Foundations Of Dharmakirti S Philosophy

Throughout the history of Buddhism, few philosophers have attained the stature of Dharmakirti, the "Lord of Reason" who has influenced virtually every systematic Buddhist thinker since his time. Dharmakirti's renowned works, written in India during the philosophically rich seventh century, argue that the true test of knowledge is its efficacy, and likewise that only the efficacious is knowable and real. Around this central theme is woven an intricate web of interrelated theories concerning perception, reason, language, and the justification of knowledge. Masterfully unpacking these foundations of Dharmakirti's system, John Dunne presents the first major study of the most vexing issues in Dharmakirti's thought within its Indian philosophical context. Lucid and carefully argued, Dunne's work serves both as an introduction to Dharmakirti for students of Buddhism and a groundbreaking resource for scholars of Buddhist thought.

"In the present work at attempt has been made to point out that according to Dharmakīrti continued significance and relevance of Buddha's philosophy could be legitimately hoped to be brought out with reference to paradigmaticity of emprical [i.e., empirical] world, the problem of pain and auffering [i.e., suffering] coming to human lot and doctrine of Anattā."--Page 4.

Dreyfus examines the central ideas of Dharmakīrti, one of the most important Indian Buddhist philosophers, and their reception among Tibetan thinkers. During the golden age of ancient Indian civilization, Dharmakīrti articulated and defended Buddhist philosophical principles. He did so more systematically than anyone before his time (the seventh century CE) and was followed by a rich tradition of profound thinkers in India and Tibet. This work presents a detailed picture of this Buddhist tradition and its relevance to the history of human ideas. Its perspective is mostly philosophical, but it also uses historical considerations as they relate to the evolution of ideas.

"Among the many works produced in the rich philosophical tradition of India's classical age, few have had more impact than Dharmakīrti's Commentary on Valid Cognition (Pramāṇavārttika). Composed in India in the seventh century, it became the cornerstone for the study of logic and epistemology in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. This work translated here is by one of the premier scholars of the Sakya school, Gorampa Sönam Sengé (1429-89). It illuminates the first two chapters of Dharmakīrti's work, those on using inference to enlighten oneself (svārthānumāna) and on establishing valid cognition (pramāṇasiddhi) both to determine the authority of the Buddha as a valid teacher and to eliminate the cognitive obstacles to awakening. The root text is composed in compact verses, and these are translated here along with Gorampa's word-by-word commentary that reveals their often veiled meanings. These chapters explore key issues in the philosophy of language and the nature of conventional designation, the way to employ sound reasoning, the proof of past and future lives, and the way to eliminate the view of self. In the skilled hands of translator Gavin Kilty, these insights are made accessible"--

This book deals first with the historical and doctrinal foundations of Dharmakirti's religious philosophy. It points to a socio-historical context of Brahmanical hostility toward non- and anti-Vedic denominations (chapter 1), new patterns of Buddhist self-diction (chapter 2), reinvented models of theoretical and apologetical rationality (chapter 3), and the dogmatic infrastructure underlying Buddhist epistemology (chapter 4). It argues that Buddhist "Tantrism" and Buddhist "logic," two roughly contemporary phenomena that can be regarded as the main literary outcomes of the "early medieval" period, share interesting features in terms of polemical targets and self-understanding. Since the end of the fifth century, intra-Buddhist polemics have become less relevant (at least in the form it had had heretofore) and partly receded into the background in favor of inter- or cross-confessional controversies. Departing from Abhidharma and addressing new, predominantly non-Buddhist targets resulted in the abandonment of scholastic, confession-specific terminology and methods as well as the development of new models of theoretical and apologetical rationality: first, the construction of a clear-cut concept of reason(ing) as opposed to scripture; second, the gradual constitution of a concept of practical rationality that served the apologetic purpose of defending the very possibility, or rationality, of the Buddhist path. Finally, the book examines the extent to which Buddhist epistemology can be said to be Buddhist at all as regards its deeper doctrinal structure. It attempts to interpret the foundations of Buddhist epistemology - the apoha theory, the doctrine of the pramanas, etc. - as a rationalization and an apologetically updated version of Buddhist dogmas on the structure of ultimate and conventional realities, on the cognitive bases of error and its elimination, and on the cintamayi prajna ("insight born of reflection") as a salvific means of a predominantly inferential order.

Description: This is an interesting and exciting book in showing how modern scholarship misunderstood three great Sautrantika critical philosophers. If the evidence adduced in this book is correct, then the history of Buddhist philosophy, fifth century onward, has to be rewritten. Also new studies and translations are implied of all the works of Dinnaga and Dharmakirti. The author sheds a new light, taking into consideration the views of ancient and modern scholars, on many complex and polemic issues of the Buddhist philosophy. The research is based on the discovery of the lost manuscripts of Dharmakirti by Rahula Sankrtyayana and it can be considered to be a corrective to Stcherbatsky's Buddhist Logic which is the heart of Buddhist philosophy. Stcherbatsky recognised this treasure of critical philosophy as the most excellent achievement of Indian mind which has further been evaluated in this book.

I. RATNAKIRTI. HIS PHILOSOPHICAL CONGENERS AND ADVERSARIES Ratnakirti flourished early in the 11th century A.D. at the University of Vi kramasila, a member of the Yogacara-Vijnanavada school oflate Buddhist philosophy. Thakur characterizes Ratnakirti's writing as "more concise and logical though not so poetical" 1 as that of his guru, Jfianasrimitra, two of 2 whose dicta are focal points of the present work. From a translogical or absolute point of view, Ratnakirti endorses a form of 3 solipsistic idealism. The Sarhtdndntaradu$alJa, his proof of solipsism written from the standpoint ofthe highest truth (paramdrtha), concludes that an exter nal nonmental continuum is impossible. In ultimate reality the cognizing sub ject, its act of awareness, and the cognized object coalesce - all are fabrications superposed on what is really an indivisible evanescent now (svalak$alJa). 4 As Ratnakirti's predecessors have put it: There is neither an 'I' nor a 'he' nor a 'you' nor even an 'it'; neither the thing, nor the not-thing; neither a law nor a system; neither the terms nor the relations. But there are only the cognitive events of colourless sensations which have forms but no names. They are caught for a moment in a stream and then rush to naught. Even the stream is a fiction. That sensum of the moment, the purest particular, that advaya, the indivisible unit of cognition, that is the sole reality, the rest are all fictions, stirred up by time-honoured 5 convention of language which is itself a grand fiction.

The Viikyapadiya of Bhartrhari and the Pramii1Jasamuccaya of Dignaga • are seminal texts in the history of ancient Indian philosophy. One text deals with grammar, the other with logic, both are the work of committed metaphysicians. Written within a span of less than a hundred years, between the fifth and the sixth centuries A.D., these texts have generally been treated separately, as representing independent schools of thought. This essay attempts to interpret these texts jointly, as a dialogue between a grammarian and a logician. This way of approaching these texts highlights unexpected facets of Bhartrhari's and Dignaga's theories of language and is intended to identify the individual achievements of each. Above all, this treatment is an exercise in writing the intellectual history of a period in time, rather than a history of a school of philosophy. The prevailing view of Bhartrhari holds that his linguistic techniques are not intrinsic to his metaphysics. The conclusions reached in the present essay are that Bhartrhari's metaphysics underlie his linguistic techniques and articulate their presuppositions. The prevailing view of Dignaga maintains that for him language deals with illusory entities and must falsify what is real. The conclusions reached in the present essay are that Dignaga's logical rules are designed to ensure that in using language one is not committed to a belief in fictional entities. My debt to modern scholarship in the field is considerable.