A study of the Indian commentaries on the 'Lan˙kavatarasutra': Madhyamaka and mind-only philosophy

This dissertation examines the relation between the Lan˙kāvatārasūtra [LAS] and the Madhyamaka school, by focusing on two Indian commentaries, Jñānaśrībhadra's Āryalan˙kāvatārasūtravr&dotbelow;tti (Toh. 4018) and Jñānavajra's Tathāgatahr&dotbelow;dayālam&dotbelow;kāra (Toh. 4019). It reexamines modern Buddhist scholars' opinion that the LAS was composed as a primary text for the Yogācāra school. The view commonly held in Japanese and Western scholarship is that the LAS was composed to provide some doctrines of the Yogācāra school. The dissertation problematizes this assumption by arising two questions. First, was the originally LAS composed after the appearance of the Yogācāra school? This question is doxographical. Second, did Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka thinkers, who utilize the LAS, believe that the teachings in the LAS were compatible with those in the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras ? This is a question of comparative religion and philosophy.; In addressing the doxographical question, this dissertation examines various aspects of textual issues of the LAS based on the textual information from Indian commentaries on this sutra. None of these sources give any indication that the LAS provides sectarian doctrines only for the Yogācāra school. Furthermore, in addressing the religious doctrinal question regarding the relationship between the LAS and the Madhyamaka school, by focusing on the Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka perspective, the dissertation examines two doctrines: the two truths and mind-only, which are fundamentally associated with the Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka school and the fact that this school maintains the Madhyamaka philosophical position on the one hand, while it accepts the Yogācāra school's ontology on the other. Rather than negating the Yogācāra school's doctrines, the later Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka thinkers developed the notion of mind-only shown to be in accord with and complementary to the two truths as authorized by the LAS. They consider that the teachings in the LAS are in concordance with the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras . The LAS played a fundamental role in the development of the Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka school.