Sthiramati and the Thesis of Mental Awareness Accompanying Sensory Awareness

Chu, Junjie (Leipzig University, Leipzig, GER)

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the Chinese materials concerning Dignāga's theory of mental perception (mānasaṃ pratyakṣam). Quite different from the interpretation of Dharmakīrti, in Xuanzang's Chen wei shi lun and Kuiji's commentary thereof, Dignāga is interpreted, along with Sthiramati, as holding the opinion that mental awareness arises simultaneously with sensory awareness as its companion (°sahānucara/°anucara). This kind of mental awareness is often referred to briefly as “mental awareness accompanying the five [groups of sensory awareness]” (Wu ju yi shi, 五俱意識).

This interpretation has its background in the Yogācāra thesis of mental awareness accompanying sensory awareness derived from the doctrine of the simultaneous arising of multiple kinds of awareness, which can be traced back to the early sources of the Yogācāra system such as the Yogācārabhūmi and the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra. This thesis consists of two aspects: (1) The sensory awareness can last for more than one moment, since it is always accompanied by the mental awareness which can be the searching thought (paryeṣakaṃ cittam) and discerning thought (niścitam cittam); (2) The mental awareness arises simultaneously with the sensory awareness and thus accompanies the latter and shares with the latter the same object-support (ālambana).

According to Kui Ji, this thesis is also advocated by Sthiramati. This attribution, in fact, can be attested in Sthiramati's available Sanskrit works; additionally, Sthiramati holds that this kind of mental awareness accompanying sensory awareness has the nature of being mental construction (vikalpaka) and has the clearness (spaṣṭa) in its content.

All these points will be examined in detail through comparing the Chinese materials with the relevant available Sanskrit and Tibetan materials. By doing so the author of this paper tries to prove that, in the Chinese Yogācāra tradition, Dignāga is interpreted in light of the Yogācāra thesis of mental awareness accompanying sensory awareness.

 

A Re-examination of Dharmakīrti’s Dating

Franco, Eli (Leipzig University, Leipzig, GER)

Already Wassili Wassiljew in Der Buddhismus, seine Dogmen, Geschichte und Literatur, St. Petersburg 1860 (Russian original 1857) dated Dharmakīrti in the seventh century. The current and widely accepted dating (ca. 635-650), however, has been established by Satish Chandra Vidhyabhushana in the posthumous publication A History of Indian Logic (1920: 303). The commonly found dating of 600-660 goes back to Erich Frauwallner who simply repeated Vidyabhushanas dating without acknowledging it. Both Vidyabhushana and Frauwallner base their dating on the fact that Hsuan Tsang does not mention Dharmakīrti, though I Tsing who travelled in India during 671-695 does. This dating of Dharmakīrti has been challenged several times, notably by Lindner, Kimura and most recently by Krasser. This new dating by Krasser (ca 550) has been accepted by leading scholars such as Ernst Steinkellner and Vincent Eltschinger. However, as I will try to show, Krasser’s dating raises considerable problems that have not been seriously addressed yet.

 

The Proof Formulae Used in the Fangbianxinlun

Katsura, Shoryu (Ryukoku University, Kyoto, JPN)

The Fangbianxinlun (方便心論 T 1632) attributed to Nāgārjuna (2nd century) and translated by Jijiaye (吉迦夜) around 472 and the Rushilun (如實論 T1633) attributed to Vasubandhu (4th-5th century) and translated by Paramārtha (眞諦 499-569) had been the only two texts of Buddhist logic before Xuanzang introduced Dignāga’s New Buddhist Logic by translating the Nyāyamukha and the Nyāyapraveśa that gave a strong impact upon Chinese studies of Buddhist logic (hetuvidyā 因明). I have been working with Prof. Brendan Gillon (McGill University) on producing the first English translation of the Fangbianxinlun for some time by now and we now have the first draft of the complete translation of the text. Thus, I would like to present the basic structure of the Fangbianxinlun and to discuss the characteristics of proof formulae (prayoga) utilized by its author in order to locate the text in the history of Indian logic.

 

Candrakīrti’s Absurd Syllogisms

Lang, Karen (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA)

Much has been written on Candrakīrti’s criticism of Bhāviveka’s use of formal logic and independent inferences and his criticism of Dignāga’s epistemological and logical views in the sixth chapter of his Madhyamakāvatara and in the first chapter of his Prasannapadā. Candrakīrti’s rejection of his opponents’ methodology does not indicate his ignorance of the set of rules that determine whether one side or another prevails in debate. He knows the formal criteria set down in Dignāga’s logical works and in the manuals of the Nyāya school for judging the soundness of an argument and applies these criteria to demonstrate the flaws in his opponents’ arguments. This paper will primarily focus on the syllogisms Candrakīrti constructs in his commentary on Catuḥśataka V.23 to ridicule a Mīmāṃsaka opponent who argues against Buddha’s omniscience.

 

Dignāga’s Opponents in Pramāṇasamuccaya, Chapter Two

Lasic, Horst (Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, ÖAW, Vienna, AUT)

Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya, the foundational text of the Buddhist epistemological tradition, exerted considerable influence on Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophical schools in India and was held in high esteem by Tibetan Buddhist scholars, too. Unfortunately, this important text has not yet been discovered in its Sanskrit original. The most important sources of information that we have at our disposal are two Tibetan translations of the Pramāṇasamuccaya, one Tibetan translation of Jinendrabuddhi's commentary thereon, a few Tibetan commentaries as well as quotations and other references in some Sanskrit texts. Only recently another source joined this group, a Sanskrit manuscript of Jinendrabuddhi’s commentary that has been preserved in the TAR for centuries. An international team of scholars, among them the present author, is working on a diplomatic and also a critical edition of this material. The first two chapters were already published in 2005 and 2012.

Jinendrabuddhi’s text not only helps the student of Indian philosophy contextualise many of Dignāga's statements, but provides the philologist with a fair number of literal quotations from the Pramāṇasamuccaya.

Taking advantage of these new circumstances, the present author, who is working on a reconstruction of Pramāṇasamuccaya, chapter two, will try to get a more precise picture of the competing positions Dignāga dealt with and thereby improve our understanding of his contribution to the field of inference.

 

Middle Way of East Asian Yogācāra Buddhism: Paramārtha (499-569) and Taehyŏn 大賢 (ca. Eighth Century CE)

Lee, Sumi (Los Angeles, USA)

East Asian Yogācāra Buddhism has been traditionally divided into two strands according to its association with the tathāgatagarbha doctrine, i.e., the “old” Yogācāra group that combined the Yogācāra system with the tathāgatagarbha doctrine, and the “new” Yogācāra group that excluded the concept of tathāgatagarbha from the Yogācāra system. In medieval East Asia, there were contrasting viewpoints between those who defended the “old” Yogācāra positions, such as universal Buddha-Nature inherent in all sentient beings, and those who held the “new” Yogācāra views, such as “five distinct spiritual lineages” (五種性; pañcagotra). Based on this historical dichotomy, modern scholars have established two doctrinally antagonistic Yogācāra lineages, and the question as to which group succeeded the original Indian Yogācāra tradition has consequently been controversial. The attempt to determine the authentic Yogācāra lineage among the two groups, however, appears to have doctrinal and historical problems, because we have a series of studies that challenge the bifurcated categorization of the Yogācāra tradition.

In the traditional bifurcation of East Asia Yogācāra, traditional Buddhist exegetes as well as modern scholars have had difficulty in identifying the scholarly position of Taehyŏn 大賢 (ca. eighth century CE), the putative founder of Pŏpsang (C. Faxiang 法相) school of Silla Korea. Taehyŏn adheres to the main tenets of the new Yogācāra, refuting the consciousness system of the old Yogācāra on the one hand, but advocating the concept of Buddha-Nature, the universal capability for enlightenment in all sentient beings, on the other. Taehyŏn’s “dualistic” attitude that understands the tathāgatagarbha doctrine inside the Yogācāra system cannot be explained in the antagonistic framework of East Asian Yogācāra.

Although typically known as a representative of the old Yogācāra group, Paramārtha (499–569), Indian scholar-monk and translator, shows a doctrinal affinity with Taehyŏn. In the bifurcated framework, scholars have considered Paramārtha as having integrated the Yogācāra teaching into the superior teaching of the tathāgatagarbha theory. Paramārtha’s consciousness system, however, contains both elements of the tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra perspectives without hierarchical difference. Paramārtha’s position is also reflected in his explanation of the notion of tathatā (眞如), and this understanding exactly conforms to Taehyŏn’s perspective. Paramārtha’s theory of Buddha-Nature also parallels Taehyŏn’s Yogācāra understanding of Buddha-Nature.

Paramārtha and Taehyŏn have been interpreted in the bifurcated paradigm of East Asia Yogācāra as belonging to the old and new Yogācāra group respectively. But Paramārtha’s neutral position between the tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra views and Taehyŏn’s Yogācāra understanding of Buddha-Nature both suggest the need for a new paradigm for the East Asian Yogācāra tradition. The spirit of the Indian exegete Paramārtha’s Yogācāra may be said in this sense to have continued to Taehyŏn in Silla Korea, despite the temporal and geographical distance between them.

 

Theory of Four Types of Pramāṇa in Sixth-Century China

Lin, Chen-kuo (National Chengchi University, Taipei, TWN)

The earliest Chinese indigenous writings on pre-Dignāga epistemology are found in the Dunhuang manuscripts, S4303 and S613, which are identified as the works of the Dilun School (Early Chinese Yogācāra School) in the sixth century. In this paper I will examine these small texts to see how Northern Chinese Buddhists of the sixth century interpreted the means of valid cognition (Skt. pramāṇa, Ch. liang). Briefly speaking, the issue of pramāṇa in the Dilun School was contextualized within the religious paths which are designed in parallel to the different doctrinal systems. In these small texts, pramāṇa was divided into four types: perception, inference, testimony, and teaching. The special function of each type is assigned to the different stage of practice in the path of cultivation. Accordingly, those Dilun masters did not conceive epistemology as a mundane project only. By contrast, they employed it to explain the cultivation of cognition that leads the practitioner to reach the trans-mundane state of mind. Moreover, as the texts show, the Dilun masters also developed a holistic theory of mind that makes sense only from the perspective of enlightened cognition. In this paper, I will also provide an annotated English translation of the sections of “Four Means of Valid Cognition” in S4303 and S613 with an introductory study.

 

Dharmapāla’s Commentary on Ālambana-parīkṣā: Debate, Epistemology, Logic and Hermeneutics

Lusthaus, Dan (Harvard University, Brookline, MA, USA)

Paramārtha, Xuanzang and Yijing each translated Dignāga’s Ālambana-parīkṣā (AP). Yijing’s version was embedded in his translation of Dharmapāla’s commentary Guan suoyuan lun shi 觀所緣論釋 (T.31.1635). It is a remarkable text and foundational for later interpretations of AP in India, China, Japan and, indirectly through Vinītadeva in Tibet who cites it constantly in his own AP commentary (dmigs pa brtag pa’i ’grel bshad, Derge #4241). At least two commentaries on the Yijing-Dharmapāla AP were written during the Ming dynasty (by Mingyu 明昱 and Zhixu 智旭) and several more in the twentieth century (e.g. by Ouyang Jingwu 歐陽竟無, Lü Cheng 呂澂, etc.), attesting to its continued importance in China, especially during revivals of interest in Yogācāra.

Dignāga’s AP, consisting of eight verses with autocommentary, is a critique of atomism, entertaining and refuting three atomic theories. Dharmapāla unpacks Dignāga’s text in several interesting and instructive ways. First, by treating AP not simply as an epistemological exposition, but more importantly as a debate text, Dharmapāla prominently discusses the strategic and tactical maneuvering Dignāga and his opponents deploy to advance their arguments, step by step, move by move, explaining why one concedes one thing (for the moment), thus forcing another concession from the opponent, and so on, i.e., the strategy behind debate tactics. This is very revealing about the practice of debate in pre-Dharmakīrti Buddhist hetu-vidyā. Second, Dharmapāla unpacks several explicit and implicit syllogisms in AP, adding some of his own to further the argument (Vinītadeva discusses these in his AP commentary—calling them vaidharmya [Tib. chos mi mthun pa] proofs—and adds more syllogisms of his own). Third, since the opponents are primarily Sarvāstivādins of different types, we get to see a crucial moment in the development of hetu-vidyā in which “philosophy” of the type which came to be called pramāṇa-vāda was still in earnest conversation with and working its way through Abhidharma, which was its Buddhist hetu-vidyā and debate predecessor. Dharmapāla provides detailed arguments for all sides debating theories about atoms, perception, mental activities, and so on. Fourth, Dharmapāla displays a sharp hermeneutic sensibility, cleverly blending epistemological, logical, and strategic issues by focusing on and highlighting seeming incidentals, such as the ādi (deng 等 = “etc.”) in cakṣur-ādi-vijñāna (literally: “eye etc. consciousness”), in AP’s first sentence, constructing a series of arguments based on his contention that this ādi is limited to the first five sensory consciousnesses, and not any of the mental consciousnesses beyond them, in order to explain why Dignāga would concede “atoms” as an acceptable prasiddha (mutually agreed upon legitimate item for debate) in the first place, seeming to go against the debate tradition of the day.

My paper will discuss all of these topics, focusing primarily on the light it sheds on debate strategy and tactics, the most intriguing aspect of Dharmapāla’s treatment.

 

Justification, Credibility and Truth: Sucaritamiśra on Kumārila’s Intrinsic Validity

McCrea, Lawrence (Cornell University, Ithaca, USA)

It has long been recognized that the theory of intrinsic validity or svataḥ prāmāṇya represents the most important and distinctive contribution of Mīmāṃsā, and of the great seventh century Mīmāṃsaka Kumārila in particular, to Indian pramāṇa theory. But what exactly Kumārila meant by this doctrine has been the subject of considerable controversy almost since it was first propounded in Kumārila's Critical Commentary in Verse (Ślokavārttika). The three commentators on the relevant section of the Ślokavārttika whose works survive explain Kumārila's position in markedly different ways, all of which can claim some support from Kumārila's own brief and often cryptic formulations. Several recent studies (Taber 1992, Arnold 2005) have sought to explore the doctrine of intrinsic validity through the lense of these commentaries, taking the earliest and latest of these commentators, Umbeka and Pārthasārathimiśra, as forming the principal poles of argument. The views of the third, Sucaritamiśra, who falls chronologically in between these two, have been by comparison almost totally neglected, though there is good reason to believe that in some respects his far more epistemologically radical reading is closer to Kumārila's own intention. This paper will seek to explain and evaluate Sucaritamiśra's reading and the light it sheds on Kumārila's pramāṇa theory.

On dharmisvarūpaviparītasādhana

Moriyama, Shinya (Shinshu University, Matsumoto, JPN)

This presentation will discuss a logical fallacy called dharmisvarūpaviparītasādhana, one of the four kinds of “contradictory reason” (viruddha), documented in Śaṅkarasvāmin’s Nyāyapraveśa(ka). The topic of the “four kinds of the contradictory reasons” (四相違) was recognized by Japanese inmyō (因明, *hetuvidyā) scholars as one of the most difficult sections of the treatise partly due to a complex exposition by Kuiji (窺基) in his Great Commentary (大疏, 《因明入正理論疏》, T. 1840) on Xuanzang’s translation of the text 《因明入正理論》 (T. 1630). This section deals with some complex proofs composed by Brahmanical opponents like the Sāṅkhya and the Vaiśeṣika, which superficially fulfill triple conditions of valid reason but contain a contradiction to what the author of the proof intended to claim. Of the four kinds, the third one, dharmisvarūpaviparītasādhana, is particularly problematic because Dignāga mentioned it very briefly in his Nyāyamukha and Pramāṇasamuccaya and Dharmakīrti completely neglected it. It is only Śaṅkarasvāmin’s text and its Indian and Chinese commentaries that we can use for its full understanding. The target proof that is addressed by a certain Vaiśeṣika opponent is the following: “Existence (bhāva) is neither a substance nor an action, nor a quality, because it possesses one substance [as its locus] and because it resides in qualities and actions, like lower universals (sāmānyaviśeṣa)” (Tachikawa 1971: 126). To this proof, Śaṅkarasvāmin points out that the reason concludes the non-existence of the existence (bhāvasyābhāvatva), namely, the conclusion that contradicts the locus of the opponent’s thesis, the existence. Although previous studies by H. Ui and M. Tachikawa tried to explain the proof and its fallacy, there are still ambiguous points regarding the background reasoning of the proof. The aim of this presentation is to reevaluate Chinese and Japanese Buddhist logicians’ approaches to the proof, which will provide a new perspective on pre-Dharmakīrtian Buddhist logic.

 

Buddhist Logic and Its Transformation in Korean Zen Buddhism

Park, Jin Y. (American University, Washington, USA)

Buddhist logic, as it was developed in India and early Chinese Buddhism, demonstrated a unique way through which Buddhism reasons about the world and existence. As Buddhism evolved, however, the idea represented by Buddhist logic and epistemology met challenges by other Buddhist schools, which considered the very mode of thinking involved in Buddhist logic as a limitation to attaining the goal of Buddhist practice itself. In the context of Korean Buddhism, this challenge is especially visible in Huayan and Zen Buddhism.

This paper discusses how Buddhist logic was employed and, at the same time, transformed in Ŭisang’s (625–702) Huayan Buddhism and subsequently by Chinul’s (1158–1210) Zen Buddhism. What were the fundamental concerns of these two Korean Buddhist thinkers in their dealings with traditional Buddhist logic and what were their proposals to remedy the problems? The paper concludes with the invitation to think about how the pramāṇa thinkers might respond to Zen logic and whether Zen Buddhist revision of Buddhist logic can sustain itself in facing challenges from the thinkers of the early Buddhist logic. 

 

 

Universally Valid Logical Principles in Gomyō’s 護命(749?-834) Theory of Reason. Also an Example of the Transmission of hetuvidyā from India via China to Ancient Japan.

Paul, Gregor (Karlsruhe University, Karlsruhe, GER)

Why should one take over the trouble of discussing the question “Are there universally valid logical laws?” One should do this, because many scholars, politicians and journalists have answered the question in the negative. Some even maintain that “Eastern logic” would deny the universal validity of such principles as the laws of identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle, and transitivity. More importantly, such – erroneous – denials have fatal implications. Imagine for instance that there would in fact exist two incompatible classes of logical laws that are equally valid. As a matter of consequence, people differing in their acceptance of such classes, say Europeans and Asians, would regularly derive different conclusions from identical premises. Any effort of reaching an understanding between the two groups of adherents would then be virtually impossible even in questions of mathematics – which would neither be compatible nor in keeping with general human experience overall, to say the least. To put it another way; if one can show that there are universally valid logical principles this might prove an efficient antidote against exotism, esotericism, fanciful ideas of “cultural otherness,” and against the invention of unbridgeable cultural differences.
By analysing the fundamental doctrines of logic put forward in Dignāgean Skt. hetuvidyā and its Chinese and Japanese versions yinming and immyō, I should like to show, or at least to strongly indicate, that (1) Indian and Sino-Asian Buddhist scholars developed, defended or applied the same basic notions of non-contradiction and logical conclusion and that (2) these notions constitute versions of a logic deductively equivalent with so-called Aristotelian logic. I shall try to argue for my hypothesis by providing evidence from what I regard as an exemplary case, namely the chapter on immyō included in Gomyō’s treatise Daijō-hossō-kenjin-shō 大乗法相研神章 (T, vol. 71. no. 2309).

 

Dharmakīrti and svataḥprāmāṇya

Taber, John (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA)

In two verses in the Pramāṇasiddhi chapter of his Pramāṇavārttika (206-207) Dharmakīrti states, while demonstrating how it is possible for knowledge to uproot the defilements once and for all, (a) that it is the inherent nature of a cognition to apprehend an object as it really is; (b) that a cognition’s deviation from that nature can be explained only by the influence of an extrinsic factor; and (c) that an erroneous cognition (that is, one that deviates from its inherently veracious nature) is dependent on another cognition for its removal. This sequence of ideas is structurally very similar to the Mīmāṃsā doctrine of intrinsic validity (svataḥprāmāṇya), as defended for example by Kumārila. (This was, I believe, first noted by Eli Franco.) The passage even has certain linguistic affinities with statements of Kumārila and the Mīmāṃsāsūtra. In this paper I shall consider (1) whether this passage is another instance where Dharmakīrti deploys a Mīmāṃsā teaching in service of his own agenda and (2) whether it proves that Dharmakīrti was acquainted with the works of Kumārila. While answering (1) in the affirmative, I conclude that we must suspend judgment about (2), especially in light of recent work by Yigal Bronner that sharpens the criteria for determining the relative chronology of authors on the basis of a comparison of their writings.

 

A Study of Gomyō’s Exposition of Hetuvidyā (2): The Determination of the Argument for Consciousness Only

Tang, Mingjun (The Institute of Philosophy, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai, CHN)

Gomyō 護命 (750–834) was the representative figure in the South Temple Tradition (Nanji-den 南寺伝) of Hetuvidyā studies in the early history of Japanese Buddhism, as his elder contemporary Zenjū 善珠 (723–797) was the representative of the North Temple Tradition (Hokuji-den 北寺 伝 ).

Gomyō’s understanding of Hetuvidyā is reflected in his “Brief Exposition of the Doctrine Introducing the True Principle of Hetuvidyā” (Ryakken- immyō-nisshōri-mon 略顯因明入正理門, T 2309, 29a 5– 36b24). It is the 10th chapter of his Chapters Investigating the Essence of Mahāyāna Dharma Character (Daijō - hossō - kenjin - shō 大乘法相研神章). As indicated in the table of contents at the beginning, this chapter can be divided into four sections. The first section (29a9–29b13) explains the separate meanings of “Hetuvidyā” and “Nyāya”. The second section (29b14–29c17) is on the doctrine of six reasons. The third (29c18–30c27) is a clear and impressive exposition of Dignāga’s theory of hetucakra. And the fourth (30c28–36b24) is on demonstration (sādhana) and refutation (dūṣaṇa). However, just a few passages after the beginning of the fourth section, we find a quite distinct and independent portion (31c1–the end) focusing on Xuanzang’s famous argument for consciousness only (唯識比量), and this portion at its starting point has been given the separate title “The Determination of the Argument for Consciousness Only” (唯識比量決). This seems to suggest that there must be a separate and probably “fifth” section of our text, although its title has not been highlighted at the beginning of the whole chapter.

Gomyō’s “Exposition of Hetuvidyā” bears the following two salient features. First, Gomyō’s arrangement of the materials handed down from his Chinese predecessors explicitly and unambiguously brings the theory of reason, especially the hetucakra, into the central place of Hetuvidyā. Second, when explaining Xuanzang’s argument for consciousness only, Gomyō has paid a lot of attention on the philosophical background of this argument, e.g. the doctrine of two truths of the Yogācāra School, the representational theory of perception (sākārajñānavāda) of the Sarvāstivāda School, as well as Dharmapāla’s four arguments for consciousness only in the Vijñaptimātratāsiddhiśāstra (成唯識論) and so on. Meanwhile, what is also interesting in this “fifth” portion of our text is that there is an explicit reference to his elder contemporary Zenjū in the discussion of Jayasena’s argument for the authority of Mahāyāna Buddhism. All those clues will meaningfully help us spell out a vivid picture of the practice of Buddhist logic around the 7th century India.

The present paper, as the second in my serial studies of Gomyō’s text on Buddhist logic, will provide a critical text with an annotated translation as well as an analysis of the “fifth” section, namely, Gomyō’s “Determination of the Argument for Consciousness Only”.

 

Moongye and Kuiji on the Definition of pakṣa

Woo, Jeson (Dongguk University, Seoul, KOR)

The Nyāyapraveśa (因明入正理論) is a work composed as an introduction to Buddhist logic by Śaṅkarasvāmin, who is said to have been a disciple of Dignāga (ca. 480-540). Ever since Xuanzang (ca. 602-664) made a Chinese translation of this work, at least ten scholars, such as Shentai (神泰), Moongye (文軌), Kuiji (窺基) and Wonhyo (元曉), have provided their own commentary on it. Among them, Moongye’s and Kuiji’s commentaries, the ‘Old commentary’ (古疏) and the ‘Great commentary’ (大疏) respectively, are still extant. These commentaries laid the foundations of so-called yinming (因明, hetuvidyā) in East Asia.

The aim of this paper is to deal with the definition of the pakṣa in the Nyāyapraveśa. As the first factor of the three-membered syllogism, the concept is an important one in debates between Moongye and Kuiji. Their dispute is over how to understand Śaṅkarasvāmin’s definition of the pakṣa, namely: “prasiddho dharmī prasiddhaviśeṣaviśiṣṭayā svayaṃ sādhyatvenepsitaḥ.” The main issue is how to interpret the phrase “prasiddhaviśeṣaviśiṣṭayā.” Moongye takes this phrase to suggest the pakṣa ‘as being qualified by a recognized qualifier (差別爲性).’ On the other hand, Kuiji takes it to denote the pakṣa as being such ‘on account of being qualified by a recognized qualifier (差別性故).’ In this paper, I will discuss the issues at stake in Moongye’s and Kuiji’s divergent readings of the definition of the pakṣa, as well as considering what kind of effect their different readings may have had upon the development of Buddhist logic in East Asia.

 

On Mental Consciousness and Its Objects: Yogācāra versus Sautrāntika

Yao, Zhihua (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, HKG)

The current paper addresses the following issue: whether mental consciousness has direct access to physical objects. According to the Sautrāntikas, only sense organs have direct access to their respective sensory or external objects; neither sense consciousness nor mental consciousness is able to directly grasp these objects. This is usually labeled “indirect realism” and taken to be one of the Sautrāntika innovations. We have plenty of evidence for the Sarvāstivāda-Sautrāntika debates on this issue.

Now how do the Yogācāras, being closely associated with both groups, treat this issue? Are they taking the side of Sarvāstivāda or Sautrāntika? Recently some scholars claim that as early as in the Yogācārabhūmi, it already propounds the view that “the mental faculties of manas and manovijñāna do not have direct access to rūpa, to physical objects.” But I will argue that the early Yogācāras mainly follow the Sarvāstivādins on this issue of the objects of mental consciousness; only some late Yogācāras, e.g., Dharmapāla, accept the Sautrāntika idea, probably through the influence of Dignāga.

 

Hetu-vidyā Transmitted or Only Translated? Some Remarks on Chinese Interpretations of the Distinction between Two Types of Negation

Zamorski, Jakub (National Chengchi University, Taipei, TWN)

In contemporary studies on East Asian hetu-vidyā (yinming 因明) the term zhequan (遮詮) (literally “revealing by negating” or “negating-and-revealing”) has usually been mentioned as the antonym of biaoquan (表詮) (a positing statement or an affirmative statement of truth). As such, it has been presented as the closest counterpart of the Western notion of negation within the system of the so-called Buddhist logic. However, in Xuanzang’s 玄奘 (602–664) translation of Dignāga’s Nyāya-mukha the word zhequan is used in contradistinction with zhilan (止濫 lit. “stopping the overflow”) in a passage referring to two kinds of negation – paryudāsa and prasajya-pratiṣedha – well-known in South Asian grammatical and philosophical traditions. The aim of the present article is to analyse how these two terms were interpreted by the authors of the earliest Chinese commentaries on hetu-vidyā texts: monks Shentai 神泰, Wengui 文軌, and Kuiji 窺基. It appears that while those commentators were at least to some degree acquainted with Dignāga’s semantic theory, they also relied on their own ingenuity in interpreting the meanings of Chinese compounds employed by Xuanzang. The relevant passages from their works provide an illustrative case study of difficulties involved in transmission of the Indian “science of reasons” to a Chinese linguistic and cultural sphere in the 7^th century.