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A Survey of Buddhist Thought
© Alfred Scheepers
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A Survey of Buddhist Thought, pages 13-15
Preface
This book is not a detailed history of Buddhist thought, nor is it a history of
Buddhism in general. A like work should yet be written. I focused on the
philosophical aspects of Buddhism, omitting others. But even Buddhist
philosophy covers so wide a field, that I only was able to select some highlights.
In spite of these limitations, I believe, many readers may find in this book
brought together things, that until now had to be gathered from a multitude of
sources. I treated some subjects - such as Abhidharmic philosophy, or the
epistemology of Dharmakirti - carefully avoided by other general works, either
because most authors don't know anything about it, or, because they think it to
be too difficult for the general public. Moreover, I wrote this book from a
philosophical understanding. Most authors specialized in Buddhism lack a
thorough education in philosophy. That's why they render Buddhist concepts by
fanciful terms, that have no known connotation in the West, unaware of the fact
that many terms may be rendered by means of standard European equivalents.
For instance, the logical concept of 'vyapti' is often rendered through 'invariable
concomitance,' but, in fact, in many Buddhist works it is just the term for what
in the West is called 'logical implication' (If A is, then also B is, but the
givenness of B does not necessarily imply A; A does not occur without B, but B
may occur without A). Another example: a key-concept in Buddhist thought,
'vijñana,' is most often rendered through 'cognition,' while another key-concept,
'samjña,' is rendered through 'perception.' But internal evidence of Buddhist
material shows, that it is 'vijñana' that means 'perception,' since the concept is
used in composita combined with the names of the five senses, indicating visual,
olfactory perception etc. 'Samjña,' on the contrary, literally translated means
'cognition,' which translation, moreover, is etymologically cognate. Up to now
no translator has chosen this, maybe all too obvious, solution. I myself have
chosen to render the concept also through 'apperception,' or 'apprehension,' to
avoid further confusion. 'Understanding' also would not be far off the mark.
With so much unclarity, even in the translation of key-concepts, how could it
hitherto have been possible to understand Buddhist thought?
The reader of this book will find, that much of the old Buddhist philosophy
has a modern ring. We are reminded of positivism and of phenomenology, but
these thoughts have appeared in Buddhism already two thousand years ago. Yet
we hear people like the German expert Lydia Brüll say in her book Die
Japanische Philosophie (p. IX) that in the West philosophy is the object of a full
grown scientific discipline, and that this is not the case in India, China, or Japan.
Apart from the question whether it is fair to compare contemporaneous
developments in Western philosophy with ancient Eastern thought, one may
wonder what philosophy she is talking about: Plato, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant,
Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, or, God forbid, Derrida? Either all these
thinkers were (or are) not philosophers, or the term 'scientific' is a meaningless
concept, that may be applied to anything; but then, why not to Buddhistic
philosophy?
As I believe it to be, the history of philosophy, in the East as well as in the
West, is just the history of human ideas about reality and existence. There are
flashes of insight, thought-structures, some persuasive, others less, but there
never has been a system of philosophy that could claim absolute validity. If any
philosopher ever claimed such, he was already criticized for it by his immediate
successors. But we need our illusions, don't we? Besides, if the concern for the
validity of knowledge be a mark of science, then it must be pointed out that the
Buddhist logicians had something to say about the subject.
This book is divided into three parts, one dealing with Buddhist thought in
India, one dealing with its sojourn in China, and one coping with its reception in
Japan. I omitted Tibet, and South-East Asia, for which omission only my own
incompetence is the reason. The method I used in treating the subjects varies in
those respective parts. The basics of Buddhistic thought originated in India.
Therefore, in the part dealing with India I treated these basics thoroughly, using
my own philosophical understanding to penetrate the matter. While coming to
China, I found good work was already done before by Fung Yu-lan in his
History of Chinese Philosophy. I closely followed his treatment of Buddhist
thought in part two of that work. For Japanese Buddhist thought such structured
prior study was not available. But philosophically Japanese thought takes over the
ideas and concepts of the Indians and Chinese. For the sake of not falling into
endless repetitions, it therefore seemed only necessary to state the typically
Japanese character of Buddhism. I took some representative examples of Japanese
Buddhism, concentrating on Zen, only saying something about the thoughts of
Dogen (12th century) and Hakuin (17th century). The book is left with an open
end. This indicates the fact that Buddhism in Japan is still in full development,
and cannot be considered as a closed chapter, as it can be, to a certain extent, in
India and China. I am not able to give a full exposition of it, also covering the
present time. Therefore the reader must be content with my few sketchy remarks.
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