Chapter IV · CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE.

Three Forms of Knowledge.

Mahâyânism generally distinguishes two or three forms of knowledge. This classification is a sort of epistemology, inasmuch as it proposes to ascertain the extent and nature of human knowledge, from a religious point of view. Its object is to see what kind of human knowledge is most reliable and valuable for the annihilation of ignorance and the attainment of enlightenment. The Mahâyâna school which has given most attention to this division of Buddhist philosophy is the Yogâcâra of Asanga and Vasubandhu. The Lankâvatarâ and the Sandhinirmocana and some other Sûtras, on which the school claims to have its doctrinal foundation, teach three forms of knowledge. The sûtra literature, however, as a rule does not enter into any detailed exposition of the subject; it merely classifies knowledge and points out what form of knowledge is most desirable by the Buddhists. To obtain a fuller and more discursive elucidation, we must come to the Abhidharma Pitaka of that school. Of the text books most generally studied of the Yogâcâra, we may mention Vasubandhu’s Vijñânamâtra with its commentaries and Asanga’s Comprehensive Treatise on Mahâyânism. The following statements are abstracted mainly from these documents.

The three forms of knowledge as classified by the Yogâcâra are: (1) Illusion (parikalpita), (2) Relative Knowledge (paratantra), and (3) Absolute Knowledge (pariniṣpanna).

Illusion.

Illusion (parikalpita), to use Kantian phraseology, is a sense-perception not co-ordinated by the categories of the understanding; that is to say, it is a purely subjective elaboration, not verified by objective reality and critical judgment. So long as we make no practical application of it, it will harbor no danger; there is no evil in it, at least religiously. Perceptual illusion is a psychical fact, and as such it is justified. A straight rod in water appears crooked on account of the refraction of light; a sensation is often felt in the limb after it has been amputated, for the nervous system has not yet adjusted itself to the new condition. They are all illusions, however. They are doubtless the correct interpretation of the sense-impressions in question, but they are not confirmed by other sense-impressions whose coördination is necessary to establish an objective reality. The moral involved in this is: all sound inferences and correct behavior must be based on critical knowledge and not on illusory premises.

Reasoning in this wise, the Mahâyânists declare that the egoism fostered by vulgar minds belongs to this class of knowledge, though of a different order, and that those who tenaciously cling to egoism as their final stronghold are believers in an intellectual fata morgana, and are like the thirsty deer that madly after the visionary water in the desert, or like the crafty monkey that tries to catch the lunar reflection in the water. Because the belief in the existence of a metaphysical agent behind our mental phenomena is not confirmed by experience and sound judgment, it being merely a product of unenlightened subjectivity.

Besides this ethical and philosophical egoism, all forms of world-conception which is founded on the sandy basis of subjective illusion, such as fetichism, idolatry, anthropomorphism, anthropopsychism, and the like, must be classed under the parikalpita-lakṣana as doctrines having illusionary premises.

Relative Knowledge.

Next comes the paratantra-lakṣana, a welt-anschauung based upon relative knowledge, or better, upon the knowledge of the law of relativity. According to this view, everything in the world has a relative and conditional existence, and nothing can claim an absolute reality free from all limitations. This closely corresponds to the theory advanced by most of modern scientists, whose agnosticism denies our intellectual capability of transcending the law of relativity.

The paratantra-lakṣana, therefore, consists in the knowledge derived from our daily intercourse with the outward world. It deals with the highest abstractions we can make out of our sensuous experiences. It is positivistic in its strictest sense. It says: The universe has only a relative existence, and our knowledge is necessarily limited. Even the highest generalisation cannot go beyond the law of relativity. It is impossible for us to know the first cause and the ultimate end of existence; nor have we any need to go thus beyond the sphere of existence, which would inevitably involve us in the maze of mystic imagination.

The paratantra-lakṣana, therefore, is a positivism, agnosticism, or empiricism in its spirit. Though the Yogâcâra Buddhists do not use all these modern philosophical terms, the interpretation here given is really what they intended to mean by the second form of knowledge. A world-conception based on this view, it is declared by the Mahâyânists, is sound as far as our perceptual knowledge is concerned; but it does not exhaust the entire field of human experience, for it does not take into account our spiritual life and our inmost consciousness. There is something in the human heart that refuses to be satisfied with merely systematising under the so-called laws of nature those multitudinous impressions which we receive from the outside world. There is a singular feeling, or sentiment, or yearning, whatever we may call it, in our inmost heart, which defies any plainer description than a mere suggestion or an indirect statement. This somewhat mystic consciousness seems despite its obscureness to contain the meaning of our existence as well as that of the universe. The intellect may try to persuade us with all its subtle reasonings to subdue this disquieting feeling and to remain contented with the systematising of natural laws, so called. But it is deceiving itself by so doing; because the intellect is but a servant to the heart, and so far as it is not forced to self-contradiction, it must accommodate itself to the needs of the heart. That is to say, we must transcend the narrow limits of conditionality and see what indispensable postulates are underlying our life and experiences. The recognition of these indispensable postulates of life constitutes the Yogâcâra’s third form of knowledge called pariniṣpanna-lakṣana.

Absolute Knowledge.

Pariniṣpanna-lakṣana literally means the world-view founded on the most perfect knowledge. According to this view, the universe is a monistico-pantheistic system. While phenomenal existences are regulated by natural laws characterised by conditionality and individuation, they by no means exhaust all our experiences which are stored in our inmost consciousness. There must be something,—this is the absolute demand of humanity, the ultimate postulate of experience,—be it Will, or Intelligence, which, underlying and animating all existences, forms the basis of cosmic, ethical, and religious life. This highest Will, or Intelligence, or both may be termed God, but the Mahâyânists call it religiously Dharmakâya, ontologically Bhûtatathâtâ, and psychologically Bodhi or Sambodhi. And they think it must be immanent in the universe manifesting itself in all places and times; it must be the cause of perpetual creation; it must be the principle of morality. This being so, how do we come to the recognition of its presence? The Buddhists say that when our minds are clear of illusions, prejudices, and egotistic assumptions, they become transparent and reflect the truth like a dust-free mirror. The illumination thus gained in our consciousness constitutes the so-called pariniṣpanna, the most perfect knowledge, that leads to Nirvâna, final salvation, and eternal bliss.

World-views Founded on the Three Forms of Knowledge.

The reason will be obvious to the reader why the Yogâcâra school distinguishes three classes of world-conception founded on the three kinds of knowledge. The parikalpita-lakṣana is most primitive and most puerile. However, in these days of enlightenment, what is believed by the masses is naught else than a parikalpita conception of the world. The material existence as it appears to our senses is to them all in all. They seem to be unable to shake off the yoke of egoistic illusion and naïve realism. Their God must be transcendent and anthropopathic, and always willing to meddle with worldly affairs as his whim pleases. How different the world is, in which the multitudes of unreflecting minds are living, from that which is conceived by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas! Hartmann, a German thinker, is right, when he says that the masses are at least a century behind in their intellectual culture. But the most strange thing in the world is that, in spite of all their ignorance and superstitious beliefs, the waves of universal transformation are ever carrying them onward to a destination, of which, perhaps, they have not the slightest suspicion.

Two Forms of Knowledge.

The two kinds of knowledge or truth distinguished by the Mâdhyamika philosophy are Samvṛtti-satya and Paramârtha-satya, that is, conditional truth and transcendental truth. We read in Nâgârjuna’s Mâdhyamika Çâstra (Buddhist Text Society edition, pp. 180, 181):

The conditional truth includes illusion and relative knowledge of the Yogâcâra school, while the transcendental truth corresponds to the absolute knowledge.

In explaining these two truths, the Mâdhyamika philosophers have made a constant use of the terms, çûnya and açûnya, void and not-void, which unfortunately became a cause of the misunderstanding by Christian scholars of Nâgârjuna’s transcendental philosophy. Absolute truth is void in its ultimate nature, for it contains nothing concrete or real or individual that makes it an object of particularisation. But this must not be understood, as is done by some superficial critics, in the sense of absolute nothingness. The Mâdhyamika philosophers make the satya (transcendental truth) empty when contrasted with the realness of phenomenal existences. Because it is not real in the sense a particular being is real; but it is empty since it transcends the principle of individuation. When considered absolutely, it can neither be empty nor not-empty, neither çûnya nor açûnya, neither asti nor nâsti, neither abhâva nor bhâva, neither real nor unreal. All these terms imply relation and contrast, while the Paramârtha Satya is above them, or better, it unifies all contrasts and antitheses in its absolute oneness. Therefore, even to designate it at all may lead to the misunderstanding of the true nature of the Satya, for naming is particularising. It is not, as such, an object of intellectuation or of demonstrative knowledge. It underlies everything conditional and phenomenal, and does not permit itself to be a particular object of discrimination.

Transcendental Truth and Relative Understanding.

One may say: If transcendental truth is of such an abstract nature, beyond the reach of the understanding, how can we ever hope to attain it and enjoy its blessings? But Nâgârjuna says that it is not absolutely out of the ken of the understanding; it is, on the contrary, through the understanding that we become acquainted with the quarter towards which our spiritual efforts should be directed, only let us not cling to the means by which we grasp the final reality. A finger is needed to point at the moon, but when we have recognised the moon, let us no more trouble ourselves with the finger. The fisherman carries a basket to take the fish home, but what need has he to worry about the basket when the contents are safely on the table? Only so long as we are not yet aware of the way to enlightenment, let us not ignore the value of relative knowledge or conditional truth or lokasamvṛttisatya as Nâgârjuna terms it.

From this, it is to be inferred that Buddhism never discourages the scientific, critical investigation of religious beliefs. For it is one of the functions of science that it should purify the contents of a belief and that it should point out in which direction our final spiritual truth and consolation have to be sought. Science alone which is built on relative knowledge is not able to satisfy all our religious cravings, but it is certainly able to direct us to the path of enlightenment. When this path is at last revealed, we shall know how to avail ourselves of the discovery, as then Prajñâ (or Sambodhi, or Wisdom) becomes the guide of life. Here we enter into the region of the unknowable. The spiritual facts we experience are not demonstrable, for they are so direct and immediate that the uninitiated are altogether at a loss to get a glimpse of them.