Vasubandhu’s Crazy Answers
Vasubandhu was a Buddhist monk and a philosopher in the 4th century CE in India. He was one of the pioneering philosophers who championed the Idealism in Buddhism, say, Yogācāra Buddhism. Buddhist Idealism, though shares numerous features with German Idealism, shows some peculiar features to be distinguished. Without going into details, suffice to note that many scholars even today do not have consent to use this nomenclature “Buddhist Idealism” regarding Yogācāra school of Buddhism. But, for convenience, I prefer to go with that name.
Vasubandhu wrote several tiny treatises expounding fundamental concepts of Buddhist Idealism. Viṃśatikā, or a treatise of twenty verses, is the most popular among them and also the first manual recommended for many academic courses to understand the very structure of this philosophy. It is a dialogue (or debate) between Vasubandhu and a monk from Sarvāstivāda school of Buddhism, the school which promoted realism as the trustworthy way of interpreting Buddha’s words. For Sarvāstivāda, the external world is something existing and it exerts influence on our knowledge as well. The challenge before Vasubandhu was then to prove his idealist standpoint against this realism of Sarvāstivāda. At the very outset of Viṃśatikā, Vasubandhu’s answers to the opponent’s question seem no convincing. Students of Buddhism usually wonder, why this great philosopher formulated such crazy answers! Here I shall attempt to unveil the situation.
Beginning of the Debate
Vasubandhu starts Viṃśatikā introducing his view.
Vijñaptimātram evedam asadarthāvabhāsanāt /
yadvat taimirikasyāsatkeṣoṇḍukādidarśanam //
“(All) this is indeed only consciousness, because of the appearance (in it) of non-existing objects, as the vision of the taimirika of an inexisting net of hairs etc.”
No doubt, these enigmatic lines would sound like “Greek” to the common reader, who has no formal education on Buddhism. Let me rephrase them in plain English.
Taimirika is a patient with eye-disease who sees net of hairs, spider-webs etc. in the atmosphere. It is an illusion happens due to the patient’s eye disease. Just like that everything we perceive is an illusion because they give the impression of ‘existence of things’ of which there is no existence in reality. ‘Only consciousness’ here is a cryptic term which means our awareness of perceived objects would tell us only the fact “this is a table” etc. without saying “there is a table in reality”.
Opponent’s questions
Opponent, coming from a realist philosophical standpoint, seems unable to understand Vasubandhu’s philosophical stance, partly because his assertion comes with the example of taimirika patient. So, from the opponent’s point of view, just as the patient’s vision is an illusion, Vasubandhu needs to advocate whatever we perceive is an illusion too. Provided that the opponent’s understanding is right, Vasubandhu has to clarify four inconsistencies on every person’s day-to-day experience.
01. Space limitation
The question is: If I see a ‘chair’ here as a result of my illusion, why I don’t see the same chair somewhere else due to the same illusion, because an illusion has no space-limitation. Think about the example of taimirika patient. She does not see the net of hair etc. only in a certain territory. Wherever she sees, she perceives the same illusion. Why we don’t?
02. Time limitation
Just like space limitation, there cannot have a time limitation for an illusion. In general, I see a chair in this place, only when the chair is before me. When it is removed, I don’t see a chair anymore in front of me. But, for an illusion, it cannot be the case. If my perception is an illusion, despite the existence of the object, say, chair, for instance, I must continue to see the chair after it has been removed too. Why it doesn’t happen?
03. Not confined to an individual experience
Take again the example of the patient’s illusion. Though she sees net of hair in the atmosphere due to her eye-disease, it is just her personal experience. Other people gathered around her do not see the same illusion. In that case, the illusion is subjective. But, when I see a chair before me, it is not just my subjective perception; everyone in the same location can see it. How?
04. Performance of function
When I see a chair before me, I can touch it, I can sit on it. That means, there is a certain ‘function that I can perform’ with that object. Imagine there is no chair in reality before me, but I have the illusion of a chair. Can I sit on it? If not, why?
Opponent’s viewpoint is conspicuous with these four questions. They think that if the things are not existing “in reality” or they are mere illusions like that of taimirika patient, that theory will contradict with our day-to-day experience.
Vasubandhu’s crazy answers
Here start Vasubandhu’s crazy answers. Vasubandhu tackles opponent’s charges considering several background assumptions in his mind. They are not explicitly given in the text, which makes it difficult to understand Vasubandhu’s way of responding. These are the points that Vasubandhu has concerned before answering.
01. The opponent of the current discussion is a wise person and since he argues based on everyday experience, he might accept the common-sense philosophy.
02. He is a Buddhist; so, he might accept Buddhist mythologies.
03. The opponent believes that above mentioned four situations occur only when the external objects are existing “in reality”.
Without these background assumptions, Vasubandhu’s answers might appear crazy at a glance.
He refutes above four positions thus;
01–02. For space and time restrictions, Vasubandhu says, they happen like in dreams. Now think about the opponent’s position. He thinks that space and time limitations affect human cognition only because the external thing is “existing in reality”. A dream is a state that things are not existing in reality. But, for a person who dreams, cognition of certain objects is limited to a given territory and time, just like in awaken state. What does this mean? Space or time limitations do not ‘necessarily’ prove that thing in reference is existing “in reality”. So, the opponent’s argument is not cogent.
03. Being not confined to subjective experience is refuted with the belief of pretas. I would like to keep this original Sanskrit term preta without English rendering as I do not find an equivalent in English. According to Buddhist mythology, there are five different states where a being can be reborn according to their karma, an invisible power created by one’s behaviour and determining force of next life. One of these states is preta world. It exists in this earth itself, but, from a different dimension. Beings in the preta world have no uniformity in their body-shape or even in their lifestyles. Some are giants, some have miniature bodies. Some have almost human-like figures, others have hybrid body shapes such as half-human, half-animal. Most interestingly they perceive everything in this earth what we also perceive, but in a quite distorted form. For example, when they feel thirsty, they run into the river, which is a river of water indeed, but at the river bank, they perceive it as a pus-river. So, no one can quench their thirst.
This is the position that Vasubandhu corroborates to refute this third charge. Pus-river is not something existing in reality, but all pretas see the same pus-river. Then, again, the opponent’s view becomes invalid because he thinks that cognising same thing by several persons would indicate the real existence of a thing in reference. Vasubandhu reminds him if it is his opinion, he has to give up the Buddhist teaching on the preta world.
04. Nocturnal pollution is the example that Vasubandhu presents against the fourth charge. Suppose a man has sexual intercourse with a woman in a dream. No woman is existing “in reality”; indeed, it is a dream! But, Vasubandhu says it is possible to have a climax and autonomous ejaculation of semen in reality. What Vasubandhu proves again, it is not necessary to have “a real thing” to perform some functions.
This is how Vasubandhu answers, and you may ask what the anomaly of these answers. Hold on, please! I shall later share with you my real-time classroom experience. Before that, I would like to analyse Vasubandhu’s style of reasoning in this context.
Vasubandhu’s style of reasoning
Vasubandhu’s style of reasoning in this debate, of course, is not peculiar to him but common to many Buddhist philosophers. Buddha himself has used this style in many discourses (see, for example, Upāli Sutta of Majjhima Nikāya). I believe this is the true sense of Prasanga Sādhana, which is wrongly compared with reductio ad absurdum of Western informal fallacies. Here how it runs.
1. First, we have to understand the context of the opponent. In this case, he is a wise person, a Buddhist monk from realist philosophical background and so on.
2. Secondly, we have to make the contradictory statement to opponent’s thesis and locate it in his/her own context. That’s it.
In this second step, it is important to note that proponent is not necessarily required to make her philosophical standpoint, but a contradictory situation to opponent’s thesis. Therefore, when we find that Vasubandhu takes examples from dream states, preta world, common-sense behaviour, we do not need to infer that he represents his philosophical position while refuting the opponent. No, it is not so. He just wants to refute the opponent’s view and then he makes a case that both P and ~P are safely located in the same context. It proves both of them cannot be true, but either one of them is possible. In many cases there are good grounds to make both theses valid, then they both should have to be rejected. That is the sole purpose of this argument. Vasubandhu does not want to prove his Idealism using these arguments but refutes the opponent’s position showing their invalidity.
Why cannot we accept the contradictory case created by the proponent is not her philosophical stance? Because proponent must make these contradictory cases within the context of the opponent; proponent’s contexts may be dramatically different from that.
What is the crazy part?
After teaching this whole stuff found at the beginning of Viṃśatikā, I usually get recurring feedback from my students every year. For them, Vasubandhu’s arguments are not convincing against realism. Logically, he has disproved the validity of the opponent’s views. That’s true. But, imagine the opponent is not a Buddhist monk, but a secular or irreligious philosopher. Then the situation becomes very hard to cope with, for she can raise the same questions against Vasubandhu’s Idealism, and Vasubandhu will be unable to answer in the same manner. But literally, this doesn’t happen!
Here we are committed to understanding two significant points while deconstructing this argument of Vasubandhu.
01. Vasubandhu responds to the opponent, as I have made it clear above, knowing that the opponent has misunderstood his philosophical stance probably because he has grasped the example of taimirika patient by the wrong end. From the opponent’s point of view, what Vasubandhu says is our perception is an illusion and nothing in the external world can be called “existing in reality”. Keep it in mind that this is how opponent has understood Vasubandhu’s view, otherwise, there is no good reason to infer that Vasubandhu holds the same position as well. Vasubandhu’s style of reasoning sometimes misleads us to infer that he promotes or advocates his view. But that is not necessarily the case. Demonstrating a contradictory instance in the context of the opponent he argues only to prove that the opponent’s view is wrong. That’s all.
Now the million-dollar question is; if the opponent is misguided, what is the correct position of Vasubandhu’s Idealism? That’s the second point.
02. The answer is already hinted by the term “consciousness only”. Think, for example, what do we perceive by eyes? We can perceive the shape of objects, colour etc. Can we perceive the “existence” of the object by eye? If it is not the eye, is there any other sense-organ to perceive “existence”? I doubt Vasubandhu would agree with any affirmative answer. For him, “existence” of an object is a complex idea that we create ourselves depending on the way we construct our sense data. Finally, it is not a result of our immediate cognition, but a complex idea constructed by the mind. If we cannot cognise the “existence” by our sense, we do not know of “existence,” but we feel so. Why is that so? Because we superimpose the “existence” to objects we perceive whenever we perceive them, without proper awareness! Vasubandhu wants to imply this meaning by the illustration of taimirika patient. Just like taimirika patient understands the “existence” of a net of hair etc. which is not existing utterly, we also grasp the “existence” of objects on which we do not know but a complex picture constructed by the mind. We behave “normally” in everyday routine only because we believe that we know of “existence”. That is why Vasubandhu rejects our common sense; the mind creates its basis. Moreover, Vasubandhu degrades all philosophical efforts devoted to discovering the ultimate particle of “existence” of things. Such an attempt is utterly in vain, for we have no knowledge of “existence,” for we are looking externally what we have created internally.
(Primary Source for the text and translation: Tola, Fernando and Carmen Dragonetti. 2004. Being as Consciousness: Yogācāra Philosophy of Buddhism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas.)
