Abstract

Apoha theory could perhaps be understood as a part of the Buddhist program of emancipating people from the clutches of attachment. Diṅnāga and thereafter Dharmakīrti, when they developed their epistemology of perception, inference, and language, pointed out that through perception we are associated with unique particulars, which are momentary. We try to give an enduring status to them through thought and language by constructing universals. Thus, thought and language amount to false constructions, and they also mark our attachment to the world. Hence, the realization that helps in preventing such an attachment would imply that inference and language do not really ‘refer to’ or ‘associate themselves with’ what is ..