Candrakirtis Madhyamakavatarabhasya. The Selflessness of Phenomena

The project takes as its subject matter the so-called dharmanairatmya section of the sixth chapter of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya, one of the two most influential works, especially for later Tibetans, of the seventh-century Buddhist scholar Candrakirti. It is here that Candrakirti uncompromisingly rejects the theories explaining real causation posited by his co-Buddhists (Hinayana, Yogacara) and by non-Buddhist opponents. Arguing that real phenomena are impossible, Candrakirti establishes dependent-arising as the only acceptable explanatory model for the appearance of things on the everyday, i.e., non-ultimate, level. This important section of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya, indeed the entire work, has been accessible to scholars only in Tibetan translation. In recent years, however, it was revealed that a Sanskrit manuscript of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya, which was presumably brought to Tibet by an Indian or Tibetan scholar during the second dissemination of Buddhism to Tibet, survived the Cultural Revolution and is preserved in Lhasa. The manuscript itself cannot be examined by contemporary scholars, but photocopies of it have become available to the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria, under an agreement between the Institute and the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing. A small group of editors in Vienna are in the process of preparing a critical and diplomatic edition of the first five chapters of the Madhyamakavatara and Madhyamakavatarabhasya (the verses of the former are embedded within the text of the commentary), and Dr. Xuezhu Li of the China Ti- betology Research Center has recently edited the verses of the sixth chapter. The proposed project will, on the basis of the newly available Sanskrit manuscript photocopies and other Sanskrit and Tibetan materials, edit the entire dharmanairatmya section of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya. It will additionally supply a translation of both the verses and commentary that is accompanied by detailed historical, philological and analytical annotation. In making accessible for the first time the Sanskrit of Candrakirtis extensive and crucial discussion, as well as an English rendering of the section, the project will provide a solid basis for all future research in the area.

The project took as its subject matter the so-called dharmanairatmya section of the sixth chapter of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya, one of the two most influential works, especially for later Tibetans, of the seventh-century Buddhist scholar Candrakirti. It is here that Candrakirti uncompromisingly rejects the theories explaining real causation posited by his co-Buddhists (Hinayana, Yogacara) and by non-Buddhist opponents. Arguing that real phenomena are impossible, Candrakirti establishes dependent-arising as the only acceptable explanatory model for the appearance of things on the everyday, i.e., non-ultimate, level. This important section of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya, indeed the entire work, has been accessible to scholars only in Tibetan translation. In recent years, however, it was revealed that a Sanskrit manuscript of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya, which was presumably brought to Tibet by an Indian or Tibetan scholar during the second dissemination of Buddhism to Tibet, survived the Cultural Revolution and is preserved in Lhasa. The manuscript itself cannot be examined by scholars, but photocopies of it have become available to the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria, under an agreement between the Institute and the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing. A small group of editors in Vienna are in the process of preparing a critical and diplomatic edition of the first five chapters of the Madhyamakavatara and Madhyamakavatarabhasya (the verses of the former are embedded within the text of the commentary), and Dr. Xuezhu Li of the China Tibetology Research Center has recently edited the verses of the sixth chapter. The dharmanairatmya section of the Madhyamakavatarabhasya has been investigated and edited on the basis of the newly available Sanskrit manuscript photocopies and other Sanskrit and Tibetan materials. A translation of both the verses and commentary that is accompanied by detailed historical, philological and analytical annotation has also been produced. In making accessible for the first time the Sanskrit of Candrakirtis extensive and crucial discussion, as well as an English rendering of the section, the project provides a solid basis for all future research in the area.