Mahayana Buddhism Trivia Quiz

Answer: Prajñaparamita sutras

The Prajñaparamita sutras, dating from the 1st century CE and afterward, are traditionally said to be the word of the Buddha concealed for later discovery.

Answer: igneous

Similarly, "prajña paramita sutra" is cognate, in its entirety, with "knowledge/gnosis paramount suture". In other words, discourse on the perfection of wisdom. "Igneous" is cognate with Sanskrit "agni" (fire).

Answer: emptiness

If you guessed "impermanent" you are wrong with regard to the words, but pretty close with regard to the meaning. Translation from the Tibetan by Jay Garfield.

Answer: Nagarjuna

The founder of Madhyamaka (if there is any), Nagarjuna is traditionally said to have retrieved the Prajñaparamita sutras from the serpent beings (nagas) into whose hands the Buddha entrusted them for safe-keeping.

Answer: Idealism

Most early European scholars interpreted Madhyamaka as a form of nihilism; Nietzsche is a good example and more recently T. Wood. Robert Magliola and C. W. Huntington have offered deconstructive readings. B. K. Matilal interprets Madhyamaka as Kantian idealism. For better and for worse, numerous other comparisons are available in modern scholarship.

Answer: His views on emptiness

In the "Prasannapada", Candrakirti repudiates Bhavaviveka's use of autonomous inferences (svatantra anumana), accusing him of being intoxicated with the logic of argumentation. Candrakirti affirms Buddhapalita's adherence to reductio ad absurdam arguments (prasanga). This divergence became known in Tibet as the Svatantrika-Prasangika distinction. However, there is no unequivocal evidence that Candrakirti believed Bhavaviveka's view on ultimate truth was mistaken.

Answer: Own-being

For Candrakirti own-being, or svabhava, is nonexistent in both truths.

Answer: A snake wrongly grasped

"By a misperception of emptiness
A person of little intelligence is destroyed.
Like a snake incorrectly seized
Or like a spell incorrectly cast."

Translation from the Tibetan by Jay Garfield.

Answer: Nonexistence

Emptiness is not nihilation but the fact that phenomena are nothing more than a matrix of causes and conditions devoid of self, independence and permanence. What do not exist are the ostensible objects of mental imputation which are nothing more than reified constructs.

Answer: Idealism

A small but persistent number (from Classical India to contemporary scholarship) have argued that Yogacara must be distinguished from Cittamatra ('Mind-Only'), the latter being crude idealism, the former being a development of Madhyamaka philosophy.

Answer: Buddha nature (tathagatagarbha)

According to standard accounts of the Yogacara system, the imagined nature is dualistic, objectifying thought and its content; the dependent nature is the fact that the objects imputed by the imagined nature are merely mind; and the perfected nature is the purification of the imagined nature (duality) from the dependent nature (nonduality) through the recognition of the lack of objectivity of the contents of thought.

Answer: The absence of the imagined nature in the dependent nature.

As before.

Answer: Jñanagarbha

Jñanagarbha was an eighth century Svatantrika Madhyamika. Maitreya is regarded as the future Buddha, to whom five Yogacara works are attributed. There is some debate between scholars of Buddhism as to whether Asanga in fact authored these texts or whether there was an historical figure by the name Maitreya under whom Asanga studied. Dharmapala and Sthiramati were later proponents of Yogacara.

Answer: Dignaga and Dharmakirti

Another topic of much debate in Buddhist scholarship, medieval and modern, is the ontological commitments of Dignaga and Dharmakirti. Their texts are sometimes regarded as Sautrantika or Yogacara in view, while others have argued that they sought to provide Buddhists in general with formidable logical and epistemological methods regardless of ontological commitment.

Answer: Yogacara-Svatantrika Madhyamaka

sadhu sadhu sadhu