Alamban Pariksha

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

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proceed to the attainment of Arhatship. When the Pusa reluctantly agreed to do so, Mañjus'ri appeared and recalled him to his high design and aspirations for the salvation of others and summoned him to develop for the benefit of prosperity, the Yogācārabhūmisāstra, originally delivered by Maitreya. On this Chenna renounced the idea of an arhat's career, and devoted himself to a thorough study and development of the treatise on the Science of Inference. When he had finished his work on this subject, he proceeded to the propagation of the rich teaching of Yoga system, and had disciples who were of note among their contemporaries ". (v. On Yuan Chwang's travels in India by Thomas Watters, Vol. II, pp. 209-10).
We learn from the above extract that Dinnāga composed his Yin-ming-lun, probably the Pramaņa- , samuccaya in the monastery of Achala in the Mahārattha country, identified with Ajanta caves (Ibid., p. 240) and stayed much in that monastery, and also there have been some legends connected with further development of his logic. But some more particulars of the early part of his life may be gathered from the Tibetan historians, Buston and Tārānātha. The former relates the following:
“Dinnāga was of Brahmanic caste and ordained by a teacher of the Vātsīputrīya sect. Having received a perfect education in the school of worldly sciences, he received from his preceptor, the instructions about the concentrated meditation for the removal (of Obscurations). Then he was told to meditate over the principle of the Ego which was said to be inexpressible as being neither