The present volume marks the beginning of a series of "Sanskrit Texts From the Tibetan Autonomous Region" jointly published by the publishing houses of the China Tibetology Research Center, Beijing, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, on the basis of a "General Agreement on Cooperative Studies of Copies of Sanskrit Texts and their Joint Publication" signed January 9, 2004. It is also the first result of a cooperation between the Chinese Tibetology Research Center and the Institute for Cultural and (...) Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences with the aim of making these unique jewels of philosophical and religious texts from the Buddhist past which are preserved in their original Sanskrit language in the TAR available in scholarly editions for the first time. This volume consists of two parts. The critically edited Sanskrit text of Jinendrabuddhi's Pramanasamuccayatika, chapter 1 is accompanied by a diplomatic edition of the text. The editions are based on photocopies of a palm-leaf manuscript kept in Lhasa which, to our present knowledge, is the only one extent. Jinendrabuddhi's commentary of the second half of the eighth century CE is, moreover, the only commentary known to have been written on that work which marks the very beginning of the Buddhist tradition of epistemology and logic in the first half of the sixth century: Dignaga's Pramanasamuccaya. The linguistic and interpretational value of Jinendrabuddhi's text is particularly great in view of the fact that Dignaga's seminal work has not yet been discovered in the original Sanskrit, and that his various polemical treatises on other epistemological authors and schools of his time are unlikely to have been transmitted very long. Moreover, Jinendrabuddhi provides us with numerous quotations from works before Dignaga which belong to all the traditions of brahmanical classical Indian philosophy, but have been irretrievably lost. The great import of Jinendrabuddhi's work has long been well-known through its Tibetan translation. Thus, the publication of its Sanskrit original will have far-reaching consequences for the knowledge and interpretation of the Indian philosophical traditions in their classical Gupta period expressions. (shrink)

The proceedings volume of the Fourth International Dharmakirti Conference, held in Vienna in 2005, includes a collection of thirty-six essays devoted to the work of one of the most influential philosophers of India, the sixth-century Buddhist scholar Dharmakirti. It is the next volume in a series of Dharmakirti conference proceedings that includes, to date, Studies in the Buddhist Epistemological Tradition (Vienna 1991) and Dharmakirti's Thought and Its Impact on Indian and Tibetan Philosophy (Vienna 1999). The papers in this volume present (...) research on the Buddhist logical and epistemological tradition in India and Tibet, including its cultural, philosophical and religious significance, and also emphasize the tradition's import on non-Buddhist philosophy and religion. They also report on some of the remarkable (and very important) new textual sources that have become available in recent years, namely, newly discovered Sanskrit texts by Dharmakirti and his followers. The contributions provide a rigorous and detailed overview of tlle astonishing Progress that has been made in understanding the work of Dharmakirti and his successors. Moreover, a number of essays break new ground by demonstrating various non-Buddhist contexts in which Dharmakirti's work was taken up and dealt with critically. (shrink)

Dharmottaras kurze Untersuchung der Gültigkeit einer Erkenntnis - Laghupramanyapariksa, Teil I: Tibetischer Text und Sanskritmaterialen, Teil II: Übersetzung. Helmut Krasser. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1991. 162 and 148 pp. ÖS 350.00, DM 50.00.

Sankaranandanas Isvarapakaranasanksepa mit einem anonymen Kommentar und weiteren Materialen zur buddhistischen Gottes-politik, Teil I: Texte; Teil 2: Annotierte Übersetzungen und Studie zur Auseinandersetzung über die Existenz Gottes. Helmut Krasser. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2002. xix, 127 & 378 pp. Pb. ISBN 3-7001-3024-4.

The present volume provides an annotated English translation of the last section of Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti (PVSV 164,24-176,16, ad stanzas 1.312-340), which includes his final assault on the Mīmāṃsā doctrine of the authorlessness (apauruṣeyatva) of the Veda. Dharmakīrti draws out the apparently fatal consequences of this doctrine: If the Vedic scriptures are without an author, hence without an underlying intention, they can only be meaningless. Even if they have a meaning, it must be supersensible. But then, claiming that the leading Mīmāṃsaka (...) authorities - Jaimini, Śabara - possessed privileged cognitive access to its supersensible meaning is not an option, since the Mīmāṃsaka denies that humans have any supernatural form of knowledge. In short, Dharmakīrti forces his opponent to admit that the Veda is nothing but a mutus liber, a "mute book." Besides questioning the very possibility of Vedic hermeneutics under Mīmāṃsaka presuppositions, the passage translated contains interesting allusions to Dharmakīrti's linguistic theory, his views on scriptural authority, his critique of the Veda's reliability, and his understanding of the transmission of the Veda and Vedic śākhās ("schools", "recensions"). The section includes Dharmakīrti's polemics against a mysterious vṛddhamīmāṃsaka ("ancient Mīmāṃsaka"). An introduction (p. 7-21: "The Place of PVSV 164,24-176,16 in the work of Dharmakīrti," by V. Eltschinger), a synopsis of contents (p. 23-30) and two independent essays round off the volume. H. Krasser's "Logic in a Religious Context: Dharmakīrti in Defence of āgama" (p. 83-118) sheds new light on Dharmakīrti's conception of scriptural authority and its indebtedness to Dignāga. J. Taber's "Dharmakīrti and the Mīmāṃsakas in Conflict" (p. 119-149) explores the guiding principles of the Mīmāṃsā system of exegesis and assesses the relevance of Dharmakīrti's arguments against it. A general bibliography and various indices complete the volume."--Publisher's website. (shrink)