Alamban Pariksha

Author(s): Dinnaga, Dharmapala, N Aiyaswami Shastri
Publisher: Adyar Library

Page 15

XV
Before closing this short preface, it will not be out of place to say a few words about the author and his commentators. The following accounts of Dinnāga are narrated by the Chinese traveller, Hiuen Tsang :
"Above twenty li further south west of the monastery of Achala near the capital of Pundhra was an isolated hill on the ridge of which was a stone tope where Chenna ( = Dinnāga) Pusa composed a Yin-minglun or a treatise on logic. The pilgrim then relates about the circumstances connected the production of this Sastra in exposition of Buddha's teaching on Yinming. Chenna, the pilgrim relates, after the Buddha departed from this life, came under his influence, and and entered the Order. The aspirations of his spiritual knowledge were vast and his intellectual strength was deep and sure. Pitying the helplessness of the state of his age he thought to give expansion to Buddhism. As the Sāstra on the Science of Inference was deep and terse, and students wrought at it in vain, unable to acquire a knowledge of his teachings, he went apart to live in calm seclusion to examine the qualities of the writings on it and investigate their characteristics of style and meaning. Hereupon a mountain-God took the Pusa up in the air and proclaimed that the sense of Yin-ming-lun originally uttered by the Buddha, had been lost and that it would, that day, be set forth at large again by Chenna. This latter sent abroad a great light which illuminated the darkness. The sight of this light led to the King's request, that Chenna should at once