中觀哲學の論理 : 序

Abstract

The sphere (gocara) in which Buddhahood abides is the Absolute Reality (paramārtha) which surpasses our common logic and cannot be expressed by other means than ‘being silent' (tūshņïṁbhāva). But at the same time, since Buddhism is a doctrine for the salvation of mankind, it must have commonly understandable expressions (saṁvrti-vyavahāra) in some way or other. Accordingly, there is required such a kind of logic as would negate and transcend ordinary human expressions without ceasing to work in the common world of experience, thus revealing the Paramārtha. Such a logic is the fundamental standpoint of Buddhist philosophy. Bhāvaviveka, the great scholar of the Mādhyamika in India, called this standpoint that of the Convertible Reality (paryāyaparamārtha) or the Real World (bhūtasaṁvrti). From this standpoint he positively justified the use of logic in Buddhism, and asserted that the Mādhyamika philosophy is a metaphysic of the Absolute Reality (paramarthābhidharma), which has the logic of Bhūtasamvrti for its method. Common logic as well as the Saṁvrti itself cannot stand by itself independently from the Paramārtha, and the truth is that all worldly phenomena are based on the Non-Ens (çūnyatā), for the Paramārtha is nothing else than the Non-Ens. Thus Bhāvaviveka accounted for the common world of experience on the basis of the Non-Ens or the Interdependence (pratïtyasamutpāda). The characteristics of the Mādhyamika logic as the logic of Bhūtasamvrti are : 1) that it is a logic of Interdependence, and 2) that it proceeds only in the form of Absolute Negation (prasajya-pratishedha). Cognition (pramāṇa) is divided into perception (pratyakşa) and inference (anumāna). In India, the Nihilists who negated inference and affirmed only perception proposed the theory that everything that exists has neither cause nor reason (ahetu-vāda). On the other hand, the schoolś who gave priority to inference taught dogmatic metaphysics. As a matter of fact, there cannot be anumāna without pratyaksa, nor pratyaksa without anumāna. We must understand the interdependence of the two forms of pramāna and exclude both nihilism and dogmatism. Thus only is it possible to have a Buddhist logic whereby we can research the truth of the real being. But interdependent things cannot have the independent, ultimate ground except the Non-Ens, and so from the viewpoint of the Absolut Reality (paramārthatas) interdependent things are not essentially existing in themselves, and the Pratityasamutpāda is the same as the çūnyatā. But, it is more proper to say that only on the basis of the çūnyatā the Interdependence and all worldly phenomena can come into existence. Therefore, the Mādhyamika logic as the paramārthābhidharma concludes that every being does not exist from the viewpoint of the Absolute Reality : it negates the existence of all thing absolutely. Nevertheless, this very negation establishes the existence of all thing on the basis of the Non-Ens and thus leads us to the cognition of the true reality.