Svatantrika
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Svātantrika represents a doxographical subcategory of Madhyamaka philosophy, and is invariably used in contrast with another such subcategory, Prāsangika Madhyamaka. A common Indo-Tibetan assumption is that various philosophical schools form a sort of ladder of progressively refined worldviews. In that spirit, many Tibetan exegetes (including practically all Gelugpas) identify Prāsangika as the "highest" (i.e. truest or best) Buddhist teaching. From this perspective, writings labelled "Svātrantika" are thought to approach, but not quite to attain, the correct view of reality. Other Tibetan interpreters downplay the Svātantrika / Prāsangika distinction, or propose rival schemas for dividing Madhyamaka, but none explicitly champion Svātantrika. This could possibly reflect the fact that the Jonang sect of Tibetan Buddhism was repressed and subsumed into the Gelugpa by the Fifth Dalai Lama due to its doctrine of Shentong, which he found to be in some respect heretical.
The Prāsangika / Svātantrika distinction represents a native Tibetan interpretation of Indian disputes among Nāgārjuna commentators
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- Buddhapalita (whom Tibetan tradition credits as the founder of the Prasangika "school");
- Bhāvaviveka (whose criticisms of Buddhapalita are retrospectively imagined as the foundation of the Svatantrika "school"); and
- Chandrakirti (who defended Buddhapalita against Bhavaviveka, and is therefore associated with Prasangika).
Note that none of these "schools" seem to have existed in ancient India, but were created after the fact by Tibetan doxographers. For that matter the very name "Svātantrika" represents a back-translation into Sanskrit, coined by modern scholars, for the Tibetan term rang rgyud ba.
The term refers to Bhāvaviveka's criticism that Buddhapalita ought not to have relied solely on reductio ad absurdum arguments--hence the name "Prāsangika," from prāsanga ("consequence")--but ought to have set forth "autonomous" (svātantra) syllogisms of his own. (Whether a Madhyamaka viewpoint would allow the necessary factual claims, or statements of epistemological principles, for such an argument was the major point in dispute.) Dreyfus and McClintock observe:
- "In this regard, Bhāvaviveka should probably be seen as quite successful: apart from Candrakirti and Jayananda, nearly all other Indian Madhyamikas were to follow in his footsteps and embrace autonomous arguments as important tools in their endeavors to establish the supremacy of the Madhyamaka view." [1]
The name of the inventor of the Prāsangika / Svātantrika distinction is not known. One suspect is the 11th-century Tibetan translator of Candrakirti, Pa sthab nyi ma grags. The rise of Prāsangika can be attributed to the influence of Tsongkhapa, the Gelugpa founder, who ironically sides with Svātantrika writers on several important points (including the necessity of proposing formal theses as part of a logical argument).
As interpreted by Tibetan writers such as Tsongkhapa, the Prāsangika / Svātantrika distinction involved not only issues of logic, but also affected the two schools' respective understandings of sunyata ("emptiness"). However, mainstream Sakyas (following Rongtön and Gorampa) hold the position that the distinction between these two schools is merely of pedagogical nature. With regard to the view of the ultimate truth both have no difference. [2]
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[edit] Subdivisions
Before the Prāsangika / Svātantrika distinction rose to prominence, other divisions of Madhyamaka were proposed. One Ye shes sde (8th-9th century) identified subschools of
- (1) "Sautrantika Madhyamika," including Bhavaviveka; and
- (2) "Yogācāra Madhyamaka," including Shantarakshita, Kamalasila, and Haribhadra.
Later Gelugpa exegetes considered both of the above to constitute subschools of Svatantrika, under the names of
- (1) "Sautrantika Svātantrika Madhyamaka"; and
- (2) "Yogācāra Svātantrika Madhyamaka."
Their preferred subschool, Prāsangika, was represented chiefly by Candrakirti (whom the classical Indian tradition apparently did not recognize as an important Nāgārjuna commentator), and was considered to be indivisible.
[edit] Scriptural interpretation
Addressing the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma, Ian Charles Harris reports that "Bhāvaviveka held the third turning to reflect the teaching of the Sandinirmocanasutra [Sutra of Unraveling the Thought, the scripture which is the basis for the doctrine of the Three Turnings] while the third was in conformity with the Prajñāpāramitā corpus." [3]
[edit] Parallel debates
The debate between adherents of Prasangika and Svatantrika views somewhat resembles the later ones of shentong (empty of other) and rangtong (empty of self). Much of the debate centers around the usefulness of making affirmative statements about the nature of reality, with respect to the two truths doctrine.
According to the Tibetan understanding, the earlier Svatantrikas use reasoning to establish that phenomena (dharmas) have no self-nature, and further arguments to establish that the true nature of all phenomena is emptiness. The Prasangika, by contrast, claim to make no assertions whatsoever about the true or ultimate nature of phenomena. Instead, Prasangika use the statements of opposing views and uncover contradictions and unreasonable consequences to render them invalid. The later Svatantrika continued to make affirmative statements but restricted those to the domain of valid cognition that analyze for relative truth. When analyzing for ultimate truth they adopted the Prasangika approach.
So later Svatantrika make the distinction that it is possible to analyze using a valid cognition for relative truth, and they continue to make assertions in the form of syllogisms of the nature of phenomenon. This may be misunderstood as if they are making statements about the ultimate nature of reality. Rime commentator Ju Mipham argues that the Prasangika also make assertions about relative truth using the Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara as an example. The Madhyamakavatara is organized into chapters describing the grounds and paths of a bodhisattva. Even though this is a seminal text for presenting the Prasangika view, much of its content is about the path of the meditator which is relative truth. Therefore, even the Prasangika approach makes assertions when talking to students about a path. But both Prasangika and later Svatantrika views agree that when analyzing for valid cognition with respect to ultimate reality no positive assertions are valid.
[edit] Books
- Dreyfus, Georges B.J. & Sara L. McClintock (eds). The Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction: What Difference Does a Difference Make? Wisdom Publications, 2003.
- Lopez, Donald S. A Study of Svatantrika. Snow Lion, 1987.
