Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c26.s2.16

Language: English

c26.s2.16.1

The misfortune which has reduced us to mere translations of Dignāga's works has been escaped by Dharmakīrti,¹ who falls in the seventh century A. D., and whose *Nyāyabindu* with the commentary of Dharmottara (ninth century A. D.) still remains the premier source for our knowledge of the details of Buddhist logical development. In this case again there is some doubt as to the philosophical tenets which lay at the base of the author's contentions, for, while he appears in another text as a definite adherent of the Vijñānavada, it is held by the author of the *Nyāyabinduṭīkā-ṭippaṇī*,² a commentary on Dharmottara's commentary, that the *Nyāyabindu* is written from the Sautrāntika point of view—that is, recognizing the reality of an external world, known to us by inference only from the content of our experience. The point is hardly soluble with our evidence; the similarity of the views of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, as we have them, is very close, and, assuming that Dignāga wrote as an idealist,³ the issue resolves itself into the question whether Dharmakīrti has so modified the view of Dignāga as to allow of reference to an external reality which Dignāga would have declined to accept. But it is obvious that it would be extremely difficult to decide this point without express intimation of the author's definite views;

c26.s2.16.2

it is not enough to make a man a realist in metaphysics, because in a logical treatise he speaks of an element as fact (*artha*), external (*bāhya*), or having a distinct character (*svalakṣaṇa*). His metaphysical views, he is entitled to ask, shall be gathered from treatises in which he has set them out, not inferred from logical doctrines which do not formally discuss the metaphysical nature of the given element in presentation. As regards, however, the question of knowledge, there is no point in urging the question; it is perfectly clear that the Sautrāntikas accepted the existence of ideas only as known to us, whence we infer an external reality; if, then, we accept the suggestion that Dharmakīrti was an adherent of that school in the ordinary sense of the term, we cannot suppose that he held the doctrine that ideas copy reality. In fact, whether Dharmakīrti was a Sautrāntika or a Vijñānavādin, his position might be expressed in the same terms; equally in either case all knowledge is of ideas; logical analysis must accept this fact; whether the source of the sensation is external or results from the action of consciousness, the sensation as such is unknowable and momentary. This is the essence of the doctrine of Dharmakīrti; the sensation (kṣaṇa) cannot be grasped (kṣaṇasya jñānena prāpayitum aśakyatvāt);¹ it becomes an object of knowledge only in so far as imagination gives it the necessary characteristics for knowledge.

c26.s2.16.3

This is done by the action of the intellect in clothing the momentary impression with the result of past and the presage of future experience; it is the intellect which concerts the sensation into a knowable object, a moment series. Take away the work of the imagination (niścaya,² kalpanā, adhyavasāya), and you have nothing knowable left; you have merely the bare fact of sensation. The parallelism with the Kantian conception of the synthesis of apprehension is quite clear, however less effectively brought out. There is, however, the vital difference that in the view of Dharmakīrti, as of Dignāga, the addition of the intellectual element deprives perception of the truth of sensation (abhrānta); that is, he fails to realize the inconsistency of introducing the idea of error; truth being obviously an ideal conception, it is absurd to attribute error to it because it is not something different from itself. The expression of the idea of mere sensation by Dharmakīrti is doubtless faulty,³ but it is not necessary to deny him credit for following Dignāga in recognizing it. The particular sensation is unique, and it is developed by the imagination (vikalpa)⁴ into the knowledge of the object; when we are told that the sensation of blue is thus transformed into the perception ‘This is blue’, we must understand the doctrine in the light of common sense.¹ It is clear that the sensation as such cannot be described as blue;

c26.s2.16.4

it is an immediate feltness, which results in our perception that the object is blue, and the sensation therefore can properly be called one of blue ex posteriori. It is not really because we have an awareness of blue that we speak of having perceived a blue object; it is because we have a perception of blue that we describe our ineffable sensation as an awareness of blue. This is seen by the avoidance of the term cause and result for the relation and the preference for determinant and determined (vyavasthāpana, vyavasthāpya).² The momentary sensation is absolutely real (paramārthasat),³ and is grasped in sensation alone; inference cannot reach the moment; it deals only with generalities (sāmānya-lakṣaṇa).