WorkCandrakīrti

Prasannapadā

Nāgārjuna's verses read one by one, opening on a quarrel over whether a Buddhist philosopher may prove anything of his own.

by Candrakīrti700 passages held

Sanskrit, the original language

Original language: Sanskrit

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Overview

Bhāviveka, an earlier commentator on Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, had found fault with a still earlier one. Buddhapālita, he complained, only showed that an opponent's position led to absurd consequences, and never proved a position of his own in a properly formed inference. Candrakīrti, an Indian Buddhist monk (c. 600–650 CE), answered in a commentary on the same verses, and he opened it on that quarrel. The Prasannapadā takes Nāgārjuna's 27 chapters verse by verse; its title means "clear words", and its opening verses promise that clarity. Its first chapter defends Buddhapālita at length. Candrakīrti argues that a follower of Madhyamaka, the Middle Way school founded on those verses, has no thesis to prove; Nāgārjuna and his disciple Āryadeva had said so themselves. Such a philosopher draws out what follows from an opponent's claim until the opponent has nothing left to say. The same chapter takes on the school of Dignāga, the Buddhist logician. That school counted two means of knowledge; Candrakīrti asks what grounds those means themselves. None of his works was translated into Chinese. Tibetan translators brought them to Tibet in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and scholars there named him the founder of a school they called Prāsaṅgika, after prasaṅga, "consequence", a label no Indian thinker used. Louis de La Vallée Poussin, a European scholar of Buddhism, edited the Sanskrit between 1903 and 1913 from three manuscripts. Older manuscripts have surfaced since, and Anne MacDonald used them in 2015 for a new edition of the first chapter.

Key concepts

What is a prasaṅga, an argument by consequence?

A prasaṅga draws an unwelcome result out of an opponent's own claim, without the arguer asserting anything in its place. The Sāṃkhya school says things arise from themselves; then, Candrakīrti replies, what already exists would be produced again and again without end, which the Sāṃkhya does not accept either. The unwanted consequence belongs to the opponent alone, so the arguer has no position of his own to defend.

What are the four ways a thing could come into being?

From itself, from something else, from both, or from no cause at all. Nāgārjuna's first verse denies all four, and the commentary tests each against its defenders: the Sāṃkhya school, for which an effect already exists in its cause, and fellow Buddhists, who point to the four kinds of condition the Buddha named as producers of effects. If none of the four holds, nothing arises with a nature of its own.

What do eternalism and annihilationism mean here?

They are the two extremes the Middle Way runs between. Eternalism holds that things have a lasting nature of their own. Annihilationism first accepts that something really exists and then declares it gone or never there, as the nihilist does in denying that deeds bear fruit. The commentary's middle course: no person passes from one life to the next, yet no deed is lost and its result still arrives.

What is prapañca, the proliferation of concepts?

Prapañca is the mind's habit, grown over beginningless lives, of spinning the world into distinctions: knower and known, doer and deed, object and experience. Candrakīrti traces suffering back through it: taking objects as real feeds the proliferation, which feeds the fixation on "I" and "mine", then afflictions, deeds and rebirth. Seeing that things lack a nature of their own stops the chain at its first link.

Why is the highest truth called silence?

Because it lies beyond speech and thought, so no statement can contain it. Even the denial that things arise in any of four ways, Candrakīrti says, belongs to ordinary reasoning, not to the sages' own seeing. Teachers therefore lead learners through the world's familiar terms, as a doctor matches medicines to illnesses, and the truth itself is reached only by realising it, the way diseased eyes are cured, not told.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Arguing Without a Thesis

Can someone who denies that anything has a nature of its own argue at all, without setting up a position of his own to defend? The opening chapter of the commentary stakes everything on the answer.

Buddhapālita, an earlier commentator, had refuted the claim that things produce themselves simply by asking why something already there would need producing again. A later critic called that no proof at all. Candrakīrti sides with Buddhapālita: a follower of the Middle Way advances no thesis, but draws out what the opponent's own claim commits him to, on premises the opponent accepts. He then turns on the logicians' means of knowledge, perception and inference, and asks what could ground them without grounding being needed in turn.

madhyamaka
epistemology
perception
scriptural authority
causation
causality
conventional truth

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Not the Nihilist's Denial

If nothing has a nature of its own, the Middle Way can sound like the old denial that deeds bear fruit and that rebirth happens. Where the two part company, when their words can sound alike, is what has to be shown.

Candrakīrti meets the charge again and again. The nihilist first treats things as real and then denies them; the Middle Way never grants them a nature to deny, any more than a clear-sighted person denies the hairs that someone with diseased eyes sees floating. The two may even say the same sentence, as a guesser and an eyewitness can make the same accusation, without being equally right. Emptiness itself, he warns, must not harden into one more view, like a medicine that stays in the body after the illness.

emptiness
dependent origination
dependent arising
intrinsic nature
middle way
eternalism
existence
karma
action
agency
rebirth
samsara
afflictions
ignorance
suffering
cessation
nirvana
liberation
self
personal identity
aggregates
time
impermanence

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Within this work

passages held: 700
distinct concepts: 385
by passages held, corpus-wide: #99

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “dependent origination” and “emptiness”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 25 pairings. 80 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
dependent origination	emptiness	62
causation	dependent origination	50
causation	emptiness	44
emptiness	intrinsic nature	35
emptiness	nirvana	29
karma	rebirth	28
causation	karma	25
causality	dependent origination	22
causation	intrinsic nature	22
dependent origination	intrinsic nature	20
emptiness	karma	17
dependent origination	rebirth	16
causation	rebirth	14
causality	karma	13
causality	emptiness	12
dependent origination	karma	11
intrinsic nature	karma	9
causality	intrinsic nature	8
causality	rebirth	8
emptiness	rebirth	7
intrinsic nature	nirvana	4
intrinsic nature	rebirth	2
karma	nirvana	2
nirvana	rebirth	2
causation	nirvana	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

Bodhisattvayogācāracatuḥśatakaṭīkā (Catuḥśataka-ṭīkā)
Candrakīrti's commentary on Āryadeva rather than on Nāgārjuna: here he argues with stories as well as with proofs.
SA
Prasannapadā you are here SA

— or open another of their works