East Asian Mādhyamaka


East Asian Madhyamaka refers to the Buddhist tradition in East Asia which represents the Indian Madhyamaka system of thought. In Chinese Buddhism, these are often referred to as the Sānlùn school, also known as the "emptiness school", although they may not have been an independent sect. The three principal texts of the school are the Middle Treatise, the Twelve Gate Treatise, and the Hundred Treatise. They were first transmitted to China during the early 5th century by the Buddhist monk Kumārajīva in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The school and its texts were later transmitted to Korea and Japan. The leading thinkers of this tradition are Kumārajīva's disciple Sēngzhào, and the later Jízàng. Their major doctrines include emptiness, the middle way, the twofold truth and "the refutation of erroneous views as the illumination of right views".

History in China

Early period

The name Sānlùn derives from the fact that its doctrinal basis is formed by three principal Madhyamaka texts composed by the Indian Buddhist philosophers Nāgārjuna, and Āryadeva, which were then translated into Chinese by the Kuchean monk Kumārajīva and his team of Chinese translators in Chang'an's Xiaoyao garden.
These three foundational texts are:
Sometimes a fourth text is added, changing the collection's title to the "Four Treatises" :
Another text translated by Kumārajīva and his team, the Satyasiddhi shastra, while not being a Madhyamaka text per se, was influential in the study of Chinese Madhyamaka, since it also taught the emptiness of dharmas.
Sengrui was one of Kumārajīva's main disciples, he aided in the translation project of numerous texts, including the Middle Treatise and the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra. He also translated a meditation manual he called the "Chanyao" which is now understood to be the Zuochan sanmei jing .
Another of Kumārajīva's main disciples, Sēngzhào continued to promote Madhyamaka teachings, and wrote several works from this standpoint, his main one being the Zhao Lun. Two of the essays in this work follow a similar debate format to Nagarjuna's MMK. Sēngzhào is often seen as the founder of the Sānlùn school proper. His philosophy drew from various sources, including the three treatises, Mahayana sutras such as the Vimalakirti sutra, as well as Taoist works such as Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu and Neo-Daoist "Mystery Learning" texts. His use of Taoist influenced paradoxes made him a favorite in the Chan school who considers him a patriarch.
Sēngzhào saw the central problem in understanding emptiness as the discriminatory activity of prapañca. According to Sēngzhào, delusion arises through a dependent relationship between phenomenal things, naming, thought and reification and correct understanding lies outside of words and concepts. Thus, while emptiness is the lack of intrinsic self in all things, this emptiness is not itself an absolute and cannot be grasped by the conceptual mind, it can be only be realized through non-conceptual wisdom.

Tang era and Jízàng

An important Sānlùn figure during the Tang dynasty was Fa-lang. He studied widely under various teachers, including the Madhyamaka master Seng-chuan and eventually received an imperial decree to reside at Hsing Huang monastery in Ch'ien-k'ang, where he continued to give sermons on the Four Treatises for twenty five years.
The most influential Sānlùn scholar of the Tang was Fa-lang's pupil Jízàng, a prolific writer who composed commentaries on these three treatises. One of his most famous works is the Erdi Yi, or "Meaning of the Two Truths", referring to the conventional and ultimate truths. In one passage of the Erdi Yi, Jizang cites Falang, and argues that the four treatises have the same goal, "to explain the two truths and manifest the doctrine of non-duality".
Jízàng criticized numerous Chinese Buddhists for their unwarranted metaphysical assumptions. He ultimately rejects all metaphysical assertions of being and non-being as dogmatic conceptual confusions. Thus according to Hsueh-Lu Cheng, for Jízàng:
True wisdom is the abandonment of all views. Chi-tsang argues that metaphysical speculation of Being and Nothingness is a disease. It is the root of all erroneous or perverted views. The cure of the disease lies not so much in developing a new metaphysical theory as in understanding the proper nature and function of human conceptualization and language. Chi-tsang, following Nagarjuna, claims that the very language men create and use plays a trick on them and destroys their "eyes of wisdom." Enlightened men should discard conceptualization so as to avoid being taken in by this trick. Emptiness, for Chi-tsang, is a medicine for curing the "philosophical disease."
Jízàng called his philosophical method "deconstructing what is misleading and revealing what is corrective". He insisted that one must never settle on any particular viewpoint or perspective but constantly reexamine one's formulations to avoid rectification of thought and behavior.
In addition to popularizing Madhyamaka, Jízàng also wrote commentaries on the Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Lotus Sūtra, the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra and Tathāgatagarbha teachings.

Influence on Chan

After Jízàng, the school declined considerably, though its texts remained influential for other traditions such as Tiantai and Chan Buddhism. In, Chan, Nagarjuna is seen as one of the patriarchs of the school and thus its key figures such as Huineng must have been familiar with the four treatises. According to Hsueh-li Cheng, "Zen masters such as Niu-t'ou fa-yung and Nan-ch'uan P'u-yuan were San-Iun Buddhists before they became Zen masters." Furthermore, major Sānlùn tenets such as the negation of conceptualization, the rejection of all views, and the twofold truth were adopted by Zen, thus Hsueh-li Cheng concludes that "in many respects Zen appears to be a practical application of Madhyamika thought."

Modern Chinese Buddhism

In the early part of the 20th century, the laymen Yang Wenhui and Ouyang Jian promoted Buddhist learning in China, and the general trend was for an increase in studies of Buddhist traditions such as Yogācāra, Madhyamaka, and the Huayan school.
A major influential figure in the modern Chinese study of Madhyamaka is Yìnshùn . Yìnshùn applied his study of the Chinese Agamas to Madhyamaka, and argued that the works of Nagarjuna were "the inheritance of the conceptualisation of dependent arising as proposed in the Agamas". Yìnshùn saw the writings of Nagarjuna as the correct Buddhadharma while considering the writings of the Sānlùn school as being corrupted due to their synthesizing of the Tathagata-garbha doctrine into Madhyamaka.
While he was seen among his colleagues as a Sānlùn scholar, he himself did not claim such direct affiliation:Many modern Chinese Mādhyamaka scholars such as Li Zhifu, Yang Huinan and Lan Jifu have been students of Yìnshùn.

History in Japan

The school was known in Japan as Sanron and was introduced around 625 by the Korean Goguryeo monk Hyegwan who resided at Gangōji Temple. Prince Shōtoku is known to have had two Buddhist mentors from the Sanron school. Ekan is also known for introducing the Jōjitsu school to Japan and the Satyasiddhi system was taught as a supplement, together with Madhyamaka, in Japanese Sanron.
During the Heian period, an important Sanron figure was master Chiko, whose commentary on the Heart Sutra became a classic work of Heian Buddhist scholarship and the most authoritative commentary on the Heart Sutra in the early Heian. This commentary criticized the Hosso school's interpretation of the Heart Sutra, promoted the Heart Sutra as a text of definitive meaning while also drawing on the work of Jizang.
This school was later overshadowed by other Japanese schools such as Tendai and Zen.