Dr. John Nemec (University of Virginia): New Evidence of Śaiva Arguments Against the Buddhist Epistemologists

12 May 2021

17:00 May 12, 2021. Due to the coronavirus pandemic conducted online via Zoom.

It is well known that the principal authors of the non-dual Śaiva Pratyabhijñā Schoolengaged extensively with the philosophy of the Buddhist Epistemologists andDharmakīrti in particular. While the influence of the latter on the writings ofUtpaladeva (fl. c. 925–975) and Abhinvagupta (fl. c. 975–1025) are well known andwell documented in the secondary literature, however, the ways in which thefounding author of the Pratyabhijñā, Somānanda (fl. c. 900–950), engaged Buddhistphilosophy is hardly understood. Indeed, little more has been noted to date in thepublished scholarly literature than the fact that his magnum opus, the Śivadṛṣṭi (ŚD),twice evokes the Pramāṇavārttika and occasionally makes use of Buddhist technicalterms. In the present lecture, I seek to examine previously unedited and untranslatedpassages of the ŚD that criticize Dharmakīrti’s theories of perception and inference,the natures of objects perceived, and the constitution of universals or sāmānyas, thelast particularly as it relates to the nature and use of language. Several innovativearguments found in Utpaladeva’s commentary on the ŚD, the Śivadṛṣṭivṛtti(otherwise known as the Padasaṅgati), where it remains extant, will also be brought tolight, all in an effort to illustrate the significant degree to which Somānanda set theterms of debate for the Pratyabhijñā to engage their Buddhist interlocutors,anticipating in doing so—sometimes in striking detail—the philosophical positions ofhis better known co-religionists.

• Click here to download the invitation [PDF]

Due to the outbreak of the Corona virus, the lecture has been postponed. 

Prof. Dr. Dorji Wangchuk (Director)

Khyentse Center for Tibetan Buddhist Textual Scholarship (KC-TBTS)
Abteilung für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets, AAI, Universität Hamburg
Alsterterrasse 1, D-20354 Hamburg