The search for definitions is ubiquitous in Sanskrit philosophy. In many texts across traditions, we find philosophers presenting their theories by laying down definitions of key theoretical categories, by testing those definitions, and by refuting competing definitions of the same theoretical categories. Call this the method of definitions. The aim of this essay is to explore a challenge that arises for this method: the paradox of definitions. It arises from the claim that the method of definitions is either (i) redundant (...) because it does not provide us any knowledge that we did not already possess, or (ii) impossible to successfully pursue because it leads to an infinite regress. Neither of these alternatives should be acceptable to the defender of this method. To focus our discussion, I will show how this challenge arose for—and was arguably resolved by—early Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thinkers active in the first millennium CE and at the very beginning of the second millennium. In response to the paradox of definitions, these Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thinkers claimed that the purpose of a definition is to remove either metaphysical ignorance about the distinction between theoretically significant kinds or kind-membership, or metalinguistic ignorance about the meaning or the application-conditions of theoretically significant terms. I will show how this discussion helps us to ward off certain misconceptions about the method of definitions in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. (shrink)

In the Abhidharma texts, that flowers perfume sesame is used as a simile describing the mechanism of perfuming (_vāsanā_/_paribhāvanā_) in the context of meditative cultivation. According to the Sarvāstivādins, the meditative perfuming requires the co-existence of the perfumer and the perfumed. In comparison, the Yogācāra-vijñānavādins employ the same simile to explain their doctrine of the perfuming of all _dharma_s in _ālayavijñāna_, which demands the _bīja_ as the perfumed and the manifested _dharma_s as the perfumer to be simultaneous. My hypothesis is (...) that the Yogācāra idea of the perfuming of all _dharma_s is derived from the Abhidharma doctrine of meditative perfuming through the Sautrāntika theory of perfuming in non-concentrated (_asamāhita_) state. The idea of equating _vāsanā_ and _bīja_ probably took place under the doctrine of successive causality during the sectarian communication among the Sarvāstivādins, the Dārṣṭāntika-Sautrāntikas, and the early Mahāyānists. The Vaibhāṣika principle of simultaneous perfuming, which requires that the perfumed must co-exist with the perfumer, makes it possible in the Yogācāra-vijñānavāda that a _bīja_ in _ālayavijñāna_ is simultaneous with its manifestation. (shrink)

The Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā, attributed to Ānanda, is a sub-commentary of one of the seven books of the Pāli Abhidhamma-piṭaka, the Vibhaṅga, and the direct commentary of its commentary, Buddhaghosa’s Sammohavinodanī. In the section on the _satipaṭṭhāna_ method, Ānanda proposes exegetical strategies to solve some seeming contradiction between Buddhaghosa’s interpretation of the Vibhaṅga and the Sutta’s framework that the Satipaṭṭhānavibhaṅga refers to. An examination of exemplary passages from the Satipaṭṭhānavibhaṅga of the Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā will shed light upon the originality of Ānanda’s (...) thought and its influence on Dhammapāla’s commentaries. (shrink)

The theory of negation developed in the grammatical-philosophical system of later Vyākaraṇa remains almost entirely unstudied, despite its close links with the (widely studied) approaches to negation found in other philosophical schools such as Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā, and despite its consequent importance for a comprehensive understanding of the theory of negation in ancient India. In this paper we present an edition, translation and commentary of the relevant sections of Nāgeśa’s _Paramalaghumañjūṣā_, a concise presentation by the final authority of the Pāṇinian (...) tradition, together with an explanatory introduction outlining the grammarians’ theory of negation and its relations particularly with the Nyāya theory of negation. (shrink)

Kajiyama has argued that the basis for the concept of _jāti_ (false rejoinder) as described in the _Nyāyasūtra_ is the concept _xiang ying_ (相応) as found in the _Fangbian xin lun_ (方便心論). Kajiyama has also shown that the sophistic arguments called _xiang ying_ are very similar to the _prasaṅga_ arguments of Nāgārjuna, the founder of the Madhyamaka school. It thus seems worthwhile to investigate how later Mādhyamika philosophers treated the concept of _jāti_ that originally appeared as the result of the (...) _Nyāyasūtra’s_ criticism of the concept _xiang ying_ and was later accepted by Buddhist logicians such as Dignāga. This paper shows that there were two entirely opposite Mādhyamika positions regarding the concept of _jāti_. In order to demonstrate this difference, this paper examines in detail statements about _jāti_s that appear in various treatises, especially two works by Bhāviveka and three works by Candrakīrti. As the result, it becomes clear that the differences in the two positions correspond essentially to the differences in how Dignāgaʼs logic was evaluated by the so-called Svātantrika and Prāsaṅgika within the Madhyamaka school. (shrink)

In modern Buddhist scholarship, J. Takasaki’s English and Japanese translations of the Ratnagotravibhāga in 1966 and 1989 have been read as an exemplary one until now without any meaningful revision. This paper critically reviews his translations of the twenty-seventh verse in the first chapter of the work, which explicates the key doctrine in the Tathāgatagarbha thought that every living being is a tathāgatagarbha. The method is to clarify the ambiguity of expressions appeared in the verse by changing its nominal style (...) into a general one. After resolving the problems that occur due to vague phrasing, it attempts to investigate the doctrine on the basis of the concepts of buddhakāya, tathatā and gotra, which respectively consist in the first, the second, and the third pāda of the twenty-seventh verse. This paper, thus, provides a new translation of the verse: “Since the Buddha’s wisdom is inherent in all living beings; since the immaculateness of living beings and that of the Buddha are essentially non-dual; and since a buddha is figuratively expressed to be the effect of the buddha-nature with which all living beings are endowed; all body-possessors [=living beings] are by their nature buddhas.”. (shrink)