependent status, Fa-tsang produced the theory of hsing-ch'i. the self-arousal of the absolute into the realm of the relative, the interpenetration of Dharmadhatu into Lokadhatu, by its own volition and without external help-especially not the wind of avidya, ignorance. In the world of light, light should be its own source of being. Once more,

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Fa-tsang found in the Hua-yen sutra a justification of this new theory of self-generation. Fa-tsang based this new theory on Ju-lai hsing-ch'iaP,the title of chapter 32 of the 40 chapter of the Hua-yen sutra, benefitting from the particular choice of Chinese words used in the translation. The Sanskrit original is, as Takasaki Jikid6 has shown, Tathdgatotpattisambhava. Here "utpatti" means the birth of the Buddha, i.e., the attainment of bodhi, while "sambhava" is used to show the manifestation of the dharmakiya in various forms of the Buddha's activities. The former signifies Buddha's Wisdom (ijnana)while the latter signifies Buddha's Compassion (karuna).69 Hsing-ch'i in its original Sanskrit has nothing whatsoever to do with a causation 'theory concerning the Dharmata's self-generating power of creation. However, Hsing-ch'i can imply the awakening of the Buddha-essence in man, and it would correspond to the concept of the arousal of the bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment. Hsing-ch'i was understood in that subjective, meditative sense as the awakening of the Buddha-germ in man, by the first two patriarchs of the Hua-yen school, Tu-shun (557-640) and Chih-yen (602-668). The third patriarch, Fa-tsang, cosmicized and objectified this idea of awakening the Buddha-germ. He reinterpretedthe germ, the tathagatagarbha, in ontological terms. The arousal of one's innate germ of enlightenment, the Buddha-nature, now became the generation of the phenomenal realm from the Dharma-essence. The germ became a kind of cosmic womb like the Mother of all things in Taoism. In this way, Fa-tsang instituted Dharamadhdtu-causation,fa-chieh yuanchiaq. In it, the absolute dharmata (dharma-essence, Fa-hsingar),representing the noumenal, generates, out of itself, causative phenomenon (yiian-ch'i). The synthesis offa-hsing and yiian-ch'i thus produces hsing-ch'ias.Fa-tsang, therefore, synthesized Yogacara (yian-ch'i) and Madhyamika (shih-hsiang), and Hua-yen could therefore claim to be the one Mind Only Causation (wei-hsin yiian-ch'i) school.
SUMMARY

This article has surveyed the development of causative understanding, beginning with the classical doctrine of pratltyasamutpida, culminating in the Hua-yen doctrine of Dharmadhatu Causation. The extent of coverage does not permit, at times, clarifications on minute points. I hope, nevertheless, that I have made the Chinese hierarchical classification hierarchical rationale of Causation Theories-however esoteric and idiosyncratic it might appear on first reading-intelligible and accountable. The esoteric Hua-yen outlooks are not irrational; even its mysteries contain a rationale. The presentation here does not seek to prove how Chinese misunderstood pratityasamutpdda,but how creatively and ingeniously they had understood it through retrospection and adopted it for their own particular independent expression. The end product is sinitic Mahayana, a term I have coined to

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designatea sinicizedMahayanathat remainsfaithfulto the Dharma,the Law or Truth,that was nevermeantto be an Indianmonopoly. All the finer points aside, the transformationof the pratTtyasamutpiida theorycan be said to be this: Gautama'sdiscoveryof the principleofpratrtyawithin an Indo-European causative context was transposedinto samutpiida the Chinesebiogenerative framework.The Indian Buddhistcore concept of concomitancy(the pratyaya-factorbetween 'mechanical'entities) has been in Chinainto that of a cosmic and organicharmony.The rather transformed technicalSanskritdependentcooriginationbecame, finally, the spontaneous of the One and the All, a joyous celebration of a (Taoist)animated autogenesis or animisticuniverse. From India, China learned the paradox of identity, nonduality,relationality,and the timeless present.To these she contributed her native assumptionsof harmony,unity, fluidity,and a basic worldliness. Together,the two culturesproduceda unique vision of the infiniteabsolute, withina uniquehistoryof faith fillingold bottleswith new wine.

NOTES 1. Karl Potter, Presuppositions in Indian Philosophies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), pp. 93-116. 2. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 271, 280-289. 3. The philosopher Hume had leveled his criticism against causalism precisely on the ambiguities involved in this assumption of rarified entities. 4. This phenomenon has been expressed in terms of the aesthetical continuum by the philosopher Filmer Stuart Cuckow Northrop. 5. God is not continuous with his creation in the Biblical view, and even in Aristotle, the First Mover or Cause is unmoved or uncaused. However, Needham's thesis that the notion of "natural law" in Science in the West was a result of Western theism oversimplifies the issues; Needham, Science and Civilization in China, pp. 563-574. 6. The Han Confucian cosmologists like Tung Chung-shu"tor the Taoist writers of Huai-nantzu"a both subscribed to this general notion of cosmic evolution from the one to the many. However, it was with the Neo-Taoists that the practice of treasuring the pen and repressing the mo, chung-pen ch'u-moa, began. 7. As with the term pao-yingaw, also meaning retribution, yin-kuo designates the mysterious autogenetic process of natural consequence. Both terms are affiliated with the notion of kan-ying, stimulus and response, in Han thought. 8. On the definition of sinitic Mahayana, see Whalen Lai, "The Emergence of Sinitic Mahayana: T'ien-t'ai," paper read at the Association for Asian Studies conference at Toronto, 1976. 9. On the formation of the Hua-yen review of all the Buddhist traditions leading up to itself, see Fa-tsang's Wu-chiao-chang(T. 45, no. 1866). 10. For a short discussion, see especially Wing-tsit Chan's A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 570, fn. 124; for details, see Imai Usaburo, Sodai Ekigaku no Kenkyui(Tokyo, Meiji, 1958). See also Chan's general remarks, Source Book, pp. 406-408. However, his statement that in Neo-Confucian philosophy, "the universe is ... daily renewed. This creative element is lacking in the Universal Causation [Dharmadhatu Causation] of Hua-yen," should be taken with the following qualification. Dharmadhatu Causation does not

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subscribe to the I Ching notion of sheng-shengba, produce and reproduce, but it is extremely dynamic, ceaselessly generative. 11. I am grateful for corrections and suggestions given by Prof. Kalupahana to this study. 12. The essay, in English, is in Studies in Indology and Buddhology presented in honor of Prof. S. Yamaguchi (Kyoto, 1955). 13. See Karl Potter, Presuppositions in Indian Studies, pp. 117-144. 14. The Four Noble Truths are given within the framework of pratitya-samutpida. B There is suffering. A oc B There is the cause of suffering. -A There is the cessation of suffering. There is the path to the cessation of suffering. -A oc -B 15. Miyamoto, Studies in Indology and Buddhology, p. 156. 16. Gautama was known to avoid metaphysical issues not condusive to the task to eliminate the pathology (nidina) of suffering, but his theory of pratityasamutpadaas a theory of the Middle Path seems to, if not consciously, then unconsciously, offer a philosophical alternative to other options. 17. Miyamoto, Studies in Indology and Buddhology, p. 153. 18. See Whalen Lai, "The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana: A Study of the Unfolding of Sinitic Motifs," (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard, 1975). The second so-called translation of the Awakeningof Faith apparently avoided, in one place, that usage of the term yin-yuan in recognition of the Chinese license. 19. I would not regard the Chinese understanding as a distortion but as a structural transmuin a new cultural context. Christianity underwent tation of the intention of pratTtyasamutpdda similar transformations in Rome. 20. For example, there are four types of pratyaya; see Kalupahana, Causality. 21. The concern for causality and fate and its opposite, liberation from causal determinism, could have been the philosophical expression of a historical, existential awareness of the tension between necessity and freedom in the medieval Weltzeit. Generally, classical philosophies are not alert to this tension, being at home with physis, Tao, etc. 22. See T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism(London, Allen & Unwin, 1955), p. 49. The term relativity upset many oriental Buddhologists who came out of the Chinese San-lun tradition of emphasizing the absolute void (atyanta-sunyata) as pi-ching-k'ungbb; the void in Chinese San-lun is a nondependent void. On the sinicization of Madhyamika in China, see my a Hypothesis," (1976, submitted to Indogaku "The Intended Meaning of the Term 'ch'eng-shihbC,' Bukky6gaku Kenkyi) and Th. Stcherbatsky, The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana (Leningrad: Academy of Science of the USSR, 1927). 23. Yogacara developed the Two Truths theory of Nagarjuna into its own Three Truths/ Perspectives. The following is a concise summary: a. perception of a rope as empty of self-nature. b. everyday perception of a rope as a rope, nominal reality, c. misperception of a rope (in the dark) as a snake. perspective A: intuition into the reality-as-it-is, tathati. perspective B (paratantra): subject-object realistic perception. perspective C: misperception, the object is an illusion.

See T. Stcherbatsky, Discourse on Discrimination between Middle and Extremes (Moscow, 1936), and Chan, Source Book, pp. 393-395. 24. See Whalen Lai, "The Meaning of Mind Only (Wei-hsin)", Philosophy East and West 22, no. 1 (Jan., 1977): 65-83. 25. Nagarjuna, on the other hand, clearly identified his philosophy of the Middle Path (Madhyamika) with causationism itself; see his Madhyamika-kdrikdsincluded in Frederick J. Streng, Emptiness (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1956). 26. Takakusu, (Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1947), pp. 23-36. 27. Takakusu, Essentials in Buddhist Philosophy, p. 28. 28. Satkiryavdda holds that the effect is preexistent in the cause; see Karl Potter, Presuppositions

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262 Lai

in Indian Studies, p. 106, and earlier discussion in this essay. 29. Takakusu, Essentials, p. 31. 30. Dhammapdda,trans. P. L. Vaidya (Poona, 1934); see first verse, p. 53. All realities are said to be of the mind, the doer of good and evil. 31. Takakusu, Essentials, p. 32. See Chan, Source Book, pp. 370-395, esp. p. 371. 32. Takakusu, Essentials, p. 34. 33. On how consciousness, shihbd,became relegated to the realm of phenomena and below the chen-ju hsinbe,Thusness or Suchness Mind, see my "The I Ching and the Formation of the Huayen Philosophy," forthcoming Journal of Chinese Philosophy. 34. Actually, Fa-tsang used only the term ju-lai-tsang yiian-ch'i but modern Japanese Buddhologists have learned to use the more liberal chen-ju yiian-ch'i term instead. That modem practice might be dated back to usages in the Yoshino period in late Kamakura Japan. Strictly speaking, ju-lai-tsang is not always symmetrically identical with chen-ju, for the dynamic tathdgatagarbha responsible for the causation is tsai-fu chen-jubf"in bondage to phenomena." Only upon its release, is it truly chen-ju, tathatd. 35. See Hakeda, trans. Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 36. The Chinese original is somewhat ingeniously ambiguous and much lies behind the nuance of the terms hsin sheng-miehbg (the Mind in its phenomenal aspect) and the sheng-mieh hsinbh(the phenomenal mind) and their relationship with the tathagatagarbhaand the alayavijnina. 36. See my "The I Ching and the Formation of the Hua-yen Philosophy." 37. The position here is that of Hsiian-tsangbi, representing (in my mind) the more orthodox Indian position, but it was attacked by Fa-tsang. 38. According to the bheddbheda Vedantins, Brahman (the Absolute) and the phenomenal world are neither same nor different; the source of reality lies with Brahman. The Chinese Taoist would also see reality as coming out of the Tao. Thus when Fa-tsang moved towards the Taoist outlook, he unknowingly moved close to the bheddbhedaVedantins. 39. See Alex and Hideko Wayman, The Lion's Roar of the QueenSrTmald (New York, Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 105 for his translation; p. 44 for a discussion. 40. So understood, it is not too different from the moral Idealism of the opening lines of the Dhammapdda.That the seat of power lies with a king does not mean that realities are created by the king. 41. See Hakeda, trans. Awakening of Faith, p. 41. I do not follow the interpolations that Hekeda added to his translation to make it more logical. 42. For example, it would be difficult for an Indian Buddhist who adheres to the doctrine that tathatd only "supports" phenomena to say, like the Ch'an Buddhist would, that a flower is immediately as such the Absolute. That Ch'an statement is based on the faith in the presence of tathata (the wetness of the water) in the flower (the wave) itself, that is, an immanentalist position. That immanental position is thought to be derived however from Madhyamika. Tokiwa Daijo in Bussho no kenkyu (Tokyo: Meiji Shoen, 1934), pp. 262-263, reviews the same issue from a different angle. 43. See Fa-tsang's commentary on the Awakening of Faith in T. 44, p. 255c. 44. Takakusu, Essentials, pp. 124-126. A good translation of the Treatise on the Golden Lion is in Chan, Source Book, pp. 409-414. The essay on the Ten Mysteries was attributed to Tu-shunbj and recorded by Chih-yenbk(T. 45, No. 1868) but was more likely a Fa-tsang compilation. 45. Takakusu, Essentials, pp. 124-126; see also Chan, Source Book, pp. 415-424 for another similar treatise. 46. Takakusu, Essentials, pp. 26-27. 47. See Leon Hurvitz' "Chih-i," Melanges Chinois et Bouddhiques12 (Brussels, 1960-1962) for a discussion of the basic doctrines. I think there is a difference in saying, as Nagarjuna did, that the three times are unreal, empty of self-nature and relative, and saying, with Chih-i, that the three times are one or present in the "moment" (an Avatamsaka-suitra's insight.) 48. This can be inferred from the fact that such a Buddhist master as Chi-tsang of the San-lun school had criticized the Taoist for "knowing about emptiness" but failing to "exhaust (that is, to conceptually destroy even the assumption of) emptiness (as potential matter or as antitheses to form or reality" chih-k'ung erh pu-chin-k'ungbI.

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49. It seems, from my research so far, that the intentional use of a double compound-chi-shih (both meaning "is")-was for the purpose of underlining this total identity or mutual identity, hsiang-chi. The choice by Kumarajiva was therefore ingenious and innovative. He might have borrowed the idea from Chih Tao-linbm,who was known to have used the word chi in his philosophy of "roving in the mysteries while abiding with forms, chi-se yu-hsiian"b. However, there the word chi was used as a verb or adverb (Japanese: tsukub?,not as a copula sunawachi). I was alerted to the possibly new use of the compound, che shih, in a conversation with Professor L. S. Yang at Harvard. 50. In that sense, the Chinese interpretation of Madhyamika had this advaya philosophical basis. 51. It would seem, in reading Potter's book, that Indian Logicians generally would not accept the irrationality of the part being equal to the whole. 52. T. 44, p. 208b. The Suchness Mind is totally involved in the movements. 53. T. 44, p. 208b. The last sentence describes the "lower" alayavijnina only. 54. See Chan, Source Book, p. 570, and note 10 herein. 55. Takakusu, Essentials, p. 35. 56. Essentials, p. 118. 57. Essentials, p. 37. The reader of Takakusu should be aware that, from this page on, until p. 54, Takakusu was actually describing the Buddhist philosophy from the Hua-yen or Dharmadhatu perspective. 58. Only those who grasp onto their persons or atmans and are unable to let go would be duely frightened by this cosmic envelopment of the anatman no-self into the Dharmadhatu. For a contemporary explanation of the Hua-yen philosophy, see Garma Chang's The Buddhist Teaching of Totality (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1971), chapter 1. 59. The net of Indra, a basic Hua-yen metaphor, is filled with glittering jewels; see Nakamura Hajime, "Interrelational Existence" in Philosophy East and West 17 (1964), for the link between Plotinus and Hua-yen siitra. 60. Takakusu, Essentials, p. 118. 61. The "One = All" formula is the traditional summary of Hua-yen philosophy i chi tuo, tuo chi ibq. 62. See Sung Kao-seng-chuanbr, T. 50, p. 732; retold by Chang, Buddhist Teaching, pp. 22-24. 63. Chan, Source Book, pp. 409-414. 64. D. T. Suzuki, On Indian Mahayana Buddhism, ed. E. Conze (New York: Harper, 1968), pp. 147-226, a most brilliant exposition on the numinous realm of the Dharmadhatu. 65. Suzuki, Indian Mahdyana, p. 167. 66. Suzuki, Indian Mahaiyna, p. 158. 67. Suzuki, Indian Mahayyna, p. 158; see passages in the Hua-yen sitra, T. 10, pp. 237-241. 68. Tantric Vairocana, however, did share the numen of Dharmadhatuand Dharmakdya. 69. Takasaki Jikido, "Kegon kyogaku to nyoraizo shiso," in Nakamura Hajime, ed., Kegon shiso (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1960), pp. 282-288. The quotation here is from the author's own English summary on p. 11 from the back. Fa-tsang even freely read ju-laibs(tathdgata), thus-come, in such a way to imply "The unchanging [suchness, tathati, jul is essence (hsing); the manifested function (yung,) [seen in the word lai] is arousal (ch'i)." Therefore ju-lai is hsing-ch'ibt.This clever twist of words is possible because the prajdi-piramitd satras had interpreted tathigata in terms of its tathata . relationship with
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