Presented at the 11th International Conference on Chinese Philosophy, Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan, July 26-31, 1999. Not to be quoted without author's expressed permission A Brief Retrospective of Western Yogaacaara Scholarship in the 20th Century Dan Lusthaus
Florida State University
The customary ritual for retrospectives of the sort being presented here is to provide a sort of annotated bibliography, offered more or less in chronological order, with occasional critical comments, brought to a conclusion by raising some issues or questions to be addressed in the future, capped by some encouraging remarks about where to go from here. I will reverse that order and begin with a series of questions, to be followed by the bibliographical overview. The questions should help us quickly gain an appreciation for what scholars have and have not accomplished to date. That, in turn, should provide some critical perspectives for our overview.
Questions: What is Yogaacaara? The first question that arises when thinking about scholarship on Yogaacaara is: What is Yogaacaara? The fact that no satisfactory answer, unanimously consented to by scholars, exists yet for this question says something about the state of present day Yogaacaara scholarship. I am not even asking about doctrinal or philosophical issues yet, though there is no consensus among scholars on that either. Simply, what are the parameters of Yogaacaara? What does the term include, and what does it exclude? Which Buddhists may we properly call Yogaacaarins? | |
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