Pramanasamuccaya

Introduction

Dignaga’s main work is written in Sanskrit verse with his own prose commentary and has six chapters: on perception, inference for oneself, inference for others (the public form of argument), the logical reason and examples, the theory of “exclusion” (apoha) and false rejoinders in debate. The Sanskrit original is lost; the text is known from two Tibetan translations and from quotations, and a Sanskrit commentary by Jinendrabuddhi has been edited only recently. The work turned the question of how knowledge is justified into a central topic of Indian philosophy. Dharmakirti’s “Commentary on Valid Cognition” (Pramanavarttika), nominally a commentary on it, became even more influential.

Connections

Builds on

• Twenty Verses (Vimsatika)c. 380 · Vasubandhu

Taken up in

• Pramanavarttikac. 640 · Dharmakirti

Answered in

• Perception1986 · Bimal Krishna Matilal

Criticized in

• Shlokavarttikac. 640 · Kumarila Bhatta