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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have been dealt with. It is difficult to ascertain the chronological order of the composition of these three works. But it is very probable that he composed the short treatises at the outset and afterwards compiled the subject matter of all those works together with a number of additional topics and thoughts into his magnum opus like the Pramanavārtlika. Dharmakirtti has not described the different types of probans in the same order in all the above three works. Non-apprehension (anupalabdhi), nature (svabhāva) and effect (karya)-this is the order in the Nyāyabindu. Effect, nature and non-apprehension-this is the order in the Pramanavārttika. The order in the Hetubindu is as follows: nature, effect and non-apprehension. And as already noticed there are four main divisions, from the point of view of subject matter, of the Helubindu. In these four divisions a number of topics together with numerous philosophical and logical terms have been discussed which the reader can easily know from the Visayānukrama (Table of Contents).
The term hetu has been used in old treatises in the general sense of an organ of knowledge (piamāna).1 Sometimes it has also been used in the sense of reasoning (nyāya) for instance, in the expression Hetuvidyā which is the equivalent of Nyāyavidya or Tarkavidyā or Anvikșiki, the term hetu is obviously used in the sense of reasoning. But the term hetu in the title Hetubindu of the present work refers to the probans which is one of the terms of an inference. The word bindu in the same title indicates that the present work embodying just a drop of the critique of probans, which is as vast and deep as the great ocean, has considered the problem very briefly. Or, perhaps, by the word binduDharmakirtti might be meaning to indicate that the short treatise Hetubindu embodies only a part of the elaborate treatment of the topic of probans. contained in the Pramanavārttika. Whatever might have been the fact, it is most apparent that Dharmakırtti has put his own views regarding the probans very clearly in the present treatise--the views which, being in conformity with the Buddhist way of thought and also logically sounder than the older ones, obtained universal recognition in the Buddhist Science of Logic and, as a result, only a very few such views which contradicted the views of Dharmakirtti could survive in the Buddhist system after his time. Indeed, Dharmak irtti stabilized and clarified the contribution of Dignāga to the Science of Logic and laid the foundation of a definite line of enquiry in the field of Buddhist Logic. It is because of this that we find so much criticism of the views of Dignāga and Dharmakirtti in the logical works of the Vedic systems like the Nyaya-Vaisesika and the Mimamsa as well as the Jaina system, as if they were the two formidable adversaries of the non-Buddhist thought.
It will be proper in this connection to compare the subject matter and method of the similar works, available in Sanskrit, of Dharmakirtti with the Pramānasamuccaya, the Nyāyamukha and the Helucakra of Dig
. 1 Pre-Dignāga Buddhist Text-Upāyahçdaya p. 14; Sthänāngasätra sutra 338;
Caraka Samhitā-Vimāna 8-33.