Vihaara dharmakirti biography

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More exactly, the criterion for something being real is that it must have “causal powers” (arthakriyāsamartha) and “perform causal roles” (arthakriyākāritva).[10] And crucially, particulars have such powers and perform such roles while universals and other pseudo-entities do not.

The weighting of these aspects in the theory of the “triple criterion” changes over history in complex fashions. Jackson (1993) contains an English translation of Chapter II and rGyal tshab’s Tibetan commentary. This initial reference-fixing is then preserved in a commonly respected convention that transmits the original intention and dubbing from speaker to speaker.[46] Subsequently “at the time of using [language] conventions” (vyavahārakāle) other speakers will rely on their previous habits, or “imprints” (vāsanā), and the earlier reference-fixing that is now a well-established convention in the community.

Dignaga’s teachings on logic and epistemology greatly influenced Dharmakirti’s approach to Buddhist philosophy. Perception is the direct experience of reality, while inference is reasoning based on logical connections.

vihaara dharmakirti biography

Dunne (2004) gives English translations of I.34–37, 68–75, 137–142, 214–223 and autocommentary. What the above-cited passage from the Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti suggests, however, is that for Dharmakīrti such mere regularities are somehow not enough and that something stronger is at stake: there are features “in” the causal relata themselves.

Vienna, August 23-27, 2005 (Beiträge zur Kultur—und Geistesgeschichte Asiens), Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

  • Lasic, Horst, 1999, “Dharmakīrti and his Successors on the Determination of Causality,” in Katsura (ed.), 1999, 233–242.
  • –––, 2003, “On the Utilization of Causality as a Basis of Inference.

    Similarly for his epistemology, philosophy of language and logic, with a few adjustments here and there. Technical logical and epistemological discussions on sources of knowledge were not just pursued for their own sake. They would stress that negative facts, like x not being blue, heavy, etc., are constituted by our mere interests (i.e., we seek a blue thing at such and such a location and come away empty-handed), and are less real than the fact that x causes perceptions of blue, a fact which is what it is objectively and independently of interests.

    While the inference-for-others has often been thought to somehow formally resemble a syllogism in Aristotelian logic, it is apparent that the presence and absence of conclusions in syllogisms and inferences-for-others respectively as well as the idea of what constitutes a “prover” for Buddhists, means that parārthānumāna and Aristotelian syllogisms are accounted for in terms of considerably different philosophies of logic (see Tillemans 1999, 69–87).

    3.3 Opaque contexts

    While provers (sādhana), i.e., logical reasons and examples, can of course be expressed in words, as in a “public” inference-for-others, they are not themselves words.

    In the Saṃtānāntarasiddhi, for example, he goes to great length to show that the Yogācāra idealist can use the same arguments for other minds–i.e., the argument from analogy—as the Sautrāntika realist, and just as the realist can avoid solipsism so the idealist supposedly can too.[6] For our purposes, essentially for simplicity and conciseness, we shall treat of Dharmakīrti’s philosophy as accepting external objects, with the proviso that most of the same ideas can be reinterpreted to conform to idealism.

    If it is accepted that hammer blows do change pots into potsherds, then why couldn’t someone skeptical about the Buddhist’s arguments just take that as the model of how things perish when they do? Dharmakīrti against Mīmāṃsā Exegetics and Vedic Authority, An Annotated Translation of PVSV 164,24-176,16, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

  • Eltschinger, Vincent, John Taber, Michael Torsten Much, Isabelle Ratié, 2018, Dharmakīrti’s Theory of Exclusion (apoha).

    Scholars consider it a foundational text for understanding Buddhist logic.

    Hetucakra

    Another important work by Dharmakirti is the Hetucakra, or “Wheel of Reasons.” This text focuses on the structure and analysis of logical arguments. After all, the permanent thing would be present unchanged both when the new effects are present and when they are absent.

    His works inspired intellectual inquiry and shaped Buddhist logic in these regions.