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ON RATNAKIRTI

Ratnakirti's K.sa.nabhahgasiddhi (to be abbreviated as KBhS), the second part of which forms the subject of a recent publication by Dr. McDermott 1, is a very brief reworking of the extensive K.sa.nabhahgadhydya by the author's teacher Jf~magri(mitra). These two Buddhist doctors lived in the 1lth century, and they thus belong to what might be termed the Mediaeval School of Buddhist Logicians, who developed the theories of the Classical School founded by Dign~tga (c. 480-540) and elaborated by Dharmakirti (c. 600-660); their works accordingly reflect discussions that took place within the Buddhist schools as well as the controversies the Buddhists had with Br~thmanical opponents, especially those of the Ny~tya school, such as Sa .mkara, Trilocana and V~caspatimi~ra (all of whom are mentioned by name in Ratnakirti's K sa.nabhahgasiddhi), to whom must probably be added Udayana (not explicitly named by Ratnakirti) who attacked Jf~tna~ri and perhaps also Ratnakirti himself. The importance of Ratnakirti's work can be seen for example in the influence it had on Mok.s~karagupta's Tarkabhd.sa, one of the last Buddhist manuals on logic to be written in India. z The basic thesis set out and analyzed in the K$.an.abhahgasiddhi (KBhS) is the well-known Buddhist doctrine that all existent things are nonpermanent (anitya) and momentary (k.sa.nika). This can be ascertained by an inference having a positive form (:anvaya) where existence (sattva) as the logical reason of identity (svabhdvahetu) - and hence the pervadendum (vy6pya) - establishes momentariness - the probandum (sddhya) or pervader (vyapaka) (yat sat tat k~a.nikam [eva]: KBhS, p. 62.6, 77.6); and it can also be ascertained by contraposition, by means of an inference having a negative form ( : vyatireka) (yasya kram6kramau na vidyete na tasydrthakriy~s~marthyam: KBhS, p. 77.11), where the absence of the sddhya= vydpaka would allow the inference that the sddhana=hetu= vy@ya is absent according to the logical method based on the nonperception of the pervader (vydpakdnupalabdhi)L - Now, an exclusively positive inference - for example one in which all entities without exception

Journal of Indian Philosophy 1 (1970) 300--309. All Rights Reserved Copyright 1971 by D. l~eidelPublishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

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are ascertained to be impermanent and where there can therefore be no real heterologous examples - would infringe the condition for a valid inference based on the triply marked logical reason (trirftpaliilga), so that, in terms both of the older Nyfiya and of Dignfiga's logic at least, it can be held to be inconclusive. And the exclusively negative contraposed form of inference - for example one in which the subject (dharmin) is a permanent entity (cf. KBhS, p. 86.26f.) - would incur, in terms of the classical logic, the fault of the unreal (ddraydsiddha) reason in view of the fact that the Buddhist does not recognize the existence of a permanent entity in which the reason could occur (v. KBhS, p. 83.10) and that he cannot therefore himself make use of such an inference. It is with this last problem that Ratnakirti is chiefly concerned in the second part of the KBhS, while the first part of the KBhS is devoted to the problems raised by the anvaya form o f inference. (As regards his opponents' contrary thesis which admits the existence of permanent entities, Ratnakirti had earlier undertaken to refute it directly in another treatise, the Sthirasiddhid~t.san.a; and in his Citrddvaitasiddhi he had already provided a general statement of his epistemology.) ~ Ratnakirti seeks to resolve the logical problem of the unreal reason by pointing out that an object of negation (pratiyogin) such as a permanent entity can, though unreal, be conceptually imagined (vikalpollikhita, p. 87.13; cf. p. 86), and that it can therefore figure as the subject of a negative inference which, as a valid means of knowledge, serves to sublate a thesis contrary to what is stated in the positive form. Accordingly, in the inference in which the subject is a permanent entity, absence of (sequential or simultaneous) causality is pervaded by non-existence (asattva), so that in the contraposed form of inference the absence of the former can establish the latter. This viparyayabddhakapramdn.a ['evidence showing that the negation of the thesis is contradictory'] founded on vydpakdnupalambha i.e. on non-perception of sequential or simultaneous causal action - is consequently considered to constitute a valid inference. In short, while the existence of a real thing is established by a means of valid knowledge so that in the absence of the latter it is proper to speak of the 'non-establishment of the locus in which the logical reason must occur' (dgraydsiddhi), if one wishes to establish the non-existence of a permanent entity the fault of d~raydsiddhi does not affect the logical reason when the subject of the inference is established in a purely con-

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ceptual way (vikalpamdtrasiddha). In this way the contrariety (virodha) between a non-momentary (ak~an.ika) entity and (sequential or simultaneous) causal action is well established, the subject of negation (pratiyogin) being conceptually established as a (non-momentary) 'contradictory' (virodhin; pp. 81.6-7; 87.13). And it is just this conceptually imagined nature of the subject which allows us to proceed (p. 86-87). Ratnakirti then sums up the theory by stating that the real (paramdrtha) consists in the fact that a permanent entity cannot be connected with a causal productivity that is either sequential or simultaneous, and hence that it is never connected with existence. (It is to be recalled here that Dharmaldrti's definition of the really existent [paramdrthasat] is that which is capable of causal efficiency; cf. Pramdn.avdrttika 3.3) 5. Now, since there is no other 'class' (rd~i) over and above the momentary and the non-momentary, the existent once excluded from the non-momentary is established as reposing in the alternative, i.e. in the momentary (on this vigrdma cf. KBhS, p. 78.8-9)6. And such being the nature of all dharmas, liberation (mukti) results from knowing this (KBhS, p. 88). The logical problems raised by the Buddhist proof of momentariness already had a very long history behind them when Ratnakirti and his master Jfifmagrimitra took them up in the l l t h century. The question of inconclusiveness due to the absence of real contrary examples had for example arisen in the demonstration of momentariness by means of the fact of evanescence (the 'vindgitvdnumdna" as this inference has been termed by E. Frauwallner 7), which Dharmakirti was to supplement by the sattvdnurndna or 'inference based on existence'. Amongst the Brghma.nical Naiyftyikas, Uddyotakara (2nd half of the 6th century) had already argued in favour of the validity of both exclusively positive and exclusively negative inferences, in which no heterologues (vipak.sa) were consequently available; and to designate the second type he used the term avzta (which had earlier denoted in the Sft.mldaya system a reductio ad absurdum) s. It is interesting to note that Uddyotakara developed his theory in order to counter the arguments of Dignftga, who had attacked his predecessor Pak.silasvgmin (Vfttsyfiyana) and insisted on the theory of the threefold logical mark (trirftpalihga) according to which the occurrence of the hetu 9 in homologous examples (sapak.sa) and its non-occurrence in heterologous examples (vipaks.a) were both necessary for an inference to be valid. Later Jayantabhat.t.a also dealt with similar cases. And the

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Neo-logicians of the Navyanyftya school also recognized inferences of kevaldnvayin and kevalavyatirekin form, in addition to the anvayavyatirekin form in which both homologues and heterologues are adduced. Moreover, Trilocana and several other later Naiy~yikas propounded the theory of a natural relation (svdbhdvikasambandha) according to which the relation in pervasion (vydpti) is an inner one between universals, so that no reference need be made to a relation between two empirically existing entities; and in this way an attempt was made by them to render valid metaphysical inferences concerning transempirical entities. 10 On the Buddhist side Jfi~na~rimitra's elder contemporary Ratn~kara~nti - following on some Jaina logicians - went so far as to accept the theory of 'internal pervasion' (antarvydpti), according to which pervasion can exist between concepts irrespective of their ontological status as reals or fictions, and also without any reference having to be made to real examples; this theory in which pervasion is therefore grasped only in the ['minor term' of the inference, i.e., the] sadhyadharmin (rather than in the d.r.st.dntadharrain) is thus opposed to the classically current theory of 'external pervasion' (bahirvyapti) according to which vyapti 'pervasion' is between external entities and is established by real examples. However, both Jfi~ma~rimitra and Ratnakirti continued to hold that in the anvaya form the vyatireka form is necessarily implied (dk.sipta) and vice versa (cf. KBhS, p. 62.4; 65.15; 77.4); their position agrees on this point with Dharmakirti's in the Hetubindu (p. 43). It thus appears that the bahirvydpti 'external pervasion' theory belongs not only to the majority of the earlier Naiy~yikas and to the Buddhist logicians of the Classical School, but also to Jfi~na~rimitra and Ratnakirti. With regard to the logical problem attaching to inference with negative (vyatireka) pervasion, that of the asiddhahetu resulting in the unreality of a sddhya predicated of an unreal subject, since Dharmakirti has remarked that objects denoted by words (gabddrtha) are the products of conceptual construction founded on beginningless Impregnations (anddivdsanodbh~tavikalpa) and that they accordingly do not have individual particulars (svalak.san.a) as their correlates, even an unreal subject can figure as the subject of a proposition (such as na santi pradhdnddayo 'nupalabdhe.h, directed against the Sa.mkhya theory of 'primaeval matter' which the Buddhist however does not accept) without having to be considered unreal (v. Pramdn.avdrttika 1.205f.).ix

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With respect both to the inconclusiveness of the logical reason in an inference of exclusively positive form and to the unreal nature of the reason in an inference of exclusively negative contraposed form, the difficulties discussed by the sources accordingly stem not only from a logical problem but also from an ontological one, viz. the unavailability (because of their unreality) of heterologues in the first case and the unreality of the subject of inference in the second. A concern with the ontological status of the terms of an inference seems to be present also in Dignftga's theory, when he insists that all three marks of the logical reason must be applicable - i.e. the presence of the hetu in the subject ['minor term'] of inference, its presence in homologues only (sapak.sa eva sattvam), and its total absence in all heterologues (asapaks.e "sattvarn eva) - although from a purely formal point of view the second and third requirements, corresponding to joint presence (anvaya) and joint absence (vyatireka), are no doubt equivalent. 12 Nor did Dharmakirti wholly repudiate this view, for he continued to recognize the basic role played by both anvaya and vyatireka inasmuch as he held that the anvaya form of vydpti necessarily implies the vyatireka form and vice versa. 13 The importance thus attached to the ontological status of the terms of an inference is indeed quite understandable in view of the well-known affinities of the Classical School of Buddhist logic with the Sautr~ntika school, which had concerned itself with the absolutely real (paramdrthasat) defined as causally efficient (arthakriydsamartha), and of the fact that its pramd~avidyd 'theory of knowledge' was intimately bound up with praxis. In other words, while usually counted as Vijfifmavadins (of the 'non-traditionalist' variety), Dignftga and Dharmakirti were concerned in their theory of knowledge not only with concepts but also with things (artha) and our behaviour to them; and in this respect their position appears to be closely connected with that of the Sautr~ntikas. 14 That this question was however of lesser importance to the main 'traditionalist' stream of the Vijfifmavftda school, as exemplified in later times by Ratnftkarag~nti for example, is also understandable; for this school was interested above all in consciousness and its content. But Jfianagrimitra and Ratnakirti were also Vijfifmavgdins (of the Sakdravdda variety), and the question then arises as to why they held to the bahirvydpti 'external pervasion' theory while RatnftkarMfmti (a Nirftkaravftdin) adopted the antarvydpti 'internal pervasion' theory. Is their apparent conservatism in

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this respect due merely to the traditional authority of Digngga and Dharmakirti, or to their overall philosophical orientation (e.g., as Sgkftrav~dins rather than Nir ftkftravgdins), or to some other still to be determined factor ? Even in the present imperfect state of our knowledge of the materials, an at least partial answer to this question seems already possible. On the basis of Dignftga's Xlambanaparik.sd (verse 6) Bodhibhadra in his J~dnasdrasamuccayanibandhana (fol. 50b) traces the Sdkdravdda back to Digngga, while on the basis of certain passages of the Mahdydnasam.graha he traces the Nirftkftrav~da back to Asaflga. Moreover, in our sources the Sautrgntikas figure also as S~k~ravgdins. It appears that the difference between Jfifma~rimitra and Ratnakirti on the one hand and Ratn~karagfmti on the other continues the difference between the 'traditionalist' Vijfi~navgdins, with Asaflga at their head, who follow the Agama (the Lufl'gi'rjes"brafl'sems'tsam'pas of the Tibetan doxographers), and those Vijfigmav~dins, with Digngga at their head, who follow the nydya (the Rigs'pa'i'rjes"brafl'sems'tsam'pas of the Tibetan doxographers). As already noted above, the latter tendency has affinities with the Sautrantikas, who are considered also as Sftkgravadins. 15 Dr McDermott is a trained philosopher who has worked for example in the field of mediaeval European scholastic philosophy. Her interest being then evidently directed mainly towards the formal and comparative side of the problems raised in Ratnakirti's K.sagabhatigasiddhi, the introduction and notes contain little detailed analysis of the Indian philosophic context into which these problems fit. As for the historical aspect, it is left largely where it had been left some thirty years earlier in Satkari Mookerjee's The Buddhist philosophy of universal flux (Calcutta, 1935), a meritorious pioneer work which has however naturally been partly superseded by work done in the last decades. Following Mookerjee (op. cit., p. 399) the author assumes (pp. 5, 12) that Ratnakirti's treatment of conceptually constructed subjects ('null subject terms') is a forerunner of Ratn~kara~nti's 'internal pervasion' (antarvydpti) theory. However, since Ratnakara~anti was a contemporary (and apparently an elder one at that) of Ratnakirti's teacher Jfifma~rimitra, the theory developed by Ratnakirti cannot be considered to be - in a historical sense at least - 'proleptic' (p. 5) of the 'internal pervasion' (antarvydpti)theory; in any case it is quite impossible to hold that Ratnftkara~nti was Rat-

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nakirti's disciple (p. 5). Moreover, as noted above, Ratnakirti like Jfi~tna~rimitra continued to recognize the need in an inference for a corroborative example, which Ratnakara~nti had discarded; in other words, instead of the antarvy@ti theory's being in Buddhist logic an innovation foreshadowed by Ratnakirti and then explicitly adopted by Ratn~tkara~ n t i (pp. 5, 12 n. 45), Ratnakirti appears in this respect as a conservative. - Furthermore, it is hardly adequate to state that it was the Yogacdra's 'received doctrine that there is nothing except for staccato discrete cognitions' (p. 4 n. 12), as its dlayavijgdna 'store consciousness' doctrine very clearly certifies. The statement that the attributes 'real' and 'unreal' are linguistic fictions that 'ought to be used exclusively in discourse about the merely relative (g~nya)" (p. 2) is also puzzling and is certainly in need of explication. Nor does it seem likely that in Ratnakirti's usage sat/sattva mean 'real' and 'reality' (as is stated pp. 4-6; cf. Index, p. 87), as distinct from the current translations 'existent' and 'existence'; and in the case of the term sattvahetu (KBhS, p. 77.5) as well as of sattvdnurndna 'inference by existence (proving momentariness)', the ascription of the meaning 'reality' to sattva seems plainly contradictory. The author's renderings of other technical terms also raise questions. Thus, vikalpa may signify (1) 'alternative; disjunction' and (2) 'conceptual construction (based on dichotomizing thought)' - but surely not 'horn of a trilemma' (p. 87); in the first meaning it is one of the three yogas (mentioned for example in the commentary on Prarndn.avdrttika 4.230-231), the other two being samuccaya and bddhana. As for the very important terms anvaya and vyatireka, the renderings '(method of) agreement' and '(method of) difference' have been used by a number of earlier translators into English, while the more specific renderings '(joint) presence' and '(joint) absence' have been preferred by other scholars. However, in the Index the author explains the two terms respectively as 'the assertion that the pervadendum entails [i.e., is pervaded by] the pervader' and 'contraposition, negation as the assertion that the absence of the pervader entails the absence of the pervadendum', although such renderings do not seem in fact to fit in most Buddhist texts; and the author is indeed occasionally obliged by the context to translate watireka somewhat more accurately by 'negation' (pp. 34, 35 n. 89, 36, 44), a translation which is however scarcely identical with 'assertion...' or even with 'contraposed (premisses)' (pp. 28, 54, 59, 74). Ratnakirti's own definition of the two terms can be found for example

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in his lgvarasddhanad~.san, a (p. 45) and in the KBhS (p. 65, part of which definition is quoted by the author on p. 56 n. 24 of the present book where, instead of the meaningless anaikdntikatvasydmdvdd- a misprint taken over from the Devanftgari edition where bha and ma are typographically confused - anaikdntikatvasy~bhdvdd should be read). Inasmuch as the terms anvaya and vyatireka apply to vydpti, there would seem to be no question in these texts of an 'assertion' (though the relation obtaining in such a vydpti can of course be formulated as an assertion). The publisher's catalogue tells us that 'the book constitutes an explicit defense of the Buddhist position and an implicit argument in favor of: (1) the comparative approach to philosophizing; (2) the utilization o f formal logical structures as tools for philosophical explication'. While it would seem that the means brought to bear in this volume may not wholly suffice for an explicit philosophical 'defense of the Buddhist position', it does not seem either that the formal problem treated was per se particularly obscure and in need of being explicated by the 'utilization of formal logical structures'. What is on the contrary in need of explication is the systematic context, which has to be studied on the basis of Jfi~na~rimitra's K.sa.nabhahgddhydya of which the KBhS is nothing but a digest, and also the historical context in which the systematic problems fit. There then remains the 'comparative approach to philosophizing'. The present volume brings out the basic logical problem with which Ratnakirti was dealing along with salient points of his argument; and in it are to be found interesting observations on points of theoretical importance to the philosopher and logician, e.g. on the intensional or extensional character o f Ratnakirti's logic (pp. 30 n., 52, 59, 66), the question of the unexampled (non-empirical) as distinct from the inconsistent (pp. 7, 53-54, 81), negation (pp. 62-63, 69, 73-74, 79), etc. And if the formalizations and analytical techniques used here succeed in making Ratnakirti's thought more accessible to those who are professional academic philosophers, the author has no doubt successfully accomplished what she originally set out to do - though one is entitled to ask to what extent these philosophers will be in a position to appreciate fully the significance of Ratnakirti's system when relatively little attention is given to the systematic and historical context. Much more work will indeed have to be done before some o f the more obscure points become clear for even the specialist in

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I n d i a n philosophy, n o t to speak o f the comparative philosopher. Perhaps the best way to deal with such texts and the highly complex problems they pose would ideally be for a philosopher and an Indologist to collaborate as coauthors, until such a time as m o r e scholars trained b o t h as philosophers and Indologists will become available (such a h o p e m a y appear somewhat utopian in the present circumstances when, despite frequent professions to the contrary, academic autarchy and departmental d e m a r c a t i o n disputes seem all too often to make practically impossible any truly interdisciplinary approach). As it stands, D r M c D e r m o t t ' s b o o k has the very certain merit o f calling the attention o f the philosopher, the logician and the linguist to Indian theories that should be o f interest to him, and o f presenting these at first sight perhaps exotic theories in a c o n t e m p o r a r y f o r m that m a y m a k e them m o r e attractive; as such the w o r k is to be warmly welcomed, for the need for such interdisciplinary c o m m u n i c a t i o n certainly c a n n o t be denied.
Leyden University

NOTES x A. C. Senape McDermott, "An Eleventh-Century Buddhist Logic o f 'Exists', Ratnakirti's K.san.abhafigasiddhih. vyatirek~ttmik~' (edited with introduction, translation and notes). Foundations of Language Supplementary Series, Volume U, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1969. X + 88 pp. Cf. Y. Kajiyama, An introduction to Buddhist philosophy, Ky6to, 1966. a Cf. KBhS, p. 86-87: ...nityo hi dharmf/ asattva~ s~dhyam] kramikaryak~ritv~kramik~ryakaritvaviraho hetuO[ asya ct~bhavadharmatvar~ nama asattvalak.sa~asvas~dhyavinabhavitvam ucyate/ tac ca kramakramena sattvasya vy6ptisiddhau sattvasya vyapyasydbhavena kramakramasya vyapakasya viraho vyKptaO sidhyattty abhavadharmatvam prag eva vidhyor vydptisadhanat pratyak.sad anuman~d ekasmad va prama~antarat siddham iti netaretaragrayado.sah./ 4 All these texts have been edited by A. Thakur, Ratnak[rtinibandh~valf, Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series, Vol. UI, Patna, 1957. The K4a.nabhatigasiddhi was also edited by Haraprasad Shastri, Six Buddhist Nyaya Tracts, Calcutta, 1910. - The works of Jfi~ma~rimitra have been edited by A. Thakur, JKana~rimitranibandh~vali, Tibetan Sanskrit Works Series Vol. V, Patna, 1959. 5 On the meaning of arthakriy~ el. M. Nagatomi, Adyar Library Bulletin 31-32 (1967), pp. 52ff. 8 This reasoning dearly shows that Buddhist philosophers by no means ignore the principle of the excluded middle. Indeed, it is through the application of the principle according to which, in the case of two opposed terms, there can be no third ra~i that Buddhist philosophers seek to eliminate substantialism (i.e. conceptual attachment to an entity posited as permanent) and thus to prepare the way to release.

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7 E. Frauwallner, 'Dharmottaras K san.abhafigasiddhil~.', Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes 42 (1935), p. 217. a V. H. Jacobi, Aus Indiens Kultur. Festgabe Richard yon Garbe (Erlangen, 1927), pp. 8-16. a [For a clear explanation of terms like hetu, s~dhya, vipaksa = vaidharmya d.rs.tanta, sapak.sa = sddharmya d.rtanta, see B. K. Matilal, 'Reference and Existence in Ny~ya and Buddhist Logic', Journal of Indian Philosophy I (1970), pp. 86-93. - E d . note.] 10 Cf. G. Oberhammer, Wiener Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde Siid- und Ostasiens 8 (1964), pp. 131-181. 11 See also Kamala~ila's Paajika ad Tattvasa~graha 1987-1988 on the asiddhata of the hetu. 12 Cf. the discussion by K. Potter in R.S.Y. Chi, Buddhist FormalLogic I (London, 1969), pp. xlv-xlvi. la See above. 14 This question of the artha is no doubt determined according to the terms of a given (realistic or idealistic) system but appears in itself to have nothing to do directly with realism vs. idealism. In fact Dharmakirti considers that there is ultimately no bahyartha (v. Pramd.navinigcaya 1, p. 88t"., 98f.). is S~ntarak~ita, Tattvasamgraha v 1998, and Kamala~ila, Pa~jikd ad 2081 ; Mok.sfikaragupta, Tarkabhd.s~ (ed. by H. R. Rangaswami Iyengar, Mysore, 1952), pp. 23, 63 (the first passage is missing in Krislmamacharya's ed., p. 11, but the second is on p. 34); Gu0aratna, commentary on HaribhadrasCtri, .Sad.darganasamuccaya 11 (p. 47); Sarvadar~anasa.mgraha (ed. by Abhyankar), p. 46. Cf. Y. Kajiyama, op. cir., p. 62, 154ff., and IBK 14/1 (1965), p. 26f. On a connexion between JfiAnagrimitra and Dignfiga see my Thdorie du tathagatagarbha et du gotra (Paris, 1969), pp. 434-5.