Traditional as well as contemporary interpreters of Indian Yogācāra divide that tradition into a variety of doxographical camps depending on whether awareness is understood tobe endowed with phenomenal content (ākāra) and, if so, whether that content is understood to be real or true. Kamalaśīla’s extensive commentary on his teacher Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha contains passages that throw into question certain doxographical equivalencies, especially the equivalencies sometimes proposed betweenthe doctrine that awareness is endowed with phenomenal content (sākāravāda) and the doctrine that such (...) content is true or real (satyākāravāda) and between the doctrine that awareness is devoid of phenomenal content (nirākāravāda) and the doctrine that such content is false or unreal (alīkākāravāda). Further, in accord with his broadly rhetorical approach to the application of reason, Kamalaśīla is seen in this commentary to endorse a range of seemingly contradictory positions vis-à-vis ākāra. This article argues that this situation can be explained by way of reference to Kamalaśīla’s larger philosophical and soteriological program as a Mādhyamika thinker, a program not made explicit in the text yet nonetheless present in nascent form. That is, while various theories of awareness as endowed or not endowed with phenomenal content are useful in different rhetorical contexts as well as at different stages of philosophical analysis, at the end of the day such distinctions are moot since neither awareness nor its content is upheld as ultimately real. Instead, soteriologically efficacious phenomenal content is said to be like a “true dream” (satyasvapna), an illusion that satisfies only for as long as it remains unanalyzed. (shrink)

The article considers what happened to the Buddhist concept of self-awareness ( svasaṃvedana ) when it was appropriated by Śaiva Siddhānta. The first section observes how it was turned against Buddhism by being used to attack the momentariness of consciousenss and to establish its permanence. The second section examines how self-awareness differs from I-cognition ( ahampratyaya ). The third section examines the difference between the kind of self-awareness elaborated by Rāmakaṇṭha (‘reflexive awareness’) and a kind elaborated by Dharmakīrti (‘intentional self-awareness’). (...) It is then pointed out that Dharmakīrti avails himself not only of intentional self-awareness but also of reflexive awareness. Some remarks on the relationship between these two strands of Dharmakīrtian Buddhism are offered. The conclusion points out that although self-awareness occurs in Buddhism as inextricably linked with anātmavāda , the doctrine of no-self, and sākāravāda , the view that the forms we perceive belong not to external objects but to consciousness, it is used by Rāmakaṇṭha to refute both of these views. An appendix addresses the problem of how precisely to interpret Dharmakīrti’s contention that conceptual cognition is non-conceptual in its reflexive awareness of itself. (shrink)

Following Dharmakīrti’s interpretation, PS I 9ab has been understood as stating a view common to both Sautrāntikas and Yogācāras, i.e. a view that self-awareness is the result of a means of valid cognition. It has also been understood that Dignāga accepts two different views attributed to Sautrāntikas with regard to pramāṇaphala: in PS ad I 8cd he regards the cognition of an external object as the result; in PS ad I 9ab–cd he alternatively presents another view that self-awareness is the (...) result. Dignāga’s text, however, does not support these interpretations. Rather it contradicts them. In fact Dignāga presupposes a single view, and not two, attributed to Sautrāntikas, a view that the cognition of an external object is the result. In I 9ab he is presenting an alternative view that is attributed only to Yogācāras, i.e. a view that is not common to Sautrāntikas. Althogh the Sautrāntika sākāravāda essentially has an internal structure, Dignāga presupposes that an external object can be regarded as the object of cognition because it is similar to the image of object. He assumes that the objects of pramāṇa and phala, both being external objects, are identical. Criticizing Dignāga’s claim that bāhyārthajñāna is the phala, Kumārila points out that there is a serious gap between the objects of pramāṇa and phala. Consequently Dharmakīrti has to admit that even in the Sautrāntika view an external object is not directly cognized and instead proposes as the second view of Sautrāntikas that svasaṃvitti is the phala. At the same time he reinterprets Dignāga and defends from Kumārila’s criticism by introducing the two different levels. When investigating the real nature, i.e. in the paramārtha level, svasaṃvitti is the phala, whereas in the upacāra level, bāhyārthajñāna or bāhyārthaniścaya is the phala. Thus, Dharmakīrti avoids Kumārila’s criticism of Dignāga. Kumārila triggers Dharmakīrti’s new introduction of the second view of Santrāntikas that svasaṃvitti is the phala. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify how Śālikanātha’s epistemology can be distinguished from that of Dharmakīrti, especially in terms of their respective views on cognitive form (ākāra). It has been pointed out that Śālikanātha’s tripuṭī theory and svayaṃprakāśa theory are very close to Dharmakīrti’s epistemology. However, it remains questionable if Śālikanātha, who belongs to the Prābhākara branch of the Mīmāṃsā and is therefore a nirākāravādin, can subscribe to notions that Dharmakīrti developed on the basis of sākāravāda. The (...) present paper concludes that Śālikanātha agrees with Dharmakīrti in assuming that a single cognition consists of three parts; unlike Dharmakīrti, however, Śālikanātha puts emphasis on the difference between these parts, especially between the cognition and its form, on the ground that the cognitive form belongs to the external thing, and not to the cognition (nirākāravāda). In Dharmakīrti’s epistemology, the cognitive form belongs to cognition (sākāravāda); in the ultimate level, there remains no difference between the three parts. (shrink)

The disagreement between _sākārajñānavādin_s, followers of the theory that cognitions are endowed with a form, and _nirākārajñānavādin_s, who advocate the theory of formless cognitions, is one of the central disagreements in Indian epistemology. This study focuses on the heretofore understudied position of classical and postclassical Sāṃkhya. The view that can be termed representational realism has been traced by me in all extant classical Sāṃkhya texts. According to these texts, the cognitive subject, be it _puruṣa_ or the intellect (_buddhi_), experiences the (...) object not directly but through the object’s form assumed by the cognitive faculties. The main evidence is found in the _Yuktidīpikā_. It explicitly states that all cognitive organs_—_the senses (_buddhīndriya_), _manas_, _ahaṃkāra_, and _buddhi—_ sequentially, one after another_—_take on the form (_ākāra_, _rūpa_) of the cognitive object; that _puruṣa_ experiences the world through the _buddhi_’s forms; and that these forms can only figuratively be ascribed to changeless _puruṣa_. Also noteworthy is that within Brahmanical _darśana_s, the _Yuktidīpikā_ is one of the earliest texts that shows familiarity with the _nirākāra_–_sākāra_ problem; that the _Yuktidīpikā_ mentions the Buddhist opponent’s view that cognitions have the form of their object without trying to refute it; and that this commentary incites the Naiyāyika Bhaṭṭa Jayanta to say that the Sāṃkhya standpoint does not differ much from the _sākārajñānavāda_ of the Buddhists. Though it is hardly possible to definitely identify the Sāṃkhyas as _sākāravādin_s or _nirākāravādin_s, their strong inclination towards the _sākāravāda_ is conspicuous. According to Sāṃkhya, the _buddhi_’s forms (_ākāra_, _rūpa_) become conscious cognitions due to the proximity of _puruṣa_, from which it follows that cognitions are endowed with a form. The postclassical _Sāṃkhyasūtra_ and _Sāṃkhyasūtravṛtti_, which aimed to revive the classical Sāṃkhya system of thought, confirm that the view that cognitions have a form is Sāṃkhyan. (shrink)