Yaroslav Komarovski's book is a comprehensive treatment of the works of Shakya Chokden (1428–1507), a hitherto little-studied, controversial interpreter of Mahāyāna Buddhism who argued for a reconfiguration of Mahāyāna doxographical classification. Based on many volumes of texts by Shakya Chokden, Komarovski claims that Shakya Chokden's main objective was to raise the status of Alīkākāravāda from Cittamātra to that of Madhyamaka, and from Niḥsvabhāvavāda to that of Tantric Madhyamaka. The book is a welcome addition to the growing scholarship on an alternative interpretation to the “mainstream” Madhyamaka view of ultimate truth, or emptiness of inherent existence within the Tibetan Buddhist scholastic tradition. In particular, it sheds light on the intellectual milieu of fifteenth-century central Tibet that was predominantly influenced by the newly formed Geluk School.
Chapter 1 begins with a description of the political and religious climate of fifteenth-century central Tibet, which saw the decline of Pakmo Drupa rule and the rise of Rinpungpa. It then gives a detailed account of Shakya Chokden's life as found in his hagiography, written by Künga Drölchok (1507–65), and ends with an impressive list of Shakya Chokden's works arranged by chronology and by topic.
Chapter 2 provides a general narrative of the development of Indian Mahāyāna schools and their sub-schools and how later Tibetan doxographers interpreted them. The author also briefly discusses Shakya Chokden's own categorization of Madhyamaka into Alīkākāravāda and Niḥsvabhāvavāda, respectively “experiential” and “conceptual” tools for understanding ultimate reality.
Chapter 3 narrows its focus to examine Shakya Chokden's view of the two schools of Mahāyāna by questioning the “mainstream” Mahāyāna classification. Citing liberally from Shakya Chokden's diverse range of works, the author argues that Shakya Chokden did not subsume Alīkākāravāda under Cittamātra along with Satyākāravāda and that he interpreted Alīkākāravāda to be a Madhyamaka and Satyākāravāda to be a Cittamātra, a school ranked lower than Madhyamaka. The author also claims that Shakya Chokden undermined the category of Prāsaṅgika and Svātantrika as normative divisions of Madhyamaka because of such a reconfiguration (p. 137). Furthermore, the fifteenth-century scholar asserted that Indian thinkers, such as Nāgārjuna (ca. 150–200), Asaṅga (ca. fourth century), Vasubandhu (ca. fourth century), and Candrakīrti (ca. seventh century), were proponents of Great Madhyamaka. Essentially, the author demonstrates that the master generally equated Alīkākāravāda with other-emptiness and Niḥsvabhāvavāda with self-emptiness (p. 124) and, due to that, he was a proponent of other-emptiness and self-emptiness equally. Moreover, Komarovski shows that Shakya Chokden's definitions for the two emptinesses do not conform with Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa (1357–1419) on the meaning of self-emptiness, nor with Dölpopa Sherap Gyeltsen (1292–1361) on other-emptiness (p. 135).
Chapter 4 examines at great length how Alīkākāravāda differs from Satyākāravāda, how Alīkākāravāda and Niḥsvabhāvavāda differ from each other mainly in terms of their conceptual approach to ultimate truth, how they are compatible primarily in terms of their direct meditative experience of reality, and how the second and third Dharma wheels explicitly teach Niḥsvabhāvavāda and Alīkākāravāda respectively.
Chapter 5 explores the nature of primordial mind, the ultimate truth, and argues that “although it is ultimate reality, it is impermanent; although it is a self-cognition, it does not necessarily cognize itself; although grasping at its true existence has to be abandoned, it truly exists . . .” (p. 214). Moreover, the author demonstrates that there is much concordance between Tantra and Alīkākāravāda on the nature of primordial mind, which makes tantric Madhyamaka “much closer to Alīkākāravāda than to Niḥsvabhāvavāda” (p. 256).
The author clearly succeeds in laying out Shakya Chokden's positions on various doctrinal points by consulting many volumes of his written work. However, readers are left wanting a contextualized inter-textual analysis that brings the master's ideas into a dialogue with Tibetan masters, such as Dölpopa, Tsongkhapa, Rongtön Sheja Künrik (1367–1449), Gorampa Sönam Senggé (1429–89), and Jétsun Chökyi Gyeltsen (1469–1544), and their Indian predecessors, such as Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, and Candrakīrti. In so doing, the descriptions of Shakya Chokden's view as a “startlingly new reconsideration” (p. 2) and “original” (p. 3) would have been used with some reservation. For instance, Dölpopa argues in his work that the “Ultimate Cittamātra” should be classed as Madhyamaka with Appearance, the school that he takes as the highest of all Buddhist schools, and Prāsaṅgika as Madhyamaka without Appearance.Footnote 11 However, the author has only a few hundred pages for a little-studied yet prominent and prolific figure like Shakya Chokden. The book is highly recommended to those who are interested in the Tibetan appropriation of Mahāyāna doxography and the scholastic culture of fifteenth-century Tibet.
