Upacāra

upacāra. A key term in Buddhist philosophy; it has multiple meanings.

In the Pali tradition, the term is translated as "proximity," "neighbourhood," "preliminary," etc. See, for example, upacāra-samādhi.

In his translation of Vasubandhu's Triṃśikā from the Sanskrit language, Mattia Salvini translates upacāra as "approximation".

The term I translate with “approximation” is upacāra: it is a key-term in Buddhist philosophy, and offers very useful clues to understand the treatise. This term is sometimes translated as “metaphor”, but its sense may be somewhat broader. For example, a standard way to divide the teachings of the Buddha is to evaluate whether a certain statement is “based on an approximation” (aupacārika) or “based on the defining traits of things” (lākṣaṇika). When the Buddha speaks in terms of persons extended through time and space, it is no more than a convenient approximation of speech, not corresponding to the actual nature of things – which is disclosed in statements more directly in harmony with selflessness.

“Approximation” (upacāra) is, in other words, a synonym of “designation” (prajñapti) and “convention” (saṁvṛti). Outside of a strictly Buddhist context, an “approximation of speech” can be a metaphor, such as when one says “this student is fire” in order to highlight a quality of the student that is common to fire, such as the ability to consume quickly whatever he studies, or an extreme redness of complexion: such expression does not mean, literally, that the student is fire.

Sources

• Dharmavardhana Jñānagarbha (Mattia Salvini) (2022), Ācārya Vasubandhu’s Thirty Verses (Triṁśikā): A Manual for Students, saugatam.org