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Scriptural Authority

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Scriptural Authority (ལུང་, āgama)

The status of religious scripture as a source of knowledge is a major concern for the Buddhist logico-epistemological school, given its restriction of valid cognition to perception and inference.

Scripture Subsumed Under Inference

dharmakirti holds that there is no need to posit testimony (śabda, སྒྲ་) as a third epistemic instrument alongside perception and inference. Instead of accepting the Buddha’s pronouncement on the basis of his enlightened status, we combine the claim of the Buddha’s authoritativeness (previously argued for) with the pronouncement itself, and infer the statement. Scripture is thus a species of inference (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, p. 241).

The Proof of the Buddha’s Authority

Dharmakīrti formulates his argument by unpacking the epithets in dignaga’s opening verse of the pramanasamuccaya (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, p. 240):

  • Seeking the benefit of the world (jagaddhitaiṣin) → the Buddha’s great compassion
  • Protector (tāyin) → the goal of compassion
  • Teacher (śāstṛ) → practised the means leading to liberation for a long time
  • Well-gone (sugata) → the fruit of that practice
  • Embodying the epistemic instruments (pramāṇabhūta) → the culmination

Dharmakīrti telescopes this: “Compassion is the proof” — compassion caused the Buddha to seek ways to help others, acquiring the knowledge that would do so and the means of teaching it effectively (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, p. 240).

The Threefold Analysis (དཔྱད་པ་གསུམ་)

Later Tibetan scholastics codified criteria for evaluating scripture: checking whether it contradicts (1) perception, (2) inference, or (3) other propositions inferred from scripture. This is essentially an inductive argument: if scripture is correct on matters we can check, it should be deemed correct on matters we cannot (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, p. 240).

Three Epistemic Classes

The logico-epistemological school divides phenomena into three classes of epistemic distance (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, pp. 240–241):

  1. Manifest (pratyakṣa) — directly accessible to the senses
  2. Imperceptible (parokṣa) — not sensorily accessible but inferable (e.g. momentariness, emptiness)
  3. Radically inaccessible (atyantaparokṣa) — beyond human reason (e.g. precise karmic connections, lifespans of gods); requires reliance on a qualified informant

Dharmakīrti’s Scepticism

Despite arguing for the Buddha’s authority, Dharmakīrti is deeply sceptical about the epistemic status of scriptural inferences (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, pp. 242–244):

  • We cannot know that the Buddha truly possesses the qualities making him authoritative, since mental states are supersensible (atīndriya): “they would have to be inferred from physical and vocal behaviour…and most behaviour can also be performed deliberately in a way other than the mental state they seem to reflect”
  • The pervasion underlying scriptural arguments depends on language, which is conventional — hence not purely grounded in facts (vastubala)
  • The inductive argument (reliable here → reliable there) is fallible: Dharmakīrti’s analogy of the rice pot — sampling grains does not guarantee all are cooked

Commentators Karṇakagomin and Śākyabuddhi conclude that scriptural inferences are not objective (vastutas) but arise from “the thought of the people having them” — those who want to follow the Buddhist path (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, p. 243).

Practical Necessity, Not Blind Faith

Scriptural authority is a source practitioners need to rely on as a matter of practical necessity (agatyā). The practitioner observes that others have obtained results by following certain practices, and rationally chooses to follow them — like someone who takes driving lessons after observing that all drivers learned from an instructor. The choice is responsible (we have done our epistemic duty via the threefold analysis) but fallible (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, pp. 243–244).

Contrast with Mīmāṃsā

Mīmāṃsā defends the authority of the Vedas via their authorlessness (apauruṣeyatva) — an authorless text cannot be tainted by human imperfections. This is combined with the claim of a primordial connection between words and their referents. Dharmakīrti objects that: (1) an uncreated text could have no speaker’s intention behind it; (2) if word–world connections are natural, understanding should be immediate without learning; (3) the truth of a view derives from its speaker’s reliability, which an authorless text cannot have (westerhoff-dignaga-dharmakirti, pp. 263–266).

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