Preface

This volume contains papers presented at the Fifth International Dharmakīrti Conference, held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Heidelberg, August 26 to 30, 2014. Professor Katsura, one of the leading senior scholars in the field, recalled the history of the Dharmakīrti conferences in his opening speech, which is also published in this volume.

The Heidelberg Conference was organized jointly by three projects which Birgit Kellner directed at the University of Heidelberg: Project MC 13.2 “Reasoning in Buddhism between South Asia and Tibet” and Project MC 3.3 “Buddhism between South Asia and Tibet–Negotiating Religious Boundaries in Doctrine and Practice,” both financially supported by the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”; and the project “Systems of Epistemology in Classical Indian Philosophy,” supported by the German Research Foundation DFG. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support received from the sponsors of these projects that made the conference possible, as well as the efficient and kind organizational support by the Cluster’s administrative staff.

Like the previous volumes of Dharmakīrti Conference proceedings, this collection testifies to a growing and dynamic field, driven by significant discoveries of new sources, a growing body of historical knowledge, and a continually refined awareness of the so-phisticated nature of the Indian, Tibetan and East Asian intellectual traditions that jointly constitute the historical reference point for Dharmakīrtian Studies. The editing of the pro-ceedings took longer than expected, and for various reasons not all of the papers presented at the conference could be included. Contrarily, the papers by Hiroko Matsuoka and Patrick McAllister could not be presented at the conference, but were included here due to their topical relevance.

Editorial work was conducted chiefly at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, where two of the Heidelberg con-ference organizers, Kellner and McAllister, had in the meantime relocated (and where Horst Lasic had been working all along; our fourth editor, Sara McClintock, also spent time here in 2016). Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek of the Academy institute corrected the English of a number of the papers, and we thank her for her painstaking efforts. We also gratefully acknowledge editorial assistance by Liudmila Olalde (Heidelberg) whose sharp eyes let no missing bibliographical reference escape. Together with McAllister, Olalde also handled technical aspects in the production of the camera-ready copy.

The shorthand “Dharmakīrtian Studies” refers to the study of philosophical currents in India, China and Tibet which take the theoretical efforts of Dharmakīrti (between mid-6th and mid-7th centuries CE) and his predecessor Dignāga (ca. 480-540) in the fields of epistemology and logic as their inspiration–theoretical efforts that revolve around the explication, justification and defense of a system of “instruments of trustworthy awareness” (pramāṇa), and, driven by these concerns, also extend into other areas of vital interest to Buddhist intellectuals in the context of their respective times. Such areas include problems in the philosophy of mind pertaining to the analysis of consciousness, subjects in the philosophy of language, here intertwined with the analysis of concepts and concept formation. Theoretical aspects of Buddhism as a soteriology, as a set of teachings geared towards the attainment of liberation from suffering in saṃsāra, also play a central role in Buddhist logico-epistemological discourse. Buddhist pramāṇa theories were adopted, adapted and criticized by non-Buddhists primarily in their Indian context. Dharmakīrtian Studies therefore, as a matter of course, also attend to explorations of this larger intellectual environment between the late fifth and thirteenth centuries CE, an environment shaped by mutual influence and cross-fertilization, as well as intense polemics between competing religio-philosophical currents encompassing Brahmanical traditions as well as Jains and others.

In the past decades, the history of Dharmakīrtian Studies has been significantly shaped, if not revolutionized, by the discovery of new sources and improved access to them. Within the larger area of Indian Buddhist literature, Sanskrit pramāṇa literature has been partic-ularly profoundly affected by improved access to Sanskrit manuscripts which have been preserved in the territory of today’s Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) within the People’s Republic of China.^[1] Until the beginning of the 21^st century, key works of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti themselves were unknown in the language of their composition, Sanskrit. An agreement between the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the China Tibetology Research Center (CTRC) in Beijing, concluded in 2004 and renewed several times since, laid the foundation for collaborative research based on photocopies of manuscript photographs kept in the CTRC’s library. Copies of manuscripts of Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇaviniścaya, Hetubindu and Santānāntarasiddhi became accessible, as well as of Jinendrabuddhi’s Pramāṇasamuccayaṭīkā, a commentary on Dignāga’s main logico-epistemological work, the Pramāṇasamuccaya and -vṛtti. Research on these new sources had already begun when the Fourth International Dharmakīrti Conference was held in Vienna (August 23-27, 2005). Ernst Steinkellner’s opening speech “News from the manuscript department” lays out the specifics of the cooperation and its (now) early history, and summarizes ongoing work and first results; the edition of the first chapter of Jinendrabuddhi’s Pramāṇasamu-ccayaṭīkā arrived at the Vienna conference just fresh from the press.^[2] Steinkellner also outlined the challenges that lie ahead. Besides the enormous task of scholarly work in-volved in the analysis, edition and translation of these new materials, there remains the task of a full descriptive catalogue of all Sanskrit manuscripts in the TAR. The actual manuscripts are still out of bound for Chinese as well as foreign scholars. The same holds good for a reported 61-volume set of color reproductions of all these manuscripts, of which five copies are reported to have been printed. It also has not been possible, since Steinkellner’s report, to access a bundle of paper manuscripts in the Potala palace in Lhasa, which among others includes a manuscript of Dignāga’s Nyāyamukha and manuscripts of Dharmakīrti’s Sambandhaparīkṣākārikā, Santānāntarasiddhiprakaraṇa and Pramāṇavi-niścayakārikā.^[3] Steinkellner’s introduction to the volume Sanskrit Manuscripts in China III (Beijing, forthcoming) summarizes the current situation and formulates a proposal for further improvement. In the three years since the keynote lecture on which that introduction is based was held in Beijing, nothing of substance has happened.

While progress in further improving access of scholars to Sanskrit manuscripts in China has been slow, editorial activities have yielded significant further results. In 2010, the monograph series Sanskrit Texts from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, founded as a joint venture of the China Tibetology Publishing House and the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, counted eight volumes. In 2019, volumes 21 and 22 are being submitted: the diplomatic edition of the third chapter of Dharmottara’s Pramāṇaviniścayaṭīkā by Pascale Hugon (Vienna) in collaboration with Takashi Iwata (Tokyo) and Toshikazu Watanabe (Vienna, now Tokyo), as well as the critical edition of the first five chapters of Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya by Horst Lasic, Xuezhu Li (Beijing) and Anne MacDonald (Vienna), based on preparatory work by Helmut Krasser. The sixth chapter is being edited by Anne MacDonald, while the remaining chapters are being edited by Katsura and Li.

As Katsura also recalled in his opening speech, Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇaviniścaya and Hetubindu are now available in critical editions by, respectively, Steinkellner (chapters 1 and 2 of the Pramāṇaviniścaya; Hetubindu), as well as Hugon and Toru Tomabechi (Tokyo) (chapter 3 of the Pramāṇaviniścaya).^[4] The second chapter of the Pramāṇasamuccayaṭīkā has been critically edited by Steinkellner, Helmut Krasser and Horst Lasic. Further chapters are currently being edited by Katsura, Motoi Ono (Tsukuba), Yasutaka Muroya (Vienna), and Toshikazu Watanabe, with additional support by a group of younger Japanese scholars. Sections of the second chapter of Dharmottara’s Pramāṇaviniścayaṭīkā, preserved only in fragmentary manuscripts, have been edited in two Vienna dissertations by Hisataka Ishida and Masamichi Sakai, supervised by Helmut Krasser.^[5]

Meanwhile, other institutions have been able to conclude cooperation agreements with the CTRC similar to the Viennese model, for individual manuscripts and texts. In the area of pramāṇa literature, mention should here be made of efforts at the University of Leipzig, where Eli Franco, Junjie Chu, Xuezhu Li and Hiroko Matsuoka are editing Yamāri’s (c. 1000-1060) important commentary on Prajñākaragupta’s (c. 750-810) Pramāṇavārttikā-laṅkārabhāṣya, as well as rare works by Jitāri (940-1000).^[6] It is a promising sign that Chinese scholars are increasingly involved in these editorial activities, as attested by Li’s participation in several projects; Luo Hong (formerly CTRC, now at Sichuan University in Chengdu) is working on an edition of Ratnākāraśānti’s Prajñāpāramitopadeśa. In the long run research on these manuscripts will only be able to flourish if a new generation of Sanskritists in China carries it forward.

More recent discoveries that may serve as the basis of future projects belong to the final period of pramāṇa activities in India. There is a third manuscript of Jitāri’s Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi, in addition to the two manuscripts described by Franco and Chu. There is also a copy of a valuable manuscript of a lengthy work on the sahopalambhaniyama-inference entitled Sahopalambhaniyamasamarthana, also ascribed to Jitāri. Based on selected sample pas-sages, this text can be assumed to be the same work referred to as Sahopalambhaprakaraṇa in the colophon of a manuscript that both Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana and Giuseppe Tucci pho-tographed in Ngor monastery.^[7] However, approximately one third of the Ngor manuscript is missing in Tucci’s photographs; the remainder is often out of focus. In Sāṅkṛtyāyana’s photographs, the text is almost completely illegible.^[8] A hitherto unknown manuscript of Jñānaśrīmitra’s Advaitabinduprakaraṇa was also recently discovered; it complements the codex photographed by Sāṅkṛtyāyana in 1938 that formed the basis of Anantalal Thakur’s edition first published in 1959 (reprinted in 1987) and allows to substantially improve the text. These are only a few of the many cases where new manuscripts from the TAR lend invaluable support to editorial work together with other materials; Śāntarakṣita’s Vādanyāyaṭīkā and Dharmakīrti’s Vādanyāya are another particularly prominent case in point.^[9] Lastly, there also remains the extensive manuscript of 123 folios of an otherwise unknown commentary on Arcaṭa’s Hetubinduṭīkā, in the colophon ascribed to a certain Jayabhadra or Bhavabhadra.^[10]

Tibetan developments inspired by Indian pramāṇa have similarly benefited from greater accessibility of sources, as demonstrated by Pascale Hugon’s extensive work on Phya pa chos kyi seng ge (1109-1169) and other authors from the early period of Tibetan Buddhist Scholasticism in the 11^th to 13^th centuries; her paper in this volume offers an entry point into this newly opened field of enquiry. A considerable amount of pertinent manuscripts testifying to hitherto largely unknown works have surfaced recently, especially as part of the private library of the Fifth Dalai Lama Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho (1617–1682) in Drepung monastery. They have been published in facsimile in the “Collected Works of the Bka’ gdams pas” (Bka’ gdams gsung’bum), released in several installments which by now number altogether 120 volumes. Hugon and Kazuo Kano (Tokyo) have set out to produce a descriptive catalogue of this vast collection, while at the same time studies of individual texts and their contents are being undertaken.^[11]

Last but not least mention should be made of similarly growing research in Chinese adaptations of Indian pramāṇa. Efforts in this field are undertaken by a younger generation of scholars in China (cf. the paper by Tang Mingjun in this volume), as well as by a team of Japanese scholars comprising chiefly Shigeki Moro (Kyoto), Shinya Moriyama (Matsumoto), Yasutaka Muroya and Motoi Ono–a development facilitated by improved access to rare manuscripts of commentaries in Japanese temple libraries.^[12]

The contributions to this volume demonstrate that the process of exploring new sources, of utilizing them in research endeavors and reflecting on how they motivate revisions of received knowledge, is in full swing. These new discoveries have contributed to a stronger focus on manuscript research–including problems of paleography and codicology–, and they have also given precedence to philologically oriented studies. As new texts are to be edited, new translations are to be produced, and a variety of textual and fundamental histori-cal problems need to be solved. Yet, Dharmakīrtian Studies have at the same time preserved, even strengthened, their disciplinary openness and methodological pluralism. Philological and historical studies chiefly concerned with placing texts and thinkers, theories and argu-ments in the context of intellectual histories that in many respects still remain to be written, dominate especially in continental Europe and Japan where such methodologies have a longer academic tradition within Asian Studies at large. But a philosophical engagement with pramāṇa ideas, an analysis and critical examination of these ideas in terms of their philosophical significance and substance–more at home in the Angloamerican sphere–, has also had a place at Dharmakīrti conferences in the past and can by now be considered an integral part of the world of Dharmakīrtian Studies.^[13]

To take philosophical texts seriously requires reading them as works of philosophy, just as serious studies of ancient legal literature must take this literature seriously in its legal dimensions. Many have also argued, convincingly, that a proper history of philosophy cannot be merely a descriptive account of which philosopher lived when and where and did what (as notoriously difficult such accounts may be for a field like Indian philosophy where precise external data is hard to come by). In order to be illuminating, it is to be written as a history of philosophical thought, with close attention to ideas and content, and by making plausible why it is that philosophers argue the way they do–in due consideration of other forces that drive intellectual history. Philologically oriented historical approaches and philosophical approaches–each of which may again come in different forms–may produce tensions, of course, and they often do. The philosopher may find the philologist’s reticence at wanting to know whether Dharmakīrti is right frustrating (“how could you not want to know this?”), while the philologist will in turn find the philosopher’s conviction that they have understood where Dharmakīrti is wrong hyperbolic (“shouldn’t you first examine his words more carefully before you jump to conclusions?”). The International Dharmakīrti Conferences have seen a number of discussions along these lines, as the individual proceedings volumes demonstrate. The field of Dharmakīrtian Studies is best served by keeping both parties in dialogue, by focusing on what they stand to learn from each other, and by striving to turn whatever tensions may arise into constructive critical discourse. It is only then that the seeds which the wealth of our new sources represent will be able to mature and develop.

September 2019

Birgit Kellner, Vienna
Horst Lasic, Vienna
Sara McClintock, Atlanta
Patrick McAllister, Vienna

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

This is also borne out by the significant pramāṇa content in the by now three panels on Sanskrit manuscripts in China that have been held at the Beijing Seminar of Tibetan Studies, published in the three volumes Sanskrit Manuscripts in China I (edited by Ernst Steinkellner in cooperation with Duan Qing and Helmut Krasser, Beijing 2009), II (edited by Horst Lasic and Xuezhu Li, Beijing 2016), and III (edited by Birgit Kellner, Jowita Kramer and Xuezhu Li, Beijing, forthcoming). Volume II is available for download at https://www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/Institute/IKGA/PDF/digitales/Lasic_Li_2016.pdf (last accessed 15 September 2019).

[2]:

Cf. Helmut Krasser, Horst Lasic, Eli Franco, Birgit Kellner (ed.): Religion and Logic in Buddhist Philosophical Analysis: Proceedings of the Fourth International Dharmakīrti Conference, Vienna, August 23-27, 2005 (Vienna 2011: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften), pp. xvii-xxi.

[3]:

For a full list of the contents see Steinkellner, “News from the manuscript department”, p. xxi.

[4]:

For bibliographical references cf. Katsura’s “opening speech” below on page xvii.

[5]:

Sakai’s 2010 dissertation (PDF download at http://othes.univie.ac.at/9623/) concerns the proof of momentariness, while Ishida’s 2011 dissertation (PDF at http://othes.univie.ac.at/13375/) deals with the subject of the logical nexus.

[6]:

Cf. Junjie Chu and Eli Franco, “Rare Manuscripts of Works by Jitāri”, in: Horst Lasic and Xuezhu Li (ed.): Sanskrit Manuscripts in China II. Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House, 15-48.

[7]:

Tucci’s photographs from 1939 are published in facsimile in Studia Indologiczne 7 (2000) 425-449, as “Appendix III” to Francesco Sferra’s paper “Sanskrit Manuscripts and Photos of Sanskrit Manuscript in the [sic] Giuseppe Tucci’s Collection. A Preliminary Report”.

[8]:

In the Göttingen collection, they are preserved as COD MS SANSCR RAH Xc14/10b (Jitāri, Saho-palambhasiddhi); cf. Bandurski, Frank: “Untersuchungen zur buddhistischen Literatur” = Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden, Beiheft 5, Göttingen 1994: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, p. 42.

[9]:

A diplomatic edition of the Kundeling manuscript of the Vādanyāyaṭīkā is currently being prepared by Yasutaka Muroya at the Academy institute in Vienna, in the framework of the research project “Debate and rational argumentation in South Asian Buddhism” (P30827) supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF.

[10]:

Cf. Steinkellner, “News from the manuscript department”, p. xx.

[11]:

The current state of their work is accessible at https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ikga/forschung/tibetologie/mate rialien/a-gateway-to-early-tibetan-scholasticism/.

[12]:

Results of these research endeavours were among others presented at the panel “Pramāṇa across Asia: India, China, Korea, Japan”, held at the XVIIth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna, August 18-23, 2014, published in Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 56-57 (2015-2018). The papers presented at the panel “Transmission and Transformation of Buddhist Logic and Epistemology in East Asia” (XVIIIth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, University of Toronto, August 20–25, 2017) will be published in a volume bearing the panel title and edited by Shinya Moriyama (Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien, forthcoming).

[13]:

John Taber insightfully discusses these different, sometimes divergent, sometimes complementary approaches to Indian philosophy and their background in disciplinary histories in his paper “On Engaging Philosophically with Indian Philosophical Texts”, Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 67/1 (2013) 125-163.