Preface to Tsong khapa’s Illumination of the Thought

Tsong khapa’s (1357-1419) text Illumination of the Thought, An Extensive Explanation of Candrakirti’s (600-50) Supplement to the ’Middle Way’ hereafter Illumination, is a commentary on Candrakirti’s (7th CE) Madhyamakavatara, which in turn is a commentary on Nagarjuna’s (2nd CE) seminal Mahayana treatise The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika). Mulamadhyamakakarika is a text revered by many schools of Buddhist thought, and Nagarjuna is regarded by the Western philosophical tradition as a great philosopher in his own right. In fact, many, if not all Western university philosophy departments provide courses on Nagarjuna’s philosophy.

Before we move onto our critical examination of Tsong khapa’s Illumination of the Thought, let’s take a very quick look at the historical lineage of Madhyamaka philosophical thought, in order to get a high level overview and perhaps some insight into the motivations behind Tsong khapa’s Illumination.

Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika is a treatise on Buddhist metaphysics, that is, emptiness. Emptiness is a technical Buddhist term for those unaware that describes phenomena’s ultimate nature. Of course, like so much in philosophy its meaning is hotly disputed. Moreover, perhaps one of the reasons for this is that it is supposedly ineffable. However, following Tsong khapa’s lead, I find this explanation dubious at best, for if the ultimate nature of phenomena, that is emptiness, is its actual nature, surely it can be described? I do concede though, this is perhaps not that easy, given its rather abstruse nature.

Mulamadhyamakakarika is divided into 27 chapters. Each chapter examining a given phenomena’s ontology. The early chapters deals mostly with basic metaphysical categories like causation, time, and agency. While in the later chapters Nagarjuna begins to move away from simply negating others’ concepts to put forward some assertions such as the theory of emptiness.

Mulamadhyamakakarika is known for its rather difficult and vague language, in fact, many philosophers from the 2nd CE to the present day have taken Nagarjuna to be a nihilist. Take for instance the following verse:

Neither from itself nor from other,
Nor from both,
Nor without a cause,
Does anything,whatever, anywhere arise. 1:1

and

Everything is real and is not real,
Both real and not real,
Neither real nor not real.
This is Lord Buddha’s teaching. 18:8

These verses, if read without proper explanation can easily be mistaken as nihilistic. However, they are not, and Nagarjuna goes on to say in a famous verse from the chapter on the examination of the Four Noble Truths:

Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness.
That, being a dependent designation,
Is itself the ‘Middle Way’. 24:18

Tsong khapa’s reading of this verse is: emptiness and dependent arising are two natures of one and the same phenomena. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Moving on to Candrakirti’s treatise Supplement to the ‘Middle Way’. This text is both a commentary on Mulamadhyamakakarika and a philosophical treatise in its own right, because of its additional material acting as supplementary material clarifying Nagarjuna’s treatise. It does this in two ways.

Firstly, because some interpreted Nagarjuna’s philosophy as nihilistic, believing that Nagarjuna refuted the existence of self and phenomena rather than its superimposed inherent existence – Mulamadhyamakakarika employed reductio ad absurdum arguments to refute inherent existence – Candrakirti sort to explicitly present all the methods required to achieve Buddhahood, such as compassion, patience and so forth. At the beginning of his Supplement Candrakirti pays homage to compassion by emphasizing the need to nourish its development from the initial stages of the path through to its culmination at the time of Buddhahood. By paying homage to compassion rather than the Buddha or one’s guru as is customary, he also emphasizes the need for compassion, and shows us that compassion is the principal distinguishing feature of Bodhisattvas. This can be seen from the first two verses of the Supplement:

Hearers and middling realizers of suchness are born from the mighty subduers,
Buddhas are born from the bodhisattvas;
Compassionate mind, non-dual awareness and
Bodhichitta are the causes of the Conqueror’s children.

Since mercy itself is accepted as the seed of this excellent harvest
Of the conquerors, as water for development and
Like the ripening in a state of long enjoyment,
I therefore praise compassion at the beginning.

Secondly, Candrakirti supplements the Mulamadhyamakakarika by clarifying Nagarjuna’s intention and shows it should not be interpreted according to the Mind-Only (Chittamatra, sems tsam) system nor the Svatantrika-Madhyamika (dbu ma rang rgyud pa) system founded by Bhavaviveka. Candrakirti is held by many including Tsong khapa to be the founder of the Prasangika-Madhyamika (dbu ma thal ‘gyur pa) philosophical system, and Madhyamakavatara is the main sourcebook (yig cha) by most of the Tibetan monastic colleges in their studies of the philosophy of the Madhyamaka school founded by Nagarjuna.

Tsong khapa’s Illumination is a systematic exegesis of Candrakirti’s Supplement, and it is Tsong khapa’s hermeneutics that we are concerned with here. Once the Supplement is understood through the lens of Tsong khapa’s analysis, this knowledge can be read back into Mulamadhyamakakarika thus bringing to life the brilliance of Nagarjuna’s ‘Middle Way’ philosophy.

In the next article we will begin our analysis of Illumination of the Thought. I imagine this will run over a series of posts. In fact, I think I will do one post for every chapter, except for chapter six as it makes up most of the actual text.

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