This article focuses on the three natures (_trisvabhāva_) or three characters (_trilakṣaṇa_) doctrine as described in Indian Yogācāra treatises. This concept is fundamental to Yogācāra epistemology and soteriology, but terminology employed by contemporary buddhologists misconstrues and misrepresents some of its most important features, particularly with regard to the ‘ultimately real nature’ (_pariniṣpanna-svabhāva_), which is equated with terms that connote ultimate reality like ultimate truth (_paramārtha_), emptiness (_śūnyatā_), and reality limit (_bhūta-koṭi_), and which is described as a ‘purifying object of observation’ (...) (_viśuddhālambana_) that facilitates insight when properly understood by meditators. The article discusses how it is described in a range of Yogācāra treatises and compares this with how it has been conceived in academic studies of Indic Yogācāra literature. (shrink)

A reasoned argument or tarka is essential for a wholesome vāda that aims at establishing the truth. A strong tarka constitutes of a number of elements including an anumāna based on a valid hetu. Several scholars, such as Dharmakīrti, Vasubandhu and Dignāga, have worked on theories for the establishment of a valid hetu to distinguish it from an invalid one. This paper aims to interpret Dignāga’s hetu-cakra, called the wheel of grounds, from a modern philosophical perspective by deconstructing it into (...) a simple probabilistic mathematical model. The objective is to understand how and why a vāda based on a probabilistically weaker hetu can degrade into a Jalpa or vitaṇḍā. To do so, the paper maps the concept of ‘Bounded Rationality’ onto the hetu-cakra. Bounded Rationality, an idea coined by the management thinker Herbert Simon, is often employed in understanding decision-making processes of rational agents. In the context of this paper, the concept would state that the prativādin and ālocaka (debater) may not hold unbounded information to back their pratijñā (proposition). The paper argues that within the probabilistically deconstructed hetu-cakra model, most people argue in the ‘Zone of Bounded Rationality’, and thus, the probability of a debate degrading into Jalpa or vitaṇḍā is high. -/- . (shrink)