Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason: Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla on Rationality, Argumentation, and Religious Authority by Sara L. McClintock

Author:Sara L. McClintock
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Religion, Buddhism, Philosophy, Hindu, General
ISBN: 9780861716616
Publisher: Wisdom Publications
Published: 2010-10-12T02:11:59+00:00

The second explanation for the motive behind the proof of the Buddha’s authority would preserve the intuition that the proof of the Buddha’s authority is intended to ground the Buddhist scriptures, but it would limit that grounding to radically inaccessible or atyantaparokṣa matters. As far as I know, no contemporary scholar has explicitly argued that Dharmakīrti’s motivation in establishing the authority of the Buddha was to ground scripture in this restricted manner, although Tillemans has emphatically argued for the related point that scripturally based inferences (āgamāśritānumāna) must be limited to atyantaparokṣa matters, a point which seems well supported by the Pramāṇavārttikasvopajñavṛtti.698 Now, it is undeniable that Dharmakīrti accepts the use of scripturally based inference—and even urges its use—for practical purposes when there is no other way.699 On some readings of Dharmakīrti’s position, moreover, it is the credibility or authority of the scripture’s author that serves to justify acceptance of a scriptural statement concerning a radically inaccessible entity.700 Thus, it is certainly legitimate to consider the possibility that the pratiloma portion of Dharmakīrti’s proof is intended to allow Buddhists to rely on the scriptures for knowledge of radically inaccessible matters.

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