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Jitāri (or Jetāri, Tibetan Wylie: Dgra las rnam rgyal, c. latter half of the 10th century) was an influential Indian Buddhist philosopher who followed the Epistemological school of
Dharmakīrti Dharmakīrti (fl. ;), was an influential Indian Buddhist philosopher who worked at Nālandā.Tom Tillemans (2011)Dharmakirti Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy He was one of the key scholars of epistemology (pramāṇa) in Buddhist philos ...
and
Madhyamaka Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...
. He is considered one of the greatest panditas of the 10th century.Chu, Junjie, and Eli Franco. 2016. “Rare Manuscripts of Works by Jitāri.” In ''Sanskrit Manuscripts in China II: Proceedings of a Panel at the 2012 Beijing Seminar on Tibetan Studies, August 1 to 5'', edited by Xuezhu Li and Horst Lasic, 15–48. Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House."Jitāri." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', p. 393.
Princeton University Press, 2014.
Giuseppe Tucci (1930). THE JĀTINIRĀKṚTI OF JITĀRI. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 11(1), 54–58. doi:10.2307/41688162 He was the teacher of
Atiśa Atish Dipankar Shrijnan (Sanskrit transliteration: Atiśa Dipankara Shrijnana) (c. 982–1054 CE) was a Bengalis, Bengali Buddhist religious teacher and leader. He is generally associated with his body of work authored at Vikramashila, Vikram ...
(c. 982–1054),
Ratnākaraśānti Ratnākaraśānti (also known as Ratnākara, Śāntipa, and Śānti) (late 10th-century CE to mid 11th-century CE) was an influential Buddhist philosopher and vajrayana tantric adept and scholar. He was the "gate scholar" of Vikramaśilā unive ...
and Durvekamiśra (c. 970–1030).Apple, James B. ''Jewels of the Middle Way: The Madhyamaka Legacy of Atisa and His Early Tibetan Followers'' pp. 25-26. Simon and Schuster, 2019. Jitāri is also the name of one of the eighty-four mahāsiddhas.


Life and thought

Some details about Jitāri's life can be gleaned for various sources. According to a later biographical sketch by
Taranatha Tāranātha (1575–1634) was a Lama of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism. He is widely considered its most remarkable scholar and exponent. Taranatha was born in Tibet, supposedly on the birthday of Padmasambhava. His original name was Ku ...
Jitāri was born in
Varendra Varendra (), also known as Barind (), was an ancient and historical territory of Northern Bengal, now mostly in Bangladesh and a little portion in the Indian state of West Bengal and Eastern Bihar. It formed part of the Pundravardhana or Pund ...
(
Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...
).Newman, John. �
The Sugatamatavibhaṅgakārikā of Jitāri
�� (1988). Academia.edu.
His father Garbhapāda attended the court of King Sanātana of Varendra, a vassal of the Pālas. Jitāri's father was a tantric guru who initiated him into Buddhist
Vajrayana ''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhis ...
practices (especially that of Mañjughoṣa) as well as the study of Buddhist philosophy. Jitāri eventually became a renowned scholar and was granted the title of Paṇḍịta at Vikramaśilā university by King Mahāpāla (r. until 940 CE).Junjie Chu, "JITĀRI: A Later Buddhist Master of Debate", in Edelglass (editor), et al. ''The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy'' (Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy), Routledge (2022). Tibetan sources mention that Jitāri was a teacher of Atiśa and
Ratnākaraśānti Ratnākaraśānti (also known as Ratnākara, Śāntipa, and Śānti) (late 10th-century CE to mid 11th-century CE) was an influential Buddhist philosopher and vajrayana tantric adept and scholar. He was the "gate scholar" of Vikramaśilā unive ...
at Vikramaśilā. Apparently he remained a lay disciple ( upasaka) throughout his life. Regarding his philosophical position, Tibetan authors often classify him as a Yogācāra-Svātantrika Mādhyamika. According to Junjie Chu, in his ''Topics of Debate'' (''Vādasthānāni''), Jitāri follows the consciousness-only system of Dharmakīrti. In the ''Verses on the Classification of Buddhist Systems'' (''Sugatamatavibhaṅgakārikā'', lit. "Differentiating the Sugata's Texts") however, he outlines the Yogācāra system and then later refutes the ultimate existence of consciousness from a Madhyamaka perspective. Junjie Chu also argues that Jitāri supports the Vijñānavāda theory which says that awareness has the image of the object (sākāravāda). Thus, according to Junjie Chu:
If we do not assume that there are two philosophers who bear the same name, we have to consider the possibility that Jitāri articulates his different philosophical positions in his two works. In his philosophical work Topics of Debate, he refutes various mainly non-Buddhist theories from the Yogācāra point of view, and in his doxographical work Verses on the Classification of Buddhist Systems and its Commentary, he refutes Yogācāra theory from the Madhyamaka position. In this reading, we can say that he speaks differently to different audiences. Another possibility, however, is that these two works were composed in different periods and that in between these two periods, his thought underwent a radical change from the one philosophical perspective to the other. Since the edition and the philosophico-historical studies on the Topics of Debate are still in the early stage, no decisive conclusion can be offered.
However, Jitāri seems to have seen both systems as ultimately having the same intent. Even in the ''Verses on the Classification of Buddhist Systems'', Jitāri heavily relies on Dharmakirti's system of reasoning throughout the text, calling him "the crest jewel of epistemologists", and "the supreme lord of reasoning". Towards the end of the text, he quotes Dharmakirti and attempts to prove that his ultimate view was also the view of
Madhyamaka Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...
, writing: "What intelligent person would believe that Dharmakirti was averse to the Madhyamaka
siddhanta (Devanagari: ) is a Sanskrit term denoting the established and accepted view of any particular school within Indian philosophy; literally "settled opinion or doctrine, dogma, axiom, received or admitted truth; any fixed or established or canon ...
?".


Works

Jitāri was a prolific author, writing on many Buddhist and non-Buddhist topics that were discussed in the epistemological tradition of Dharmakirti. His works include many works of philosophy, epistemology (
pramana ''Pramana'' (; IAST: Pramāṇa) literally means " proof" and "means of knowledge".
) and reasoning (hetuvidya). Many of these were collected together into a compendium called ''Topics of Debate'' (Vādasthānāni). Some of his philosophical works include: * Apohasiddhi (Proof of Exclusion) * Avayaviniṣedha (Negation of the Naiyāyika's Concept of the Whole Consisting in Parts of a Gross Object) * Īśvaravādimataparīkṣā (Examination of the Doctrine of God / Īśvara) * Kṣaṇabhaṅgasiddhi (Proof of Momentariness) * Kṣaṇabaṅgopanyāsa (Introduction to Momentariness) * Akṣaṇikavādavicāra (Examination of the Theory of Non-Momentariness) * Jātinirākṛti (Analysis of
Caste A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...
) * On the Theory of the Generic Property or Universal ( Jātivāda * Jātyādiniṣedha (Negation of the Existence of Universals) * Sāmānyanirākṛti (Refutation of the Existence of Universals) * Digambaramataparīkṣā (Examination of the Jain
Digambara ''Digambara'' (; "sky-clad") is one of the two major Jain schools and branches, schools of Jainism, the other being ''Śvetāmbara'' (white-clad). The Sanskrit word ''Digambara'' means "sky-clad", referring to their traditional monastic pract ...
Doctrine) or Anekāntavādanirāsa (Refutation of
Anekāntavāda (, "many-sidedness") is the Jainism, Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects and viewpoints. According to Jainism, no single, spe ...
) * Dvijātidūṣaṇa (Critique of the Twice-born Caste) * Dharmadharmiviniścaya (Ascertainment of Property and the Property-Bearer) * Nairātmyasiddhi (Proof of selflessness) * Bālāvatāratarka (Logic Introduced to Unlearned Persons), a work on epistemology for beginners * Bhāvikāraṇavāda (On the Doctrine of
Retrocausality Retrocausality, or backwards causation, is a concept of cause and effect in which an effect precedes its cause in time and so a later event affects an earlier one. In quantum physics, the distinction between cause and effect is not made at the mos ...
), this has been translated into English by Eli Franco. * *Refutation of Pratyabhijñā Philosophy * *Vādasthānāni (Grounds for Argumentation) * Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi (Proof of Consciousness-only) * Vedāprāmāṇyasiddhi (On the Epistemic Invalidity of the
Vedas FIle:Atharva-Veda samhita page 471 illustration.png, upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the ''Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of relig ...
) * Vyāpakānupalambha (On the Non-Perception of the Pervader) * Śrutikartṛsiddhi (Proof of the Human Authorship of the Vedic Injunction) * Śabdāprāmāṇya (On the Invalidity of Vedic Verbal Testimony) * Sarvajñasiddhi (Proof of Omniscience) * Sahopalambha (The theory of simultaneous perception of objects and knowledge) * Sāmagrībhaṅga (Destruction of the Causal Complex) * Hetutattvopadeśa (Instruction on the True Nature of a Reason) * Verses on the Classification of Buddhist Systems and its commentary (Sugatamatavibhaṅgakārikā and Sugatamatavibhaṅgabhāṣya), a doxographic work which follows Āryadeva's Jñānasārasamuccaya. He also wrote various Mahayana works and commentaries including: * Commentary on the Śikṣāsamuccaya * Commentary on the Bodhicaryāvatāra * Commentary on the Ākāśagarbha-sūtra * Bodhicittotpādasamādānavidhi, a ‘ritual manual’ for the
bodhisattva precepts The Bodhisattva Precepts ( Skt. ''bodhisattva-śīla'' or ''bodhisattva-saṃvāra'', , ; Tibetan: byang chub sems dpa’i sdom pa) are a set of ethical trainings ('' śīla'') used in Mahāyāna Buddhism to advance a practitioner along the path ...
based on the Bodhicaryāvatāra.Kirill Solonin & Haoyue Xie (2021): Tangut Buddhism and the Bodhicittotpādasamādānavidhi, Studies in Chinese Religions, DOI: 10.1080/23729988.2021.1941623 * Ādikarmikabhūmipariṣkāra, a summary of the basics of the Mahayana path for neophyte bodhisattvas. * Bodhyāpattideśanāvṛtti-bodhisattvaśikṣākrama-nāma, a ritual manual for confessing the breaking of bodhisattva precepts. * Cittaratnaviśodhanakrama-nāma-lekha - an epistle on controlling the mind addressed to a king. Jitāri also wrote various Vajrayana works, mostly tantric sadhanas and ritual texts on various deities like
Hevajra Hevajra ( Tibetan: kye'i rdo rje / kye rdo rje; Chinese: 喜金剛 Xǐ jīngāng / 呼金剛 Hū jīngāng;) is one of the main yidams (enlightened beings) in Tantric, or Vajrayana Buddhism. Hevajra's consort is Nairātmyā ( Tibetan: bdag ...
, Candamaharosana, Avalokiteshvara, Aksobhya,
Prajnaparamita file:Medicine Buddha painted mandala with goddess Prajnaparamita in center, 19th century, Rubin.jpg, A Tibetan painting with a Prajñāpāramitā sūtra at the center of the mandala Prajñāpāramitā means "the Perfection of Wisdom" or "Trans ...
, Pancaraksa, and Aparamitayus.


See also

* Prajñakaragupta *
Retrocausality Retrocausality, or backwards causation, is a concept of cause and effect in which an effect precedes its cause in time and so a later event affects an earlier one. In quantum physics, the distinction between cause and effect is not made at the mos ...
*
Idealism Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...
*
Buddhist logico-epistemology Buddhist logico-epistemology is a term used in Western scholarship to describe Buddhism, Buddhist systems of ' (Epistemology, epistemic tool, valid cognition) and ' (reasoning, logic). While the term may refer to various Buddhist systems and vi ...
*
Epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jitari 10th-century Indian philosophers 10th-century Buddhists Buddhist logic Buddhist writers Indian Buddhists Indian scholars of Buddhism Indian logicians Monks of Vikramashila