A dharma to be proved: Texts from the Indian Buddhist epistemological tradition

In this lecture Dr Cristina Pecchia will explore how and why the philosopher Dharmakīrti discussed the four noble Truths, more in particular the ‘cessation of suffering’, in a section of his Pramāṇavārttika. The last commentary in Sanskrit on this work highlights the theory of causation, the specific nature of compassion, and the concept of no-Self as the major points of Dharmakīrti’s argumentation against the challenges posed to the Bodhisattva path.

An in-depth interpretative analysis of these points reveals textual problems, which compel to add a text-critical approach to the texts. A wider cultural and historical perspective, on the other hand, leads to reconsider the soteriological dimension that characterizes Buddhist epistemological theories.

Cristina Pecchia, University of Vienna, is Gonda Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden