The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy: Chapter 4 — The School of Diṅnāga and Dharmakīrti

The School of Diṅnāga and Dharmakīrti

Chapter 4 of Jan Westerhoff’s The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy (OUP, 2018), pp. 217–281.

Overview

A comprehensive, self-contained survey of the logico-epistemological school (pramāṇavāda) from its founding by Diṅnāga through Dharmakīrti and into the later Indian period. Westerhoff covers the biographical traditions, epistemology, metaphysics, inference, language (apoha), scriptural authority, yogic perception, the school’s relationship to other Buddhist schools and to Mīmāṃsā, and the final centuries of Indian Buddhist philosophy (Śāntideva, Atiśa). The chapter is richly contextualised, placing the logico-epistemological school within the broader landscape of inter-doctrinal debate.

Key Themes

1. Biographical Traditions (pp. 217–220)

• Traditional account of Diṅnāga composing the pramanasamuccaya — the cave, the chalk, and Mañjuśrī’s encouragement (p. 218)
• Dharmakīrti’s lineage: Vasubandhu → Diṅnāga → Īśvarasena → Dharmakīrti. Dharmakīrti’s understanding surpassed Īśvarasena’s, prompting him to compose the pramanavartika (p. 218)
• Legendary debate encounters: Dharmakīrti vs. Kumārila (infiltrated his household to learn his doctrines), Dharmakīrti vs. Śaṅkara (pp. 219–220)
• The biographies reveal an increasing emphasis on debate with non-Buddhists as the primary arena of philosophical activity (p. 220)

2. Epistemology (pp. 221–225)

• Diṅnāga begins the pramanasamuccaya with perception, establishing the key distinction between specifically-characterised (svalakṣaṇa) and generally-characterised (sāmānyalakṣaṇa) (p. 221)
• The Buddha addressed as pramāṇabhūta — not authoritative by status but because his enlightenment flows from correct application of epistemic instruments (p. 221)
• Perception as nonconceptual and indescribable — yields a “total but unconceptualized, prelinguistic image” (p. 221)
• The problem of aggregates: if perception only accesses aggregates of infinitesimal particles, and aggregates are conceptual superimpositions, how can perception give access to the nonconceptual? Later authors resolved this via “singularity of effect” rather than “singularity of entity” (pp. 222–223)
• This difficulty leads Dharmakīrti to drop realism about external objects in favour of Yogācāra idealism (p. 223)
• Dharmakīrti holds that perception is by its very nature immune from error — all errors are relegated to the mind (p. 224)
• Westerhoff discusses, and is sceptical of, the proposed connection between Nāgārjuna’s criticism of epistemic instruments in the Vigrahavyāvartanī and Diṅnāga’s foundationalist project (pp. 224–225)
• Three kinds of perception in Diṅnāga: sensory, mental, and yogic (p. 225)

3. Inference (pp. 225–231)

• Inference extends far beyond the Western notion: even perceptual judgements (“this tomato is red”) are inferential for Diṅnāga (p. 226)
• Triple mark (trairūpya) of valid inference: (1) pakṣadharmatā — the reason characterises the subject; (2) anvaya — positive concomitance; (3) vyatireka — negative concomitance (p. 227)
• The relation between reason and property to be established = pervasion (vyāpti) (p. 227)
• anumāna is not formal logic — it merges logical and epistemological dimensions (pp. 227–228)
• Inference for oneself as a sequence of psychological states (mental model); inference for others as its linguistic expression. Not simply a perspectival difference — structurally distinct (pp. 228–229)
• Dharmakīrti requires only two parts for inference for others: assertion of pakṣadharmatā + pervasion — no need to even state the thesis (p. 228)
• Both kinds of inference are tokens, not types — concrete events, not abstract structures. But not psychologistic: underlying worldly facts determine validity (p. 229)
• Role of examples: the positive example assures us the properties are real; the negative example shows due diligence (pp. 229–230)
• Indian inference is fallibilist and externalist (p. 230)
• A “good reason” (saddhetu) requires not just formal validity but soundness, relevant doubt, desire to know, and strategic timing (p. 231)

4. Metaphysics (pp. 231–235)

• Dharmakīrti’s crucial innovation over Diṅnāga: only svalakṣaṇa entities have causal efficacy (arthakriyāsamartha), the mark of the real. Pramāṇavārttika 3:3 cited (p. 231)
• momentariness and causal efficacy coincide: trans-temporal objects in general cannot be efficacious (pp. 232–233)
• Two arguments for momentariness: (1) argument from cessation (vināśitvānumāna) — things perish spontaneously; (2) argument from existence (sattvānumāna) — real things constantly produce effects, hence constantly change (pp. 232–233)
• Consequences of rejecting objects in general: arguments against ātman, the creator god, and the brahmanical concept of caste (jāti = object-type = caste) (pp. 233–234)
• The bifurcation of knowledge: perceived and inferred objects are radically distinct for Diṅnāga — he rejects pramāṇasamplava (mixing of epistemic instruments) (pp. 234–235)

5. Language — Apoha Theory (pp. 235–238)

• apoha as an ersatz for object-types without incurring realist commitments (p. 235)
• The role of two kinds of negation: non-implicative (prasajya) then implicative (paryudāsa) — the two do not cancel each other out because they operate differently (pp. 236–237)
• Dharmakīrti’s innovation: causal power relativised to human desires. All particulars are unique, but they may all fulfil a common desire (e.g. all fires fulfil the desire for warmth). The example of antipyretic drugs — they all lower fever but through causally different mechanisms (pp. 237–238)

6. Scriptural Authority and Yogic Perception (pp. 238–250)

• Scripture subsumed under inference: no need for a third epistemic instrument (śabda/testimony) (p. 241)
• Dharmakīrti’s proof of the Buddha’s authority via the Pramāṇasamuccaya’s opening verse: compassion → practice → teaching → embodiment of epistemic instruments. “Compassion is the proof” (p. 240)
• The threefold analysis (དཔྱད་པ་གསུམ་): checking scripture against perception, inference, and internal consistency (p. 240)
• Three epistemic classes: manifest (pratyakṣa), imperceptible but inferable (parokṣa), radically inaccessible (atyantaparokṣa) (pp. 240–241)
• Dharmakīrti is deeply sceptical about scriptural inferences: we cannot know that the Buddha truly has the qualities making him authoritative, since mental states are supersensible (pp. 242–243)
• Scriptural authority as practical necessity (agatyā), not as objective epistemic instrument — a rationally defensible, fallible choice (pp. 243–244)
• Yogic perception (yogipratyakṣa): not an epistemic super-power but directed at concepts, not momentary particulars. Dharmakīrti compares it to vivid dreams and fantasies — validated by its soteriological goal, not by revealing ultimate reality (pp. 247–250)

7. Classification: Sliding Scales of Analysis (pp. 250–259)

• Four levels: (1) ordinary beings; (2) Abhidharma reductionism; (3) particularism (Sautrāntika); (4) idealism (Yogācāra) (pp. 253–254)
• Dharmakīrti argues mainly from level 3 (particularist), which he knows to be false — it is the lowest common denominator offering the best balance of sophistication and broad acceptance (pp. 255–256)
• The neither-one-nor-many argument drives movement through all four levels (p. 255)
• The causal relation is itself unreal by Dharmakīrti’s own particularist criteria — creating a dialectical puzzle resolved by the sliding-scales framework (pp. 257–258)
• Later commentators (Jitāri, Mokṣākaragupta) read Dharmakīrti as a Mādhyamika; Westerhoff frames this as “doing philosophy on the basis of texts regarded as authoritative” rather than doxographic categorisation (pp. 258–259)

8. Debate with Mīmāṃsā (pp. 259–270)

• Three key points of opposition:
  • Epistemology: Mīmāṃsā’s intrinsic authoritativeness of pramāṇas (svataḥ prāmāṇya) vs. Buddhist externalist/fallibilist approach (pp. 261–263)
  • Philosophy of language: Mīmāṃsā’s eternal, authorless Vedas with primordial word–world connection vs. Buddhist conventional, speaker-dependent language and apoha (pp. 263–266)
  • Epistemic optimism vs. pessimism: Mīmāṃsā trusts untrained awareness; Buddhism distrusts it as shot through with ignorance (pp. 267–268)
• Broader social dimension: Brahmins as defenders of the status quo; Buddhists as sceptics disconnected from brahmanical power structures (pp. 268–270)

9. The End of Buddhist Philosophy in India (pp. 270–281)

• Brief treatments of Śāntideva and Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna
• Tāranātha’s claim that nothing after Dharmakīrti matched the “six ornaments” (Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva, Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Diṅnāga, Dharmakīrti) (p. 270)
• Atiśa’s arrival in Tibet (1042) marks the beginning of the later dissemination (ཕྱི་དར་) (p. 278)

Relevance to the Three Primary Texts

• pramanasamuccaya: Extensive discussion of Diṅnāga’s innovations (epistemology, triple mark, apoha, the opening verse)
• pramanavartika: Detailed coverage of Dharmakīrti’s contributions (causal efficacy, momentariness arguments, sliding scales, scriptural authority, yogic perception). PV 3:3 on causal efficacy cited directly (p. 231)
• pramanayuktanidhi: Not discussed directly, but the philosophical positions and debates covered are precisely those that Sakya Paṇḍita addresses

Translation Material

No verse translations from the three primary texts. The source quotes the Pramāṇasamuccaya opening verse in English translation (p. 218) and Pramāṇavārttika 3:3 with Manorathanandin’s commentary (p. 231), but these are from secondary sources, not from Tibetan.

Sources

• dreyfus-recognizing-reality — covers much of the same ground from the Tibetan reception side