Master Gangxiao: An Error in the Two Chinese Hetuvidya Treatises

Gangxiao

In my Two Chinese Hetuvidya Treatises, on pages 132–133, there's this passage:

"The Self has fourteen qualities. Mr. Zheng Weihong, in his General Treatise on Buddhist Logic, says the Self has nine: perception, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, diligence, courage, dharma, and non-dharma. Master Huizhuang, in A Brief Explanation of the "Treatise on Hetuvidya for Entering the Correct Principle," also says nine, but his list reads: perception, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, diligence-and-courage, activity, dharma, and non-dharma. Mr. Lü Cheng also says nine, and his list matches Mr. Zheng Weihong's. Where do these nine come from? The Great Commentary on Hetuvidya says: 'The Daśapadārthī asks—what is the Self? It is that which is characterized by the arising of cognition through the combined causes and conditions of perception, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, diligence-and-courage, dharma, non-dharma, activity, and so forth.' This sentence does list nine. Classical Chinese had no punctuation. Mr. Zheng Weihong punctuated it one way, splitting diligence (qín) and courage (yǒng) into two separate items, but he dropped 'activity' from the middle—I don't know why. Master Huizhuang also added punctuation but reversed the order, which I suspect was simply a slip of memory; that's not a big deal. What matters is that after listing the nine, the Great Commentary on Hetuvidya includes the words 'and so forth' (deng)—'combined causes and conditions of such things as... and so forth.' That word deng is key. In Chinese grammar, when you have a series of parallel items, you can use deng after naming a few to indicate that more follow and the list isn't complete. (What I said here isn't quite right—in Chinese grammar, deng can also serve as a pause marking the end of a complete enumeration.) So for Master Huizhuang and Mr. Zheng Weihong to take this single sentence—which mentions only nine—and declare that there are exactly nine qualities is inaccurate. In fact, just a little earlier in the very same paragraph, the Great Commentary on Hetuvidya states: 'The Self has fourteen qualities, namely: number, magnitude, particularity, conjunction, disjunction, perception, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, diligence-and-courage, dharma, non-dharma, and activity.' The term 'particularity' (biexing) appears as 'particular substance' (bieti) in some editions; the Taishō Tripiṭaka has 'particularity,' but we needn't quibble over that. These two sentences sit in the same paragraph of the Great Commentary on Hetuvidya—it's hard to see how anyone could mix them up. Furthermore, in Master Xuanzang's translation of the Treatise on the Ten Categories of the Vaiśeṣika, it is stated plainly: 'By how many qualities is the Self said to be qualified? By fourteen. Which fourteen? (1) number, (2) time, (3) particular substance, (4) conjunction, (5) disjunction, (6) perception, (7) pleasure, (8) pain, (9) desire, (10) aversion, (11) diligence-and-courage, (12) dharma, (13) non-dharma, (14) activity.'

I wrote that passage while discussing the fallacy of "both parties unestablished." The original text of the Treatise on Hetuvidya for Entering the Correct Principle reads:

As for "both parties unestablished": for example, when a Vaiśeṣika master, debating a Buddhist disciple, establishes that the Self is a conjunctive cause and condition.

At the time I was explaining this to my students, I didn't have the original text of Ruiyuan's Record on the Commentary to Hetuvidya at hand. I'd only come across a few quotations from it in reference books. Then last year, Mr. Shen Jianying kindly gifted me a copy, and when I reached this passage, I found some very valuable material.

Yifan writes: Question—the Self has fourteen qualities, so why is it joined as a cause and condition with only nine? Answer—perception, pleasure, and the rest of the nine are "all-pervading dharmas," so the Self must be joined with these nine to generate cognition and distinguish right from wrong. Number, magnitude, particularity, conjunction, and disjunction—these five, though also qualities of the Self, are not all-pervading dharmas, and so they are omitted. Question—if the Self serves as the conjunctive cause and condition, what function does the category of "conjunction" itself serve? Answer—the nature of conjunction joins the nine qualities; when it joins with the Self, it can generate the characteristic of cognition—and for this to happen, the Self must serve as the conjunctive cause and condition, for only through conjunction can conjunction do its work. If the characteristic of cognition is not generated, conjunction merely binds substances and qualities together so that they remain inseparable and mutually belonging—this is accomplished solely through the power of conjunction, and does not require the Self as a conjunctive cause and condition. Question—why is that?…

From these words, it's clear that my criticism of the others was mistaken.