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Quarks of Consciousness and the Representation of the Rose: Philosophy of Science Meets the Vaiśeṣika-Vaibhāṣika-Vijñaptimātra Dialectic in Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā

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Abstract

The representation of a rose varies considerably across philosophical, religious, and scientific schools of thought. While many would suggest that a rose exists objectively, as a physical object in geometric space reducible to fundamental particles such as atoms or quarks, others propose that a rose is an emergent whole that exists meaningfully when experienced subjectively for its sweet fragrance and red hue, its soft petals and thorny stem. Some might even maintain that a rose is “consciousness-only,” having no existence apart from conscious perception. Thus, we find a spectrum of realist to idealist perspectives. Even in Dharma studies, with a common basis in Indian thought, the Vaiśeṣikas, Vaibhāṣikas, and the vijñaptimātra doctrine of the Yogācārin-Vijñānavādins entertain diverging perspectives. On one hand, the Vaiśeṣikas, a school of Vedic philosophy, propounded a theory of reality in the form of indivisible, eternal atoms, a metaphysical approach counter to the doctrine of not-self (anātman) in Buddhism. The Vaibhāṣikas, a school of early Buddhist atomism, on the other hand, denied the existence of a true self or eternal soul (ātman) as substratum for reality but maintained their own theory of atomism. For the Vaibhāṣikas, the flow of consciousness may be segmented into discrete moments, yet unlike many of their Buddhist contemporaries from other schools, they asserted that all cognizable phenomena are truly existent insofar as they consist of physically irreducible atoms. Among their objectors were the Yogācārin-Vijñānavādins who proposed the theory of consciousness-only (vijñaptimātra), rejecting the independent existence of indivisible atoms and discrete moments of time. This paper introduces the dialectic that formed between these schools through Vasubandhu’s fourth century C.E. text Twenty Verses on Consciousness-Only (Viṃśikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi). While the gulf between the realist and idealist positions may seem, at times, irreconcilable, we integrate findings from the field of physics, particularly quantum mechanics (and several philosophical interpretations thereof) within the realm of modern science as a possible bridge between these otherwise seemingly disparate systems of Dharma.

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Notes

  1. We acknowledge that the work of Vasubandhu resists characterization as idealism in the Western philosophical sense and that, likewise, Vaiśeṣika and Vaibhāṣika have been variously characterized as different subschools of realism. We hope not to conflate materialism with physicalism or naturalism and so refrain from categorizing Vaiśeṣika and Vaibhāṣika as anything other than realism in this paper. We further recognize the importance of the Cārvāka-Lokayatā school, which is more consistently understood as a materialist system, in the realist-idealist dialectic, but choose not to feature it in this paper given limitations of space and time. Across various schools of Dharma can also be traced doctrines corresponding roughly to anti-realism and neo-idealism, which we choose not to include here for the sake of parsimony. While Keng (Keng, C. “Three types of atomic accumulation—an interpretation of Vasubandhu’s Viṁśikā stanzas 12–13 in light of the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya and Dharmapāla’s Dasheng Guangbailun Shilun.” Unpublished) suggests that Vasubandhu’s work can be classified as anti-realism and Lusthaus (Lusthaus, 2002) opts for phenomenology, the majority seem to favor some form of idealism, which we provisionally adopt here.

  2. While it may be argued that the relationship was that of a polemic rather than dialectic, we deem polemic unsuitable given its associations with contentious debate, opting instead for dialectic, which is applicable to discourse intended to arrive at truth through reasoned arguments. Given this distinction, dialectic more accurately characterizes the Viṃśikā, at least in our reading and analysis. In the auto-commentary to the Viṃśikā, Vasubandhu references both the Vaiśeṣikas and Vaibhāṣikas. While these two schools depart in significant ways, we feel that the doctrine of atomism remains in common between both the Vaiśeṣikas and Vaibhāṣikas while opposed to the idealism of vijñaptimātra (i.e., the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda school). Regardless of the identity of Vasubandhu’s objectors in the Viṃśikā, we suspect that the intention of the “exchange,” albeit portrayed hypothetically and presumably penned by a sole author, may actually have been to constructively challenge the realist and idealist positions in order to lend clarity to the process of discerning the truth of the matter (or mind) through reasoned argument, not to prove the superiority of one philosophical school over the others.

  3. In physics, the wave function (ψ(x,t), where x refers to position and t refers to time) can be used to calculate a system’s future behavior, albeit only probabilistically. Its role in such physical and thought experiments as the double-slit experiment and Schrödinger’s cat, respectively, has raised philosophical questions concerning the possible role of consciousness in collapsing the wave function’s probability predictions into a single observable outcome. For a more in-depth treatment of this subject, see the section of this paper entitled “Philosophy of Science and the Realist-Idealist Dialectic.”

  4. We draw from Sinha’s translation of the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra in this paper (Sinha 1911).

  5. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra I.ii.6

  6. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra I.i.5–8

  7. Udayana, a later logician and Nyāya commentator, includes abhāva as a separate category, while his contemporary, the mathematician Śrīdhara, noted that even Praśastapāda among the Vaiśeṣikas did not formally recognize abhāva as a distinct form of padārtha. See Nyāyakaṇḍalī p. 6 and Lakṣaṇāvalī, p. 2, cited in Dasgupta (1922, p. 312).

  8. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra 3.i.18

  9. The Nyāya dimension of what is now understood as the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school (originating c. tenth century C.E.) utilizes logical reasoning as a means to demonstrate the veracity of atomism. Importantly, such demonstration was, unlike experimental physics (but consistent with theoretical physics), not the result of direct measurement via experimentation, but rather a combination of perception and inference, the two epistemic methods considered valid by the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas. Providing a detailed analysis of Nyāya, however, is not relevant to the task of this paper. We mention Nyāya only to credit its later influence upon the Vaiśeṣika school. For the purposes of focusing on atomistic philosophy relative to that of the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda school of Buddhism, we will continue to refer to the pre-Buddhist atomistic school as Vaiśeṣika rather than Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, especially given that the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra was written roughly eleven to fifteen centuries before the unification of Nyāya with Vaiśeṣika and Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā was written roughly five centuries before unification.

  10. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra I.i.4

  11. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra I.i.5

  12. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra VII.i.22–23

  13. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra VII.i.24–25

  14. There appears to be a paucity of research, especially recent, on Vaibhāṣika, due in part to loss of Sanskrit materials. To our knowledge, the Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra is extant only in Chinese.

  15. The Sarvāstivāda of Kāśmīra comprised the Vaibhāśika subschool of Sarvāstivāda. A second subschool by the name of Sautrāntika, whose adherents rejected the Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra in favor of the sūtras, also existed. In the same sense that Vaibhāśika means upholders of the Vibhāṣa, Sautrāntika means upholders of the sūtras.

  16. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra IV.i.1–2

  17. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra II.ii.9 and V.ii.26

  18. Abhidharmakośa-bhasya 12ab (Ronkin 2005, p. 57)

  19. Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra 702ab (SA.IV.199) and Saṃghabhadra (Ny, 383c) cited in Abhidharmakośa-bhasya (2012): 413 (Karunadasa 1967)

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Sāratthappakāsinī (Saṃyutta-nikāya commentary; Spk) II 266; Manorathapūraṇī (Aṅguttara-nikāya commentary; Mp) II 252

  23. While several modern scholars agree that Yogācāra represents a form of idealism, whether that idealism is ontological, metaphysical, epistemological, formal, transcendental, or absolute idealism remains unclear (and varies by Yogācāra text and its author). For instance, Griffiths, Schmithausen, Wood, and Yamabe identify Yogācāra with ontological idealism while Kaplan, Kochumuttom, Willis, and Ueda understand it as epistemological idealism. Butler suggests that while Yogācāra shares elements in common with Berkeley’s metaphysical idealism, Kant’s epistemic idealism, and Hegel’s absolute idealism, it does not equate fully to any of these forms and must instead be viewed as its own form of idealism (Butler 2010).

  24. The ālāya-vijñāna, occasionally rendered as storehouse-consciousness or repository-consciousness, is the eighth consciousness in the Yogācāra school. It is often likened to the ocean and is understood to house habit-energy or “seeds” (bīja) “planted” through volitional action (karma) and “ripening” as experienced fruits (vipāka).

  25. (Cook 1999, p. 378)

  26. The eight consciousnesses correspond to the five sense consciousnesses, mind-consciousness (mano-vijñāna), “ego” consciousness (manas), and the storehouse-consciousness (ālāya-vijñāna). For an authoritative exposition, see Asaṅga’s Mahāyānasaṃgraha.

  27. (Cook 1999, pp. 381–2)

  28. We use the abbreviated form Viṃśikā rather than the popular Vimśatikā given Silk’s note: “Concerning the proper title of the work, it has long been referred to in modern scholarship as the Vimśatikā, a mistake found in the Sanskrit manuscript of the Vṛtti which has at last been corrected by Kano (2008: 350)[...]Aside from the detailed Pāṇinian analysis provided by Vairocanarakṣita, as Kano points out there has long been abundant evidence for the correct title Viṁśikā” (Silk 2016, p. vi). We retain the form Viṃśikā rather than Viṁśikā given the former’s consistency with the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration.

  29. Phenomenology, from the Greek phainómenon “that which appears” and lógos “study,” is a philosophical approach to the study of the structures of conscious experience. For a representation of the Western phenomenological tradition, see the works of German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger as well as French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

  30. Intersubjective, in the field of phenomenology, refers broadly to that which is shared between more than one mind.

  31. Lusthaus, Dan. “Vasubandhu.” Yogacara Buddhism Research Association Online Articles. (http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/thinkers/vasubandhu.html).

  32. Viṁśikā-kārikā 11, in Silk (2016, p. 14)

  33. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 11, in Silk (2016, p. 85)

  34. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 11, in Silk (2016, p. 81)

  35. This remains a highly contentious point and will be addressed further in the section of this paper entitled “Philosophy of Science and the Realist-Idealist Dialectic.”

  36. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 11, in Silk (2016, p. 87)

  37. Viṁśikā-kārikā 12, in Silk (2016, p. 15)

  38. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 12, in Silk (2016, p. 87)

  39. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 12, in Silk (2016, p. 89)

  40. Viṁśikā-kārikā 13, in Silk (2016, p. 16)

  41. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 13, in Silk (2016, p. 91)

  42. Viṁśikā-kārikā 14, in Silk (2016, p. 17)

  43. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 14, in Silk (2016, p. 93)

  44. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 14, in Silk (2016, p. 95)

  45. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 14, in Silk (2016, p. 97)

  46. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 14, in Silk (2016, p. 99)

  47. Viṁśikā-kārikā 15, in Silk (2016, p. 9)

  48. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 15, in Silk (2016, pp. 105–109)

  49. We realize this remains debatable and that physicists have cautioned against attributing the behavior of quantum events to consciousness. Nonetheless, we entertain this possibility in order to offer a connection between realism and idealism in the interface between Dharma studies and philosophy of science, a position which we support in this section through reference to some of the fundamental theories and findings of quantum mechanics.

  50. This is a generally accepted reality in physics that often goes uncited. For one account, see Glashow (1975).

  51. Young 1801, cited in Feynman et al. (1965)

  52. Viṁśikā-kārikā 15, in Silk (2016, p. 19)

  53. Viṁśikā-vṛtti 15, in Silk (2016, pp. 105–109)

  54. Lusthaus, Dan. “Vasubandhu.” Yogacara Buddhism Research Association Online Articles. (http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/thinkers/vasubandhu.html).

  55. Viṁśikā-kārikā 15, in Silk (2016, p. 19)

  56. We wish to acknowledge that we far from provide a perfect mapping of these three schools of Indian Dharma onto physics or its philosophical interpretations, but hope this paper provides a foundation for further inquiries into the subject.

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    Brianna K. Morseth & Lisa Liang

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Morseth, B.K., Liang, L. Quarks of Consciousness and the Representation of the Rose: Philosophy of Science Meets the Vaiśeṣika-Vaibhāṣika-Vijñaptimātra Dialectic in Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā. DHARM 2, 59–82 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-019-00030-5

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