142219 UE Types and their relations in Dignaga’s theory of reference. (2023W)

Dignāga's Pramāṇasamuccaya (ca. sixth century CE) is our earliest complete witness to the school of systematic philosophical analysis known as the logico-epistemological tradition of Buddhism. The understanding of this text poses significant challenges. The Pramāṇasamuccaya, or the “Summary of pramāṇa”, simply states Dignāga’s ideas without providing detailed discussions. Additionally, the text survives only in two Tibetan translations of very low quality, which makes them of little use for a clear understanding of its content.

Fortunately, one word-by-word commentary on Dignāga’s important text has survived in Sanskrit: Jinendrabuddhi's Viśālāmalavatī Pramāṇasamuccayaṭīkā (perhaps eighth or ninth century CE). This commentary helps us overcome the main obstacles to understanding Dignāga’s “Summary” by citing and paraphrasing much of the root text in the original Sanskrit, and by clarifying the background of many of Dignāga’s ideas. Jinendrabuddhi’s frequent quotes from otherwise unavailable works supplement his commentary, making it an abundant resource for comprehending the Buddhist epistemological tradition’s history.

The course allows participants to gain first-hand insight into the ongoing work on a diplomatic and critical edition of the Sanskrit text of the fifth chapter of Jinendrabuddhi's commentary. The primary goal of this course is to familiarise participants with philological-historical methods and editorial techniques, and to encourage them to participate in discussions led by the main editors.

In the upcoming winter term of 2023, Jinendrabuddhi's commentary on Dignāga's Pramāṇasamuccaya 5 beginning with verse 31 will be studied. The chapter’s focus is verbal cognition and its objects based on Dignāga’s apoha theory. In the passage read this term, Dignāga offers a second explanation for why words exclude only specific referents. Subsequently, the discussion turns to exclusion relations between terms of completely different or overlapping extensions, and Dignāga provides an analysis of why the errors he found in realist positions do not apply under the theory of exclusion.