Xiong Shili and his critique of Yogcara Buddhism

Connelly, Edward Francis

Xiong Shili and his critique of Yogcara Buddhism

Date

1978

Authors

Connelly, Edward Francis

Abstract

This thesis consists of a presentation and explication of Xiong Shili's critique of Yogacara Buddhist philosophy. Since Xiong 1s critique was shaped by his personal experiences, his friends and colleagues, and his own philosophy, the first chapter is a biography of Xiong. Born in 1885 into a poor family and orphaned by age ten, Xiong's early education was meagre and he became literate largely through his own efforts. At seventeen, Xiong enlisted in the army in order to act as liaison between the troops and the revolutionary party of Sun Yat-sen. After the 1911 Republican Revolution, Xiong unsuccessfully pursued a political career. He later went to Nanking and studied Buddhism at the Institute for Inner Learning. In 1923, Xiong accepted a post in the Philosophy Department of Peking University. Some ten years later, he published his major work the New Treatise on Consciousness-only. Xiong retired from Peking University in 1955 and went to live with his son in Shanghai where he died in May of 1968. Xiong's critique of Yogacara Buddhist philosophy is aimed primarily at the theory of s e eds. Thus in Chapter two, which presents Xiong's version of the rise of Yogacara in India and its transmission to China ,Xiong maintains that the two schools of Yogacara introduced into China, the Shelun School of Paramartha and the Weishi School of Xuan Zang, held widely divergent theories on the nature of seeds. In Chapter three, which is a presentation of Xiong's analysis of the Yogacara concept of mind, Xiong scores the Yogacara for analyzing the mind into innumerable discrete parts and then positing seeds as the ultimate source of these parts. In order to maintain the principle of "consciousness-only," says Xiong, the eighth consciousness becomes essential to the Yogacara because without this eighth consciousness to act as a storehouse to store all seeds, the consciousness only philosophy becomes a "seeds-only" philosophy. In the fourth chapter, which presents Xiong's views on the theory of causation, Xiong praises the Yogacara for establishing the concept of cause proper (i.e. a true cause, a cause capable of producing its own effect), but criticises the identification of cause proper with seeds. By positing seeds as causal agents, says Xiong, the Yogacara reduced the theory of causation to a theory of "constructionalism." In the fifth chapter, which presents Xiong's views on the principle of the unity of substance and function, Xiong criticises the Yogacara for failing to resolve the ontological dualism between the theory of seeds and the theory of "genuine thusness," and decries the ethical determinism implicit in the distinction between "good" and "bad" seeds. Xiong's critique is based on his understanding of Buddhism which is derived solely from Chinese translations. (Xiong knew no foreign language.) Xiong's critique is also biased by his own philosophical ideas which are largely Confucian in inspiration. Xiong is considered by most authorities to be one of the two most outstanding philosophers of twentieth century China. Those who read and value Xiong's works usually do so, not for his critique of Yogacara Buddhism, but for his reconstruction of neo-Confucianism. I decided to write this thesis on Xiong's critique of Yogacara rather than his reconstruction of neo-Confucianism because I felt that, without an understanding of the former, the latter can be but poorly understood. What little there is about Xiong in English moreover , deals with his reconstruction of neo-Confucianisin while his critique of Yogacara has been almost completely ignored. I hope that in some small way this thesis might help to overcome that de ficiency. The piny in Romanization system has been used throughout except in the case of long established and well known place names (Peking rather than Beijing for example).