Abstract
This chapter explores the possible role of grace in liberation within Indian religions that maintain a non-dualism. At first glance, grace seems to require a division between the one who bestows grace and the one who receives it. In other words, how can grace function soteriologically if reality is non-dual? In order to address this problem, Cha discusses the role of grace in the non-dual philosophy of the Hindu advaitin Śankara (eighth century C.E.), and explores how Śankara’s notion of grace can enhance the soteriology in Yogācāra Buddhism, specifically in the philosophy of the Yogācārin Vasubandhu (fifth century C.E.). Cha’s aim is to show that grace can function in a non-dualistic context when the immanent sphere of the human condition is the locus of liberation.
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Notes
- 1.
Sengaku Mayeda, trans. A Thousand Teachings: The Upadeśasāhasrī of Śankara (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1979).
- 2.
Ibid., 234.
- 3.
Ibid., 70. In his introduction to the translation, Mayeda distinguishes between an “external” and an “internal” perspective on transmigration ; the former focuses on past, present, and future existences, while the latter on the present experience of suffering . The passage above is an example of the “internal” perspective, which focuses on the immanent human condition.
- 4.
Stephan Anacker, trans. The Seven Works of Vasubandhu: The Buddhist Psychological Doctor (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986), 161–162. In this portion of the text, Vasubandhu discusses the perceptions of everyday phenomena occurring to our personality streams (samtāna).
- 5.
Ibid., 161. Anacker notes this phrase comes from the Avatamsaka-sūtra: Daśabhūmika IV, p. 32.
- 6.
Swami Gambirānanda, trans. Brahma-Sūtra-bhāsya of Śankarācārya (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1977) 9.
The four prerequisites are: “…discrimination between the eternal and the non-eternal; dispassion for the enjoyment of the fruits (of work) here and hereafter; a perfection of such practices as control of the mind, control of the senses and organs, etc.; and a hankering for liberation .”
- 7.
Bradley J. Malkovsky, “Śamkara on Divine Grace,” New Perspectives on Advaita Vedānta, ed. Bradley J. Malkovsky (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 70–83.
- 8.
For example, the Theravāda tradition which divides the eight-fold path into three groups; ethical formation, mental cultivation, and wisdom. See, Rāhula’s What the Buddha Taught, pp. 46–49.
- 9.
Paul J. Griffiths, On Being Buddha: The Classical Doctrine of Buddhahood (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 43–44.
- 10.
Paul J. Griffiths, “The Limits of Criticism,” Pruning the Bodhi Tree, ed. Jaime Hubbard and Paul Swanson (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), 149.
- 11.
Sheldon Pollock, “The Idea of Sastra in Traditional India” in Shastric Traditions in Indian Arts, edited by Anna Libera Dallapiccola (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1989), 20. He explains the authority of texts (śāstra): “Cultural knowledge is transcendent in origin, and its authority is therefore unimpeachable. Since this knowledge is always already revealed to human beings via śāstra their mastery of the practices inscribed therein is a function of conformity to the preexistent paradigm.”
- 12.
Mayeda, A Thousand Teachings: The Upadeśasāhasrī of Śankara, 234.
- 13.
Malkovsky provides a detailed summary of the various positions about the role of grace in Śankara’s thought. See, Bradely J. Malkovsky, The Role of Divine Grace in the Soteriology of Samkarācārya, (Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 2001), 135–159.
- 14.
According to Paul Hacker, Śankara identifies the Lord with Brahman ; see “Distinctive Features of the Doctrine and Terminology of Śankara: Avidyā, Nāmarūpa, Māyā, Īśvara,” Wilhelm Halbfass, ed., Philology and Confrontation (Albany: SUNY Press), 85–96.
- 15.
Malkovsky discusses these three aspects in detail in Malkovsky, “Śamkara on Divine Grace,” 73–75.
- 16.
Mayeda, A Thousand Teachings: The Upadeśasāhasrī of Śankara, 103.
- 17.
TaiUpBh II.6.1; quoted in Malkovsky, “Śamkara on Divine Grace,” 71.
- 18.
Malkovsky utilizes Grant’s interpretation of Śankara’s concept of relationality. For an analysis of this concept of relation, see; Sara Grant, Toward An Alternative Theology: Confessions of a Non-Dualist Christian (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 40–43.
- 19.
Bradley J. Malkovsky states, “We run the risk here of overlooking the pre-given divine immanence in our search for God …. The Indian or Upanishadic breakthrough was in the revelation not merely of interpersonal relatedness but also of knowledge of God as the supreme “I” residing within, whose reflection each of us is in a limited way” (Malkovsky, “Śamkara on Divine Grace,” 76).
- 20.
See Griffiths, On Being Buddha, 77–78.
- 21.
For an excellent discussion on the Buddhist conception of śāstra, see Paul J. Griffiths, On Being Buddha: The Classical Doctrine of Buddhahood (Albany: SUNY, 1994), 42–45.
- 22.
As one of the five treatises authored by Maitreya according to the Tibetan tradition.
- 23.
Rāhula Sānkrtyāyana, “Sanskrit MSS. in Tibet,” Journal of the Bihar and Orrisa Research Society, vol. XXIV (1938), 163.
- 24.
/ gñis po dag gcig pa daṅ tha dad pa ma yin te / yod pa dan med pa’i khyad par daṅ khyad par med pa’i phyir ro / [Klaus-Dieter Mathes, “Untersuchung der Phänomene und ihrer Natur. Eine Lehrschrift der buddhistischen Yogācāra-Schule in tibetischer Überlieferung” (Magister Artium Thesis, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Univesität zu Bonn, 1990), 61)].
- 25.
/ gñis po dag ces bya ba chos daṅ chos ñid dag ni gcig pa ñid daṅ tha dad pa ñid du mi ‘dod do // de ci’i phyir źe na / yod pa daṅ med dag kyaṅ khyad par yod pa daṅ khyad par med pa’i phyir ro / (Mathes, “Untersuchung der Phänomene und ihrer Natur,” 73).
- 26.
re źig chos daṅ chos ñid gcig pa ñid du ni ‘thad pa ma yin te / de ci’i phyir źe na / yod pa daṅ med pa dag khyad par yod pa’i phyir ro // chos ñid ni yod pa yin la chos ni med pa yin pas yod pa daṅ med pa khyad par can dag ci ltar gcig ñid du ‘gyur / (Mathes, “Untersuchung der Phänomene und ihrer Natur,” 73–74).
- 27.
tha dad pa ñid kyaṅ ma yin no // ci’i phyir źe na / yod pa daṅ med pa dag khyad par med pa’i phyir ro // ji ltar khyad par med ce na / chos ñid ni chos med pa tsam gyis rab tu phye ba yin pa’i phyir te / gzuṅ ba la sogs pa’i khyad par med pa’i phyir ro // (Mathes, “Untersuchung der Phänomene und ihrer Natur,” 74).
- 28.
/ kim punar ihāvaśistam? abhūtaparikalpa: śūnyatā ca / tad ubhayam ihāstīty anadhyāropānapavādena paśyan yathābhūtam prajānāti / [Ramchandra Pandeya, Madhyānta-vibhāga-śāstra: Containing the Kārikā-s of Maitreya, Bhāsya of Vasubadhu and Tīka by Sthiramati (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999), 12].
- 29.
See, for example, MV I.3:
na śūnyam nāpi cāśūnyam tasmāt sarvam vidhīyate
sattvād asattvāt sattvāc ca madhyamā pratipac ca sā //3// (Pandeya, Madhyānta-vibhāga-śāstra, 13).
Therefore, everything is determined to be not empty and also not non-empty
Because of existence, non-existence, and existence; and that is the middle path. (MV-Bh glossing MV 1.3 c-d)
- 30.
For an analysis of what remains according to the Madhyānta-vibhāga, see Nagao, “What Remains in Sunyata: A Yogacara Interpretation of Emptiness,” Mahāyāna Buddhist Meditation: Theory and Practice, edited by Minora Kiyota (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1978), 66–82; Hugh B. Urban and Paul J. Griffiths, “What Else Remains in Śūnyatā? An Investigation of Terms for mental Imagery in the Madhyāntavibhāga corpus,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 1994.
- 31.
For an excellent discussion on the three-natures see, Paul Williams, Buddhist Thought: A Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2006), 156–160.
- 32.
svabhāvapraveśas tathatāvaimalyam āgantukamalatathatāprakhyānaprakhyānāya / (Mathes, “Untersuchung der Phänomene und ihrer Natur,” 99).
- 33.
yat tathatāvaimalyatvam āgantukamalāprakhyānāya tathatāmātraprakhyānāya ca sa svabhāva āśrayaparivrtteh / evam yat parijñānam ayam ucyate svabhāvapraveśo niruttara iti / (Mathes, “Untersuchung der Phänomene und ihrer Natur,” 99).
- 34.
Bradley J. Malkovsky states, “We run the risk here of overlooking the pre-given divine immanence in our search for God…. The Indian or Upanishadic breakthrough was in the revelation not merely of interpersonal relatedness but also of knowledge of God as the supreme “I” residing within, whose reflection each of us is in a limited way” (Malkovsky, “Śamkara on Divine Grace,” 76).
- 35.
See my proposed summary herein, 11–12.
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Cha, J.Y. (2018). A Hindu Gift of Bestowal: Śankara’s Concept of Grace in a Buddhist Context. In: Gustafson, H. (eds) Learning from Other Religious Traditions. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76108-4_6
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