Opening Speech by Shōryū Katsura

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for coming to participate in the Fifth International Dharmakīrti Conference and thereby demonstrating the continued vigor and interest in the study of Dharmakīrti’s works and thought, as well as those of his predecessors and successors. Special thanks are due to the organizer of this conference, Prof. Birgit Kellner of the University of Heidelberg, and her assistant, Ms. Ina Chebbi [Buchholz], for their painstaking efforts. I would also like to thank Dr. Patrick McAllister for his technical support of all sorts.

I am delighted to see again the faces of many I have met at earlier Dharmakīrti Con-ferences. But I see many new faces as well, and so this may be a good occasion for me to give a brief history of the International Dharmakīrti Conferences. It was the late Prof. Yūichi Kajiyama (1925–2004) who hit upon the idea of holding such a conference. In 1982 Prof. Kajiyama invited Prof. Ernst Steinkellner to Kyōto University as a visiting professor for one semester to have him read the Vādanyāya with students in Kyōto. Just before Prof. Steinkellner returned to Vienna, Prof. Kajiyama decided to hold a one-day workshop on Buddhist logic and epistemology. He invited several Japanese scholars and students, including Prof. Hiromasa Tosaki, to present papers. Prof. Steinkellner gave a lecture on the development of the idea of viparyaye bādhakapramāṇam in Dharmakīrti’s works. Prof. Kajiyama called the event “International Dharmakīrti Conference,” despite the fact that apart from Prof. Steinkellner there was perhaps no other participant from abroad. In 1989 Prof. Steinkellner then held the Second International Dharmakīrti Conference in Vienna. This one was truly “international” in terms of the participants. He called it “the second conference” as a mark of respect for the first one organized by Prof. Kajiyama. It was amazing to see that both Prof. Tilmann Vetter (1937–2012) from Leiden and Prof. Lambert Schmithausen from Hamburg attended the conference. Together with Prof. Steinkellner, they had both been students of Prof. Erich Frauwallner (1898–1974) at the same time as Prof. Kajiyama spent a few months in Vienna in the early 1960s. One afternoon in the middle of the conference we took a Frauwallner Memorial Walk into the Vienna Woods. I then organized the Third International Dharmakīrti Conference in Hiroshima in 1997; the fourth one was held again in Vienna in 2005. The proceedings of these three conferences were published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.^[1]

In this connection I would like to emphasize the significance of guru-śiṣya relationships in our field. I happened to be a student of Prof. Kajiyama in the mid-1960s, just after he came back from his stays in London and Vienna. When I was preparing my MA thesis on Dharmakīrti’s theory of svasaṃvedana, he read the entire svasaṃvedana portion of the Pramāṇavārttika Chapter 3 (vv. 320-539) together with Manorathanandin’s commentary with me almost every Saturday afternoon of 1966–67. And the convener of the present conference, Prof. Kellner, studied in Vienna and Hiroshima in the 1990s, when both Prof. Steinkellner and I were teaching at our respective institutes in those cities’ universities. Today I am glad to see that such guru-śiṣya relationships have developed further and further in various parts of the world. Here I must remind you that there is neither a formal association of Dharmakīrti studies, nor any rules that govern us. These conferences have been held spontaneously and irregularly. Therefore, we do not know when and where the next Dharmakīrti conference will take place. But that does not bother me at all. As long as guru-śiṣya relationships continue, I believe that there will be a next one.

It is very sad that I do not see the face of our dear friend Dr. Helmut Krasser (1956–2014) among you. As you all know, Dr. Krasser passed away last March. We all miss him greatly. His untimely death is a great loss, not only for those who were immediately associated with him at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna, but also for everyone who is engaged in the field of Buddhist logic and epistemology. He did such a great service to the development of our field, not only through his own academic contributions but also by organizing various academic projects, such as the deciphering and editing of the Sanskrit manuscripts of Jinendrabuddhi’s Ṭīkā on Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti as well as other works. He will be remembered by the younger generation in our field as a most sympathetic teacher and guide, a person willing to help them with bodhisattva-like efforts.

Dr. Krasser published an edition and translation of Dharmottara’s Laghuprāmāṇyapa-rīkṣā (his PhD thesis) and Śaṅkaranandana’s Īśvarāpākaraṇasaṅkṣepa (his Habilitation thesis). He also edited a number of proceedings of academic conferences, including those of the Second and the Fourth International Dharmakīrti conferences, as well as the two-volume Festschrift for Prof. Steinkellner entitled Pramāṇakīrti.^[2] From the very beginning of Prof. Steinkellner’s endeavor to open the door to the treasures of Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts found in Buddhist monasteries of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Dr. Krasser helped him, later succeeding him as the Viennese representative for the cooperation with the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing. In that connection, together with Prof. Steinkellner and Dr. Horst Lasic, he published diplomatic and critical editions of the first two chapters of Jinendrabuddhi’s Ṭīkā on Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti.

Dr. Krasser also published many academic papers on Buddhist epistemology and logic and related areas. I cannot summarize all that he did in the short period of time of his active years. Instead I would like to refer to two fundamental hypotheses he left for us: the dates of Dharmakīrti and the real nature of the Buddhist philosophical treatises attributed to individual authors.

Regarding the dates of Dharmakīrti, Prof. Frauwallner’s proposal of 600–660 C.E. had been widely accepted by modern scholars of Dharmakīrti.^[3] However, Dr. Krasser was courageous enough to challenge the authority of Prof. Frauwallner, proposing a much earlier date for Dharmakīrti, chiefly on the grounds that Bhāviveka’s proof of non-eternity by sattvānumāna was influenced by Dharmakīrti.

Dr. Vincent Eltschinger has summarized the state of affairs in his most recent book as follows:

Kumārila, Dharmakīrti and Candrakīrti have long been considered, ever since Frauwallner’s influential “Landmarks in the History of Indian Logic” (1961), roughly contemporary philosophers belonging to the first half of the seventh century CE. … According to Krasser, however, Bhāviveka, who can be as-signed with a fair amount of certainty to 500–570, presupposes both Kumārila and Dharmakīrti. As a working hypothesis, Krasser proposes “the time of activity of Kumārila and Dharmakīrti to be the middle of the sixth century.” Hypothetical (and unpopular) as it may be, Krasser’s chronology relies in my opinion on much stronger arguments than Frauwallner’s argumentum a silentio.^[4]

Last week I attended the XVII^th conference of International Association of Buddhist Studies in Vienna, where I had an opportunity to hear a paper given by Dr. Toshikazu Watanabe titled “Buddhist Critiques of the Sāṅkhya Theory of Causality, Dharmakīrti and his Predecessors.” In that paper, referring to Dharmapāla’s commentary on the tenth chapter of Āryadeva’s Catuḥśataka, he demonstrated that Dharmapāla influenced Dharmakīrti with regard to the critique of the Sāṅkhya theory of causality. He also demonstrated that Bhāviveka’s critique of the Sāṅkhya’s logical reason moves along the same lines as Dharmapāla’s. In his concluding remarks, Dr. Watanabe argued that Dharmapāla and Bhāviveka must have lived during almost the same period, i.e., the sixth century, and stated that although he does not accept Dr. Krasser’s proposal that Bhāviveka was influenced by Dharmakīrti, he sees a close relationship between these two Buddhist philosophers. He thus concluded that he is inclined to accept Dr. Krasser’s working hypothesis that Dharmakīrti’s dates could be pushed back into the middle of the sixth century, proposing the dates of 560/570–650.

Also last week in Vienna, Prof. Shinya Moriyama read a paper called “On dharmisvarū-paviparītasādhana,” in which he pointed out the resemblance between Dharmapāla’s idea of three types of reasons and Dharmakīrti’s idea of three types of śabdārtha in Pramāṇavārt-tika I.205.^[5] This gives supporting evidence for Dr. Watanabe’s argument that Dharmapāla influenced Dharmakīrti. Of course, there are other possibilities, such as Dharmakīrti having influenced Dharmapāla or both having gotten a similar idea from a common source. But in any case, it is safe to say that Dharmapāla and Dharmakīrti lived at approximately the same time, as Dr. Watanabe concluded.

Again during last week’s conference, Prof. Eli Franco re-examined and rejected the earlier date of Dharmakīrti proposed by Dr. Krasser.^[6] One of his arguments is based on the silence of Xuanzang, who was in India from 625 to 645, and that of other Indian and Buddhist philosophers with regard to Dharmakīrti. Against such an argument of silence, Prof. Steinkellner rightly pointed out that there are other ways to explain this silence, referring to the well-known legend of Dharmakīrti’s unpopularity with his contemporaries.^[7] As a student of logic, I do not endorse much power to reasoning based on silence.

Silence does not prove anything; it only raises doubts. In this connection I would like to refer to my own article “On trairūpya formulae.”^[8] In that article I demonstrated the gradual development of the trairūpya formulae in Buddhist logical texts and suggested that Xuanzang was certainly acquainted with the restriction by the particle eva in the formulation of the first condition of the valid logical reason (pakṣadharmatā), which was missing in Dignāga’s formulation of trairūpya but appears in Dharmakīrti’s. It is well known that the sixth-century Naiyāyika, Uddyotakara, criticized Dignāga’s understanding of the first condition and Dharmakīrti tried to respond to his criticism by adding the eva-restriction to the first condition. It is possible that such an eva-restriction was proposed by some unknown Buddhist logician before Dharmakīrti. But considering Dharmakīrti’s position in the development of Buddhist logic, I am inclined to believe that it was Dharmakīrti who initiated this revision in the trairūpya formulae. Therefore, although Xuanzang does not mention the name of Dharmakīrti, he may well have been acquainted with one of the important revisions made by Dharmakīrti in Dignāga’s logic. And if this is the case, I believe that it is possible to refute Prof. Frauwallner’s and Prof. Franco’s argument regarding Xuanzang’s silence about Dharmakīrti.

Of course, while it is impossible to prove Krasser’s hypothesis of the earlier dates of Dharmakīrti, it cannot be easily dismissed either. As Eltschinger and Watanabe have both conjectured, it is quite possible that Dharmakīrti was active in the latter half of the sixth century, and indeed, perhaps he enjoyed little popularity among his colleagues.

Regarding the second topic left for us by Dr. Krasser, I would like to point out that in Vasudhararakṣita’s Tibetan translation of the Pramāṇsasamuccayavṛtti on Pramāṇasamu-ccaya 3.21, there are instructions on how to draw a chart of a hetucakra, which clearly indicates that at least this portion of PSV is a note recorded by a student during a class given by, if not Dignāga, some teacher of Buddhist logic lecturing on the Pramāṇasamuccaya. Moreover, I have recently been reading Avalokitavrata’s Ṭīkā on Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpra-dīpa, and from time to time I have noticed that Avalokitavrata meticulously points out what is the pakṣa, what is the sādhyadharma and what is the hetu of the relevant prayoga. This also seems in part to support Krasser’s characterization of Buddhist philosophical texts as being students’ notes taken during monastic lessons. There must be many parallel cases like this. I would also like to add that among Japanese Buddhists, a tradition existed of compiling and publishing writings known as kōroku (講録), which are students’ notes of their teachers’ lectures on certain Buddhist texts or doctrines. From this perspective, too, I believe that Krasser’s conjecture must be taken more seriously and that we should continue working on this idea.

As a Japanese Buddhist of the Jōdo-shinshū tradition, I believe that Dr. Krasser, though invisible, is somewhere among us, having ascended to the Sukhāvatī, Land of the Buddha Amitābha, and returned from there as a Bodhisattva to watch over and help us. Having heard what I just said, he would probably say, “Don’t take me too seriously. There are other nice things to do in the world, like drinking and smoking.”

Before I close my opening speech, I should refer to some of the important achievements that have been made since the last Dharmakīrti conference. In the opening speech of the last conference, Prof. Steinkellner presented “News from the manuscript department.” I would like to report now on some of the further developments in this regard, as far as I know of them. As I mentioned above, the first two chapters of Jinendrabuddhi’s Pramāṇasamuccayaṭīkā have been published. I am responsible for editing the third and the fourth chapter of the same text; I am happy to report that I have finished working on the third chapter and am now in the middle of the fourth. Regarding the fifth chapter, as we all know, Mr. Ole Pind finally submitted his work on that apoha chapter to the University of Vienna as his dissertation and it is now available on line to benefit of us all;^[9] since Dr. Krasser is gone, Dr. Lasic and Dr. McAllister have taken over the task of editing the fifth chapter. Finally, regarding the sixth chapter, Prof. Motoi Ono and his colleagues have more or less worked out the whole chapter. Meanwhile, Prof. Steinkellner has published the critical edition of the first two chapters of the Pramāṇaviniścaya and Dr. Pascale Hugon has published that of the third chapter. Dr. Toshikazu Watanabe and Dr. Krasser’s students Drs. Masamichi Sakai and Hisataka Ishida have critically edited several portions of Dharmottara’s Pramāṇaviniścayaṭīkā. And Prof. Steinkellner is now polishing up the critical edition of the Hetubindu that was prepared by Dr. Krasser.^[10]

Originally I intended to mention some important recent contributions to our field; many of them come from you. But I decided not to do so because after all, my information is limited and my impressions of those publications may be biased. So this is the end of my opening speech. I hope you will all enjoy the forthcoming papers and presentations, and at the end, I hope we shall have a little better understanding of this marvelous Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti from many different angles. Thank you for your patience.

Heidelberg, 26 August 2014

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Ernst Steinkellner (ed.), Studies in the Buddhist Epistemological Tradition. Proceedings of the Second International Dharmakīrti Conference, Vienna, June 11–16, 1989. Vienna 1991. This volume also includes a “Report on the First International Dharmakīrti Conference at Kyōto, June 16 and 17, 1982” by Yūichi Kajiyama on p. xi. The proceedings of the third conference were edited by Shōryū Katsura, Dharmakīrti’s Thought and its Impact on Indian and Tibetan Philosophy. Proceedings of the Third International Dharmakīrti Conference, Hiroshima, November 4–6, 1997. Vienna 1999. The proceedings of the fourth were edited jointly by Helmut Krasser, Eli Franco, Horst Lasic and Birgit Kellner, Religion and Logic in Buddhist Philosophical Analysis. Proceedings of the Fourth International Dharmakīrti Conference, Vienna, August 23-27, 2005. Vienna 2011.

[2]:

Pramāṇakīrti, edited by Birgit Kellner, Helmut Krasser, Horst Lasic, Michael Torsten Wieser-Much and Helmut Tauscher. Vienna 2007.

[3]:

As far as I know, there are at least two exceptions, namely, Christian Lindtner, who proposed 530–600 (“Apropos Dharmakīrti–Two New Works and a New Date,” Acta Orientalia Kobenhavni 41 (1980) 27–37) and Toshihiko Kimura, who proposed 550–620 (“A New Chronology of Dharmakīrti,” Dharmakīrti’s Thought and Its Impact on Indian and Tibetan Philosophy: Proceedings of the Third International Dharmakīrti Conference, Hiroshima, November 4-6, 1997, ed. by Shoryu Katsura. Vienna 1999, 209–214).

[4]:

Vincent Eltschinger, Buddhist Epistemology as Apologetics: Studies on the History, Self-Understanding and Dogmatic Foundations of Late Indian Buddhist Philosophy. Vienna 2014, 116, n. 80.

[5]:

In the meantime published in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens LVI–LVII (2015–2018) 37–49.

[6]:

In the meantime published as “Xuanzang’s Silence and Dharmakīrti’s Dates” in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens LVI–LVII (2015–2018) 117–141.

[7]:

For more about the debate on the dates of Dharmakīrti, please see Dr. Elisa Freschi’s blog: Thinking about through Sanskrit (and) philosophy, http://elisafreschi.com/2014/08/26/third-day-at-the-iabs-fran co-on-the-datation-of-dharmakirti-and-some-further-thoughts-on-dharmakirti-dignaga-kumarila/.

[8]:

Buddhism and Its Relation to Other Religion: Essays in Honour of Dr. Shozen Kumoi on his Seventieth Birthday. Kyōto 1985, 161–172.

[9]:

In the meantime published in revised form as Dignāga’s Philosophy of Language. Vienna 2016.

[10]:

In the meantime published as Dharmakīrti’s Hetubindu. Beijing/Vienna 2016.