Abstract
William Paterson UniversityŚāntarakṣita, an 8th century Indian Buddhist philosopher, united the Cittamātra and the Madhyamaka views into a single system. Consistently following Nāgārjuna, from the point of view of absolute reality he proclaimed all things to be empty and beyond conception. From the point of view of the conventional, he stated that we should understand everything as awareness. Nevertheless, when analysing Cittamātra views on perception, he found them all to be inadequate. Buddhism is usually described as based on two pillars, direct experience and inference. Given Śāntarakṣita’s sharp critique of the veracity of perception, upon which inductive premises are based, how are we to make sense of knowledge on the conventional level? I will attempt to answer this question through an analysis of the ideas of the 11th century philosopher Rongzom and the 19th century philosopherMipham. I will also show the relevance of Śāntarakṣita’s critique of perception today, by comparing it with contemporary Western cognitive science.
Highlights
Śāntarakṣita, an 8th century Indian Buddhist philosopher, united the Cittamātra and the Madhyamaka views into a single system
Given Śāntarakṣita’s sharp critique of the veracity of perception, upon which inductive premises are based, how are we to make sense of knowledge on the conventional level? I will attempt to answer this question through an analysis of the ideas of the 11th century philosopher Rongzom and the 19th century philosopher Mipham
It is difficult to be precise about Bengali history in the 7th and 8th centuries, it is usually believed that Śāntarakṣita was living in Bengal around that time and was associated with the Gopala Dynasty
Summary
After making every allowance for oriental exaggeration, it is evident that the Sangharama at Nālandā must have been the most magnificent university in the eastern world. The great nineteenth century scholar Mipham Gyatso (Mi-pham-rgya-tsho) (1846– 1912) has defended Śāntarakṣita’s position in his commentary dbU Ma rgyan gyi rnam bshad ‘jam dbyangs bla ma dgyes pa’I zhal lung with full knowledge of the arguments put forward by Prasaṅgika scholars such as Candrakīrti and Śāntideva He argues that even their rejections of the concepts are only a rejection of its ultimate existence and not that self cognizing cognition is not a viable concept for conventional understanding. Śāntarakṣita first addresses the issue of veridical perception with relation to the two early Buddhist philosophical schools, the Vaibhāśika and the Sautrāntika, that believe that subject and object are distinct. All Śāntarakṣita’s attacks on the theories of perception of the various philosophical schools are based on this
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