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Dharmakirti's Attitude Toward Omniscience
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buddhi, wrote a commentary on the remainder of the work, including the "pramānasiddhi" chapter. After destroying the first two drafts, Dharmakirti finally accepted the third as adequate, 30 so we may assume that Devendrabuddhi's glosses probably are true to his master's intention. In commenting on the Pramānavārttika I. 31-35, Devendrabuddhi remarks: “A cognition that has as its object all hidden objects is not asserted as an authority (pramāņa ). The gnosis ( of a wise man ), which has as its object the goals to be striven for, by beings, is an authority when, knowing that object that is to be striven for the wise man teaches it and makes (others ) relate to it."31 Knowledge of the goals to be striven for involves knowledge of what is to be attained and what is to be avoided, and “The so-called knowledge of the true nature of what is to be avoided, together with the methods (for so avoiding ), is the cognition of suffering and its origination; the so-called knowledge of the true nature of what is to be attained, together with the means (of so attaining ), is the cognition of cessation and path. Therefore, knowledge that perfectly accomplishes the goals of beings, like ( knowledge of) the four noble truths, is asserted to be authoritative; knowledge of all things is of no use to us, and it is not asserted as authoritative,"32. Devendrabuddhi further adds that any attempt to prove that there exists a cognition of hidden objects is subject to doubt, 33 but that even if there is no one who sees objects beyond the senses, this will not undermine Buddha's authoritativeness, because authoritativeness has been defined in terms of knowledge of the goals of beings.34
Devendrabuddhi, then, interprets Dharmakirti just as Dharmakirti's verses would lead us to expect him to be interpreted : as ridiculing the spiritual relevance of omniscience, and asserting as authoritative religious knowledge cognition of the four noble truths—for it is the four noble truths that provide the key to beings' liberation, and one of the keys to the authoritativeness of knowledge is that it leads to the attainment of some goal or desired object.
Prajñākaragupta, who lived at least two centuries after Dharmakirti and Devendrabuddhi, is perhaps the greatest of Dharmakirti's Indian commentators; he and Devendrabuddhi are the two most respected by Tibetan tradition, for which the Pramānavarttika is a seminal text. In his Pramāņavārttikalarkāra, Prajñākaragupta notes that the sort of knowledge of which Dharmakirti is speaking is knowledge of the aims of beings and not knowledge of absolutely everything thams cad thams cad rig pa=sarvasarvaveda).35 He goes on to assert that just "seeing great distances" is not a sufficient criterion of omniscience.36 This remark is interesting, because in DharmakIrti and Devendrabuddhi, it is authoritativeness, not omniscience, for which seeing distances is not a sufficient criterion. Prajñākaragupta, it appears from this and other evidence in the Alamkāra, is conflating omniscience and authoritativenessat least where a being who is said to know the true nature of existents is concerned. If pramāna is unmistaken (avisarivādaka) knowledge with regard to objects, and one
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