Bhāviveka, also called Bhāvaviveka (;Xuanzang, Bianji (646). Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, vol.10. ), and Bhavya was a sixth-century (c. 500 – c. 570) madhyamaka Buddhist philosopher.Qvarnström 1989 p. 14. Alternative names for this figure also include Bhavyaviveka, Bhāvin, Bhāviviveka, Bhagavadviveka and Bhavya.Qvarnström 1989 p. 21. Bhāviveka is the author of the Madhyamakahrdaya (Heart of the Middle), its auto-commentary the Tarkajvālā (Blaze of Reasoning) and the Prajñāpradīpa (Lamp for Wisdom).Vose, Kevin A. (2015) Resurrecting Candrakirti: Disputes in the Tibetan Creation of Prasangika, pp. 31, Simon and Schuster.
In Tibetan Buddhism Bhāviveka is regarded as the founder of the svātantrika tradition of mādhyamaka, as opposed to the prāsaṅgika madhyamaka of Chandrakirti.
There is also another later author called Bhāvaviveka who wrote another set of madhyamaka texts. He is sometimes called Bhāvaviveka II by modern scholars.Vose, Kevin A. (2015) Resurrecting Candrakirti: Disputes in the Tibetan Creation of Prasangika, pp. 30-32, Simon and Schuster.
Background
The life details of Bhāviveka are unclear. The earliest source is Xuanzang's 7th century The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions. According to Xuanzang, Bhāviveka was a 6th-century scholar from south India (Andhra Pradesh) who traveled north in an attempt to engage in debate with the Yogacara master Dharmapāla (who refused to meet him).Eckel 2008, p. 9. Malcolm Eckel states that the sixth century was a period of "unusual creativity and ferment in the history of Indian Buddhist philosophy", when the Mahayana Buddhism movement was emerging as a "vigorous and self-conscious intellectual force" while early Buddhist traditions from the eighteen (Nikaya) schools opposed this Mahayana movement.
Eckel states that Bhāviveka may have been one of the many itinerant scholars at the time who traveled the country engaging their opponents in debate.Eckel 2008, p. 11. During this time, formal debate was a high stakes endeavor which played a central role in Indian monastic life and could determine the support monasteries received from kings who attended the debates.Eckel 2008, pp. 12-14. In some cases, one was not even allowed to enter an elite institution like Nālānda unless one demonstrated a certain amount of knowledge to the gatekeeper scholar.Eckel 2008, p. 13. Because of this, an effective debater like Bhāviveka needed to be conversant with the doctrines of their opponents, and this need is reflected in the writing of doxographical works like Bhāviveka's.Eckel 2008, pp. 14-16.
According to Olle Qvarnström, Bhavya developed and revised some of the methods and ideas of the Mādhyamaka philosophy first established by Nāgārjuna. Qvarnström argues that the need for this revision was that Madhyamaka was in danger of "being absorbed or overshadowed by the Yogacara school" and was also coming under pressure from various Brahmanical systems of philosophy. Qvarnström writes that "in order to avert these threats and to bring Madhyamaka philosophy into conformity with the prevalent philosophical requirements of the intellectual milieu in the sixth century, Bhavya used logical devices originally formulated by Dignaga and others."
Philosophy
Mādhyamaka and Pramāṇa Unlike previous mādhyamaka authors, Bhāviveka adopted Indian pramāṇa reasoning (as developed by the earlier Buddhist logician Dignaga) and applied it to the development of madhyamaka arguments in order to show that phenomena (dharmas) have no self-nature (svabhāva), and to establish that the true nature of all phenomena is emptiness.Vose, Kevin A. (2015) Resurrecting Candrakirti: Disputes in the Tibetan Creation of Prasangika, p. 3, Simon and Schuster. According to Ames (1993: p. 210), Bhāviveka was one of the first Buddhist logicians to employ the "formal syllogism" (, ) of Indian logic in expounding mādhyamaka. He employed these to considerable effect in his commentary to Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, entitled the Wisdom Lamp.Ames, William L. (1993). "Bhāvaviveka's Prajñāpradīpa ~ A Translation of Chapter One: 'Examinations of Causal Conditions' (Pratyaya)". Journal of Indian Philosophy, 1993, vol.21. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, p.210
Qvarnström outlines Bhāviveka's development of madhyamaka as follows:According to Bhavya, the refutation of a system by depicting its inherent contradictions without stating a positive thesis of one's own was not sufficient to settle a debate. This "reductio ad absurdum" (prāsaṇgika) argumentation had to be supplemented by independent propositions (svatantra), sometimes incorporated in formal syllogisms (prayogavākya). By means of independent inferences (svatantrānumāna) and proper syllogisms, Bhavya considered himself capable of both proving the validity of his own propositions and of refuting any upcoming counterposition, Buddhist or Hindu.Bhāviveka held that even though Nagarjuna himself had only relied on prāsaṇgika style reductios which do not put forth any positive thesis (and only refutes the arguments of the opponent), it was the responsibility of the commentator to make explicit the implications and logical consequences of Nagarjuna's text. This was to be done by making use of pramāṇa reasoning in order to establish logical arguments that proved the truth of mādhyamaka in a positive sense. That is to say, Bhavya sought to prove madhyamaka by arguing for the truth of independent theses (pratijñā) which did not rely on refuting the theses of others.Eckel 2008, p. 49.
Because of this, he criticized Buddhapalita, an earlier commentator on Nagarjuna, for failing to properly draw out these implications and construct proper syllogistic arguments to prove the truth of Madhyamaka.Shantarakshita (author); Mipham (commentator); Padmakara Translation Group (translators) (2005). The Adornment of the Middle Way: Shantarakshita's Madhyamakalankara with commentary by Jamgön Mipham. Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Shambhala Publications, Inc. (alk. paper), p.386Blumenthal, James (2009). 'Śāntarakṣita', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Source: (accessed: Monday October 12, 2009)Hayes, Richard, "Madhyamaka", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/madhyamaka/ . As Richard Hayes notes, Bhavya took pains to show that "Mādhyamikas do have a conviction that they are prepared to state and defend, namely, that all phenomena are devoid of an inherent nature, that is, a nature that they have independently." Hence, Bhavya held that mādhyamaka philosophers needed to provide proper arguments in favor of the basic mādhyamaka theory which states that all phenomena (dharmas) are empty (śūnya).
Eckel illustrates the differences in method between Bhavya and Buddhapalita as follows:The first substantive verse of Nagarjuna's MMK says: "Nothing arises from itself, from something else, from both, or from no cause at all." Buddhapalita explains the first part of this verse as follows: "Nothing arises from itself, because its arising would be useless, and because it would lead to an absurd conclusion. There would be no point for things that already exist in their own right to arise again, and, if something arises after it already exists, it would never cease to arise." Bhaviveka reformulates this argument as a positive assertion: "The internal sense media ultimately do not arise from themselves, because they already exist, like consciousness." By making this logical transformation, Bhaviveka takes an argument that reduces the opponent's assertion to an absurd conclusion (prasaṇga) and substitutes an independent (svatantra) inference, with a proper thesis (pratijñā), reason (hetu), and example (dṛṣṭānta).Eckel 2008, pp. 49-50Regarding the fact that Nagarjuna himself states that he does not defend any thesis in his The Avoidance of Refutations (Vigrahavyāvartanī), Bhavya makes use of the doctrine of two truths to defend his method. Though he agrees that ultimately there can be no thesis, it is still possible to use words in a conventional manner to convince others through reasoning as a "skillful means" (upāya).Eckel 2008, pp. 50, 52 Eckel notes that his defense of positive syllogisms may have been motivated by its importance in the sixth century Indian circles of formal debate. In these circles, the practice of merely attacking the views of one's opponent without defending a thesis of one's own (which was called vitaṇḍā) was seen as bad form and not well respected.Eckel 2008, pp. 51-53.
The Importance of Reasoning Regarding the importance and use of reason on the Buddhist path, Bhāviveka agrees with some of his Buddhist opponents that reasoning cannot know true reality. However, according to Bhāviveka, reason (tarka) does have a role in the Buddhist path and that is the removal of wrong and confused views about reality which block one's spiritual progress. Bhāviveka affirms that "Buddhas use faultless inference in a way that is consistent with tradition to completely reject many different concepts of imagined things" and "inference rules out the opposite of knowledge."Eckel 2008, pp. 29-30. For Bhāviveka, it is after reasoned inference has cleared away all the confusing wrong views (kudṛṣṭi) and conflicting doctrines (vāda) that a person is able to "see all objects of knowledge just as they are, with non-conceptual knowledge and with minds like space."
Furthermore, inference allows one to examine all the differences which are found among the various spiritual traditions and philosophies (darśana), and then to be able to determine which is true in a rational manner. This is because "if tradition has the status of tradition because it has an unbroken transmission, then everything is tradition, and it is necessary to determine which is true."Eckel 2008, p. 31.
Thus Bhavya sees reasoning about spiritual and philosophical matters as an key preliminary step which prepares the mind to develop a pure and non-conceptual type of wisdom (prajñā) that sees ultimate truth. In chapter three of the Verses on the Heart of the Middle Way, Bhavya states:Eckel 2008, pp. 41-42. 3.10-11. Ultimate wisdom negates the entire network of concepts, and it moves without moving into the clear sky of reality, which is peaceful, directly known, non-conceptual, non-verbal, and free from unity and diversity. 3.12-13. Surely it is impossible to climb to the top of the palace of reality without the steps of correct relative [truth] . For that reason, one should first discriminate according to relative truth, then one should analyze the particular and universal characteristics of things.
Doxography and Indian philosophy Because wisdom requires the clearing away of wrong views, there is a need to understand these views and thus an important part of Bhāviveka's philosophical project was a schematic theory of erroneous views. Bhāviveka does this in various ways, one of which is based on the early Buddhist Brahmajāla Sūtra which outlines 62 types of wrong views and he also provides another even longer list of 363 wrong views which is found in the Tarkajvālā.Eckel 2008, pp. 28-31.