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Dharmakirtis's Attitude Toward Omniscience
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chapter two of his rNam, grel thar lam gsal byed, he says that DharmakTrti's chapter is divided into a “forward system" that explains the causal process through which the Buddha became authoritative and a "reverse system" that explains the reason why he is authoritative. The forward system is promulgated in order to refute opponents who, arguing that "there is no proof that there is an authority that knows hidden objects,' say there is no cause generating the omniscience that comes into existence through development of a method for obtaining the omniscience of one who has become an authority."40 The reverse system is promulgated in order to refute opponents who say that "there is no cause demonstrating omniscience in such statements as "there is such omniscience because we see its results or (we see something of) similar nature."'41 In other words, according to rGyal tshab, all of Dharmaksrti's efforts in the "Pramānasiddhi" chapter are directed toward answering those who claim that omniscience is impossible :
It is clear that in Gyal tshab the identification of Buddha-authority with omniscience-pointed to by Prajñākaragupta-is complete. Indeed, in commenting on I. 9, where Dharmakirti--after defining pramāņa-says simply that “The Blessed One is such an authority,”42 rGyal tshab says, "The Muni, the Blessed One, is an authority with regard to all conventional and ultimate objects, because he possesses a fresh, unmistaken cognition of all those (objects)."43 He follows this comment with a lengthy demonstration that even the second moment of a Buddha's omniscience fulfils the definition of pramāna as a new, or fresh, cognition-largely because, although each omniscience moment embraces all past, present and future objects, their status as past, present or future changes from moment to moment, so in each moment they are cognized in a different temporal aspect, and are therefore cognized freshly.14 For Dharmakirti, whose definition of the Buddha seems to have been more modest than rGyal tshab's (or Prajñākaragupta's), the Buddha's authoritaliveness was sufficiently established by his direct cognition of spiritually efficacious truths. The fact that they were truths assured that they fulflled the criterion of unmistakeness ; the fact that they effected one's own and others' spiritual goals assured that they fulfilled the criterion of efficaciousness; and the fact that they were directly cognized assured that they fulfilled the criterion of freshness. For rGyal tshab, however, the Buddha is presumed omniscient, so he must show how this purported omniscience is in line with the definition of pramāna given by Dharmakirti. Dharmakirti felt no such need, and Gyal tshab's demonstration is totally incidental to the root text of the Pramāņavārttika.
Be that as it may, the entire section that in Dharmakirti's verses is devoted to proving that a permanent God cannot be an authority while the Buddha can is said by rGyal tshab to "refute the existence of an omniscient being who knows how to create all knowable objects, "'45 and "to prove as omniscient the one who knows by perception how all (knowables) really exist.":46 Verses 1.31-35, which are included at the end of this section, are said to be concerned with refuting objections to
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