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Louis de La Vallée Poussin, Theodore Stcherbatsky, and Tibetan Tradition on the Place of the Absolute in Yogācāra Buddhism
Author(s) -
CHILTON LEE,
OLDMEADOW PETER
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of religious history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1467-9809
pISSN - 0022-4227
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2009.00793.x
Subject(s) - buddhism , scholasticism , philosophy , interpretation (philosophy) , buddhist philosophy , scholarship , religious studies , mysticism , theology , political science , law , linguistics
This paper examines the contrasting approaches to the study of Buddhism of two great early twentieth‐century Buddhologists, Louis de La Vallée Poussin and Theodore Stcherbatsky. La Vallée Poussin understood Buddhism primarily as ‘religion’ and saw philosophic methods as subsumed in the religious experience of salvation; Stcherbatsky, coming from the Russian school, which had direct contact with Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism, saw Buddhism primarily as ‘philosophy’ and emphasised critical enquiry and logical consistency. The paper explores how this influenced their understanding of the place of the absolute in Buddhism generally and in Yogācāra Buddhism in particular. It compares their disagreement to differences at the heart of Tibetan scholasticism evident in the writings of Dolpopa (1292–1361) and Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) over the proper interpretation of Yogācāra. The paper also explores implications of the legacy of these two scholars for recent Western scholarship and for the understanding of Yogācāra.