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Fifth International Dharmakīrti Conference Abstracts Fifth International Dharmakīrti Conference Abstracts Heidelberg, 26–30 August, 2014 Crowne Plaza Hotel Abstracts are arranged in alphabetical order according to the speaker’s last name. Please consult the conference program, available from the conference website http://idhc5.uni-hd.de, for information on the order of presentations. The organizers gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Liudmila Olalde-Rico in the production of this document. 1 Balcerowicz, Piotr: Dharmakīrti and Samantabhadra University of Warsaw; [email protected] The paper analyses certain doctrinal points in the oeuvre of the Jaina Śvetāmbara thinker Samantabhadra who seems to respond to, to criticize and to be influenced by Dharmakīrti. The issues involve the idea of identity, the use of the delimiting particle eva in the sense of vyavaccheda (exclusion, delimitation), and certain passages in some of Samantabhadra’s works which reveal his knowledge of the Pramāṇavārttika. Samantabhadra – the author of such works as Āptamīmāṁsā, Devāgamastotra, Yuk- tyanuśāsana, Svayambhūstotra, Stutividyā – is traditionally considered to have lived around 500–550, maybe slightly later. Sometimes he is also thought to be contem- poraneous with Mallavādin Kṣamāśramaṇa, alias Vādimukhya (before 600 CE), the author of the Dvādaśāranayacakra, the source of plethora of quotations from Diṅnāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya, who had apparently had no knowledge of Dhar- makīrti. The analysis of the historical correlation of Dharmakīrti and Samantabhadra may have possible implications for the dating of Dharmakīrti. 2 Choi, Kyeongjin: The indeterminate role of bādhakapramāṇa in the Pramāṇaviniścaya University of Tokyo; [email protected] 1 No one may be suspicious of the thought that bādhakapramāṇa validates pervasion (vyāpti) of sattvānumāna or dispute the idea that it materialized in complete form for the first time in the Pramāṇaviniścaya. Dharmottara proclaims the former in his commentary on the Pramāṇaviniścaya, and we also have Dharmakīrti’s Vādanyāya where he makes the proof of momentariness based on sattvānumāna whose perva- sion is certified by bādhakapramāṇa. If this were the case, the traditional proof of momentariness, which is supported by the idea of nirapekṣatva, that is, the cause- lessness of extinction, would be nothing more than a redundant demonstration in the Pramāṇaviniścaya. But if one does not have a biased impression of bādhakapramāṇa and just relies on the sentences which Dharmakīrti actually set forth in the Pramāṇaviniścaya, is it possible to see the position on bādhakapramāṇa pointed out by Dharmottara? In this paper, I would like to reconsider the aforementioned popular belief regarding bādhakapramāṇa and the proof of momentariness in the Pramāṇaviniścaya, with the assistance of rNgog Blo ldan shes rab’s commentary. rNgog understands the cause- lessness of extinction as the primary reason for the establishment of pervasion in the proof of impermanence. Further, in his opinion, bādhakapramāṇa is a secondary supportive attestation which works to stabilize the validity of the logic of causeless- ness. That is why he denies Dharmottara’s assertion, saying his stance on the cause- lessness of extinction is contradictory to Dharmakīrti’s intention. My aim in this paper is to indicate that the role of bādhakapramāṇa cannot be de- termined only based in the Pramāṇaviniścaya since Dharmakīrti did not yet make the purpose of bādhakapramāṇa clear in that text. I would like to carefully suggest that we must presume that this issue was still developing in Dharmakīrti’s mind at the time when he wrote this work. I will point out that, instead, what he mainly in- tended to establish is the effectiveness of svabhāvahetu as a logical reason, and that he only refers to the proof of impermanence based on the idea of causelessness as a prototypical example, not simply for the sake of proving impermanence, itself. 3 Chu, Junjie: Jitāri’s Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi University of Leipzig; [email protected] In this paper the author presents an analysis of Jitāri’s Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, a short philosophical treatise that is up to now unknown. In this work, Jitāri refutes the bahirarthavāda with regard to the image of object (ākāra). At the start of the treatise, Jitāri divides bahirarthavāda into sākāravijñāna- vāda and nirākāravijñānavāda. He does not pay much attention to the sākāra- vijñānavāda-branch of the bahirarthavāda, saying that it is not in conformity with the whole set of the generally established worldly communicative convention and is nothing but a false determination (mithyābhiniveśa). In the remaining part he con- centrates on refuting the nirākāravijñānavāda-branch of the bahirarthavāda. 2 The refutation begins with a formal reasoning: “What illuminates [in cognition] is cognition [itself], such as the conceptualization of a blue thing; and [a sensory ob- ject] like visible matter illuminates [in cognition, therefore, it is cognition with the image of object]. This is the essential reason.” Then, he sets forth a long discussion to prove that the reason is valid, as he does in many other works of him, in the form of proving that the reason is not non-established (asiddhiḥ), is not contradictory (viruddhatvaṃ), and is not inconclusive (anaikāntikatā). In proving that the reason is not inconclusive, Jitāri tries to prove that the shining of cognition is exclusively a self-shining, not in the sense that an external thing is illuminated by cognition; he uses the pattern of “four alternatives” (catuskoṭi) to discuss the relationship between shining and object, i.e., “shining is different from the object-referent,” “shining is non-different from the object-referent,” “shining is both different and non-different from the object-referent,” and “shining is neither different nor non-different from the object-referent.” The conclusion of this discussion is: “Since it is not correct that one thing is illuminated by another thing, the necessary conclusion (ekānta) is: That which shines is exclusively itself, that which is not itself does never shine.” In the last part of the treatise, in order to explain that the shining of cognition is only self-shining, a further discussion is advanced on the temporal relationship between the cognition and the shining of object as the cause and effect from gram- matical point of view; in doing so, the opinions of Kumārila (ŚVK pratyakṣasūtra 54–55 quoted in TS 2923–2924) and Śubhagupta (BS 192b2: quoted in JNĀ 23,23– 24, 351,17–18; TSP(K) 569,15–17; TSP(Ś) 486,14–17) are also refuted. 4 Coseru, Christian: Consciousness and causal explanation – Śāntarakṣita against physicalism College of Charleston; [email protected] The Buddhist epistemologist’s justification for taking reflexivity as the condition for the possibility of warranted states of cognitive awareness is simply an extension of theoretical commitments to a certain conception of the mental. One place where this theory comes into particularly sharp focus is Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla’s chal- lenge of Cārvāka physicalism (in the chapter XXII of Tattvasaṅgraha). The Cār- vāka’s objection to any presumed continuity of reflexive self-awareness is framed by some easily recognizable arguments. First, if an individual is nothing but a bundle of aggregates that are in turn reducible to more basic material substrata (viz., atoms), then conscious awareness must be an emergent property (that is, conscious- ness must be regarded as nothing more than a product of the type of material organ- ization that is constitutive of biological organisms). Second, since consciousness takes the form of an apprehension of objects (that is, since it is inherently inten- tional), and apprehension only occurs in specific modes of cognizing such as per- ceiving or reasoning, consciousness cannot be present either when the sensory sys- tems are not yet developed (as in the embryonic stage) or when they are not re- sponsive (as in a state of comatose). Finally, the physicalist argues for what seems like an obvious point: different types of bodies (for instance, those of humans and 3 nonhuman animals), and different tokens of the same human body, manifest differ- ent types of consciousness. Assuming otherwise would be akin to postulating that consciousness can apprehend that which is contrary (viruddha) – a problematic pos- ition (for the Buddhist) given our lack of direct access to the minds of others (and to the interior life of nonhuman animals). In this paper, I review the Cārvāka argu- ments and Śāntarakṣita’s response, and consider whether the Buddhist can answer the challenge of physicalism without undermining the explanatory function of caus- al explanation. I then offer an innovative way to conceive of the notion of material causation (upādānakāraṇa) that builds on some recent debates at the intersection of phenomenology and philosophy of mind. 5 David, Hugo: Maṇḍana Miśra on omniscience (sarvajña- tva) and the perception of yogins (yogipratyakṣa) – On the early appropriation of a few Buddhist concepts in the Mīmāṃsā tradition University of Cambridge (UK); [email protected] Philosophical reflection on the nature of the perception of yogins (yogipratyakṣa), as well as on its quality of being “valid knowledge” (pramāṇa), stems back to the very early stages of the “epistemological” school of Buddhism, to the works of Dignāga and, above all, Dharmakīrti. It is not, however, until a much later date that this topic received a systematic treatment as part of a proof of the Buddha’s omniscience (sarvajñatva)
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