Dharmakīrti on relations and persons

British Journal for the History of Philosophy · 2026-03-26

Introduction to Reality: A Study of Śrīgupta’s Tattvāvatāravṛtti with a Critical Edition and Annotated Translation

PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation) · 2025-01-01

This book offers the first comprehensive study, critical edition, and annotated English translation of Śrīgupta’s (c. 7th–8th century) Tattvāvatāravṛtti. As the earliest known synthesis of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka metaphysics with the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition of logic and epistemology, the Tattvāvatāravṛtti marks a pivotal moment in the development of Indian Madhyamaka thought. Its central focus is the “neither-one-nor-many argument,” later renowned as one of the five great Madhyamaka arguments for emptiness. An analysis of this line of reasoning reveals it to be, at its core, an attack on true unity: Śrīgupta rejects the possibility of an intrinsic nature by denying the existence of mereological simples, whether material or immaterial. The Tattvāvatāravṛtti also presents the earliest formulation of an influential threefold criterion for conventional reality, according to which whatever is conventionally real is (i) dependently originated, (ii) causally efficacious, and (iii) satisfies our ordinary notions of existence and unity only when not subjected to critical analysis. This framework was central to later Madhyamaka-Yogācāra syntheses, particularly in the work of Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla. Śrīgupta’s other important philosophical contributions are brought to light, including his case for the non-standard view that certain instances of enlightened cognition are necessarily both conceptual and veridical, challenging the widespread assumption in Buddhist thought that conceptually mediated cognition is invariably erroneous.

Mahāmudrā in Buddhist Meditation

2024-01-01

Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu on the principle of sufficient reason

Asian Journal of Philosophy · 2024-03-13

Madhyamaka Buddhism

2024-01-01

A Case Against Simple-mindedness: Śrīgupta on Mental Mereology

Australasian Journal of Philosophy · 2023 · 1 citations

• Computer Science
• Epistemology
• Philosophy

There’s a common line of reasoning which supposes that the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is grounded in a mind-like simple subject. To the contrary, Mādhyamika Buddhist philosophers like Śrīgupta (seventh–eighth century) argue that any kind of mental simple is incoherent and thus metaphysically impossible. Lacking any unifying principle, the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is instead an unfounded illusion. In this paper, I present an analysis of Śrīgupta’s "neither-one-nor-many argument" against mental simples and show how his line of reasoning is driven by a set of implicit questions concerning the nature of and relation between consciousness and its intentional object. These questions not only set the agenda for centuries of intra-Buddhist debate on the topic, but they are also questions to which any defender of unified consciousness or a simple subject of experience arguably owes responses.

Śāntarakṣita:

Routledge eBooks · 2022 · 2 citations

• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Theology

Śāntarakṣita (c. 725–788) is known for his synthesis of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka with elements of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition of logic and epistemology. His two most important independent treatises, the Compendium of True Principles (Tattvasaṃgraha) and the Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamakālaṃkāra), are characterized by an emphasis on the indispensable role of rational analysis on the Buddhist path as well as serious and systematic engagement with competing Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools of thought. Śāntarakṣita employs a pedagogical-rhetorical device of provisionally adopting what he deems successively more rational views to reject less rational ones. Using this approach, in the Ornament of the Middle Way, he recommends a gradual path to arrive at an understanding of the Madhyamaka ultimate truth (paramārthasatya) by incorporating Yogācāra idealist ontology into his presentation of conventional truth (saṃvṛtisatya). In this same text, he presents an influential iteration of the neither-one-nor-many argument (ekānekaviyogahetu) for the Madhyamaka ultimate truth, viz. the universal emptiness of intrinsic nature (svabhāvaśūnyatā), leaving a lasting and significant impact on both Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy.

An Appearance–Reality Distinction in an Unreal World

Analysis · 2022-01-01

When it comes to the structure of reality, foundationalist intuitions have predominated throughout the history of philosophy, and this remains largely the case in contemporary metaphysics, despite the fact that in contemporary epistemology, infinitism and coherentism are treated as serious theoretical contenders. Recently, however, a growing number of voices have challenged foundationalist presuppositions about the structure of reality, particularly construed as a structure of metaphysical grounding relations, with the possibility of coherentist and infinitist structures finding new defenders.1 Jan Westerhoff’s The Non-existence of the Real World is an important contribution to this conversation for his extended and systematic defense of the viability not only of a kind of first-order ontological non-foundationalism but also of a second-order non-foundationalism about truth. In this compelling and engaging book, Westerhoff makes a case for a comprehensive non-foundationalism much like that defended by Nāgārjuna’s (c. second century) Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy without ever mentioning Madhyamaka...

The Truth about Śrīgupta’s Two Truths: Longchen Rabjampa’s “Lower Svātantrikas” and the Making of a New Philosophical School

Journal of South Asian Intellectual History · 2021-12-09 · 1 citations

Abstract Longchen Rabjampa (1308–64), scholar of the Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma tradition, presents a novel doxographical taxonomy of the so-called Svātantrika branch of Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy, which designates the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta (c. 7th/8th century) as the exemplar of a Svātantrika sub-school according to which appearance and emptiness are metaphysically distinct. This paper compares Longchenpa’s characterization of this “distinct-appearance-and-emptiness” view with Śrīgupta’s own account of the two truths. I expose a significant disconnect between Longchenpa’s Śrīgupta and Śrīgupta himself and argue that the impetus for Longchenpa’s doxographical innovation originates not in Buddhist India, but within his own Tibetan intellectual milieu, tracing back to his twelfth-century Sangpu Monastery predecessors, Gyamarwa and Chapa.

Somethings and Nothings: Śrīgupta and Leibniz on Being and Unity

Philosophy East and West · 2020 · 14 citations

• Philosophy
• Epistemology

This article argues that Śrīgupta and Leibniz accept similar metaphysical principles concerning unity, aggregates, and being. It then shows how, from these shared principles, Śrīgupta and Leibniz arrive at similar conclusions concerning the reality of ordinary bodies and radically different conclusions about fundamental ontology.