Karma, Adhipati , and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Wang Enyang’s (1897–1964) Yogācāra Theory of Transformative Nonviolence

Using Wang Enyang’s Yogācāra as a window, I analyze a modern recasting of Buddhist intersubjectivity as the foundation of an irrealist social ontology. Specifically, I investigate Wang’s use of adhipati (activating and amplifying influence; Chinese zengshang li , 增上力), a central Yogācāra doctrine that lays out the karmic mechanism of how different mental continuums could directly influence one another without presuming an “objective” outside. As I show, Wang superscribed onto adhipati a surprising social function—transformative nonviolence—when he struggles to make sense of intersubjective responsibility in events of murder and massacre. Joining the emerging studies of intersubjectivity in Buddhist traditions, I show that studying modern Yogācāra opens a new path to reconsider the premises of some Anglo-European debates, such as the realist versus idealist social ontologies, the ontological primacy of the individual versus the social, and the relationship between justice and nonviolence.