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Chapter 2 The Intellectual Background of Shakya Chokden’s Interpretation of Yogåcåra and Madhyamaka 1. Two Tendencies in Yogåcåra and Ni±svabhåvavåda Writings In this chapter I address those elements in the intellectual history of Mahåyåna Buddhism that facilitate a better understanding of Shakya Chokden’s views. I start with the developments in the Madhyamaka and Yogåcåra systems that anticipated the formation of his ideas. I then move to Shakya Chokden’s own descriptions of various changes in the religious and intellectual climate of his time. Next, I explain key elements of his system that comprise the framework in which his interpretation of Madhyamaka and Yogåcåra is embedded. I close this chapter by addressing the question of how his views developed and changed—a question that was given conflicting answers by later Tibetan writers. While the first chapter was designed to provide the socio-historical and biographical background, this chapter puts Shakya Chokden’s views into the broader intellectual context of Buddhist philosophy. When explaining Shakya Chokden’s views, I often use the paired terms “Ni±svabhåvavåda” and “Yogåcåra,” instead of a more widely used “Madhyamaka” and “Yogåcåra” pair. I do this for two reasons. First, although the system of Någårjuna (between the 2nd and 4th centuries CE) and his followers is known variously as “Madhyamaka,” “Ni±svabhåvavåda,” and “ͨnya(tå)våda” (Proponents of Emptiness),1 71 72 Visions of Unity not all thinkers agree that the first term is synonymous with the latter two.2 As we have already seen, Shakya Chokden’s unique approach to Mahåyåna systems is built on the view that one of the two subdivisions of Yogåcåra falls under the category of Madhyamaka but is distinct from Ni±svabhåvavåda. Second, it seems that the term “Madhyamaka” was first applied to Någårjuna’s system of thought by Bhåviveka3 (c. 500–570?).4 It appears that neither the “founder” of the Ni±svabhåvavåda “school,” Någårjuna, nor the “founders” of the Yogåcåra “school,” Maitreya and Asa∫ga, applied the term “Madhyamaka ” to their own system. At the same time, they applied the term “middle” (dbu ma, madhyama) to the views they advocated—one of the facts used by Shakya Chokden for justifying both systems as Madhyamaka . (His task was further eased by the fact that in Tibetan both madhyama and madhyamaka are translated by the same word dbu ma.) Ni±svabhåvavåda and Yogåcåra developed side by side for centuries , stimulating each other’s growth through mutual polemics and refutations, as well as mutual borrowings and cross-pollination. It is impossible, therefore, to fully appreciate either one of these systems without understanding the other—a fact that writers of doxographies acknowledge, but rigid doxographical categories often obscure. It is widely accepted that the development of the Ni±svabhåvavåda system began with the works of Någårjuna, who is considered by most historians and Ni±svabhåvavådins themselves as the originator of Ni±svabhåvavåda.5 This system is outlined in Någårjuna’s Collection of Reasonings6 and his disciple ≈ryadeva’s Four Hundred.7 According to the majority of Buddhist thinkers, Ni±svabhåvavåda concentrates on the emptiness of all phenomena in and of themselves. This type of emptiness later came to be known in Tibet as “self-emptiness.” The introduction of Ni±svabhåvavåda stimulated the development of Yogåcåra, as found in the works of Asa∫ga (3rd –4th century CE), his teacher Maitreya,8 and his younger brother Vasubandhu.9 According to the key Yogåcåra texts, such as the middle three of the Five Dharmas of Maitreya, Asa∫ga’s Summary of Mahåyåna10 and Grounds of Yogåcåra,11 Vasubandhu’s Commentary on [Asa‰ga’s] ‘Summary of Mahåyåna’12 and Commentary on [Maitreya’s] ‘Differentiation of the Middle and Extremes,’13 and other works, external phenomena do not exist, but certain mental states14 are real and exist in reality. Because in the Yogåcåra system emptiness is described as mental states empty of other, nonexistent types of phenomena, some Tibetan thinkers—Shakya Chokden included—call it “other-emptiness.”15 Because neither Yogåcåras nor Ni±svabhåvavådins accept that the external material world...

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