The Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction What Difference Does a Difference Make?

by McClintock, Sara; Dreyfus, Georges

• ISBN13: 9780861713240
• ISBN10: 0861713249
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-01-01
• Publisher: Wisdom Publications

Summary

Madhyamaka, or "Middle Way," philosophy came to Tibet from India and became the basis of all of Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetans, however, differentiated two streams of Madhyamaka philosophy--Svatantrika and Prasangika. In this collection, leading scholars in the field address the distinction on various levels, including the philosophical import for both Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka and the historical development of the distinction itself.

Author Biography

Georges Dreyfus was the first Westerner to obtain the title of Geshe Lharampa, the highest degree confered within the traditional Tibetan monastic system. He earned his PhD in the History of Religions at the University of Virginia. He is presently Professor of Religion at Williams College.

Sara L. McClintock is an assistant professor of religion at Emory University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. She obtained her bachelor's degree in fine arts from Bryn Mawr College, her master's in world religions from Harvard Divinity School, and her doctorate in religion from Harvard University. She has spent time as a researcher at the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath and the University of Lausanne, and has taught at Carleton College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her interests include both narrative and philosophical traditions in South Asian Buddhism, with particular focus on issues of metaphysics, hermeneutics, and rhetoric.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(40)
Part 1: Examining the Distinction in the Indian Tradition
Bhavaviveka's Own View of His Differences with Buddhapalita	41	(26)
William L. Ames
Was Candrakirti a Prasangika?	67	(26)
C. W. Huntington, Jr.
Metaphysics for Madhyamikas	93	(32)
Tom J. F. Tillemans
The Role of the ``Given'' in the Classification of Santaraksita and Kamalasila as Svatantrika-Madhyamikas	125	(48)
Sara L. McClintock
The Satisfaction of No Analysis: On Tsong kha pa's Approach to Svatantrika-Madhyamaka	173	(34)
Malcolm David Eckel
Part 2: Examining the Distinction in the Tibetan Tradition
Phya pa chos kyi seng ge as a Svatantrika	207	(50)
Helmut Tauscher
Tsong kha pa's Reevaluation of Candrakirti's Criticism of Autonomous Inference	257	(32)
Chizuko Yoshimizu
Two Views on the Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction in Fourteenth-Century Tibet	289	(28)
Jose Ignacio Cabezon
Would the True Prasangika Please Stand? The Case and View of 'Ju Mi pham	317	(32)
Georges B. J. Dreyfus
Abbreviations	349	(2)
Bibliography	351	(24)
Index	375	(22)
About the Contributors	397