| 摘要 | This study offers an in-depth analysis of the most important concepts characterizing the Yogacara school of Buddhism, the last creative stage of philosophical Buddhism in India. The Lankavatara-Sutra, complied in the second half of the fourth century A.D., not only represents a comprehensive synthesis of both H(')inayana and Mahayana philosophical ideas, but it also provided the doctrinal foundation for the subsequent development of the Zen schools of China and Japan, following the demise of Buddhism in India.Methodologically, the author makes use of a combination of approaches such as: text-critical (philological), Buddhist-hermeneutical (philosophical), historical, psychological, and sociological. Structurally, the study is divided into two major sections.The first section opens with an essay on the nature of Buddhist ontology, at once dynamic, evolutional and transcendental. The subsequent chapters attempt to clarify three different aspects of Being, as understood by the Yogacaras, namely its essence (the Tathagata-garbha concept), its temporal manifestation (the theory of the five Skandhas, the concept of Self taken as the paradigmatic mode of existence), and its spatial or cosmic dimension (the all-encompassing term Dharmadhatu, and its equivalents: Tathata, Sunyata, Traibhava, etc.). These complex constructs are analyzed with close attention being paid to their empirical, as well as trans-empirical components.
The second section presents four epistemological (or rather gnoseological) concepts, essential to the understanding of the Yogacaras' soteriology. They are: the Cittamatra doctrine of "Mind-only," the five Dharmas ("Knowledge-states"), the system of the Eight Vijnanas (in which the (')Alaya-vijnana, or the "Repository-of-impressions," is contrasted with the seven evolving, dynamic Pravrti-vijnanas), and the cosmic-philosophical theory of causatin (Hetu-pratyaya, "Cause & conditions"). Finally, it is pointed out that these concepts were devised as meditational aids toward a religious goal, rather than as philosophical statements regarding the ultimate nature of reality, which is deemed transcendent to conceptual language. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.) |
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