DHARMAKĪRTI

The Indian thinker Dharmakīrti (ca. 600–670 c.e.), whose biographical details remain obscure, responded to the works of his predecessor DignĀga (ca. 480–540 c.e.) to establish the basic theories of Buddhist logic. In doing so, Dharmakīrti sought to explain how we can obtain completely certain, indubitable knowledge.

The Pramāṇavārttika (Commentary on Reliable Knowledge), Dharmakīrti's best-known work, ostensibly comments on Dignāga's Pramāṇasamuccaya (Compendium on Reliable Knowledge), but Dharmakīrti actually revises Dignāga's theories in order to close gaps that prevent certainty. Concerning perception, Dignāga appeared to allow that a raw sense-datum—the uninterpreted phenomenal content of a perception—could never be erroneous, even in the case of perceptual illusion. Seeing that this renders all perception fallible, Dharmakīrti maintains that a reliable perception must involve a strict and regular causal relation between the perception and its object. This emphasis on causality reflects Dharmakīrti's innovative application of telic efficacy (arthakriyā) as the criterion for reality and, by extension, for all reliable knowledge. In brief, only causally efficient entities are real, and if knowledge is reliable, it must direct one to an object that has the causal capacity to accomplish one's goal. An important corollary is the claim that, to be causally efficient, a real thing can exist for only an instant.

Another crucial innovation comes in response to Dignāga's theory of inference, according to which the inductive process of determining the relation between evidence (such as smoke) and what it indicates (such as fire) is apparently fallible. Seeking certainty, Dharmakīrti argues for a "relation in essence" between evidence and what it proves. Inference thereby becomes immune to doubt, but at the cost of an inflexible appeal to definitions (smoke, for example, is by definition that which comes from fire).

Dharmakīrti's epistemic and logical theories were eventually adopted by most Indian Buddhist thinkers, and among Tibetan Buddhists, the Pramāṇavārttika is still the subject of extensive study and debate. In particular, the monastic curriculum of the Dge lugs (Geluk) school places considerable emphasis on Dharmakīti's Buddhist logic.

See also:Yogācāra School

Bibliography

Dreyfus, Georges B. Recognizing Reality: Dharmakīrti's Philosophy and Its Tibetan Interpretations. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

Tillemans, Tom J. F. Scripture, Logic, Language: Essays on Dharmakīrti and His Tibetan Successors. Boston: Wisdom, 1999.

John Dunne