Dignāga (a.k.a. ''Diṅnāga'', c. 480 – c. 540 CE) was an Indian Buddhist scholar and one of the

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā''). Dignāga's work laid the groundwork for the development of deductive logic in India and created the first system of Buddhist logic and

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...

( Pramana). According to Georges B. Dreyfus, his philosophical school brought about an Indian "epistemological turn" and became the "standard formulation of Buddhist logic and epistemology in India and Tibet." Dignāga's thought influenced later Buddhist philosophers like Dharmakirti and also Hindu thinkers of the

Nyaya (Sanskrit: न्याय, ''nyā-yá''), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment",epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...

accepted only "perception" ( ''pratyaksa'') and "inference" (''

anumāṇa ''Pramana'' (Sanskrit: प्रमाण, ) literally means "proof" and "means of knowledge".language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

, inferential reasoning and

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

were also widely influential among later Indian philosophers. According to Richard P. Hayes "some familiarity with Dinnaga's arguments and conclusions is indispensable for anyone who wishes to understand the historical development of Indian thought." Dignāga was born in Simhavakta near

Kanchipuram Kanchipuram ('; ) also known as ''Conjeevaram,'' is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in the Tondaimandalam region, from Chennaithe capital of Tamil Nadu. Known as the ''City of Thousand Temples'', Kanchipuram is known for its temple ...

and very little is known of his early years, except that he took Nagadatta of the Pudgalavada school as his spiritual preceptor, before being expelled and becoming a student of

Vasubandhu Vasubandhu (; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་ ; fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential Buddhist monk and scholar from ''Puruṣapura'' in ancient India, modern day Peshawar, Pakistan. He was a philosopher who wrote commentary ...

Philosophy

Dignāga mature philosophy is expounded in his ''magnum opus'', the ''

Pramāṇa-samuccaya The ''Pramāṇa-samuccaya'' () is a philosophical treatise by Dignāga, an Indian Buddhist logician and epistemologist who lived from c. 480 to c. 540 . The work comprises an outline in the highly elliptical verse format typical of early Indian phi ...

''. In chapter one, Dignāga explains his

which holds that there are only two 'instruments of knowledge' or 'valid cognitions' (''pramāṇa''); "perception" or "sensation" ( ''pratyakṣa'') and "inference" or "reasoning" (''

anumāṇa ''Pramana'' (Sanskrit: प्रमाण, ) literally means "proof" and "means of knowledge".Dharmakirti
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy This conservative epistemic theory was in contrast to the

Nyaya (Sanskrit: न्याय, ''nyā-yá''), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment","it is impossible too for the object of awareness itself to be errant, for errancy is only the content of misinterpretation by the mind." Also, for Dignaga, ''pratyakṣa'' is mostly phenomenalist and is not dependent on the existence of an external world. It is also inexpressible and private.

Anumāṇa

''Anumāṇa'' (inference or reasoning) for Dignāga is a type of cognition which is only aware of general attributes, and is constructed out of simpler sensations. Inference can also be communicated through linguistic conventions. A central issue which concerned Dignāga was the interpretation of signs (''linga'') or the evidence (''hetu'') which led one to an inference about states of affairs; such as how smoke can lead one to infer that there is a fire. This topic of ''svārthānumāna'' (reasoning, literally "inference for oneself") is the subject of chapter two of the ''Pramāṇa-samuccaya'' while the topic of the third chapter is about demonstration (''parārthānumāna'', literally "inference for others"), that is, how one communicates one's inferences through proper argument. According to Richard Hayes, in Dignāga's system, to obtain knowledge that a property (the "inferable property", ''sadhya'') is inherent in a "subject of inference" (''paksa'') it must be derived through an inferential sign (''linga''). For this to occur, the following must be true: #The inferential sign must be a property of the subject of the inference. That is, there exists in the subject of inference a property, which is different from the inferable property and which is furthermore evident to the person drawing the inference; this second property may serve as an inferential sign in case it has two further characteristics. #The inferential sign must be known to occur in at least one locus, other than the subject of inference, in which the inferable property occurs. #The inferential sign must not be known to occur in ''any'' other loci in which the inferable property is absent. Richard Hayes interprets these criteria as overly strict and this is because he sees Dignāga's system as one of rational skepticism. Dignāga's epistemology, argues Hayes, is a way to express and practice the traditional Buddhist injunction to not become attached to views and opinions. According to Hayes, for Dignāga, the role of logic is:

to counter dogmatism and prejudice. As a weapon in the battle against prejudice that rages in every mind that seeks wisdom--in minds of the vast majority of people who do not seek wisdom, prejudice simply takes full control without a contest-there is nothing as powerful as the kind of reason that lies at the heart of Dignaga's system of logic. For it should be clear that very few of our judgments in ordinary life pass the standards set by the three characteristics of legitimate' evidence. Taken in its strictest interpretation, none of the judgments of any but a fully omniscient being passes. And, since there is no evidence that there exist any fully omniscient beings, the best available working hypothesis is that no one's thinking is immune from errors that require revision in the face of newly discovered realities.

''Apohavada'' and language

Dignāga considered the interpretation of conventional and symbolic signs such as the words and sentences of human language to be no more than special or conventional instances of the general principles of inference or anumana. He takes up several issues relating to language and its relationship to inference in the fifth chapter of his ''Pramāṇa-samuccaya''. During Dignāga's time, the orthodox Indian

Nyaya (Sanskrit: न्याय, ''nyā-yá''), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment",Bhartṛhari) had discussed issues of epistemology and language respectively, but their theories generally accepted the concept of

universals In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. For exa ...

which was rejected by most Buddhist philosophers. Influenced by the work of these thinkers as well as by Buddhist philosophers of the Sautrantika school who rejected Hindu theories of universals in favor of nominalism (''prajñapti''), Dignāga developed his own Buddhist theory of language and meaning based on the concept of "apoha" (exclusion). Hattori Masaaki explains the doctrine thus:

a word indicates an object merely through the exclusion of other objects (''anyapoha'', ''-vyavrtti''). For example, the word "cow" simply means that the object is not a non-cow. As such, a word cannot denote anything real, whether it be an individual (vyakti), a universal (jati), or any other thing. The apprehension of an object by means of the exclusion of other objects is nothing but an inference.

Works

As noted by Hayes, the difficulty in studying the highly terse works of Dignāga is considerable, because none of them have survived in the original

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

and the Tibetan and Chinese translations which do survive show signs of having been done by translators who were not completely certain of the meaning of the work. This difficulty has also led scholars to read Dignaga through the lens of later authors such as Dharmakirti and their Indian and Tibetan interpreters as well as their Hindu

Nyaya (Sanskrit: न्याय, ''nyā-yá''), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment",Fyodor Shcherbatskoy and S. Mookerjee, even though these thinkers often differ. Dignāga's ''magnum opus'', the ''

'' (''Compendium of Valid Cognition''), examined perception, language and inferential reasoning. It presents perception as a bare cognition, devoid of conceptualization and sees language as useful fictions created through a process of exclusion (

Apoha Buddhist logico-epistemology is a term used in Western scholarship for ''pramāṇa-vāda'' (doctrine of proof) and ''Hetu-vidya'' (science of causes). Pramāṇa-vāda is an epistemological study of the nature of knowledge; Hetu-vidya is a system ...

). Other works include: *''

Hetucakra ''Hetucakra'' or ''Wheel of Reasons'' is a Sanskrit text on logic written by Dignaga (c 480–540 CE). It concerns the application of his 'three modes’ ( trairūpya), conditions or aspects of the middle term called ''hetu'' ("reason" for a conc ...

'' (''The wheel of reason''), considered his first work on formal logic. It may be regarded as a bridge between the older doctrine of ''

trairūpya ''Trairūpya (''Sanskrit; English: "the triple-character of inferential sign") is a conceptual tool of Buddhist logic. The Trairūpya, ‘three conditions’, is oft accredited to Dignaga (c. 480-540 CE) though is now understood to have originated ...

'' and Dignāga's own later theory of ''

vyapti a Sanskrit expression, in Hindu philosophy refers to the state of pervasion. It is considered as the logical ground of inference which is one of the means to knowledge. No conclusion can be inferred without the knowledge of vyapti. Vyapti guara ...

'' which is a concept related to the Western notion of implication. *'' Alambana-parīkṣā'', (''The Treatise on the Objects of Cognition'') and its auto commentary (''vrtti''). *''Abhidharmakośa-marma-pradīpa'' – a condensed summary of

's seminal work the Abhidharmakosha *A summary of the Mahayana '' Aṣṭasāhasrika-prajñāpāramitā sūtra'' *''Trikāla-parikṣa'', (''Treatise on the tri-temporality'') *''Nyāya-mukha'' (''Introduction to logic'').

Tradition and influence

Dignāga founded a tradition of Buddhist epistemology and reasoning, and this school is sometimes called the "School of Dignāga" or "The school of Dinnāga and Dharmakīrti" (due to the strong influence of Dharmakīrti as well).Westerhoff, Jan (2018). ''The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy,'' p. 217. Oxford University Press. In Tibetan it is often called “those who follow reasoning” (Tibetan: ''rigs pa rjes su ‘brang ba''); in modern literature it is sometimes known by the

'pramāṇavāda', often translated as "the Epistemological School." Many of the figures in these were commentators on the works of Dinnāga and Dharmakīrti, but some of them also wrote original works and developed the tradition in new directions. The work of this tradition also went on to influence the Buddhist

Madhyamaka Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhis ...

school, through the work of figures like Bhāvaviveka (c. 500 - c. 578), Jñanagarbha (700-760), and

Śāntarakṣita (Sanskrit; , 725–788),stanford.eduŚāntarakṣita (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)/ref> whose name translates into English as "protected by the One who is at peace" was an important and influential Indian Buddhist philosopher, particul ...

(725–788). These thinkers attempted to adopt the logical and epistemological insights of Dinnāga and Dharmakīrti to defend the tenets of the Madhyamaka school. Dignāga's tradition of logic and epistemology continued in

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

, where it was expanded by thinkers such as Cha-ba (1182–1251) and

Sakya Pandita Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen (Tibetan: ས་སྐྱ་པཎ་ཌི་ཏ་ཀུན་དགའ་རྒྱལ་མཚན, ) (1182 – 28 November 1251) was a Tibetan spiritual leader and Buddhist scholar and the fourth of the Five S ...

(1182–1251). Dignāga also influenced non-Buddhist Sanskrit thinkers. According to Lawrence J. McCrea, and Parimal G. Patil, Dignāga set in motion an "epistemic turn" in Indian philosophy. After Dignāga, most Indian philosophers were now expected to defend their views by using a fully developed epistemological theory (which they also had to defend).Lawrence J. McCrea, and Parimal G. Patil. Buddhist Philosophy of Language in India: Jnanasrimitra on Exclusion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. p 5.

References

External links

Dignaga's Logic of Invention, by Volker PeckhausVidhabhusana, Satis Chandra (1907). History of the Mediaeval School of Indian Logic. Calcutta University.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dignaga Atomists 6th-century Indian philosophers Buddhism amongst Tamils Buddhist logic Buddhist writers Idealists Indian Buddhist monks Indian logicians Indian scholars of Buddhism Yogacara Year of birth uncertain 5th-century Indian philosophers 6th-century Indian mathematicians 5th-century Indian mathematicians 6th-century Indian writers