Preface¶

1. What the book aims to do¶

There are already many histories of Buddhist philosophy in Chinese. Some favor a sectarian position and take faith as their starting point. Some focus on compiling material and offer little analysis. Others emphasize modern academic criticism but require more preparation than most general readers have.

The book stands between academic scholarship and an introduction for general readers. It aims to explain the most important problems of Buddhist philosophy, its most important thinkers, and their arguments in terms modern readers can follow. Throughout, it seeks to approach history as honestly as possible.

2. The book has a position, and that is unavoidable¶

In his 1904 essay on methodology, Max Weber argued that no objective analysis of social phenomena can be entirely independent of "particular and 'one-sided' points of view." Every analysis selects and organizes its material from a particular perspective, whether or not it says so explicitly.¹ The observation applies equally to historical and philosophical research.

The book makes no claim to be without a position. Its judgments about Mahāyāna origins and its assessment of Mahāyāna thought, its interpretation of Theravāda historical narratives, and its position on Madhyamaka soteriology will offend some readers: those from Mahāyāna traditions, those from Theravāda, and those accustomed to a particular mainstream academic narrative.

The Buddha's expression "knowing and seeing things as they are" (yathābhūtaṃ pajānāti) means understanding things as they are, rather than as we wish them to be. The book follows the same attitude in its method, although we cannot fully live up to it either.

What place to give the book, and what place to give the Buddha's teaching, are questions left to readers themselves.

3. Principles for historical sources and historical inference¶

The book does not treat sectarian legends as historical facts, but it acknowledges their existence.

Buddhist traditions preserve many accounts of the Buddha's life, the councils, and the divisions among schools. Many were produced to establish sectarian legitimacy and do not withstand historical scrutiny. The book does not treat such legends as historical facts. Why they took the forms they did, however, and what roles they played in history are subjects for reflection and analysis.

Whenever the book reconstructs a historical situation from sources and reasonable inference, it uses phrases such as "we can conclude from this" and "on this basis, we infer" to distinguish the reconstruction from historically documented facts. Its own judgments and positions are marked with phrases such as "the book takes the view" or "the book's position." Such wording is a necessary compromise between readable prose and rigor.

History and philosophy ask different questions.

Whether an idea "appeared" in history, or even "was widely accepted," is separate from whether it "holds up" philosophically. The historical account aims for neutrality. The philosophical analysis sets out the structure of arguments, but it also states its own interpretations and positions on questions the book considers important.

The approach to dates and geography.

The chronology of early Indian history remains disputed. Wherever specific dates are discussed, the book tries to give the range found in scholarship and avoids creating an illusion of precision with a single number. Geography and ethnic background are explained where necessary, but the book is not a cultural history. Its main subject is the development of philosophical thought.

4. How philosophical thought is treated¶

Present the arguments.

Merely reporting conclusions is of no use in explaining what "emptiness" means, what "non-self" claims, why storehouse consciousness was proposed, or how Madhyamaka arguments proceed. The book tries to reconstruct each school's reasoning step by step, giving readers a basis for judgment and showing the tensions and exchanges between ideas.

Comparisons with Western philosophy help readers understand.

Where appropriate, the book draws on concepts and frameworks from Western philosophy, including phenomenology and the work of Kant, Hume, and Wittgenstein, to help modern readers educated in Western frameworks understand. Such comparisons should not be mistaken for claims that "Buddhism was influenced by the West," that "the two are equivalent," or that they "prove Buddhism was advanced."

Terminology.

Sanskrit and Pāli terms are given in transliteration on their first appearance. The terminology concordance at the end of the book provides Chinese, Sanskrit, Pāli, and English equivalents with brief explanations for reference at any point.

A principle for naming.

The book does not use "Hīnayāna," a pejorative Mahāyāna designation, or "Śrāvakayāna," which presupposes a Mahāyāna framework of doctrinal classification. Individual schools are called by their own names. Where a collective term is needed, the book uses "practitioners of the path to liberation." The reasons are explained in the relevant chapters.

5. A guide for philosophical readers¶

The book combines historical narrative with philosophical analysis. Readers who already know the historical background, or have little interest in it and mainly want to follow the philosophical ideas, can take the following route.

Begin with the core concepts in Essay 1, Chapter 5, on the earliest teachings, including the four noble truths, dependent origination, non-self, and the five aggregates. They provide the basis for understanding all later philosophical developments.

The philosophy of the early schools in Essay 3 provides the immediate background to Mahāyāna philosophy. Particular attention should go to the Sarvāstivāda doctrine that "the three times all exist" in Chapters 1 and 2, the Sautrāntika criticism of Sarvāstivāda in Chapter 3, the analytical approach of Theravāda Abhidhamma in Chapter 4, and the debate over the person and "personal identity" in Chapters 5 and 6.

Madhyamaka, in Essay 5, forms the core of Mahāyāna philosophy. All five chapters focus on philosophical analysis, and reading the whole essay is recommended. Nāgārjuna's arguments in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā in Chapter 1 and Candrakīrti's Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka in Chapter 5 are the two main subjects.

Yogācāra, in Essay 6, centers on the theory of storehouse consciousness and arguments for consciousness-only. All five chapters offer philosophical analysis. Chapter 5, "The dispute between consciousness-only and Madhyamaka," is essential for understanding the fundamental disagreements between the two schools.

Tathāgata-garbha and buddha-nature, in Essay 7, receive their main philosophical treatment in Chapter 2, on the Ratnagotravibhāga, and Chapter 3, on the relations of tathāgata-garbha to Yogācāra and Madhyamaka. The subject is the most philosophically disputed part of the book, and the book states its positions more often here.

Logic and epistemology in late Indian Buddhism, in Essay 8, Chapters 1 and 2, concern the logical tradition of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Their tradition forms an independent philosophical system that readers with a strong interest in philosophy should not skip.

Within Chinese Buddhism, Tiantai in Essay 10, Chapter 5, Huayan in Chapter 6, and Chan in Chapter 8 each developed philosophical ideas of their own under the distinctive conditions of China. They did more than transfer Indian thought.

Within Tibetan Buddhism, the philosophy of Tsongkhapa of the Gelug school in Essay 11, Chapter 6, and debates over Tibetan Madhyamaka views in Chapter 7, especially the dispute between self-emptiness and other-emptiness, represent the most thorough continuation of Madhyamaka philosophy outside India. They deserve separate attention.

The Theravāda doctrinal tradition in Essay 9, Chapter 4, and Dzogchen and Mahāmudrā in Essay 11, Chapters 3 and 4, also contain philosophical ideas that call for examination. Compared with the subjects above, however, they stand somewhat further from the philosophical debates of the main Indian tradition. Readers can choose according to their interests.

6. The involvement of AI¶

AI took part in producing initial drafts, searching for and organizing some source material, and polishing the language of certain passages during the writing of the book.

The author personally read, checked, and revised every word of the main text. The author's judgment governs every historical assessment, choice of position, and philosophical interpretation. Whenever the author considered AI-produced content inaccurate or inappropriate, it was revised or removed.

Citations are the most error-prone part of the work. Repeated proofreading and checks of each citation against the original text have brought citation errors that AI may have introduced down to a level at least as low as in writing done entirely by humans. Evidence from the checks is presented item by item on the Citation verification page. Each citation gives a location and either the original text or a cropped image of the relevant page, so readers can repeat the check themselves. Even so, the author's abilities are limited and errors are inevitable. Readers are invited to report mistakes in citations or interpretation.

AI was used as a writing tool, with no essential difference from using dictionaries, searching databases, or working with typesetting software. The book reports its use openly because readers have a right to know. The disclosure is intended neither to raise nor to lower the book's credibility, which should be tested by its content and arguments themselves.

7. Length and the two-part structure¶

The volume has two parts with different tasks. Part I, History of philosophy, comprises Essays 1 to 12 and follows a historical sequence to explain the development of different schools over twenty-five centuries. It asks what was said, when, by whom, and under what circumstances. Part II, Philosophical analysis, comprises Essays 13 to 23 and sets aside the pace of historical narrative to examine the systems the book considers most important. It asks how an argument proceeds, what its premises are, and which step cannot be relied on. A subject is therefore treated differently in the two parts. What occupies one chapter in Part I may expand into an entire essay in Part II. Sarvāstivāda occupies a chapter of Essay 3 in Part I, while Part II devotes Essays 15, 16, and 17 to it. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā occupies a chapter of Essay 5 in Part I and the whole of Essay 18, plus an appendix presenting a formal system, in Part II.

Part II currently has eleven essays, all drafted and available online. They are analyses of the early teachings, Theravāda Abhidhamma, and Sarvāstivāda philosophy; brief expositions of the Mahāvibhāṣā and Abhidharmakośa; the proofs and interpretation of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā; brief expositions of later Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, Tiantai, and Huayan; and an analysis of Mahāyāna sūtras. The last six essays were added to the plan after writing began, so the contents differ from those proposed in the first draft of the Preface. Faxiang philosophy has been incorporated into the brief exposition of Yogācāra, and the Chinese developments of tathāgata-garbha philosophy have been divided between the Tiantai and Huayan essays. The essays on the Mahāvibhāṣā, the Abhidharmakośa, and Mahāyāna sūtras were not in the original plan.

The state of review should be reported honestly. The text and citations of every essay in Part II have been checked item by item against the original sources, and the mandatory prose and citation checks are rerun after every change. The essays nevertheless differ in maturity. Essays 13, 15, and 18 are the most substantial and have been revised most often, while Essays 16, 17, 19, and 23 remain brief expositions that will be expanded later. The English text of all three volumes has completed translation and chapter-by-chapter fidelity review and is now being revised alongside the Chinese. Translation review does not amount to a fresh verification of every citation in the book; unresolved source questions and authorial judgments retain the qualifications stated at their respective locations. The length allotted to each school in Part I still does not fully reflect the importance of its thought, owing to the constraints of historical narrative. Readers who want a school's complete arguments should go directly to the corresponding essay in Part II.

Bibliographical conventions appear at the end of each chapter. The terminology concordance is in the appendix.