Absolute truth (Buddhism)
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The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths ( Sanskrit: ''dvasatya,'' ) differentiates between two levels of ''
satya ''Satya'' (Sanskrit: सत्य; IAST: ''satya)'' is a Sanskrit word loosely translated as truth, essence. A. A. Macdonell, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Asian Educational Services, , pp. 330–331 It also refers to a virtue in Indian relig ...
'' (Sanskrit; Pali: ''sacca''; word meaning " truth" or " reality") in the teaching of the
Śākyamuni Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...
: the "conventional" or "provisional" ('' saṁvṛti'') truth, and the "ultimate" (''paramārtha'') truth. The exact meaning varies between the various Buddhist schools and traditions. The best known interpretation is from the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose founder was the
Indian Buddhist Buddhism is an ancient Indian religion, which arose in and around the ancient Kingdom of Magadha (now in Bihar, India), and is based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha who was deemed a " Buddha" ("Awakened One"), although Buddhist do ...
monk and philosopher
Nāgārjuna Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of ...
. For Nāgārjuna, the two truths are ''epistemological truths''. The phenomenal world is accorded a provisional existence. The character of the phenomenal world is declared to be neither real nor unreal, but logically indeterminable. Ultimately, all phenomena are empty (''śūnyatā'') of an inherent self or essence due to the non-existence of the self (''anattā''), but exist depending on other phenomena (''pratītyasamutpāda''). In Chinese Buddhism, the Madhyamaka position is accepted and the two truths refer to two ''ontological truths''. Reality exists of two levels, a relative level and an absolute level. Based on their understanding of the '' Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra'', the Chinese Buddhist monks and philosophers supposed that the teaching of the
Buddha-nature Buddha-nature refers to several related Mahayana Buddhist terms, including '' tathata'' ("suchness") but most notably ''tathāgatagarbha'' and ''buddhadhātu''. ''Tathāgatagarbha'' means "the womb" or "embryo" (''garbha'') of the "thus-gone ...
was, as stated by that sutra, the final Buddhist teaching, and that there is an essential truth above ''śūnyatā'' and the two truths. The doctrine of ''śūnyatā'' is an attempt to show that it is neither proper nor strictly justifiable to regard any metaphysical system as absolutely valid. It doesn't lead to nihilism but strikes a middle course between excessive naivete and excessive scepticism.


Etymology and meaning

''
Satya ''Satya'' (Sanskrit: सत्य; IAST: ''satya)'' is a Sanskrit word loosely translated as truth, essence. A. A. Macdonell, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Asian Educational Services, , pp. 330–331 It also refers to a virtue in Indian relig ...
'' is usually taken to mean "truth", but also refers to "a reality", "a genuinely real existent". ''Satya'' (''Sat-yá'') is derived from ''Sat'' and ''ya''. ''Sat'' means being, reality, and is the present participle of the root ''as'', "to be" (
PIE A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
'; cognate to English '' is'').
A. A. Macdonell Arthur Anthony Macdonell, FBA (11 May 1854 – 28 December 1930) was a noted Sanskrit scholar. Biography Macdonell was born at Muzaffarpur in the Tirhut region of the state of Bihar in British India, the son of Charles Alexander Macdonell ...
, Sanskrit English Dictionary, Asian Educational Services, , pp 330-331
''Ya'' and ''yam'' means "advancing, supporting, hold up, sustain, one that moves". As a composite word, ''Satya'' and ''Satyam'' imply that "which supports, sustains and advances reality, being"; it literally means, "that which is true, actual, real, genuine, trustworthy, valid". The two truths doctrine states that there is: * ''Provisional ''or conventional truth ( Sanskrit ''-satya'', Pāli ''sammuti sacca'',
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
''kun-rdzob bden-pa''), which describes our daily experience of a concrete world, and * ''Ultimate'' truth (Sanskrit, ''paramārtha-satya'', Pāli ''paramattha sacca'', Tibetan: ''don-dam bden-pa''), which describes the ultimate reality as '' sunyata'', empty of concrete and inherent characteristics. Chandrakīrti suggests three possible meanings of : # complete covering or the 'screen' of ignorance which hides truth; # existence or origination through dependence, mutual conditioning; # worldly behavior or speech behavior involving designation and designatum, cognition and cognitum. The conventional truth may be interpreted as "obscurative truth" or "that which obscures the true nature" as a result. It is constituted by the appearances of mistaken awareness. Conventional truth would be the appearance that includes a duality of apprehender and apprehended, and objects perceived within that. Ultimate truths are phenomena free from the duality of apprehender and apprehended.Levinson, Jules (August 2006
Lotsawa Times Volume II


Background

Buddha's teaching of Dharma may be viewed as a path () of release from suffering or '' Dukkha''. The first Noble Truth equates life-experiences with pain and suffering. Buddha's language was simple and colloquial. Naturally, various statements of Buddha at times appear contradictory to each other. Later Buddhist teachers were faced with the problem of resolving these contradictions. Nagarjuna and other teachers introduced an exegetical technique of distinguishing between two levels of truth, the conventional and the ultimate. A similar method is reflected in the Brahmanical exegesis of the Vedic scriptures, which combine the ritualistic injunctions of the
Brahmana The Brahmanas (; Sanskrit: , ''Brāhmaṇam'') are Vedic śruti works attached to the Samhitas (hymns and mantras) of the Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva Vedas. They are a secondary layer or classification of Sanskrit texts embedded within ea ...
and speculative philosophical questions of the Upanishads as one whole 'revealed' body of work thereby contrasting the with .


Origin and development

While the concept of the two truths is associated with the Madhyamaka school, its history goes back to the earliest years of Buddhism.


Early Indian Buddhism


Pali Canon

In the Pali canon, the distinction is not made between a lower ''truth'' and a higher ''truth'', but rather between two kinds of expressions of the same truth, which must be interpreted differently. Thus a phrase or passage, or a whole sutta, might be classed as ''neyyattha'' or ''samuti'' or ''vohāra'', but it is not regarded at this stage as expressing or conveying a different level of ''truth''. ''Nītattha'' (Pāli; Sanskrit: ''nītārtha''), "of plain or clear meaning"Monier-Williams and ''neyyattha'' (Pāli; Sanskrit: ''neyartha''), " word or sentencehaving a sense that can only be guessed". These terms were used to identify texts or statements that either did or did not require additional interpretation. A ''nītattha'' text required no explanation, while a ''neyyattha'' one might mislead some people unless properly explained: ' or ' (Pāli; Sanskrit: '), meaning "common consent, general opinion, convention", and ''paramattha'' (Pāli; Sanskrit: ''paramārtha''), meaning "ultimate", are used to distinguish conventional or common-sense language, as used in metaphors or for the sake of convenience, from language used to express higher truths directly. The term ''vohāra'' (Pāli; Sanskrit: ''vyavahāra'', "common practice, convention, custom" is also used in more or less the same sense as ''samuti''.


Theravāda

The Theravādin commentators expanded on these categories and began applying them not only to expressions but to the truth then expressed:


Prajnāptivāda

The
Prajñaptivāda The Prajñaptivāda (Sanskrit; ) was a branch of the Mahāsāṃghika, one of the early Buddhist schools in India. The Prajñaptivādins were also known as the ''Bahuśrutīya-Vibhajyavādins''. History According to Vasumitra, the Prajñaptivād ...
school took up the distinction between the conventional () and ultimate () truths, and extended the concept to metaphysical-phenomenological constituents (''dharma''), distinguishing those that are real (''tattva'') from those that are purely conceptual, i.e., ultimately nonexistent (''prajñāpti'').


Indian Mahayana Buddhism


Madhyamaka

The distinction between the two truths (''satyadvayavibhāga'') was fully developed by
Nāgārjuna Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of ...
(c. 150 – c. 250 CE) of the Madhyamaka school. The Madhyamikas distinguish between ''loka-samvriti-satya'', "world speech truth" c.q. "relative truth"''The Urban Dharma Newsletter. March 16, 2004''
/ref> c.q. "truth that keeps the ultimate truth concealed", and ''paramarthika satya'', ultimate truth. ''Loka-samvriti-satya'' can be further divided in ''tathya-samvrti'' or ''loka-samvrti'', and ''mithya-samvrti'' or ''aloka-samvrti'', "true samvrti" and "false samvrti". ''Tathya-samvrti'' or "true samvrti" refers to "things" which concretely exist and can be perceived as such by the senses, while ''mithya-samvrti'' or "false samvrti" refers to false cognitions of "things" which do not exist as they are perceived. Nagarjuna's '' Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' provides a logical defense for the claim that all things are empty ( sunyata) of an inherently-existing self-nature. Sunyata, however, is also shown to be "empty", and Nagarjuna's assertion of "the emptiness of emptiness" prevents sunyata from constituting a higher or ultimate reality. Nagarjuna's view is that "the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth". According to Siderits, Nagarjuna is a "semantic anti-dualist" who posits that there are only conventional truths. Jay L. Garfield explains: In
Nāgārjuna Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of ...
's '' Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' the two truths doctrine is used to defend the identification of dependent origination (''pratītyasamutpāda'') with emptiness (''śūnyatā''): In Nagarjuna's own words:
Nāgārjuna Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of ...
based his statement of the two truths on the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta. In the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta, the Buddha, speaking to the monk Kaccayana Gotta on the topic of right view, describes the middle Way between nihilism and eternalism: According to Chattopadhyaya, although Nagarjuna presents his understanding of the two truths as a clarification of the teachings of the Buddha, the two truths doctrine as such is not part of the earliest Buddhist tradition.


Buddhist Idealism


=Yogacara

= The Yogacara school of Buddhism distinguishes the Three Natures and the Trikaya. The Three Natures are: *''Paramarthika'' (transcendental reality), also referred to as ''Parinispanna'' in Yogacara literature:''The level of a storehouse of consciousness that is responsible for the appearance of the world of external objects. It is the only ultimate reality.'' *''Paratantrika'' (dependent or empirical reality): ''The level of the empirical world experienced in ordinary life''. For example, the snake-seen-in-the-snake. *''Parikalpita'' (imaginary). For example, the snake-seen-in-a-dream.


=Lankavatara Sutra

= The Lankavatara Sutra took an idealistic turn in apprehending reality. D. T. Suzuki writes the following:


East Asian Buddhism

When Buddhism came to China from
Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...
(now Afghanistan) and India in the first/second century CE, it was initially adapted to the Chinese culture and understanding. Buddhism was exposed to
Confucianist Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or a ...
and Taoist influences. Neo-Taoist concepts were taken over in Chinese Buddhism. Concepts such as "T’i -yung" (Essence and Function) and "Li-Shih" (Noumenon and Phenomenon) were first taken over by Hua-yen Buddhism, which consequently influenced Chán deeply. The two truths doctrine was another point of confusion. Chinese thinking took this to refer to two ''ontological truths'': reality exists of two levels, a relative level and an absolute level. Taoists at first misunderstood sunyata to be akin to the Taoist non-being. In Madhyamaka the two truths are two ''epistemological truths'': two different ways to look at reality. Based on their understanding of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra the Chinese supposed that the teaching of the Buddha-nature was, as stated by that sutra, the final Buddhist teaching, and that there is an essential truth above sunyata and the two truths.


Hua-yen Buddhism

The Huayan school or Flower Garland is a tradition of Mahayana Buddhist
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
that flourished in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
during the Tang period. It is based on the Sanskrit Flower Garland Sutra (S. ''Avataṃsaka Sūtra'', C. ''Huayan Jing'') and on a lengthy Chinese interpretation of it, the
Huayan Lun The Huayan or Flower Garland school of Buddhism (, from sa, अवतंसक, Avataṃsaka) is a tradition of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy that first flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618-907). The Huayan worldview is based primar ...
. The name Flower Garland is meant to suggest the crowning glory of profound understanding. The most important philosophical contributions of the Huayan school were in the area of its metaphysics. It taught the doctrine of the mutual containment and interpenetration of all phenomena, as expressed in Indra's net. One thing contains all other existing things, and all existing things contain that one thing. Distinctive features of this approach to Buddhist philosophy include: * Truth (or reality) is understood as encompassing and interpenetrating falsehood (or illusion), and vice versa * Good is understood as encompassing and interpenetrating evil * Similarly, all mind-made distinctions are understood as "collapsing" in the enlightened understanding of emptiness (a tradition traced back to the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna) Huayan teaches the Four Dharmadhatu, four ways to view reality: # All dharmas are seen as particular separate events; # All events are an expression of the absolute; # Events and essence interpenetrate; # All events interpenetrate.


Absolute and relative in Zen

The teachings of Zen are expressed by a set of polarities: Buddha-nature - sunyata, absolute-relative, sudden and gradual enlightenment. The Prajnaparamita Sutras and Madhyamaka emphasized the non-duality of form and emptiness: form is emptiness, emptiness is form, as the Heart Sutra says. The idea that the ultimate reality is present in the daily world of relative reality fitted into the Chinese culture which emphasized the mundane world and society. But this does not tell how the absolute is present in the relative world. This question is answered in such schemata as the Five Ranks of Tozan and the Oxherding Pictures.


Essence-function in Korean Buddhism

The polarity of absolute and relative is also expressed as "essence-function". The absolute is essence, the relative is function. They can't be seen as separate realities, but interpenetrate each other. The distinction does not "exclude any other frameworks such as ''neng-so'' or "subject-object" constructions", though the two "are completely different from each other in terms of their way of thinking". In Korean Buddhism, essence-function is also expressed as "body" and "the body's functions": A metaphor for essence-function is "A lamp and its light", a phrase from the '' Platform Sutra'', where Essence is lamp and Function is light.


Tibetan Buddhism


Nyingma

The Nyingma tradition is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It is founded on the first translations of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into
Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
, in the eighth century. Ju Mipham (1846–1912) in his commentary to the '' Madhyamālaṃkāra'' of Śāntarakṣita (725–788) says: The following sentence from Mipham's exegesis of Śāntarakṣita's'' Madhyamālaṃkāra'' highlights the relationship between the absence of '' the four extremes'' (''mtha'-bzhi'') and the
nondual Nondualism, also called nonduality and nondual awareness, is a fuzzy concept originating in Indian philosophy and religion for which many definitions can be found, including: nondual awareness, the nonduality of seer and seen or nondiffer ...
or '' indivisible two truths'' (''bden-pa dbyer-med''):


Dzogchen

Dzogchen Dzogchen (, "Great Perfection" or "Great Completion"), also known as ''atiyoga'' ( utmost yoga), is a tradition of teachings in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Yungdrung Bon aimed at discovering and continuing in the ultimate ground of existence. ...
holds that the two truths are ultimately resolved into non-duality as a lived experience and are non-different.


Understanding in other traditions


Jainism

Anekāntavāda (Sanskrit: अनेकान्तवाद, "many-sidedness") refers to the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects. Anekantavada has also been interpreted to mean non-absolutism, "intellectual Ahimsa", religious pluralism, as well as a rejection of fanaticism that leads to terror attacks and mass violence. The origins of anekāntavāda can be traced back to the teachings of Mahāvīra (599–527 BCE), the 24th Jain Tīrthankara. 0The dialectical concepts of syādvāda "conditioned viewpoints" and nayavāda "partial viewpoints" arose from anekāntavāda in the medieval era, providing Jainism with more detailed logical structure and expression. The Jain philosopher
Kundakunda Kundakunda was a Digambara Jain monk and philosopher, who likely lived in the 2nd CE century CE or later. His date of birth is māgha māsa, śukla pakṣa, pañcamī tithi, on the day of Vasant Panchami. He authored many Jain texts such as: ...
distinguishes between two perspectives of truth: *''vyavahāranaya'' or ‘mundane perspective’ *''niścayanaya'' or ‘ultimate perspective’, also called “supreme” (''paramārtha'') and “pure” (''śuddha'') For Kundakunda, the mundane realm of truth is also the relative perspective of normal folk, where the workings of karma operate and where things emerge, last for a certain duration and perish. The ultimate perspective meanwhile, is that of the liberated jiva, which is "blissful, energetic, perceptive, and omniscient".Long, Jeffery; Jainism: An Introduction, page 126.


Advaita Vedanta

Advaita took over from the Madhyamika the idea of levels of reality. Usually two levels are being mentioned, but Shankara uses
sublation () or () is a German word with several seemingly contradictory meanings, including "to lift up", "to abolish", "cancel" or "suspend", or "to sublate". The term has also been defined as "abolish", "preserve", and "transcend". In philosophy, i ...
as the criterion to postulate an ontological hierarchy of three levels.advaita-vision.org, ''Discrimination''
/ref> * (paramartha, absolute), the absolute level, "which is absolutely real and into which both other reality levels can be resolved". This experience can't be sublated by any other experience. * (vyavahara), or samvriti-satya (empirical or pragmatical), "our world of experience, the phenomenal world that we handle every day when we are awake". It is the level in which both '' jiva'' (living creatures or individual souls) and ''
Iswara ''Ishvara'' () is a concept in Hinduism, with a wide range of meanings that depend on the era and the school of Hinduism. Monier Monier Williams, Sanskrit-English dictionarySearch for Izvara University of Cologne, Germany In ancient texts of ...
'' are true; here, the material world is also true. * (pratibhasika, apparent reality, unreality), "reality based on imagination alone". It is the level in which appearances are actually false, like the illusion of a snake over a rope, or a dream.


Mīmāṃsā refutation of Two Truths Doctrine

Chattopadhyaya notes that the eighth-century
Mīmāṃsā ''Mīmāṁsā'' (Sanskrit: मीमांसा) is a Sanskrit word that means "reflection" or "critical investigation" and thus refers to a tradition of contemplation which reflected on the meanings of certain Vedic texts.
philosopher Kumārila Bhaṭṭa rejected the ''Two Truths Doctrine'' in his ''Shlokavartika''. Bhaṭṭa was highly influential with his defence of the Vedic rituals against medieval Buddhist rejections of these rituals. Some believe that his influence contributed to the decline of Buddhism in India since his lifetime coincides with the period in which Buddhism began to decline. According to Kumarila, the two truths doctrine is an idealist doctrine, which conceals the fact that "the theory of the nothingness of the objective world" is absurd:


Correspondence with Pyrrhonism

McEvilley Thomas McEvilley (; July 13, 1939 – March 2, 2013) was an American art critic, poet, novelist, and scholar. He was a Distinguished Lecturer in Art History at Rice UniversityThomas McEvilley, G. Roger Denson (1996), ''Capacity: : History, th ...
notes a correspondence between Greek
Pyrrhonism Pyrrhonism is a school of philosophical skepticism founded by Pyrrho in the fourth century BCE. It is best known through the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus, writing in the late second century or early third century CE. History Pyrrho of E ...
and Madhyamika doctrines: Thus in Pyrrhonism "absolute truth" corresponds to acatalepsy and "conventional truth" to phantasiai.


See also

* Index of Buddhism-related articles * Nagarjuna *
Sacca ''Sacca'' ( sa, Satya सत्य) is a Pali word meaning "real" or "true". In early Buddhist literature, ''sacca'' is often found in the context of the "Four Noble Truths",_a_crystallization_of_Buddhist_wisdom.__In_addition,_''sacca''_is_one_ ...
* Simran * Tetralemma *
Upaya Upaya (Sanskrit: उपाय, , ''expedient means'', ''pedagogy'') is a term used in Buddhism to refer to an aspect of guidance along the Buddhist paths to liberation where a conscious, voluntary action "is driven by an incomplete reasoning" a ...
*
Secular Buddhism Secular Buddhism—sometimes also referred to as agnostic Buddhism, Buddhist agnosticism, ignostic Buddhism, atheistic Buddhism, pragmatic Buddhism, Buddhist atheism, or Buddhist secularism—is a broad term for a form of Buddhism based on hum ...


Notes


References


Sources


Published sources


Web-sources


External links


Barbara O'Brien: The Two Truths. What Is Reality?
{{Buddhism topics Buddhist philosophical concepts Pyrrhonism Theories of truth Vajrayana Madhyamaka Relativism Nondualism