PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Eckel: Defining a Usable Past 59pressure and does not let them settle comfortably into establishedmeanings. By putting the word “Buddhist” together with the word“theology” this process of questioning is simply distilled and broughtto a point of fine critical intensity.What kind of criticism does Buddhist theology suggest? One possibleapproach is to scrutinize religious claims to see whether they can bejustified by rational criteria. For Buddhists, this possibility has strongprecedent in the Indian tradition. Unlike their Hindu opponents, Buddhistphilosophers in India refused to give scripture or tradition (ågama) thestatus of an unquestioned authority. The Buddhist logicians who tracedtheir lineage to Dignåga and Dharmak∆rti accepted only two authoritativemeans of knowledge: perception (pratyak≈a) and inference (anumåna).Even the teachings of the Buddha had to be tested against these two sourcesof authority before they could be accepted as true. One reason for this, ofcourse, was the questionable status of words themselves. The rationalcritique of received truths did not stop at the level of the sentence; itincluded the words and conceptual distinctions that provided the rawmaterial for any authoritative claim.Different schools had different techniques for questioning the meaningof words, but all seemed to share a few basic features. One commonfeature was simply to ask whether a particular word refers to a real thing.There is a well known episode in The Questions of King Milinda whereKing Milinda challenges the monk Någasena’s claim that there is no self.Någasena responds by asking the king about the chariot that brought himto their meeting. He asks what the word “chariot” refers to. 7 Någasenanames the parts of the chariot and asks whether any of them constitute thechariot. The king says no. Finally they agree that no object can be “grasped”or “found” (upalabbhate) as the reference of the word “chariot.” The word,they say, is a conventional designation, a mere name. Here the process ofanalysis involves a search for reference and an acknowledgment thatreality has two aspects: the objects that seem to be designated by words,and reality as it actually is. From this basic distinction comes the doctrineof two truths: conventional truth, which is associated with words, andultimate truth, which is beyond or inaccessible to words.The style of Någasena’s analysis had tremendous significance in theIndian tradition. It was not just a philosopher’s game or a literary device topoke fun at a slow-witted king. It was a way of freeing the mind from theillusions that blocked the path to nirvana. Någårjuna formulated theconnection quite precisely: “No one attains nirvana without understandingultimate [truth].” 8 But the negative, liberating aspect of this criticalprocess does not express the full complexity of the Indian Buddhist attitudetoward the verbal distillation of tradition. Indian Buddhist philosopherswere never willing to discard tradition completely. Dignåga, the founderof the tradition now known as Buddhist logic, opened his