Chapter 6: Sham Rebuttals (jāti)
A jāti is the sophistical reply that meets a sound proof with a merely apparent parity-objection — Fazun renders it 反斷, the counter-judgement, and glosses it as pseudo-refutation. Every item in the chapter has the same shape: the running example “sound is impermanent, because of being produced immediately after effort”, an objection alleging some parity, and the demonstration that the alleged parity is a pseudo-fault. The chapter closes the treatise with a warning against reinterpreting the Tathāgata’s dharma-characteristics and a dedication of merit, followed by Fazun’s editorial note on the two Tibetan translations he worked from.
Condensed from Fazun’s Chinese translation-and-exposition of the Pramāṇasamuccaya and its auto-commentary, and rendered into English. Root verses are given as Fazun gives them; the prose beneath summarises his exposition. On the provenance and the limits of this rendering, see the series introduction.
Chapters: 1. Perception · 2. Inference for Oneself · 3. Inference for Others · 4. Example and Pseudo-example · 5. Apoha · 6. Sham Rebuttals
Volume Six
Chapter on the Examination of Sham Rebuttals (反斷, jāti)
The chapter examines the 反斷 (also 反決), which Fazun glosses as 似破, the pseudo-refutation: with respect to a faultless proof, the opponent falsely judges (斷) it to be faulty, hence “counter-judgement”. This is the Sanskrit jāti, the sophistical reply that meets a sound proof with a merely apparent parity-objection. Every item in the chapter has the same shape: the running example “sound is impermanent, because of being produced immediately after effort” (勤勇無間所發性), an objection alleging some parity, and Dignāga’s demonstration that the alleged parity is a pseudo-fault.
[Objection] If pramāṇa is of only two kinds, one should speak only of pramāṇa. Why speak also of pseudo-pramāṇa (似量) and the “deficiency-nature” (缺減性) and the like?
Those who set forth a sham [refutation] / display the unreasonable side; / [charging] parity against an established thesis, / hence “deficiency” and the rest are spoken of.
There are disputants skilled only in words who, faced with a proof that genuinely establishes its thesis, wish to call it a pseudo-establishment, saying it is of-another-nature (他性) and no proof of that thesis at all. To overturn the established thesis they invent faults of establishment such as “deficiency”. Falsely judging a faultless proof to be faulty is what gives the class its name, 反斷 or 反決, that is, pseudo-refutation.
In order to display its nature, / and because [the opponent] states its semblance, / this answer is stated as reasonable: / the sham rebuttal is a pseudo-answer.
(Xinhui translates: “Therefore, to display it, / a reasonable answer is spoken; / [the opponent’s] stating its parity — / the pseudo-answer is the sham rebuttal.“)
The proponent’s proof stands; the reply to be made is that there is no deficiency. Stating the reply is what displays whether a deficiency is present, and the reply is reasonable. The sham rebuttal is therefore a faulty answer: the opponent cannot find a genuine fault in the proof, since there is none to find.
Conjunction, non-conjunction, the three times: / asserting the reason [leads to] an unwanted consequence; / asserting “the reason by conjunction or non-conjunction” / is on a par with [the charge of] a deficient reason.
The prāpti / aprāpti and ahetu parities. Take “sound is impermanent, because of being produced by effort”.
[Objection] If the reason establishes the probandum by being conjoined with it (會合, having “reached” it), it is no different from the probandum, as river-water merging with the sea, so nothing remains unestablished; and if it conjoins with what is already established, whose reason is it? If it does not conjoin, then by non-conjunction it is no different from all non-reasons, and again proves nothing. The same in the three times: a reason prior to the thesis has nothing yet established to be the reason of; a reason posterior is not available when needed; a simultaneous reason and thesis stand like the left and right horns of an ox, neither producing the other.
Reply: these charges rank with the charge of a deficient reason, because, lacking correct reasoning, they would dismiss every reason that has an example whatever. To declare the reason-characteristic “on a par” merely by the homology of non-conjunction is unreasonable; and even granting the reasoning, the opponent still ends at “no reason at all”. If the reason had to establish the probandum beforehand, then, being merely not-apprehended (不可得, anupalabdhi) before utterance, it would likewise be no proof. This incurs the fault of self-injury (自害): the opponent’s own refutation, applied to his own thesis, falls to the same objection.
Stated for now: taking cognition (覺, the inferential awareness) as probandum, its reason possesses the three characteristics, so calling that reason deficient is a parity-fault. Fazun’s gloss: probandum is twofold, what is produced (the inferential cognition) and what is known (the object, e.g. impermanence); reason is likewise twofold, the expressing word (能詮語) and the object (e.g. being-produced). The discussion here takes probandum as cognition and proof as word.
[Taking] the object as the reason — a pseudo-non-establishment.
When the object (義) is taken as the reason, calling the object unestablished while the reason-word stands unrefuted is again a parity, since it would overturn the reason of every dharma. The reason just is the property of the position (宗法性, pakṣadharmatā); the subject of the thesis being established, its property is established too. The two kinds of reason, word and object, stand to the probandum-object not as producer and produced but as knower and known, prover and proven, so objections built on production (“because of non-conjunction”, “because the reason is prior”) miss their target. Had the charge been of the nature of dismissing the proof by valid reasoning, it would be a genuine refutation.
(The foregoing covers the pseudo-refutation resembling a deficiency-fault.)
Asserting permanence following on impermanence — / that cannot [yield] impermanence; / [this] states a thesis-fault by tagging along [in parity].
The permanence-parity (常相同, nityasama).
[Objection] Say “sound is impermanent”, and the impermanence must combine with its own permanence, since the self-nature a dharma obtains is never abandoned; sound therefore turns out permanent.
Reply: only the impermanence is held; no separate permanence operates alongside it. The opponent’s error is to grasp impermanence as something distinct from the dharma, superimposing it. Things arise from having-not-arisen and return to non-being, and that is what “impermanent” names; even in the present phase (分位) they are impermanent. Compare “effect-ness” (果性): a dharma is called an effect in dependence on the action of prior causes, and there is no effect-ness standing apart from the dharma’s essence. Just so, there is no permanent, unchanging “impermanence-ness” apart from the sound.
Asserting beforehand “because there is no reason, / there should be no probandum” — / the “not-yet-stated” parity.
[Objection] If sound is impermanent by that reason, yet the reason had not been stated beforehand, then with no reason present impermanence cannot be established. This is the not-yet-stated parity.
[By] superimposition… / the speaker’s word [is] the proof… / [the charge is] a pseudo-non-establishment.
Reply: the speaker first knows the object by his own inference and reaches determinate cognition; then, wishing to bring another to certainty, he proclaims it. Non-establishment would follow only if the object did not exist. By the speaker’s word the hearer establishes that object through superimposition upon what is proclaimed. That there is no proclaimed object before the utterance is no fault, so the charge is the non-establishment parity (不成相似).
(These two items set forth the pseudo-refutation resembling a thesis-fault.)
A pseudo-deficiency… / if [it] is [held to be] the proof before being stated.
If the opponent holds that the superimposed reason must already be the proof before utterance, the charge becomes the deficient-reason parity (缺減因相似). At the time of establishing, a reason not stated leaves the proof deficient, and before utterance all the more so. Since the dispute would void the meaning of every reason, it is equally the deficient-example parity (喻缺減相似).
Because “before being stated [it is] no reason,” / it does not become a contradictory statement; / the “not-yet-arisen” parity.
(Xinhui renders the first line 生前非因故, “because before arising [it is] no reason”.)
[Objection] Before the utterance, sound has no property of being produced immediately after effort; and not being produced by effort, it ought to be permanent. This is the not-arisen parity (不生相同, anutpattisama).
Two kinds… / admitted by way of two superimpositions.
Two pseudo-refutations sit inside that charge. In so far as the opponent superimposes “before being stated” as the proof, it is a non-establishment parity. As for sounds already arisen, being produced immediately after effort establishes them as perishable while they also have the nature of existence at that time; and onto things not produced by effort the opponent superimposes permanence by way of the object. That second move makes it an inconclusiveness parity (不定相似, anaikāntikasama).
By the portion of the effect’s being of-another-nature, / [the opponent] shows the probandum unestablished: / that is the “effect-parity.”
The example is “sound is impermanent, because it is an effect, like a pot”.
[Objection] If it is the effect-ness of some other thing, the pot, that makes what is produced impermanent, how does that establish the impermanence of this sound? That is the effect-parity (果相同, kāryasama).
Thus… / the speaker intends three kinds.
The charge splits three ways according to what the opponent disputes. “If the speaker states the pot’s effect-ness, it is not present in sound” is a non-establishment parity. “If he states sound’s effect-ness, it is not present in the pot’s impermanence” is a contradiction parity (相違相似, viruddhasama). “That effect-ness is also absent from permanence, being uncommon (不共)” is an inconclusiveness parity. Displaying a homology, it is also a pseudo-example-fault parity. The answer to all three: inference proceeds on the general property (總法), not the particular (別法); were each object determined separately, no inference could occur at all.
The various dissimilar instances (異品) that are stated, / by which the similar-example establishes the contrary — / this is the “homology parity.”
“Establishes the contrary” means it establishes the opposite meaning while serving as an operative reason. The example: “sound is impermanent, because of being produced by effort; the dissimilar-example is like space.”
[Objection] Space, being homologous with sound in being non-resistant (無質碍, lacking material obstruction), can equally establish sound as permanent. So among these reasons the pot has been taken as homologous, and now the dissimilar instance, space, is taken as homologous too. This is the homology parity (同法相同, sādharmyasama).
The remaining [parity], by heterology.
The mirror-image move, using the same two examples. Take the pot as similar-example: if sound is impermanent because it shares with the pot the property of being produced immediately after effort, then, being heterologous to the pot in non-resistance, it ought to be permanent. Take space as dissimilar-example: because that example is heterologous to the pot and non-resistant, sound ought to be permanent. This is the heterology parity (異法相同, vaidharmyasama), and the rest run the same way.
Parity… / because it shows the other [position] unestablished, / the “common” parity has two kinds.
If the opponent argues that the reason is on a par as to both homology and heterology with respect to non-resistance, and so charges the other party with non-establishment — “just as for us it works merely by homology and heterology yet you call it unestablished, so too for you” — that is the common-inconclusiveness parity (共不定相似, sādhāraṇānaikāntika-sama). But the two cases are not on a par: in the latter thesis “being non-resistant” is indeterminate as between homology and heterology, whereas in the prior thesis “being produced immediately after effort” is not indeterminate at all.
Because the “desired establishment” is on a par — / like the contradictory-yet-decisive [reasons].
The opponent’s thought: “just as you achieve your desired establishment merely by homology, so do I.” That is the parity of contradictory-yet-non-deviating reasons (相違決定, viruddhāvyabhicārin), which is a species of inconclusiveness-fault.
(The foregoing is the pseudo-refutation resembling a reason-fault.)
Because this lacks positive concomitance, / it is said to be a pseudo-example-fault.
Both kinds are inconclusiveness parities, because they fail to display that the probandum is present where the reason is present (有因處宗隨行, anvaya) and that the reason is absent where the probandum is absent (無所立處因不有, vyatireka). What holds of the latter thesis holds of the prior. The example-parity dispute is answered by this same lack of concomitance.
By inverting the concomitance, / the example and the probandum are jumbled together.
Mostly the opponent compares examples by faulty discrimination (惡分別): “sound is like a pot; sound is not like space.” Such jumbling, inverted though it is, still carries a concomitance — “whatever is impermanent is all produced by effort”, “whatever is not produced by effort is seen to be permanent” — and one must then conclude “it is so” or “it is not so”. Prior and latter theses stand alike here, so the parity charge is itself reasonable to that extent; but merely displaying the example, the inversion of concomitance is on a par in both, since both properties (probandum and proof) are asserted to hold of the pot and equally of space.
By a difference in the reason’s essence, / two kinds of pseudo-confusion; / [but] the reason is unidirectionally decisive — / there is no such [inference-]formula in the prior thesis.
Proceeding by the worldly inference-formula (量式), the homology parity and the heterology parity are displayed as the two pseudo-confusions. “Being produced immediately after effort” is admitted as a unidirectionally decisive (一向決定) thing-reason, so the charge amounts to a pseudo-inverted-decisiveness (似顛倒決定). The prior thesis has no formula displaying unidirectional decisiveness as ours does; a homology parity built on it is merely of-another-nature (他性) and unconnected (無繫屬).
Asserting a distinction within the homology — / the “differentiation parity.”
[Objection] Granting the pot’s homology, distinctions remain: the pot is combustible (所燒) and apprehended by the eye (眼所取), so only the pot is impermanent. Sound is not combustible and is audible (所聞性), so sound alone ought to be permanent. Alternatively, setting the example aside: among dharmas that share being-produced, some are combustible and some not, so one may discriminate some as permanent and some as impermanent. Discriminating contrary to the probandum in this way is the differentiation parity (分別相同, vikalpasama).
Here, / by a confused distinction, / [sound] should be permanent — that is the parity; / by the uncommon [property] likewise.
The charge runs by a confused reason (“not being combustible”) or an uncommon one (“being audible”), and either way it is a pseudo-refutation. The opponent’s own thesis is unestablished, yet by displaying the other’s as unestablished his charge would have to count as a proof. Read as a refutation, it is the parity of common or uncommon inconclusiveness; read as a proof, it is the parity of the contradictory-yet-decisive dispute. Other characteristics fall under inconclusiveness parity too, as with the non-Buddhists’ reckoning of sound as neither substance nor activity.
[Objection] Two properties must combine to make a reason: “being produced immediately after effort” together with being-combustible. A single property alone, such as “merely being a present thing” (單獨現事) or “not being apprehended by the eye”, is no reason, since by way of being-a-substance (實性) and the like it turns inconclusive.
Reply: no such co-presence is required. “Being produced immediately after effort” on its own possesses the reason-characteristic, so the alleged inconclusiveness is an inconclusiveness parity.
[They] would become one, without distinction.
At the time of stating the homology, probandum and homologous example would become one in nature. [translation uncertain] The counterpart, being inaudible, if it does not exist as such, by what is it understood as the probandum? (Fazun: this sentence still needs study.) “Without distinction” means no difference should remain — and if none remains, the thing is no different from everything. Since the inference displays the pot as homologous example, sound would be no different from all other dharmas, and every dharma found in the pot would have to be found in sound; all dharmas would be mutually homologous and collapse into one nature. Yet the inference does display sound’s distinctness, and the differentiation parity yields no very great difference, so the charge is an inconclusiveness parity. In the prior thesis sound is not declared impermanent merely by homology nor merely by non-difference; the charge can be turned back on the strength of merely not seeing a non-difference.
Because thesis and reason are without distinction, / this too is admitted as a pseudo-non-establishment.
“Also” marks this off from the non-difference parity just stated. Two further versions.
[Objection 1] Because sound is not ultimately produced (非畢竟生) [translation uncertain], the meanings of probandum and reason are without difference. Reply: a non-establishment parity, since the thing arose from prior non-being and the opponent superimposes it as the nature of the probandum before declaring thesis and reason identical. “Established” means what existed before and has perished should become non-existent.
[Objection 2] “Being produced immediately after effort” establishes impermanence and can equally establish other dharmas, so there is no difference. Reply: that is a proof obstructing the probandum, hence a contradiction parity (相違相似). Since being-combustible and the like are inconclusive with respect to unidirectional decisiveness, to the contradiction-disputant one should say: if the relation is seen to hold, it cannot injure the proof.
[If] a dharma can injure the probandum, / that too is parity, without distinction; / a reason-fault, a pseudo-contradiction — / [yet] the latter thesis has no fault.
The homology parity and the like are taken as the latter thesis. If something in the latter thesis is unidirectionally decisive, then the homology and the rest being unidirectionally decisive would amount to a contradiction. Where the opponent, in the prior thesis, disputes through the gateways of refutation and of proof by injuring the probandum with contradiction and inconclusiveness, those are other refutations. If the injury is seen not to succeed, then, as in a genuine contradiction, “being produced immediately after effort” is unconfused (不錯亂) with respect to impermanence; the opponent’s “not being audible” would equally oblige him to say sound is not audible. So one directly sees that the reason can injure “being audible”, but one does not see sound’s permanence — by what, then, would the inference of impermanence be blocked? As a thesis-fault, “not being audible” is unestablished in the prior case.
When is unidirectional decisiveness seen without injury following? Fazun’s example: a dyad (第二塵, the secondary particle) must have a single atom (一塵) as its precedent, because it is coarse form (粗色), like a pot; on the same footing atoms (極微, paramāṇu) could be established as coarse form, since dharmas such as the pot must have coarse particles as precedent. What answer is there to that? [translation uncertain]
Because [it] succeeds in injuring the probandum; / if there is no injury, then [it would be] a contradiction.
The probandum here may be either the property (法, dharma) or the property-possessor (有法, dharmin); both are admissible. If the reason succeeds in injuring that, it has the nature of contradiction.
[If] the thesis is displayed by another reason, / this is the “apprehensible parity.”
The apprehensible parity (可緣相同, upalabdhisama), on the same impermanence example.
[Objection] “Being produced by effort” is absent in lightning (電) and the like, yet their impermanence is established by perception. Where the reason is absent and the probandum still holds, that reason is not the reason for it; it has no pervasion. Compare inferring that a forest tree has mind (有心) from its sleeping at night.
Setting out many probanda, / the reason conforms to them.
Reply: if another reason established permanence, impermanence would be thrown into confusion, so establishing by another reason is not establishing by that reason. That other reason is not seen in non-existence and impermanence [translation uncertain]. A reason that can establish some other effect, not becoming the reason for the present probandum, is not a probative reason (能了因). Hence an inconclusiveness parity.
Although the reason cannot pervade, / because it reaches the probandum-thing — / the pseudo-non-establishment abiding in sound
[translation uncertain]— / it does not establish everything.
To those who say the reason does not pervade and so proves nothing: even granting neither impermanence nor any other reason [translation uncertain], the reason is not absent in sound. The opponent posits its absence only metaphorically, so the charge is a pseudo-non-establishment. Absence in the probandum itself would be a genuine refutation, but the reason is present in sound. Nor does its presence in sound license the converse, that anything can establish anything — as if from snakes sleeping at night one established that everything dwelling in the forest has mind.
By doubt, asserting the meaning differs, / [the opponent] raises a doubt-dispute about the reason.
The doubt parity (saṃśayasama). If the opponent, on a metaphorically posited thesis-meaning and a confused reason, declares doubt, holding the reason’s meaning equally doubtful as to permanence, that too is a sham rebuttal.
[Objection] “Being produced immediately after effort” is directly seen to cover both being manifested (顯) and being produced (生), so doubt arises: is sound being said to be manifested or produced? Reply: unreasonable.
Superimposing on the thesis — a pseudo-inconclusiveness.
Seeing that “being produced immediately after effort” establishes the nature of perishing, the opponent superimposes the arising of impermanence and calls it indeterminate, hence doubtful, adducing things merely manifested by effort such as grass and water. That is a pseudo-inconclusiveness: since perishing is the probandum, things merely manifested also have the nature of perishing.
As to the reason — a pseudo-non-establishment.
Here the text speaks of a superimposed reason. If the opponent superimposes the reason “because produced immediately after effort”, takes it as arising, and refutes it on that basis, the charge is a non-establishment parity — for the reason is stated as seen to be produced immediately after effort, not in the sense the opponent takes.
[Taking] a non-meaning, admitting [it as] a dissimilar instance, / one forms the “meaning-construal parity.”
[Objection] If what is produced by effort is impermanent, then by implication lightning and the like, not being produced by effort, ought to be permanent. That is the meaning-construal parity (義解相同, arthāpattisama).
Here, by another confusion, / [the opponent] establishes the probandum — that is a parity.
Two answers. Impermanence was established by “being produced by effort”; the opponent superimposes permanence by way of “not being produced by effort”, which is a superimposed inconclusiveness as already described, hence an inconclusiveness parity — and that negative property is no reason establishing permanence anyway, so it cannot render the probandum inconclusive. Second, if the opponent objects that lightning and the like are established as impermanent even without “being produced by effort”, that too is an inconclusiveness parity, since the other reason is likewise not present in permanence.
Admitting the “consequence parity” — / both are [a matter of] the way of the reason.
The example is as before, at the time of establishing. [Objection] In saying here “only the pot is impermanent”, what reason is there for it?
That is like a pseudo-example.
The charge is like disputing the pot’s impermanence when perception has already established it: it amounts to a pseudo-example lacking the probandum’s concomitance (無所立隨行), and that is the parity. The lack of the reason’s concomitance was already dealt with under the effect-parity, as an example-fault parity.
But a corner of the sham rebuttals.
What has been listed is a portion only. The remaining parities work the same way, the opponent answering contrary to reason by the parity-nature of “deficiency” and the rest: the excess parity (增相同, utkarṣasama), diminution parity (減相同, apakarṣasama), to-be-described parity (響相同, varṇyasama), not-to-be-described parity (非響相同, avarṇyasama), demonstration parity (道理相同, upapattisama), counter-example parity (對喻相同, pratidṛṣṭāntasama), and phase parity (分位相同; Sanskrit identification uncertain). They multiply endlessly by slight differences of inference-formula rather than by differences of meaning. A note on naming: “deficiency-parity”, “non-establishment-parity” and the like fix the name of the expressed (所詮) upon the expresser (能詮); strictly one should say “deficiency-dispute parity” and so on, but the wording would be too prolix. Where a parity is presented without resolving the sham rebuttal [translation uncertain], that term is bound up with the rebuttal; where presented under an indeterminate characteristic [translation uncertain], it is bound up with the answer. “Parity” (相同) is the concluding term throughout, each item becoming a sham-rebuttal parity.
The Vādavidhi states the sham rebuttals [to be] / inversion and falsity / and contradictoriness — three faults; / [but this] does not indicate that the three are each distinct.
The Vādavidhi (論軌) classifies faults of answer as the nature of inversion (顛倒性), of unreality (不真實性), and of contradiction (相違性). Dignāga’s verdict is that the three cannot be kept apart: the same sham rebuttal falls under all of them, so the classification does not hold as a division.
Inversion. It is said to cover homology, heterology, differentiation, non-difference, conjunction and non-conjunction, where a reason can seemingly be obtained [translation uncertain], with the effect-parity and the like assigned to doubt. Calling “inconclusive” what is inferred by a unidirectionally decisive reason is inversion — but it is equally contradiction, since inconclusiveness and unidirectional decisiveness cannot co-abide. Nor can the differentiation parity be maintained: it is not that without being-combustible impermanence goes unseen, since wind from a fan (扇風) is impermanent and not combustible. The opponent declares sound permanent by “not being combustible” and “not being apprehended by the eye”, yet the pot’s impermanence was never established by being-combustible in the first place. The reply is that “not being combustible” is seen in impermanent things as well as permanent ones, which states the inconclusiveness-fault of his own thesis; a reason that cannot pervade is no reason. Note too that the opponent does not infer “not audible” of sound from “being produced by effort”; he argues from “being audible” that sound ought to be permanent, and his answer is not connected with the prior thesis. Should someone concede the homology formulation but object that the heterology formulation only displays that the reason is definitely absent where the probandum is absent, and not that “not-being-combustible” is absent there, the reply is that the demonstration by positive concomitance and reversal (隨行與倒返), displaying both kinds of example, is missing from the Vādavidhi altogether. (Fazun flags several lines here as still needing study.) [translation uncertain] For those who infer permanence by homology and heterology: constructing a dissimilar-example inference gives “lightning is permanent, because not produced by effort”, which ought to be faultless were the logic sound, yet “space, not produced by effort, is permanent” and “being produced by effort is impermanent” are also seen as unidirectionally decisive.
Several parities are then shown not to be cases of inverted reason at all. The second non-difference parity is a dispute charging “no reason”, with no inversion in it, so the text lists it as a different fault; the conjunction/non-conjunction no-reason parity would dismiss every reason wholesale, and states the reason-fault through the probative gateway rather than through the production of the thesis-meaning. The apprehensible parity (所緣相同, upalabdhisama) is not an inverted reason either, since it only alleges that impermanence has some other reason — and those other reasons, not establishing the probandum, are no reasons: if a dharma is absent while the probandum still exists, that dharma is not its reason. The doubt-reason parity is not an inverted reason, since it merely superimposes doubt onto probandum and reason; if inversion of the thesis counted as inversion of what is stated, every reason would become inverted. The not-yet-stated parity is not stated as an inverted reason, nor is the effect-parity, which is stated by a distinction subsumed within the general.
Unreality. This covers the consequence parity and the meaning-construal parity. The consequence parity is unreal because the opponent states the probandum without having seen the object-reason — which is also inversion and contradiction, since saying “seen” of what is not seen is both. The meaning-construal parity likewise: not apprehending the probandum’s absence yet claiming to apprehend it is unreal, inverted and contradictory at once.
Contradiction. This covers the not-yet-arisen parity and the permanence parity. Since sound-nature has no prior arising, the charge amounts to a contradiction; and saying “the non-existent is also impermanent” is another. It is unreal as well, because on that account the non-existent would have permanence-nature [translation uncertain], and being non-existent it is an inversion too. The permanence parity is a contradiction, impermanence and permanence excluding one another, and is equally inversion and falsity, since it declares the impermanent to be permanent.
Conclusion: inversion, unreality and contradictoriness are mixed together throughout the sham rebuttals, so the Vādavidhi’s three-fold scheme cannot be called faultless.
The sham rebuttal’s parity-objection and [its] answer — / the subtle principle too should be known; / rational examination is likewise; / [this is] a small portion of the remaining sham rebuttals.
The subtle principle is homology and heterology abiding in mutual contradiction. Examine that sham rebuttal and it too breeds many more; on that mode the conjunction/non-conjunction reason, the heterology parity and the rest are all non-existent, since in this example homology and heterology do not abide in contradiction. The not-yet-stated rebuttals go the same way, as with “because it is an ox” [translation uncertain], where the ox is not in fact established yet is said to be. All of it is to be worked out at length by rational examination.
Only a small portion has been treated: whatever the other masters affirm, refute or offer as parities, the text shows their faults briefly. Detailed refutation case by case, and the objects-measured of that refutation, belong to the examination of the Vaiśeṣika (勝論派) and Akṣapāda/Naiyāyika (足目派) systems. Everything the non-Buddhists (外道) measure is merely conceptual construction (分別, vikalpa); what they thoroughly imagine (遍計) is no object of perception and cannot withstand examination as they conceive it.
Question: why refute their objects-measured at all? Reply: to show that non-Buddhist tenets, whose object-measured and means-of-measure are hard to establish, have no essential core (無心要), and to halt attachment to them. That alone is not entry into the Tathāgata’s teaching, for the Buddha’s true Dharma is not an object of conceptual construction. Abandon that and listen to the great Teacher’s dharma-nature, and attainment comes without great toil; conceptual construction only keeps one far removed.
The non-Buddhists, whose power is conceptual construction, / have not displayed its [true] characteristic; / they also contradict their own inference-formula, / and so cannot establish their desired meaning.
To draw out the dharma-nature by the path of conceptual construction / is far removed [from it] and destroys the Sage’s (能仁, Muni’s) teaching; / thus, should anyone turn the Tathāgata’s various dharma-characteristics / to some other meaning, it must be examined.
Having extensively shown the merits and faults [of the doctrines] in the Pramāṇasamuccaya (量蘊, the “aggregate of pramāṇa”), / by all the merit and goodness gathered herein, / may [beings], life after life, come to know [reality] and bring the meritless tenets to an end, / and may [it] grant beings true liberation.
The closing dedication. The three verses restate the chapter’s target (conceptual construction as the root of the opponents’ error, their formulae contradicting themselves), warn against reinterpreting the Tathāgata’s dharma-characteristics, and dedicate the merit of the whole Pramāṇasamuccaya to the liberation of beings.
End of Volume Six of the Jiliang lun lüejie.
Editorial note (Fazun): the treatise exists in two Tibetan translations — that of Vasudhararakṣita (持財護) with the Tibetan translator rendered 雅瑪參賈 [name unverified] (the Derge edition), and that of Kanakavarman (金鎧) with Xinhui (信慧, Tib. Dad pa’i shes rab [unverified]) (the Peking edition). The Chinese follows the former and consults the latter. The two diverge in many places and it remains hard to determine which is correct; many passages are difficult, and Fazun hopes the learned will study them further and correct any mistranslations.