Hetubindu Tika

Author(s): Dharmakirti Mahaswami, Archatt Bhatt, Durvek Mishra Pandit, Sukhlal Sanghavi, Jinvijay, B Bhattacharya
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

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disciple of Asanga, in his works like Vädavidhi, accepts the previous improvement regarding the number of members of a syllogism, and effects a further progress by advancing the doctrine of triple character (trairupya) of a probans instead of the fivefold one adumbrated by the Nyaya system. It is certain that the Tarkasastra1, whether it is a work of Vasubandhu or of somebody else, is a work of some pre-Dignaga Buddhist logician. In this Tarkasastra there is, of course, the same description of the five members of a syllogism as is found in the Nyaya system, but there are some alterations and additions in the scheme of the types of sophism (jati) and occasions of censure (nigrahasthana) of the Nyaya system3. The Upayahṛdaya also records such alterations in a different manner. Vasubandhu, like Maitreya and Asanga, admits the three organs of knowledge viz. perception, inference and scripture, but he gives a different interpretation of their nature. Not only this, but he reinterprets the scriptural organ of knowledge in accordance with the attitude of the Buddha and says that although the scripture is a valid organ of knowledge, it is dependent upon perception and inference and as such subordinate to them. Here Vasubandhu clearly disagrees with the Nyaya view of the importance of the scriptural organ of knowledge, because in the Nyaya system, which believes in Scriptures as the revelation of God, the empirical perception and inference are subordinate to the metempirical Scriptures. Dignaga, the disciple of Vasubandhu, however, introduced manifold changes in his works viz. Pramanasamuccaya, Nyayamukha, Hetucakra etc., and founded a new Science of Logic which could be unanimously acknowledged in Buddhism. Of course, even after the times of Vasubandhu and Dignaga there were such currents of thought which did not follow the two thinkers but rather placed their absolute credence in the doctrines embodied in the works of the earlier exponents like Maitreyanatha and others-the doctrines which were amended and reinterpreted by Dignaga and others. But, on the whole, in spite of this, the position of Vasubandhu and, more particularly, that of Dignaga was, in later times, very firmly established in Buddhism. And it is because of this that the volume of imitative treatises, translations and criticisms of the thoughts and writings of these authors has gradually increased. This work was not limited within the precincts of our country but was also profusely done in such foreign lands as Central Asia, China and Tibet.
Before the epistemological and logical Sanskrit literature of Buddhism went outside India and began to develop and spread in ever renewing forms, the Päli literature of the Buddhist Pitakas had already crossed the boundaries of the country. When Mahendra and Sanghamitra, the religious descendants of Asoka, the great patron of religion, implanted the great tree of Pali literature in Ceylon, its branches and sub-branches spread in other countries as well. The Buddhist
1 Pre Dignaga Buddhist Texts-Introduction, p. IX.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid. 4 Ibid.
iii हेतु.
Tarkas'astra p. 37.
Introduction p. XXI and XXII.