[Advaita-l] Discussion on pratityasamutpada regarding

[srikanta at nie.ac.in]

To Sri ramesh krishnamurthy
You have written that there is a misunderstanding on my part regarding my
statement that Pratitya-samutpada was developed as an alternative to
Yogachara vijnanavada.Not at all.there have been different branches of
Buddhism,like Vaibhasika,sautrantika.there are again the schools which
hold satkaryavada and asatkaryavada.The Vaibhasikas believe in
satkaryavada and the there is external world.Vasubandhu who developed the
Yogachara Vijnanavada was a vaibhasika and later learnt the sautrantika
from Kashmir.His stepbrother Asanga who wrote the Mahayanasutralankara was
a sautrantika.The sautrantika view contains both the vijnanavada and the
pratitya-samutpada based on the teachings of Buddha.It is said that the
Buddha taught differently to his disciples.The pratitya-samutpada theory
is in its seed form in the earlier Buddhist canons."sarvam ksanikam,sarvam
nairatmyam,nirvanam santam""sarve nissvabhavah".you can read those books.
there are also books written by western scholars on Vasubandhu.Though the
Madhyamaka philosophy was later developed by Nagarjuna,there have been
rivalry in the different branches of Buddhism.Later the vijnanvada was
developed by Dinnaga and Dharmakeerthi.It was during that time the
mimamsakas under Kumarila Bhatta counteracted the Vijanavada view( see
Alambana pariksa by Dinnaga).Kumarila's book on Tarka
sastra,tuptika,srauta prakasika contains many references on this.
                                                      N.Srikanta.