Sakya Chok-den (གསེར་མདོག་པཎ་ཆེན་ཤཱཀྱ་མཆོག་ལྡན་)
A brilliant and controversial figure in the Sa-gya tradition. Disciple of rong-don, rival of gorampa. Described by Dreyfus as one of “the best philosophical minds in the Tibetan tradition” (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 28).
Life and Controversy
- Often perceived as controversial by Sa-gya members due to his unorthodox interpretations of sakya-pandita
- His provocative list of questions on Sakya Paṇḍita’s Differentiation of the Three Vows was seen as undermining Sakya Paṇḍita’s credibility
- Alleged conversion to the emptiness-of-other view (གཞན་སྟོང་, gzhan stong) under the influence of the Seventh Karmapa Chodrak Gyatso (1454–1506)
- Tu-gen divides his career into three stages: Mādhyamika, Cittamātra, and Jo-nang-pa — though this is polemical and oversimplified
- His works, long thought to be irretrievably lost, were discovered in Bhutan and published as late as 1975 (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 28; shantarakshita-madhyamakalankara-intro, p. 12)
Contributions to Pramāṇa
His masterful commentary on Sakya Paṇḍita’s system, The Defeater (composed 1474, age 46), plays an important role in Dreyfus’s study. Unlike his later works, this text does not mention emptiness-of-other.
Philosophical Positions
- Strong antirealist on universals: distinguishers (ལྡོག་པ་) are entirely conceptual
- Fundamental distinction between practical understanding (འཇུག་པའི་ཚེ་) and critical examination (འཆད་ཚེ་): practically, a jar and its distinguisher are not differentiated; critically, thought is found to deal with unreal universals (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 168)
- Individuations (བྱེ་བྲག་, viśeṣa) are not individual substances but conceptual distinctions — an “assemblage of at least two distinguishers” (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 168)
- Criticised Ge-luk assertion that things instantiate their own distinguishers (རང་རང་གི་ལྡོག་པ་ཡིན་པ་)
- Combined Dharmakīrti’s two accounts of valid-cognition into a unified account involving nondeceptiveness, intentionality, and novelty (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, pp. 291–292)
Sources
- dreyfus-recognizing-reality — major figure throughout, especially on predication, universals, valid cognition