INTRODUCTION
I
n the last three chapters I have emphasized Sa-pan·’s view that the Buddhist scholar must be an excellent interpreter. Sa-pan· believes that scholars are mediators between texts that serve as repositories of the Buddha’s intentions and the proper understanding and application of those intentions. I have un- derlined Sa-pan·’s view that a scholarly interpreter must be a part of, and draw from, a traditional community of interpretation, and that that community must do its best to preserve the conventions and contexts through which and in which the dharma has been taught. With this emphasis on the scholar as inter- preter, we have naturally focused upon the scholar’s intellectual activity in de-coding the Buddhist textual corpus. In this chapter and the next, our focus shifts
toward Sa-pan·’s presentation of processes involved in recoding the dharma for public consumption—whether as a teacher or a writer.
Sa-pan· himself makes no such distinction between decoding and recoding. In fact, the subjects of the Gateway’s three chapters—composition, exposition, and debate—all fall squarely within the category of recoding. This is one reason I call Sa-pan·’s arguments about translation, linguistic conventions, and inter- pretation, “covert.” They are implicit in the arrangements of materials and in certain (often repeating) passages and terms. But although these arguments pro- vide the foundation and some of the structure of the Gateway, the bulk of the work details scholarly activities not of private study and rumination, but of pub- lic presentation before students, assemblies of learned peers, and opponents of Buddhism.1
In truth, to distinguish thus between decoding and recoding is, at least in Sa-pan·’s Buddhist worldview, a heuristic fiction. Sa-pan·’s pragmatic, con- ventionalist understanding of language (described in chapter 3) prevents any reification of the decoded meaning itself—which is, in any event, only at best relatively correct. If the dharma is always only skill in means, the scholar’s un- derstanding is only valid either because it leads toward, on the one hand, his
deeper appreciation of the ultimate nature of reality (itself beyond language), or, more immediately, because it allows him to engage in fruitful interchange within an authentic Buddhist intellectual community. If, indeed, to be a scholar
simply is to be engaged in such an intellectual community (my suggestion in
chapter 4), there seems reason to say that in this case, at least, there is no de-
coding without recoding. This makes for an inseparable unity of the dharma’s
form and content.
In this chapter, therefore, we will see that Sa-pan· considered a number of ostensibly formal intellectual conventions—in particular, introductory verses and exegetical methodologies—to be crucial to the dharma itself, properly understood and practiced. Sa-pan· takes great pains not merely to describe these protocols, but to justify them as well. Sa-pan· believes that, like good methods of decoding, these methods of recoding provide protections against the decline of the dharma. They are practices that constitute, or reconstitute, the dharma’s le- gitimate interpretive context, and therefore in a very real sense make the dharma work. A proper encoding of the dharma provides the vehicle for its proper reception, and, at the same time, perpetuates the intellectual commu- nity that allows it to continue. Sa-pan·comes very close to articulating, in a mode that is self-conscious and yet not at all ironic, the elsewhere implicit purpose of hermeneutics; namely, to maintain the comprehensive and authoritative char- acter of the community of interpretation.
My goal in this chapter, then, is to show that two philosophical positions underpin Sa-pan·’s concerns in describing traditional compositional and expos- itory protocols. First, we are to understand that the dharma in the form of a text is explicitly a tool for teachers and students—in fact, a text is best understood as a composer’s method for establishing, framing, and stabilizing future teach- ing and learning opportunities. Second, we are to understand that standard formal and structural elements of texts, and standard protocols for interpretive performance, are intended to verify the authenticity and effectiveness of the text’s composition and interpretation.
As many scholars who have studied these materials have noted, the Gate-
way here reflects and resembles Vasubandhu’s extensive and detailed treatise on
scriptural hermeneutics, the Vya¯khya¯yukti. In fact, these methods have a long and varied history in Sanskrit literature, and the exact relationship between the
Vya¯khya¯yukti (itself an extremely difficult text), its reception in India and Tibet,
and the Gateway, is too intricate a topic for this chapter. Here I am only seek- ing to characterize Sa-pan·’s general conceptualization of scholarship, which he was of course presenting for Tibetans of his time. Nonetheless, there is little rea- son to doubt that Sa-pan·’s understandings of introductory verses and methods of exposition express views shared, if only implicitly, by many of his Indian Bud- dhist predecessors.2
THETHREEKINDS OFMEANING IN A
GOODVERSE OFREVERENCE
At the start of his first chapter, “Entry into Composition,” Sa-pan· provides a brief but penetrating analysis of five standard forms of introductory verses: Verses of Reverence, Oaths of Composition, Expressions of Humility, Summary Outlines, and Statements of Purpose. Sa-pan· uses his explanation of these verses to build and develop a consistent understanding of the relationship be- tween the two scholarly roles of composition and exposition. For each type of introductory verse, Sa-pan· provides (in his autocommentary) a standard three- fold explanation of the purpose (dgos pa), the summary (bsdus pa), and the meaning of the words (tshig gi don). On each verse, I will discuss Sa-pan·’s use of this threefold analytical typology.3Since this section on text openings is the first
topic in the Gateway’s first chapter, it comes immediately after the Gateway’s own verses of introduction. These opening verses provide examples I will use to illuminate Sa-pan·’s analysis.
To begin, we can see how Sa-pan· describes the first type of introductory verse, a verse of reverence (mchod brjod, man·galas´loka), through a particularly clear use of the threefold analytical typology:
An excellent author of a treatise [373] should give a verse of rev- erence to the teacher [i.e., the Buddha]. In order that the teach- ings may flourish, pure words are here seen to be proper and good. Verses of reverence have three [aspects]: the purpose, the summary, and the meaning of the words. There are two kinds of purpose: that which arises in the composer’s own continuum, and that which is realized in the continua of others—[including both the people] who have explained and [those who have] listened to [the treatise]. The meaning in summary form is to whom, by whom, and in what manner the praise is offered, and so on. As for the meaning of the words: Once [the composer] has exam- ined the statement meaning (ngag don) in the manner of a lion’s glance, [he can then proceed to] explain the subject matter (gzhung don) with the gait of a tortoise.4Each subject matter must be understood at length in
the context of its own composition and exposition.5
Here the root verse makes two interesting points. First, Sa-pan· says that verses of reverence are something the best authors offer to “the teacher”—an epithet of the Buddha, but one that potentially invokes both the author’s own teacher (or guru) as well as the role the author adopts as teacher when com- posing a teaching. Second, he says that verses of reverence should use language
that is clear or purified, because they play a role in the success of “the teacher’s” teachings. What role? It is possible that clear language will help ordinary people understand and pass along the teaching, but this is not the main point. We have a clear example of the benefits envisioned only four pages earlier, when Sa-pan· analyzed the Gateway’s own verse of reverence, which praises the guru and Mañjus´rı¯for having the “four specific knowledges” and the “four fearlessnesses,” as follows:
Suppose someone should ask, what is the point of this verse of reverence at the beginning of the treatise? Well, the guru together with Manjughos·a is the essence of all the Buddhas of the three times. So if you say even a part of his6qualities, the final result will be Buddhahood, and the tem-
porary result will be the pacification of obstacles. The initial statement is said with this in mind.7
The verse of reverence is thus designed to provide a positive karmic effect for all who come in contact with it. The verse of reverence is a prayer, and it re- quires the greatest of attention to purity of language because the right words will make it most effective.8The commentary makes this point clear by bringing to
mind not just the benefits to the author’s own karmic “continuum,” but also to the expositor and the student who will later engage the text. And here we see Sa-pan· placing text composition in its proper place as a link, a binding among lineages of teachers and students, gurus and disciples. For Sa-pan·, textual expo- sition consists in a kind of closed system with three interlocking elements: the teacher, the student, and the dharma. “The one who gives the exposition is the teacher. The object of the explanation is the student. It is the dharma that is to be explained.”9These three elements are distinct, but each depends upon the
others for their proper functioning. Ideally, the teacher is a pure and perfect scholar, and the student is always respectful and bright.10
But Sa-pan· recognizes that things are not always so, and he writes that teachers ought to have strate- gies for inspiring indolent students (such as putting the fear of samsara in them)11
and energizing tired ones (such as telling exciting stories).12He says that teach-
ers should teach differently to meet the various abilities of different students. That is, the teacher is to be aware of the particular needs of the student. And, although it is thematic of the Gateway that many teachers are less than ideal scholars, this in no way undermines the obligation that students venerate both teacher and teaching. The ideal educational situation is one of mutual re- spect and admiration, where all are united in service of the common goal of promoting a proper comprehension of the dharma.13In a verse of reverence,
then, we see that the composer of the treatise is to consider the (karmic) needs of both teacher and student. In paying homage to the teacher, the composer
reminds himself that the raison d’être of a treatise is to provide the topic (specif- ically, the dharma) on which a teacher instructs a student.
Thus Sa-pan·’s first statement about composition coheres directly with our discussions from previous chapters: A writer, like an interpreter, should keep in mind the community for which he is writing. It is, after all, the transmission of the dharma that makes his teaching a teaching. When he indicates, in addition, that pure and appropriate language is a key to the success of the verse of rever- ence, Sa-pan· is once again suggesting the central importance of the linguistic sciences in protecting the dharma.
Next, describing the verse of reverence’s “meaning in summary form,” Sa- pan· makes reference to another topic he will treat in the chapter on exposition: “The meaning in summary form is to whom, by whom, and in what manner the praise is offered, and so on.”14
Here Sa-pan· is mentioning, in brief, his own watered-down version of ka¯raka analysis, which he says is necessary for Tibetans to learn—what he calls the strategy of “linking the meaning with the words” (tshig don sbrel) according to “object (karman), agent (kartr·) and action (kriya¯).”15
I will discuss this method below, but for now we should register that Sa-pan·’s second point on composition, like his first, reminds the composer of the text’s interpreters—here, their specific method of exposition.
Finally, to explain the “meaning of the words” of a verse of reverence, Sa- pan· uses the analogy of the broad and comprehensive lion’s gaze as opposed to the close, slow turtle’s gait. One might think that the point is that, once the lion’s gaze of the verse of reverence is taken in, one can proceed to the details of the treatise. In fact, this analogy will appear again in the chapter on exposi- tion, again associating the comprehension of a general “statement meaning” (ngag don) with the lion’s gaze—but contrasting it to the turtle’s gait of partic- ularized linguistic analysis of the same passage.16The point of the analogy is not
to contrast the verse of reverence with the rest of the treatise, but to distinguish two (and later, three) levels of interpretation available within a single verse. A well-composed verse should bear new fruit under each new form of analysis. This is yet another reason the author ought to be aware of the analytical methodology of his readers.
The introduction to how to compose the verse of reverence is thus also an introduction to how to interpret it—in fact, it is an introduction to inter- pretation itself. When Sa-pan· explains the verse of reverence’s purpose, he does not tell us any particular benefits accruing to the continua of the author, expos- itor, and student. That should be determined on a case-by-case basis, depend- ing on the verse in question—that is, depending on the benefits suggested in the verse by the author. When he gives the “meaning in summary form” of a verse of reverence, he does not tell us, in summary form, what a verse of rever- ence is. Instead, he gives us the form alone in which we should place the partic-
ular meanings of any given verse of reverence. When he gives us the “meaning of the words” of a verse of reverence, he is once again telling us of the different modes in which the words of such a verse should be interpreted. In the chapter on exposition, he will give particular examples of each of these three hermeneu- tic methods. For now, this is methodological meta-talk, and it issues only in a general statement about the value of employing these strategies—a statement which explicitly links the two roles of author and interpreter, composition and exposition: “Each subject matter must be understood at length in the context of its own composition and exposition.”17
As I have already suggested, scholars who are actually planning to com- pose their own treatises will surely succeed best if they know the needs and in- terpretive methods of the teachers and students who use Buddhist treatises. And, scholars who might never compose their own verses of reverence can still use this typology to determine the quality of a verse’s composition, simply by measuring the degree to which it yields to analysis of purpose, summary, and meaning of the words. The best of scholars, however, understand the process from both sides, since the same structures of interpretation can then constitute a single, continuous frame for both composition and exposition.
INTRODUCTORYVERSES AND THESOCIALFUNCTION OFRHETORIC
The second type of introductory verse is the “Oath of Composition” (bshad par
dam bca’ ba), which is a verse in which the author states what he intends to
write. Sa-pan· entertains an objection that this kind of statement is redundant, and then counters it by saying that such a verse has its own, distinct effect:
As for the oath of composition and so forth, suppose someone should think that if you are going to give an exposition, it is unnecessary [to say what you are going to say again anyway], and if you are not going to give an exposition, [a promise to do so] is meaningless:
Oaths, exhortations, and so forth
Show one’s determination (spro ba) to give the exposition. Since it will bring about the achievement of supreme realization, There is no inconsistency (’gal ba med) in the promise.18
Far from being merely a redundant statement of what is to come, an oath has the effect (as with verses of reverence, the purpose of these verses is primarily a causal effect) of making the treatise achieve the best possible result: “It will bring about the achievement of supreme realization.” How can a mere intro- ductory verse have so great a positive effect on the treatise as a whole? If we
need to ask this, we have already forgotten that the verse of reverence also im- proved the ultimate result of the whole treatise by calling upon the “essence of all the Buddhas of the three times.” In this case, however, the result is brought about in an entirely different way. The oath serves as a lever in the mind of the author for the exercise of social pressure. Although the expression “social pres- sure” is anachronistic, this seems the most direct interpretation of this passage. Sa-pan·explains three ways that social pressure exerts itself on the author through the promise, beginning with an interpretation of a promise’s linguistic range:
First, the promise “[I] will give an explanation,” indicates one’s enthusi- asm to give an exposition on this subject matter, and the cause of the en- thusiasm is that one is starting in on a good topic. For instance, a king promises to give away the throne, or to turn the wheel of the dharma, but even though he does engage in lesser activities, such as playing dice and checkers, he does promise to do so in the middle of the assembly.19
If what you intend to do is wrong, you do not promise to do it. It is simply not done. It would not be a promise (the term “promise” doesn’t even really make sense in reference to playing checkers, except as a joke). Thus, the act of prom- ising limits what is promised to the morally right. This is as explicit a statement as we should hope to find that the form governs the content. And the phrase