sautantric and vaibhasika

http://dsc.du.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/logic_-_acadamia_120200201-33759-sele9t.pdf 

 Buddhist logic. There is a field of knowledge known as ‘nyāya’ , ‘tarka’ or ‘logic’. Its counterpart in Buddhism is called ‘bauddha-nyāya’ (Buddhist Nyāya). However, since Buddhism is split into various literatures such as Pāli literature and Sanskrit literature, there cannot be a unitary discipline called ‘Buddhist Nyāya’, due to the differences of their opinions. For this chapter, we can see main point of each literature as below.

 Pāli literature Logical reasoning and methodology in Pāli literature, or Theravāda Buddhism, there occasional references to logical topics and to a class of men who were called Takki or Takkika, that is, those versed in reasoning. It is not known whether these men were Buddhists, Jainas, or Brāhmanas, perhaps they were recruited from all communities. They were not logicians in the proper sense of the term, but they appear to me to have been sophists who indulged in quibble and casuistry.

Dignāga (c.480-c.540) A logician and epistemologist, Dignāga is traditionally regarded as the founder of a Buddhist school that sought to avoid divisive controversies over which Buddhist writings were authentic by emphasizing logic and epistemology rather than the study of scriptures and their commentaries. His principal contributions consisted of refining the theory of inference and tightening the forms of argument commonly used in debate and polemics. His theories became the basis on which the influential philosopher Dharmakārti built his system, which became the standard Buddhist scholastic system in India and later in Tibet.

Epistemology: Dignāga was born around 480 into a Brahman family in Simhavaktra near Kāñcīin, modern Conjeeveram in the Madras Presideney, where he was ordained a Buddhist monk as a young man. Dissatisfied with his teachers in the south, he is supposed to have traveled north and become a disciple of Vasubandhu. Celebrated for his debating skills, he was nicknamed the ‘Fighting Bull’ or ‘Bull in debate’ (Sanskrit: Tarka-pungava)42. At the beginning of his principal work, Pramānasamuccaya, Dignāga stated that his purpose was to resolve several controversies that other philosophers had generated about the means of acquiring knowledge. Whereas his predecessors had enumerated several methods by which knowledge may be acquired, Dignāga took the position that there are in fact only two methods. These two methods are distinguished from one another in virtue of the kinds of object that can be their subject matters. The first method of securing new knowledge is described as pure sensation (pratyaksa), a form of cognition that is free of all judgment (kalpanā). The subject matter of this type of cognition is particular instances (svalaksana) of colour, sound and other sensible properties. The second method is described as inferential reasoning. The subject matter of this type of cognition is universals (sāmānyalaksana). In contrast to most Brahmanical philosophers who had preceded him, Dignāga held that only the senses can be aware of particular sensations, and only the intellect can be aware of universals. The view that there are exactly two types of knowledge, and that there is no subject matter common to both of them, came to be a hallmark of Buddhist doctrine, since it was accepted by most Buddhist philosophers writing in Sanskrit and rejected by the majority of Brahmanical and Jaina philosophers. Before Dignāga, most Indian treatises dealing with reasoning were primarily devoted to outlining the rules of debate between opposing parties. Consequently, discussions of the formal properties of correct lines of argument were mingled with discussions of which errors on a discussant’s

part would result in defeat. Dignāga is usually given credit for being the first Indian philosopher to make a clear distinction between the formal properties of correct reasoning and the rules of debate. Debate, he said, is merely the articulation for the benefit of another person of a conclusion that one has arrived at by oneself through correct reasoning A correct inference, said Dignāga, is one that makes use of an observable property that serves as a sign (liōga) of an unobserved property. The object to which the signifiable property can be inferred to belong is called the subject (paksa) of the inference. One property can serve as the sign of a second property only if three conditions are met. First, the sign must be observed to be a property of the subject of the inference. Second, the sign must be known to occur together with the signified property in objects other than the subject of the inference. And third, the sign must not be known to occur in objects in which the signified property is absent.

Sanskrit literature Origin of the Sanskrit Buddhist literature is become under the patronage of Kaniska, a council was held at Jālandhara under the superintendence of Pārśva (or Pūrṇaka) and Vasu works explanatory of the Pāli Tripitaka, viz. Sūtra Upadeśa of the Sutta pitaka, Vinaya Vibhāṣā of the Abhidhamma Pitaka. These three, works written in Sanskrit, were the earliest canonical books of the Mahāyāna School. Kaniska thought it expedient to introduce Sanskrit as the medium of Buddhistic communication, because there have existed many valuable Buddhist books in that language. For instance, the Abhidharma-vibhāsa, or rather the Abhidharma was a mere commentary on Kātyāyanī-putra’s Abhidharma-jñāna-prasthānaśāstra. This last is a Sanskrit work explanatory of the nirvāna of Buddha or 100 years before the time of Kaniska. Though Kaniska was not thus the first founder of the Sanskrit Buddhist literature, it cannot but be acknowledged that it was he, who for the first time proclaimed Sanskrit as the language of the Buddhist Canon. Since his time there have been composed in numerable Buddhist works in Sanskrit of which none called the Nava Dharmas are specially worshipped by the Mahāyāna Buddhists