Kalupahana describes his 1992 work as an expansion and completion of
earlier ideas in his successful 1976 work, Buddhist Philosophy, and
the more recent volumes, Nagarjuna and Principles of Buddhist
Psychology. The present work is divided into two main sections:
'Part One: Early Buddhism' and Part Two: Continuities and
Discontinuities'. That Kalupahana has an authentic point of
departure within Sri Lankan tradition for providing a picture of
Buddhism from one sort of insider's perspective is a great merit of
the book. In this way it is distinguished from so much of the
scholarship, especially of Westerners on Buddhism, which is either
so text-specific as to be fragmentary and lacking in holistic vision
or so contrived from an idiosyncratic weaving of several ideas from
different Buddhist cultures as not to be about anything. Scholarly
quibbles aside for the moment, the vitality of the Sri Lankan
tradition of Buddhist exegesis is definitely represented in this
work.
'The middle way' in Buddhism is a systematically ambiguous term and,
as such, is subject to numerous construals. It may be styled,
ethically, as a middle between the extremes of princely pleasures of
Sakyamuni's palace life (hedonism) and the self-mortification of
Jainas and others (asceticism); metaphysically (pace Kalupahana), as
a middle between the eternalist soul theory of afterlife (Hindu
atmavada) and a materialist view denying karma and rebirth
(Carvaka).
In Part One, Kalupahana ends Ch. I therein driving one
interpretation of the middle way as, epistemologically, between the
search for ultimate objectivity in knowledge claims (objectivism)
and the belief that there can be no such objectivity (scepticism)
(2I). In Ch. II as Kalupahana pulls selected Mahayana bits towards
early Buddhism he also stretches bits of early Buddhism to reach
Mahayana. While not calling Buddha a hodhisattva, he does say, in
giving a diachronic account of Buddha's demise, that the Buddha's
strenuous life as a constant guide to thousands of people on matters
moral and spiritual gradually began to take a toll on his health
(rather than emphasizing synchronically the causal role of bad pork
or mushroom according to text and tradition) (29). In Ch. III we
find Buddha's middle way view explained, again epistemologically,
with reference to a pragmatic criterion of truth which avoids the
extremes of both the correspondence and the coherence theories of
truth (52). In Ch. IV on experience and theory one finds a holding
fast to the principle of dependent arising as superior to
substantialist views of nature and of the supposed eternal self in
that this Buddhist principle avoids mystery and explains phenomena
as arising and passing away in a 'verifiable manner'. (Over the
years, Kalupahana has neither sufficiently worked out in detail his
view that Buddhism is a form of empiricism, nor deigned to take his
critics seriously.) By contrast to Buddhist perception of things as
they have come to be (yathbhuta), those who hanker after mystery are
obscurantists courting anxiety and frustration (59). In Ch. V on
language and communication, holding neither to an ontological
one-one correspondence between concept and object nor to a theory
that experience is incommunicable through language, the Buddha's
view of communication as 'skill in means' emerges as an alternative
to the absolutism and nihilism of the other theories respectively
(66-7). In Ch. VI on the human personality there is exploration of
the theme of 'the selfless self' in Buddhism as this idea relates to
the concept of person, world, and others, including a consideration
of socio-political, moral and epistemological concerns (77). Ch. VII
on 'the object' argues that the non-substantiality doctrine applied
both to experiencing subject and object perceived neither denies
individuality nor urges abandonment of all views about the nature of
the object (84)- Objects already known and objects of knowledge
viewed as a generic category are distinguished and the distinction
forms the structure of the chapter. Ch. VIII on the problem of
suffering argues that Buddha views only dispositional phenomena as
unsatisfactory, not all phenomena or things generally (89). On
Kalupahana's interpretation, the realization of impermanence and
non-substantiality just is the attainment of freedom and happiness
(89). As he earlier puts it, the elimination of lust, hatred, and
confusion is the Buddha's distinctive achievement (i.e. the
knowledge of the destruction of defilements) which is constitutive
of his enlightenment (26). In Ch. IX on freedom and happiness he
holds that nirvana is the appeasement of all dispositions (90-1).
Ch. X explains that in early Buddhism there is no sharp distinction
between the moral life and the good life. The position is neither
absolutist nor relativist but pragmatic -- the rightness or
wrongness of an action or rule consists in 'what it does to the
person or the group of people in the particular context or
situation' (102). Here the eight-fold path is discussed in detail.
In Ch. XI on popular religious thought Kalupahana discusses
Redfield's distinction between the elite 'Great Tradition' and the
village 'Little Tradition', but in the course of discussing the
central Buddhist ritual of taking refuge in Buddha, Doctrine, and
Order, he comes to reject Redfield's distinction. If contemporary
Buddhist villagers have lost touch with academic understanding, that
is because of colonization and Western education in Buddhist lands
(i i8). In Part One Kalupahana is clearly on home ground.
In Part Two on continuities and discontinuities with early Buddhist
tradition (Chs. XXI-XXIII) Kalupahana develops his own view of
'common ground' between Theravada and Mahayana. The way in which he
does so is to find in Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, and Dignaga selected
emphases (as was found in Moggaliputta-tissa) which elaborate the
early Buddhist message. It is in Part II that Kalupahana is likely
to sustain the greatest degree of criticism from Mahayana text
specialists, some of whom may find Kalupahana's conclusions
unacceptable. It is worth noticing, however, that his expressed
intention is the mature one of seeking common ground between the
Theravada tradition in which he was reared and the Mahayana (239)-
The author's own self-understanding seems however not that he is
constructing Buddhism for the reader, but objectively uncovering it
in the earliest stratum and finding similarities in later strata.
Whether such a stance can be maintained in the present-day
philosophical world is an interesting issue for debate. The work
concludes with an epilogue on philosophy and history, an appendix on
the Lankavatara, a bibliography, and an index. There are a few
embarrassing misprints, as when sabhava should be svabhava (I33) and
Kathavatthn should be Kathavatthu (I26), to mention but two.
Overall, one finds that 'one major text and three prominent
philosophers generally identified with Mahayana are representative
of the non-substantialist and non-absolutist teachings of the
Buddhist himself' (xiii). This is a controversial claim in a
controversial work, and it will be difficult for specialist readers
not to have strong views about it, pro or contra.
On balance, what can be reasonably said? Perhaps this: that
Kalupahana is a pioneering theoretician and harmonizer in the mould
of Buddhaghosa, whom he often chastises; but also that there is no
good reason to believe that one has the very words of the Buddha in
pristine exactitude -- in the Pali Canon or indeed elsewhere -- just
as one does not have the very words of Jesus (which in relative
chronology would have been more likely). Although it would be fair
to say that Kalupahana could have written a better book than this
one proffered as the 'consolidation of thirty years of research and
reflection' (ix), there are many in the field who are not producing
books this good. Kalupahana's History is his best book since the I 9
76 Buddhist Philosophy.
Kalupahana's 1992 Work reveals a deep philosophical commitment to
Buddhism, and a 'belief "in"' (to borrow H. H. Price's term) the
Buddha. The former emerges throughout the work in the use of
strategies of argument designed to elucidate 'the middle way' as a
invulnerable way free of various difficulties which obtain to
alternative 'extreme' views. The latter, the faith of a Buddhist
theoretician, may be glimpsed here and there, but most notably when
fending off a possible ethical criticism of Buddha with the
flourish: 'The legend about Siddhartha's leaving home while his wife
and new-born baby were asleep, while highlighting the emotional
stress in his renunciation, also symbolizes Yasodhara's acceptance
of her husband's decision. Any other interpretation of his
renunciation would do violence to the character of a person who
propounded an extremely enlightened form of love and compassion for
oneself as well as others' (24).