Systems of epistemology in classical Indian philosophy: Prajñakaragupta (ca. 750-810) on the number of instruments of knowledge (pramana)
Final Report Abstract
The research analysed an important discussion in the history of theories of knowledge in classical Indian philosophy. It centres on the questions which cognitions are to be counted as generating knowledge, and what their objects might be. The historic episode that was studied in this project is a section in the magnum opus of Prajñākaragupta, a commentary on Dharmakīrti’s (ca. 600–660) Pramāṇavārttika, a foundational text for Buddhist epistemology and logic in India and Tibet. To achieve this, a critical edition and annotated translation were prepared, based on the available Sanskrit manuscripts, the Tibetan translation of the text, and related materials. The edition is noteworthy in that it, for the first time, assesses the utility of a hitherto unstudied, partial Sanskrit manuscript of Prajñākaragupta’s text. This manuscript was first identified in Watanabe 1998, which reproduces black and white photographs of the manuscript taken by Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana in Tibet in the 1930s. Furthermore, the edition was encoded according to the guidelines specified by the Text Encoding Initiative, as adapted to Sanskrit texts within the DFG/NEH funded project “SARIT: Enriching Digital Text Collections in Indology” (http://sarit.indology.info/; 2013– 2017) jointly directed by Prof. Birgit Kellner and Prof. Sheldon Pollock. The annotations to the translation contextualize the arguments within the wider frame of Prajñākaragupta’s voluminous work. This edition and translation have been completed and will be submitted to the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. In addition, a digital edition will be published on the SARIT platform (http://sarit.indology.info). The central line of argumentation in this section concerns the tenet of the logico-epistemological school of Buddhism that there are two, and only two, instruments of knowledge, direct perception and inference. Prajñākaragupta uses an intricate strategy to defend this claim against both those opponents who maintain that only perception is an instrument of knowledge, and those who claim that other cognitions, such as those resulting from memory or authoritative sources, generate knowledge. He must show both that inference is necessary for everyday activities (which perception alone cannot support), and that all other forms of non-perceptual cognition either do not generate knowledge, or are really only inference.
Publications
- A SARIT Edition of the Pramāṇavārttikālaṅkārabhāṣya. A digital edition of Sāṅkṛtyāyana 1953. 2013–
P. McAllister, ed.
- “Ratnakīrti and Dharmottara on the Object of Activity”. In: Journal of Indian Philosophy 42.2-3 (2014), 309–326
P. McAllister
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-013-9202-7) - Reading Bhaṭṭa Jayanta on Buddhist Nominalism. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2017. Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse ; 886. Beiträge zur Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens ; 95
P. McAllister, ed.
