Sthiramati


Sthiramati was a 6th-century Indian Buddhist scholar-monk. Sthiramati was a student of a Yogācāra scholar named Gunamati, and he was also a contemporary of another 6th century Yogācāra scholar, Dharmapala of Nālandā. Sthiramati is connected with Valābhi university, and also with Nālandā. Evidence from two inscriptions indicate that a figure named Sthiramati founded a monastery at Valābhi.
Sthiramati is mainly known for his numerous commentaries to Yogācāra and Abhidharma works which synthesized a varied tradition into a more coherent system.

Philosophy

While Sthiramati closely follows the classic philosophy of Yogācāra Buddhism found in the works of Vasubandhu and Asanga, his work also contains several innovative interpretations of Yogācāra philosophy.
One of Sthiramati's innovative contributions is his theory of meaning found in his Triṃśikā-bhāṣya. According to Sthiramati, all language use is figurative or metaphorical. Drawing on a passage in Vasubandhu, Sthiramati argues that all phenomena are mere mental appearances, i.e. mental representations. As such, no word can relate to an objectively existent phenomena. Words are only related to constructed mental appearances which come from the dependently arisen transformation of consciousness. These phenomena deceptively appear as objectively existent things, but are ultimately unreal, like optical illusions. Thus, no words have an objective referent, and thus all language is necessarily figurative, a theory that has been termed pan-figurative or pan-metaphorical.
Sthiramati's philosophy is one of various attempts to systematize and develop Yogācāra Buddhism. His system differed from that of other Yogācāra thinkers of his time, like Dharmapala of Nalanda, in various ways. Their varying interpretations are also discussed in Xuanzang’s Chéng Wéishì Lùn. One point of contention was the status of the dependent nature. Sthiramati thought that the dependent nature was characterized by duality, which is the result of false imagination. So for Sthiramati, the dependent nature is empty and not ultimately real. In Sthiramati's system, the only thing that has real existence is "the bare reality, free from the differentiation into subject and object". This is the true essence of the dependent nature. Because of this, Sthiramati's view has also been compared to the Nirākāravāda ("false aspectarian") view of Yogācāra by modern scholars, since he holds that all mental images are unreal and false.
Meanwhile, in Dharmapala's system, the dependent nature is the basis or pivot for both the imagined nature and the perfected nature. For him, the dependent nature is both empty in one sense but also not-empty is another sense. Thus, for Dharmapala, the dependent nature and the perfected nature are both real, and they are also understood as being neither the same nor different. Because of this, Dharmapala's view has been seen as prefiguring the Sākāravāda view.
Another disagreement between these two leading Yogācāra interpretations was their understandings of the doctrine of the transformation of consciousness. According to some Yogācāra thinkers, consciousness transforms into various aspects: the seeing aspect, the objective aspect, the self-reflexive or self-knowing aspect, and, awareness of self-awareness. For Dharmapala, these four divisions were seen as working simultaneously to give rise to experience. However, Sthiramati's system only accepts the first three divisions. Furthermore, for Sthiramati, the first two divisions are imagined and ultimately unreal, while only the self-reflexive aspect is ultimately real. Thus, in Sthiramati's system, there is truly only one aspect, one single dynamic self-aware consciousness in which causes and effects arise moment by moment.
The view outlined above is the traditional understanding of Sthiramati's philosophy in Chinese Yogācāra scholasticism. Some modern scholars like Hidenori Sakuma have questioned theis tradition understanding of Sthiramati's Yogācāra views due to a lack of primary source evidence. Sakuma argues that this view derives from the work of Kuiji, and that this is unreliable.
Furthermore, Sakuma also argues that it is likely there were different Indian commentators whose work later became conflated into one figure named "Sthiramati".

Works

Sthiramati wrote ten surviving commentaries on various Buddhist treatises:
  1. The Explication of the Compendium of the Abhidharma. The Tibetan tradition attribute this text to an author named Jinaputra.
  2. The Commentary on the Treasury of Abhidharma True Reality
  3. The Commentary on the Treatise on the Five Constituents
  4. The Commentary on the Treatise on Mental Presentation in Thirty Verses
  5. The Commentary on the Distinguishing of the Middle from the Extremes
  6. The Commentary on the Comments to the Ornament of Sūtras
  7. The Commentary on the Kāśyapa Chapter
  8. The Commentary on the Mahāyāna Madhyamaka
  9. The Commentary on the Exposition of Akṣayamati
  10. A commentary on the Collection of Means of Knowledge.
Furthermore, "Sāramati" is the author of the Ratnagotravibhāga according to the Chinese translator and scholar Fazang. However, this is likely to be a different figure than the commentator Sthiramati according to Sakuma. Takasaki Jikido is certain that the author of the embedded commentary to the core text of the Ratnagotravibhāga is "Sāramati".