Proofs of Idealism in Buddhist Epistemology :

Dharmakīrti’s Refutation of External Objects

Birgit Kellner

To appear in: Joerg Tuske (ed.), The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Epistemol-
ogy and Metaphysics. (Bloomsbury Handbooks in Asian Philosophy). London u.a.:
Bloomsbury 2017

This article is dedicated to Tosaki Hiromasa and Tilmann Vetter (†), without whose path-
breaking contributions to the study of Dharmakīrti’s theory of perception in the
Pramāṇavārttika and the Pramāṇaviniścaya it could never have been written.1

Medieval Indian Buddhist philosophers developed a variety of proofs of “mere-cognition”

(vijñaptimātra(tā)), the signature concept of the Yogācāra school which stands for the
principle that when cognition is aware of objects, there is just (mātra) that awareness,
and no external object that would correspond to its content. Mere-cognition is not found
in the earliest Yogācāra literature, and it only gradually rises to the prominent position
that it occupies in pertinent works of Vasubandhu (probably between 350 and 430 CE), 2
and in later philosophical literature predominantly of the Buddhist tradition of logic and
epistemology (pramāṇa), initiated by Dignāga (ca. 480-540 CE or slightly earlier) and
Dharmakīrti (active between mid-sixth and mid-seventh century CE). 3

1 Research for this article was undertaken within the research group “Practices of Argumentation in Tran-
scultural Perspective” (directed by Joachim Kurtz and Birgit Kellner) of the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and
Europe in a Global Context – the Dynamics of Transculturality” at the University of Heidelberg. I am, as al-
ways, grateful to John Taber, whose readings of Buddhist philosophy have greatly enriched my approach
(though he may not agree with my conclusions).
2 This date is conjectured by Deleanu 2006: vol. 2, 186-194.
3 Cf. Schmithausen 2001 for a succinct historical overview on vijñaptimātra(tā). Cf. Krasser 2012 for a re-
cent proposal to move Dharmakīrti up from Frauwallner’s 600-660 CE and place his time of activity in the

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There has been much debate in recent times whether mere-cognition philosophically rep-
resents a form of idealism.4 More specifically, objections were raised to earlier interpreta-
tions that consider mere-cognition to correspond to what in the history of western phi-
losophy has been called subjective idealism: the view that objects cannot exist without
being cognized, or, as it is sometimes put, that there is no “mind-independent world”. But
an important methodological consideration seems to be largely missing in this debate.
The positions that scholars take in the idealism debate are typically supported through
studies of the semantics of key terms, of textual context, of doctrinal and intellectual
background, and of individual arguments that individual Buddhist thinkers advance in
support of mere-cognition. But when all that has been, rightly, taken into consideration,
the question remains whether the various individual proofs form part of a whole. Do they
indicate a strategy, a method? More generally, is the attribution of a philosophical “posi-
tion” to a historical author complete without an enquiry into a method, strategy or style
of reasoning that she pursues? Such questions are all the more pertinent for Dignāga and
Dharmakīrti, who engaged in the construction of rigorous theories of inference and proof.
In addition to pursuing certain practices of argumentation that might follow more or less
established patterns and conventions, they explicated standards of validity that were to
serve as yardsticks for all argument. This, then, raises the question how individual areas
of investigation (such as mere-cognition) are related to explicit logical theorizing.

What first springs to eye in the different proofs of mere-cognition found in the works of
Vasubandhu, Dignāga and Dharmakīrti is that they advance through a primarily critical
method that refutes external objects. This is not surprising, for arguing that external ob-
jects do not exist (or cannot be known) is an evident choice of method for establishing
that whenever cognition is aware of something, there is just that awareness, and not an

middle of the sixth century. Krasser argues that Bhāviveka (490/500-570 CE) referred to Dharmakīrtian
ideas and arguments. The implications of this proposal, as well as its methodology, remain to be assessed in
consideration of a wider context.
4 Some positions in this debate are reviewed in Kellner/Taber 2014.

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external object. Vasubandhu argues along these lines in his Viṃśikā Vijñaptimātratāsid-
dhiḥ, the “Proof of Mere-Cognition in Twenty Stanzas” that comes with a prose auto-
commentary. Dignāga disproves external objects in his “Investigation of the Object-Sup-
port” (Ālambanaparīkṣā, short ĀP), a treatise in verse furnished with a prose auto-com-
mentary, the Ālambanaparīkṣāvṛtti (ĀPV). But it is Dharmakīrti who presents by far the
broadest array of arguments against external objects, in the chapters on perception
(pratyakṣa) of his two comprehensive epistemological treatises, the “Commentary on the
Means of Valid Cognition” (Pramāṇavārttika, short PV) in verse, and the “Ascertainment
of the Means of Valid Cognition” (Pramāṇaviniścaya, short PVin) in verse and prose. To
bring Dharmakīrti’s arguments into relief, it will be helpful to first review the arguments
advanced by Vasubandhu and Dignāga. Vasubandhu’s position has been a matter of some
debate, and some have argued that it differs strongly from that of Dharmakīrti. Dhar-
makīrti, for his part, continues to some degree along lines of argument established by
Dignāga.
1 The refutation of external objects in Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā and Dignāga’s
Ālambanaparīkṣā

Idealist readings of Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā (short Vś) tend to focus on a set of famous and
widely quoted arguments offered in Vś 11-15. Vasubandhu here argues that objects of per-
ception neither exist as continuous wholes (avayavin), nor as a multitude of minute and
indivisible particles, nor as a single such particle, i.e., an atom. Like Dignāga and Dhar-
makīrti, Vasubandhu focuses his discussion on the perceptual awareness of objects; the
term “cognition” in what follows should therefore be understood as referring primarily to
sense perception. For Vasubandhu, the analysis of perceived objects into physical parts is
necessary – for otherwise a host of anomalies would occur –, but the very idea of a single,
indivisible atom turns out to be logically impossible. For one, atoms would have to be
connected with each other to form macroscopic objects. But if an atom were simultane-
ously connected with other atoms on each of its six sides (the cardinal directions, above

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and below), it would have to have six parts and could no longer be single. 5 Non-idealist
interpreters of the Viṃśikā construe this argument as showing that “reason” cannot pos-
tulate external objects as causes of experience, since they are logically incoherent, 6 or as
pursuing the more limited, phenomenalist claim that the objects we are experiencing are
not physical objects.7

While these and other arguments against idealist readings of the Viṃśikā cannot be easily
dismissed, we have recently argued 8 that one can still make better sense of the text as a
whole as pursuing subjective idealism. Our argument is extensive and cannot be repro-
duced here in full. But the main points are as follows. In the ninth chapter of his Abhi-
dharmakośabhāṣya, Vasubandhu argues for a negative thesis – that a self as substance
over and above cognitions does not exist – through what effectively amounts to an
extended argumentum ad ignorantiam: an ātman or pudgala does not exist because nei-
ther of the accredited means of valid cognition (pramāṇa) perception, inference or scrip-
ture offer any evidence for its existence. A closer look at the Viṃśikā led us to find the
same strategy at work: external objects do not exist because there is no evidence for them
through any pramāṇa. In this reading, the mereological arguments in Vś 11-15 simply
support the larger argument that there is no scriptural evidence for external objects, for it
clarifies how the Buddha’s teaching that the constituent factors are without essence
(dharmanairātmya), epitomized in mere-cognition, is to be correctly interpreted: it does
not proclaim the existence of objects of perception. It is true that Vasubandhu does not
explicitly state the conclusion to the argument from ignorance – that objects do not exist
–, but this can be accounted for in two mutually non-exclusive ways. On the one hand, it
can be argued that he did not have to – what other conclusion is there to draw from the

5 Vś 12. See Kapstein 1988 for an insightful philosophical appreciation of this and other arguments from Vś
11-15, and Oetke 1992 for a rigorously argued different reading.
6 Hayes 1988: 100.
7 Oetke 1992.
8 Kellner/Taber 2014.

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complete absence of evidence for external objects than their non-existence? It is not far-
fetched to believe that the non-existence of something is the best explanation for the utter
lack of evidence for its existence. 9 On the other hand, Vasubandhu’s reticence at stating
his conclusion might have soteriological motivations, for in the closing stanza (Vś 22) of
the Viṃśikā he stresses that mere-cognition in all its aspects is the domain of the Buddha
– how dharmas truely are can only be realized in a higher meditative state, in
transconceptual meditation or nirvikalpasamādhi.

The point of departure for Dignāga’s argumentation in the ĀP(V) is that the “object-sup-
port” (*ālambana) of a perception has to fulfil two conditions: it must be a cause of per-
ception and perception must have its appearance (*ābhāsa).10 Perception, in other words,
is related to its object through causation and resemblance. In Indian epistemological liter-
ature after Dignāga this ultimately representationalist theory of perception is taken to be
characteristic for the Sautrāntika school of thought. 11 With this definition as a yardstick,
Dignāga develops an argument along the following lines. Some claim that individual
atoms are the object-support because they cause perception, while others hold that a col-
lection (Tib. ’dus pa, Skt. *samudāya) of atoms is the object-support because it appears in
perception. What appears are, after all, spatially extended shapes and colours. Dignāga ar-
gues that the first proposal is wrong because perception does not carry the appearance of
individual atoms, just like it does not carry the appearance of the sense-faculty (ĀP 1).

9 In Kellner/Taber 2014, we discuss arguments from ignorance in Indian philosophy more generally, and
also address their logical limitations and the parameters that make some of them plausible abductive evi-
dence (though they are not deductively valid).
10 The ĀP(V) are not extant in Sanskrit (save for a few quotations), but only preserved in Chinese and Ti-
betan translation. Asterisks indicate that Sanskrit terms of the ĀP(V) are tentatively reconstructed from the
Tibetan. My analysis is based on the Tibetan translation, and in its general contours seems consistent with
the Dharmakīrtian tradition in India. Interpretations in Tang China, and even the translations by
Paramārtha and Xuanzang, seem to differ to some degree from my analysis, cf. Lin 2007 and 2014, and
Lusthaus 2014. For a recent philosophical appraisal of the ĀP(V) see Siderits forthcoming a.
11 The Chinese exegete Xuanzang, to whom we owe much insight into the intricate doctrinal fabrics of me -
dieval Indian Buddhist thought, attributes this definition to “Hīnayāna masters” in general, with exception
of Saṃmitīyas (La Vallée Poussin 1928: 42f.).

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But while perception bears the appearance of the collection, the collection cannot be its
cause, for it does not exist substantially, just like the second moon in the sky that is seen
by persons suffering from floaters (*timira) (ĀP 2). Only atoms are causally efficacious,
not collections. Even if Dignāga’s opponent were to modify his proposal, as he attempts
to do, the fundamental problem remains that there is an incongruence between what is
seen and what, in virtue of a given ontological theory, is believed to exist. What is seen is
not real, and whatever might be real cannot be seen. Dignāga concludes that the object-
support of perception is not outside, but inside consciousness (ĀPV 178,2f.). The object-
support is the “cognisable form inside” (antar jñeyarūpam, ĀP 6) that merely appears as if
it were external. As this appearance exists simultaneously with its perception, it seems to
violate the requirement that cause and effect must exist in temporal succession. Dignāga
consequently justifies that something simultaneous can be a cause, based on the principle
of “logicians” (Tib. gtan tshigs pa) that “when the one is present or absent, the other is
also present or absent” (*bhāvābhāvayoḥ tadvattvam, ĀP 7a with ĀPV).12 To preserve the
notion of successive causality, one may alternatively consider that the form of an object
produces a capacity (*śakti) – a seed (*bīja) – within the series of mental episodes that
constitutes consciousness. This seed later gives rise to a perception with the same object-
appearance (ĀP 7cd). Dignāga does not explicitly identify the object-support in this
model; he does not say whether it is the earlier object-form or the seed. But the basic con-
clusion remains that the object of perception is internal (ĀP 8bcd).

On the whole, Dignāga proceeds in the ĀP(V) by evaluating different candidates from a
given ontology in terms of whether they can fulfil a given definition of the object of per-
ception. This atomistic ontology is not subjected to any criticism comparable to that of
Vasubandhu. It is simply determined as an unsuitable foundation of perceptual experi-

12 Literally: “when [x] is present [or] absent, [y] has that (i.e., presence or absence).” For a different con-
strual cf. Frauwallner 1930: 183. My construal is based on Uddyotakara’s explication of the same principle to
explain the relationship between pramāṇa and pramāṇaphala at NV 6,11f. By “logicians”, Dignāga likely re-
ferred to Naiyāyikas (though not to Uddyotakara himself, who was active after him).

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ence. Vasubandhu’s mereological arguments effectively demolish the notion of atoms –
although this might not be his only and not even his main goal of proof –, whereas
Dignāga’s arguments are logically consistent with the existence of a physical world made
up of indivisible and minute material particles – a world, that, however, could not in any
way causally impinge on human cognitive faculties. Both according to our novel reading
of the Viṃśikā and according to earlier idealist interpretations, Vasubandhu argues that
external objects do not exist (but in different ways). Dignāga’s arguments, on the other
hand, only support the logically weaker, phenomenalist claim that external objects cannot
be perceived, or that the objects of experience do not exist outside consciousness. Dan
Arnold recently characterised these positions, respectively, as an “epistemic idealism”, ex-
pressed with the claim “that what we are immediately aware of must be understood in
terms of the intrinsic properties of cognition”, 13 and an ontologically committed “meta-
physical idealism” that denies the existence of a physical world. At first sight, this distinc-
tion seems well-suited to capturing a significant philosophical difference between Va-
subandhu and Dignāga. But as so often, bringing Dharmakīrti into the picture makes
matters more complicated and offers opportunities for rethinking what initially appears
to be obvious.

2 Dharmakīrti’s refutation of external objects

2.1 The framework: realism and idealism as different levels of analysis

There is evidence to support that Dharmakīrti was generally committed to idealism. He

wrote a treatise to prove the existence of other mental continua, the Santānāntarasiddhi,
and there devoted considerable effort to averting the danger of solipsism. Who but a
committed idealist would feel the need to counter solipsism? 14 But a philosopher’s

13Arnold 2008: 15. Arnold here compares Dharmakīrti, not Dignāga, with Vasubandhu, but basically consid-
ers Dharmakīrti’s position to be the same that I have reconstructed for the ĀP(V).
14 I am grateful to Robert Sharf for bringing the relevance of this point to my attention.

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commitment to a position need not mean that his arguments in favour of it are strong
enough to support it; one cannot exclude that there are internal tensions, and it remains
therefore necessary to attend to Dharmakīrti’s actual refutation of external objects.
Moreover, Dharmakīrti’s attitude to a Yogācāra position is nuanced. His epistemological
theory encompasses a theoretical hierarchy between a realist theory of cognition and its
idealist counterpart – “idealist” at least in the sense of a theory that denies perceptual
content to derive from, or correspond to, external objects that exist independently of con-
sciousness.15 In the hierarchy of idealism and realism, idealism is superior because it
provides the more accurate analysis of cognition, yet realism remains the default level of
analysis in most areas of philosophy in which Dharmakīrti engages, notably in his theory
of inference. This theoretical hierarchy is at the same time a soteriological one in that the
idealist theory represents a level of analysis that corresponds more closely to how beings
that are further advanced on the Buddhist path to liberation are to experience reality. If
the perceptual process is scrutinized, the view held “in the world” (loke) that perception is
of external objects turns out to be misguided. As a matter of fact, perception only experi-
ences – is aware of – an object’s form within itself; it does not experience an external ob-
ject that differs from it in nature (parātman). This internal form is superimposed, pro-
jected outward, as it were, due to a “disturbance” (viplava, 431),16 that is, due to a
systematic cognitive distortion issuing, no doubt, from ignorance (avidyā) as a fundamen-

15 See Dreyfus 1997, McClintock 2003 and Dunne 2004 for analyses of this hierarchy in terms of a “sliding”
or “ascending” scale of analysis, and Kellner 2011a for a critical assessment of Dunne’s version of it on the
basis of some of the material covered in the following. Aspects of the following section were also treated in
Kellner 2009 (in German). In Kellner 2011a and 2011b I suggested to characterise the different positions as
“externalist” and “internalist” (rather than “realist” and “idealist”), but in the present context the latter, more
established distinction is without harm, since the nature of the positions themselves is the topic of enquiry.
16 In the following three-digit numbers without any further qualification refer to stanzas in the PV’s chap -
ter on perception. When variants are not explicitly discussed, the Sanskrit text corresponds to that given in
the edition of Tosaki (1979 for stanzas 1-319, 1985 for stanzas 320-539). The verse numbering also corre-
sponds to Tosaki’s. Tosaki did not have access to manuscript materials that became accessible more recently
and permit more comprehensive text-critical work on the PV and its commentaries. Cf. Kellner 2010a for a
comprehensive review of the PV’s editorial history and extant witnesses, and for first results of text-critical
analysis, resulting in some emendations of Tosaki’s text and a better understanding of the mechanisms re -
sulting in textual change.

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tal conditio humana that on the Buddha’s diagnosis keeps unawakened human beings
entrapped in saṃsāra.17 The appearance of cognition, by nature undifferentiated, as
different in terms of subject and object, is also a “disturbance” (upaplava, 212, 214; viplava
331). It is out of an “inner disturbance” (antarupaplava) that cognition, one in nature,
shows a multiplicity of false appearances, subject and object (361). Philosophically,
distortions issuing from ignorance act as an error theory that allows to explain how
ordinary beings come to think and experience their cognitive life in a way that does not
represent how things really are.18 Scriptural teachings of the five psycho-physical agg-
regates of living beings (skandha) or of the twelve sense-spheres (āyatana) imply the
existence of external objects, but such teachings are spread by the Buddha merely in
accordance with worldly understanding. In doing so they set aside non-duality (advaya)
as that which is ultimately true (tattvārtha). In this the Buddha resembles an elephant
who shuts one of its laterally set eyes and then only sees to one side (219; read with the
commentary M1 184,10-14).

2.2 The transition from realism to idealism: defending Sautrāntika realism as a

preparation for the proof of idealism

The theoretical hierarchy of idealism and realism entails that one cannot speak of Dhar-
makīrti either as realist or as idealist. By default, he operates on the presupposition of ex-
ternal reality, suspending arguments that realism is flawed, but in certain contexts he ex-
plicitly argues for idealism and occasionally also addresses the relationship between these
two levels of analysis. Of particular interest in this regard, and for the refutation of exter -
nal objects as such, is an extended argument that makes a transition of realism to ideal-
ism.19 Here Dharmakīrti first defends a Sautrāntika-style theory of perception based on

17 For in-depth studies of ignorance in Dharmakīrti’s thought cf. Eltschinger 2009, 2010.
18 Cf. also Kellner 2009: 70f.
19 This argument occurs in the first part of his treatment of the means of valid cognition and its result
(pramāṇa/pramāṇaphala), at PV 3.301-337 and the close parallel PVin 1 30,9-36,9, which takes Dignāga’s
pithy remarks in PS(V) 1.8cd-10 for its point of departure. Dignāga employs an idealist analysis of percep -

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causation and resemblance against brahminical interlocutors (301-319). 20 He then turns to
questioning and ultimately rejecting the supposition, which underlies this theory, that
perception is of external objects (320-337). Although the initial defense of the Sautrāntika
model may seem to be of little relevance to proving idealism, it can be seen as the first
step in Dharmakīrti’s proof of idealism, for it establishes a key ingredient of it and also
prepares the ground for questioning realism in the first place.

The point of departure for Dharmakīrti’s discussion is the connection of cognition with a
particular object – or, in other words, cognition’s object-specificity. It is obvious
(pratyakṣa) to everyone from their experience that awareness is restricted (prativedana),
first and foremost insofar as it is limited to particular objects. 21 Awareness is always
awareness of something; awareness does not occur to us pure and simple. But what ac-
counts for cognition’s object-specificity? Dharmakīrti argues that whatever differentiates
cognition according to its object must belong to cognition itself, or to cognition’s nature
(ātman). Cognition is differentiated according to its object by having the object’s form
(ākāra, rūpa) within itself; this constitutes cognition’s “resemblance” (sārūpya) to the ex-
ternal object.22 Nothing extraneous to cognition, like one of its causes, can account for its
object-specificity. One criterion for determining the factor that accounts for it is to exam-
ine whether cognition’s object changes when that factor changes. This, Dharmakīrti ar-
gues, is not true for the sense-faculty, one of the causes of perception. Whether the sense-
faculty is sharp (paṭu) or dull (manda) certainly affects and in some way differentiates

tion in this context, but does not offer a refutation of external objects in the PS(V), which presents itself as
the culmination of his life-work and was therefore most likely composed after the ĀP(V).
20 For this section cf. also the helpful brief summary in Taber 2005: 197f., n. 98, where correspondences in
the pratyakṣapariccheda of Kumārila’s ŚV are pointed out.
21 The peculiar term prativedana, “restricted awareness”, occurs only at 320 (corresponding to PVin 1 33,11),
but the object-specificity of perception constitutes the main explanandum throughout the entire section
301-337. The commentator Manorathanandin expands the compound prativedanam as pratiniyataṃ
vedanam, and interprets it to also include cognition’s restriction to a particular mental series, not only to a
particular object, cf. M1 215,9: nīlādyākāreṇa pratiniyataṃ vedanaṃ pratisantānaniyataṃ vā.
22 302-305, corresponding to PVin 1 31,4-32,3.

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perception, but not in the relevant way of making it about a different object, for the “con-
dition for the close connection [between perception and its object] is absent there”
(pratyāsattinibandhanābhāvāt). But if one wished to argue that some specific property of
experience, caused by the external object, but not tantamount to resemblance, accounted
for object-specificity, then one would have to say what precisely this spurious feature
might be. As Dharmakīrti ridicules his interlocutor in the PVin, if some indeterminate
feature should determine of which object cognition is, things would be truly well deter-
mined!23 It is true that others have specified properties of cognition that they might claim
to be caused by the object. But these are reducible to cognition’s having the object’s form,
to its form-possession. What is the “(mere) seeing of an object” (arthālocana), used to de-
fine perception in a number of other schools,24 other than cognition’s having that object’s
form? (310; PVin 1 32,15-33,1) Similarly, the cognition of a qualifier (viśeṣaṇajñāna), such
as the colour white, can only account for the cognition of what is qualified by it ( viśe-
ṣyajñāna), as e.g. a white cow, if both are distinguished by having the form of their re-
spective object (313bcd; PVin 1 33,1-3). The sense-faculty, moreover, is common to every
sense perception (312; PVin 1 32,15). Every visual perception is caused by the visual
sense-faculty, hence the sense is not a suitable basis for distinguishing the seeing of blue
from that of yellow. The “sense-object contact” (indriyārthasannikarṣa) that is according
to Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika or Mīmāṃsā among the causes of perception applies to an object in
its entirety. But one only sees objects with some of their qualities, like colour, whereas
others, like their being a mass of atoms, remain unseen (316; PVin 1 33,8-10). 25 In sum, if

23PVin 1 31,11-32,2: na hi paṭumandādibhiḥ svabhedair bhedakam apīndriyārthenaitad ghaṭayati, tatra

pratyāsattinibandhanābhāvat. asty anubhavaviśeṣo ’rthakṛtaḥ yata iyaṃ pratītiḥ, na sārūpyād iti cet. atha
katham idānīṃ sato rūpaṃ na nirdiśyate? nedam idantayā śakyaṃ nirdeṣṭum. anirūpitena nāmāyam ātmanā
bhāvān vyavasthāpayatīdam asyedaṃ neti suvyavasthitā bhāvāḥ. Cf. also 305cd. The term pratyāsatti for the
close connection between a cognition and its object also occurs in 324, cf. below, p. ###.
24 Cf. Sāṅkhyakārikā 28, Praśastapādabhāṣya (Bronkhorst/Ramseier 1944: 44,11 and 45,11f.), and ŚV
pratyakṣapariccheda 71-72a, 112-113 (Taber 2005).
25 The example is taken from M1 213,22. Dharmakīrti’s basic argument goes back to PSV 1 10,8-12 (cf. esp.
sarvātmanā sannikarṣāt). The commentator Jinendrabuddhi traces this sannikarṣapramāṇavāda back to a
Vaiśeṣika author named Śrāyasaka (PSṬ 1 118, 15). This author is not known from any other sources.

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one holds that perception is of an external object, one has to grant that perception itself
has that object’s form. No other factor involved in the causation of perception can ac-
count for its object-specificity. Whatever feature of perception itself might be invoked
turns out to be reducible to “resemblance”, as specified in terms of form-possession, or is
unsuitable, as the sense-object-contact.

In order to appreciate Dharmakīrti’s point here as well as his further strategy, we should
bear in mind that realists active prior to (or more or less simultaneous with) Dharmakīrti
appear to have considered the object-specificity of cognition as evidence for realism. 26 The
Mīmāṃsaka Kumārila argued that cognition’s object-specificity was only possible on the
premise of external reality. His remarks from the beginning of the nirālambanavāda chap-
ter of the Ślokavārttika even suggest an argument to this effect: if cognitions were devoid
of external objects (nirālambana), scholastic distinctions like that between prior position
and established position (pūrvapakṣa/siddhānta), and philosophical distinctions such as
that between valid and invalid cognition would collapse – as would categories that form
the foundation of ritual science. 27 Much like Dharmakīrti, Kumārila elsewhere states that
it is established for all living beings that something is apprehended having the form of
blue or yellow, long or short.28 But for Kumārila, if one recognises the object-specificity of
cognition, one also has to recognise external reality as its foundation. Vasubandhu coun-
ters a similar realist challenge at the beginning of the Viṃśikā by first pointing to dream
experience: a spatial or temporal restriction (niyama) of cognitions is also known to occur
in dreams, and dreams surely occur without external objects. Why should the same not
also apply to waking cognitions?29

26 The relative chronology of Dharmakīrti and Kumārila is a complicated subject, but suffice it to say that
they were most likely near-contemporaries, perhaps even contemporaries, so that interaction – each re-
sponds to the other – cannot be ruled out.
27 ŚV nirālambanavāda 1-3; cf. Taber 2010: 279f.
28 ŚV śūnyavāda 5 (cf. Taber 2010: 283): tatra tāvad idaṃ siddhaṃ sarvaprāṇabhṛtām api // grāhyataṃ
nīlapītādidīrghādyākāravastunaḥ //
29 On our new reading of the Viṃśikā, Vasubandhu does not put forward a veritable “dreaming argument”

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Considering a realist argument for external reality from cognition’s restricted nature as
the backdrop of Dharmakīrti’s argumentation offers new perspectives. At this stage,
Dharmakīrti believes to have brought his imaginary opponent to agree that a perception
has its object's form. The opponent would thereby be driven to concede the general point
that cognition is a type of entity that can have “form”. As is well-known, this is one of the
main points of disagreement between Buddhist epistemologists and their Naiyāyika and
Mīmāṃsaka opponents, as these opponents attribute “form” to external objects, and deny
that cognition can have form; they are “advocates of formless cognition” (nirākārajñā-
navādin). By having established that cognition has form, Dharmakīrti already sets the
stage for his refutation of external objects. If restricted awareness is nothing but cogni -
tion’s carrying the object’s form within itself, why should cognition be of an external ob-
ject in the first place? What is the evidence that we cognise something external? 30

2.3 Arguments against external objects

Dharmakīrti’s actual arguments against external objects can be divided into two groups,
although this division is not made explicit in the text. The first group of arguments point
out defects of the Sautrāntika theory of perception, while the second group argues on the
ground of the nature of cognition. It is striking that Kumārila distinguishes two types of
arguments that others advanced against external objects along quite similar lines: those
based on an examination of the object, and those based on (an examination of) the means
of valid cognition, i.e. cognition as offering evidence for objects.31

for idealism, but rather uses this argument to dispute that there is inferential evidence for external objects
(cf. Kellner/Taber 2014).
30 320c: tad (sc. prativedanam) arthavedanaṃ kena, corresponding to PVin 1 33,12.
31 ŚV nirālambanavāda 17: arthasya parīkṣaṇāt … pramāṇam āśritaḥ … Taber 2010: 280.

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2.3.1 Defects of the Sautrāntika theory

Dharmakīrti’s focus on pointing out defects specifically of the Sautrāntika model of per-
ception, and not of realism in general, might be construed as a weakness in argument, but
it becomes more plausible if the preceding defense of Sautrāntika realism is regarded as
the first step in an extended argument to prove idealism. For on that account, Dhar-
makīrti first strove to commit his brahminical interlocutors to a causation-cum-resem-
blance account of perception’s object-specificity, and now believes to have established
that perception has the form of its object. If the Sautrāntika theory is the most rational re -
alist account of perception, which Dharmakīrti believes to have established, then it is
sufficient to point out the defects of this theory in order to refute realism as a whole.

Dharmakīrti first (321cd) picks up the argument from incongruence sketched in Dignāga’s
Ālambanaparīkṣā and -vṛtti discussed above. While a number of minute and subtle atoms
are supposedly the cause of perceptual awareness, what appears in it is a single, “coarse”
(sthūla) form. Yet, this coarse, spatially extended form is not a feature of what causes per-
ception, the individual atom.32 The next stanza 322 continues by saying “Therefore (i.e.
given the argument from incongruence), cognition does not have the form of the object;
or, if it had, that [form-possession] would be deviating (vyabhicārin).”33 The nature of the
“deviation” is an illustrative case to show how commentators read their own agendas into
the text. According to the commentator Manorathanandin, probably active in the second

32 At 195-196, Dharmakīrti presents a refined version of the Sautrāntika theory: many “conglomerated”
(sañcita) atoms are said to be the external object of cognition, for the single atoms have the distinctive
feature (viśeṣa) – of being capable to producing a perception – only when they are together, not
individually. This explains why many things are the object of (non-conceptual) perception, yet without
being a universal (sāmānya), which according to Dignāga and Dharmakīrti has to be grasped by conceptual
cognition and cannot be apprehended by sense perception. But even in this refined theory, the atoms lack a
coarse appearance (211). Cf. Dunne 2004 for extended discussion of this section of the PV. In the
Pramāṇaviniścaya, Dharmakīrti complements Dignāga’s argument by adding a refutation of the “whole”
(avayavin) of the Vaiśeṣika, as an example for a singular, spatially extended object; cf. PVin 1 34,10-35,6,
with parallels in PV 2.84-85; cf. Funayama 1990, based on the Tibetan translation of PVin.
33 322ab: tan nārtharūpatā tasya satyāṃ vā vyabhicāriṇī. Cf. also 320: tad arthavedanaṃ kena tādrūpyād
vyabhicāri tat / “By what is that (i.e. restricted awareness) an awareness of an external object? On account
of [cognition’s] having the form of that [object]? That is deviating.”

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half of the eleventh century, the brief mention of a “deviation” hints at a new argument
that appeals to perceptual illusion. If the Sautrāntika accounts for restricted awareness by
stipulating a resemblance with an external object, then this is fallacious because there are
cases of restricted awareness where there is no resemblance. In perceptual illusions like
that of a mesh of hair or a double moon experienced by someone suffering from the
timira-disease (i.e., floaters), one is aware of a specific object, yet there is no exter nal ob-
ject to which the appearance in cognition would resemble. 34 The Sautrāntika, wishing to
resist such a move, might point to causation as an additional condition: whatever is the
object also serves as the cause for the cognition that bears its form. But there is no real
double moon that causes said illusion; the illusion would turn out to be not a case that
makes the independence of cognitive content from external reality plausible, but simply
an aberration, caused by some defect in the sense-faculty or some other cause of cogni-
tion.35 The following stanza 323 then points out a further problem that arises from the
Sautrāntika account. Unlike Manorathanandin, the earlier commentator Devendrabuddhi
(ca. 630-690) does not take Dharmakīrti’s mention of a “deviation” as a reference to per -
ceptual illusion, but rather directly connects it with the argument that follows in 323. 36
Dharmakīrti himself also does not speak of any additional “deviation” in the section of the
Pramāṇaviniścaya that otherwise closely parallels these stanzas in PV, nor does he invoke
an analogy with illusion there. This is worth emphasizing because earlier Yogācāra
sources use dream experiences to make the doctrine of mere-cognition plausible.37 As al-
ready noted, Vasubandhu also appeals to the appearance of unreal objects in dreams in
the very beginning of the Viṃśikā. The Buddhist position is even presented with a formal
34 M1 216,9 on 322 (dvicandrajñānādiṣu), and also M1 215,14f on 320: dvicandrakeśoṇḍūka-
jñānādyākārasyārtham antareṇāpi bhāvāt.
35 M1 216,10-12, introducing 323: na kevalād arthasārūpyād arthasaṃvedanatvaṃ yena vyabhicāraḥ syāt,
kiṃ tarhi sarūpyatadutpattibhyām. te ca dvicandrajñānādīnāṃ na staḥ, candradvayasyābhāvāt tadutpatter
ayogāt.
36 Det D219b4=P257b3. Devendrabuddhi makes no reference to the double moon or other illusory objects in
his commentary on 320 and 322.
37 MSg II.14, ASBh 42,6f.

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“dreaming argument” (Taber 1992) by Kumārila, and Prajñākaragupta (ca. 750-810 CE)
and Jñānaśrīmitra (ca. 980-1030 CE), two significant and original thinkers in
Dharmakīrti’s tradition, also advanced formal dreaming arguments. 38 Yet, Dharmakīrti
nowhere makes such an argument, and apparently did not place great weight on appeals
to perceptual illusion in his refutation of external objects.

The argument in 323 questions that causation-cum-resemblance unequivocally establishes

that perception has external objects. Assume a situation where a person has two percep-
tions with identical object-appearances, e.g. blue, in immediate sequence. This situation is
less contrived than it might initially seem. Given that the Sautrāntika assumes objects as
well as mental events to be of only momentary existence, any seemingly continuous per-
ception would in fact just be a succession of perceptual events with identical appearances.
And many of our perceptions, if not all, are seemingly continuous. In this situation, the
earlier perception is a cause of the later one; in the technical terminology that Abhid-
harmic analysis developed to classify the causes of perception, it is the “immediately pre-
ceding homologous condition” (samanantarapratyaya); hence we can dub this argument
the samanantarapratyaya-argument. Both perceptions have the same form of blue. The
preceding perception therefore fulfils both conditions for being an object – causation and
resemblance –, and it could therefore just as well be considered the object of the later
one! The Sautrāntika believes that his definition of the object of perception by causation
and resemblance limits the role of the “object” to an external object, but this is inconclu-
sive.39 The Sautrāntika responds by pointing to a subsequent determinative cognition (ad-

38 ŚV nirālambanavāda 23. Cf. Taber 1992: 219, Taber 1994, Kobayashi 2011 (arguing that Vś 1 does present
a formal inference), and Kellner/Taber 2014: 736, n. 94 (arguing that this is a less charitable reading of the
stanza). In our new reading of the Vś, we take the first part of the Viṃśikā (Vś. 1-7) to be directed against
inferential evidence for external objects: there are no reasons to postulate external objects because a
number of facts that are usually explained by them can also be accounted for through the doctrine of mere-
cognition.
39 323: tatsārūpyatadutpattī yadi saṃvedyalakṣaṇam / saṃvedyaṃ syāt samānārthaṃ vijñānaṃ
samanantaram // PVin 1 33,12-34,1: anantaraṃ tarhi vijñānaṃ tulyaviṣayaṃ viṣayaḥ prāpnoti. Cf. also Kell-
ner 2011a: 295 (following an interpretation first given in Tosaki 1985: 7), and Arnold 2008: 10 (advocating a
different interpretation).

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hyavasāya): When a determinative cognition with the content “this was seen” or “this
was heard” arises after a perception, it must have been preceded by an experience of that
which was seen or heard, i.e., of the object. But such a determination simply does not oc-
cur with respect to an immediately preceding cognition, hence that cognition is not the
object. We do not determine “this preceding cognition was seen”. Yet, Dharmakīrti insists,
it is precisely the close connection (pratyāsatti) between perception and its object that is
under scrutiny: only when such a connection exists can a subsequent determination arise.
That connection remains to be accounted for.40 And, to complete Dharmakīrti’s argument,
if it were to be accounted for by causation and resemblance, then there would be no rea-
son why the determination should not just as well refer to the preceding and homologous
condition; the initially raised problem remains. Although the argument is premised on an
ontology of exclusively momentary events, it does not logically depend on it. All that is
needed is a realist view that considers mental events to have other mental events among
their causes. When this is granted, a sequence of two cognitions with the same mental
image would trigger the problem that both the external object and the preceding cogni-
tion fulfil the definition of an object of perception, i.e., to cause a subsequent cognition
that has the same form.

2.3.1.1 Problems with resemblance

In a later section of the Pramāṇavārttika, Dharmakīrti points out additional problems of

the notion of resemblance that underlies Sautrāntika realism. If cognition resembled its
putative external object in all respects, it would no longer be cognition; it would be an ex-
ternal object. But if it were only partially similar to the object, then “everything would be
aware of everything else.”41 The cognition of a pot, Devendrabuddhi explains, would be

40 324-325: idaṃ dṛṣṭaṃ śrutaṃ vedam iti yatrāvasāyadhōḥ / sa tasyānubhavaḥ saiva pratyāsattir
vicāryate // dṛśyadarśanayor yena tasya tad darśanaṃ matam / tayoḥ sambandham āśritya draṣṭur eṣa viniś -
cayaḥ // (For vedam in 324, PrA’ reads cedam; for darśanaṃ in 325, attested in MA, PVZh, Rt, sādhanam is at-
tested by PVt, PrA’, PrB.) Cf. also PVin 1 34,2–5; Kellner 2011a: 295. For a different interpretation of 324 see
Arnold 2008: 10f.
41 434: sarvātmanā hi sārūpye jñānaṃ ajñānataṃ vrajet / sāmye kenacid aṃśena syāt sarvaṃ

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that of potsherds, as the cognition does after all resemble potsherds in some respects be-
cause both potsherds and cognitions have the property of being cognisable (*jñeyatva). If
one were to object that the cognition of the pot is not one of potsherds because it simply
has the form “pot”, then the next problem arises: the cognition of one pot would be a cog-
nition of all pots.42 Cognition’s possession of an object’s form should make it indexically
linked to one specific object, to the one particular pot in front of my eyes. Alas, form-pos-
session cannot do this work, for it is a generic notion.43

2.4 Arguments from the nature of cognition

Dharmakīrti concludes from the argument from incongruence and from the samanantara-
pratyaya-argument that there is nothing other – no external object – to be experienced
by cognition; cognition is only aware of itself. This is one of several claims that come to
be condensely expressed in the notion of svasaṃvedana, “reflexive awareness”. Now, that
objects are obviously brought to awareness in a restricted fashion (pratyakṣaprativedyat-
va), the phenomenon to be accounted for, is also just cognition’s own nature. Cognition
shines forth by itself (svayaṃ prakāśate); it is not of anything other, of an external object,
and it is also, qua cognition, not brought to awareness by any further cognitive act. 44 The
sarvavedanam // The stanza is quoted in commentaries on ŚV śūnyavāda 20 with reversed halves, and with
tu for hi (Kellner 2010a: 180, n. 54). The version cited here is preserved in Pr A’, PrB and PVt. For the first half,
Det, MA, Rt and PVZh read na ca sarvātmanā sāmyaṃ ajñānatvaprasaṅgataḥ, “And [cognition] is not com-
pletely the same [as its object], for then it would absurdly follow that it is not cognition.” For further text-
critical discussion cf. Kellner 2010a: 200, esp. n. 111.
42Det D244b5f = P289b4-7. The second problem is also mentioned in M1 248,11.
43 Cf. King 2005 for similar arguments against likeness-based theories of perception in medieval European
philosophy.
44 326-327: ātmā sa tasyānubhavaḥ sa ca nānyasya kasyacit / pratyakṣaprativedyatvam api tasya
tadātmatā // nānyo 'nubhāvyas tenāsti tasya nānubhavo 'paraḥ / tasyāpi tulyacodyatvāt tat svayaṃ tat
prakāśate // Cf. Kellner 2010a: 196-199 for a discussion of variants in 327. Most significantly, for tat svayaṃ
tat prakāśate (“Therefore, that [cognition] shines forth by itself”), which is attested in M A, PVZh, Rt and prob-
ably also Det, the witnesses associated with Prajñākaragupta’s commentary (including PV t) attest svayaṃ
saiva prakāśate, which was also adopted by Tosaki and corresponds to the parallel stanza PVin 1.38 (“It is
this very [cognition, sc. buddhiḥ] that shines forth by itself”). As outlined in Kellner loc. cit., the PVin stanza
selectively influenced the transmission of its counterpart in the PV. In place of tasyāpi tulyacodyatvāt in PV,
PVin 1.38 has grāhyagrāhakavaidhuryāt.

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second group of arguments against external objects that can be detected in Dharmakīrti’s
works offers support for the first part of this two-part theorem: cognition is not of any-
thing else. To the extent that it is aware of objects, it is only aware of an internal object-
form contained within itself. Unpacking the two arguments in this group is not an easy
task, for they are less explicit than the arguments in the first group. They have also, in
traditional interpretations, been taken to serve additional purposes, over and above the
refutation of external objects – and for one of them, the famous sahopalambhaniyama-in-
ference, Dharmakīrti himself states that it can be used to establish that cognition has its
own form and that of its object on the basis of realist presuppositions (397); the inference
does not refute external objects on all interpretations he himself considers legitimate. As
a result of these complexities, a full discussion would lead us too far; a limited outline
with a focus on just how these arguments refute external objects if so understood will
have to suffice.

The first argument, referred to as the saṃvedana-argument by Takashi Iwata who pro-
vided a meticulous analysis of it, 45 is presented in such cryptic form in the Pramāṇaviniś-
caya that a slightly elaborated paraphrase is more helpful than a literal translation:

What is called ‘awareness’ (saṃvedana) is just appearing-in-a-certain-way

(tathāprathana) because it has that nature (tādātmyāt). This awareness is not of any-
thing else, just like the awareness of cognition itself is not of anything else. For this
reason, too, it is not possible that awareness applies to a thing other than cognition it-
self.46

Cognition cannot be of some other, external thing; whatever it apprehends must be

within itself. Object-awareness is like cognition’s reflexive awareness of itself
45 Cf. Iwata 1991: 9-15.
46 PVin 1 42,3-6: saṃvedanam ity api tasya tādātmyāt tathāprathanam, na tad anyasya kasyacid
ātmasaṃvedanavat. tato 'pi na tad arthāntare yuktam. Cf. Iwata 1991: 9 (based on the Tibetan translation;
the Sanskrit was not available at the time).

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(ātmasaṃvedana), for cognition is by nature just an intransitive “appearing-in-a-certain-
way”, as opposed to a transitive apprehension of something else. Elsewhere, Dignāga and
Dharmakīrti deny that cognition might perform any kind of activity (vyāpāra) directed at
an external object.47 “To appear” (prathate)48 is an intransitive verb, for it makes no sense
to ask the “what” question for an object: “What did you appear?” is a nonsensical
question, as opposed to “what did you read?” or “what did you dream about?” 49 To liken
cognition with transitive activities such as cutting down a tree with an axe, as
Dharmakīrti’s brahminical interlocutors as well as Sarvāstivāda Buddhists are prone to
do, may seem in line with ordinary language use, but it is not analytically accurate. As
Manorathanandin points out, when Dharmakīrti uses expressions like “cognition cognises
itself” (dhīr ātmavedinī, 329), this is only metaphorical parlance. In reality, cognition
simply arises with awareness for its nature, comparable to light that has luminosity for its
nature.50

The saṃvedana-argument professes that both dimensions of awareness that belong to

cognition are ultimately one, and intransitive: its awareness of itself qua cognition, and its
awareness of an object’s form that it contains within itself. Readers familiar with the
more recent history of western philosophy may feel tempted to link this argument with
so-called one-level accounts of consciousness as are characteristically advanced by
philosophers in the modern phenomenological tradition, such as Jean-Paul Sartre. 51
Conscious mental states are intrinsically and pre-reflectively conscious of themselves
while being conscious of objects. This self-consciousness is not subsequently produced, or
otherwise separate from object-consciousness. But the conclusion that Dharmakīrti draws
47 PS 1.8cd (Kellner 2010b: 219, with further discussion of background in Abhidharma and Yogācāra litera -
ture) and PSV ad PS 1.9d (op. cit., p. 223); for Dharmakīrti, cf. 308=PVin 1.37.
48 The verb form prathate is used in 349.
49 Cf. Legrand 2009 for a helpful clarification of the transitivity/intransitivity of consciousness.
50 M1 218,5-7. Cf. Watson 2014 for an illuminating (!) overview of different ways in which the light analogy
is used in controversies between idealists in Dharmakīrti’s tradition and Naiyāyikas.
51 Zahavi 2005: 20ff.

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here is one that phenomenologists shun: given a one-level account of consciousness,
cognition cannot be of an external object. Dharmakīrti does not spell out the further
implications himself, but the direction of his argument seems to be that if cognition
cannot apply to anything outside itself because it has the nature of intransitive
awareness, by implication whatever might be “out there” and does not partake in
cognition’s luminous nature (which is the foundation of its intransitivity) cannot become
manifest at all. As later authors in Dharmakīrti’s tradition put it, “insentient” (jaḍa)
objects simply cannot appear because to appear means to have the nature of “illumina-
tion” or “shining forth” (prakāśa), which is exclusive to consciousness.52 Even if insentient
objects might be causes of cognitions, which the saṃvedana-argument when taken on its
own does not strictly speaking rule out, they still cannot possibly appear within cogni-
tion. External reality is not perceptually accessible. This conclusion is one of the main ob-
stacles for a wholesale assimilation of Buddhist epistemology to contemporary phe-
nomenology, however instructive certain parallels might be.53

The second argument in this group is the famous sahopalambhaniyama-inference, the in-
ference from the necessary joint cognition of an object like blue colour and its perception
to their “non-difference” (abheda). This inference has a particularly rich tradition of inter-
pretation. It is widely discussed among non-Buddhist philosophers and awaits full philo-
sophical assessment.54 At its locus classicus in the Pramāṇaviniścaya, the focus of the in-
ference is placed on the object’s non-difference from perception. Even though the form
(rūpa) of blue appears as different from experience, it is not different from it because the
two are necessarily cognised together, like the two moons seen by someone suffering

52 Cf. Watson 2014: 415, especially n. 37. One of the clearest articulations of this trope is TS 2000: vijñānaṃ
jaḍarūpebhyo vyāvṛttam upajāyate / iyam evātmasaṃvittir asya yājaḍarūpatā //
53 Cf. Coseru 2012 for an illustrative attempt to work towards such an assimilation.
54 Taber 2010: 292f. gives some clues as to which direction such an assessment might take.

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from floaters. Blue and its perception are cognised together because “there is no cognition
of one of these two without a [simultaneous] cognition of the form of the other.”55

For good reasons, commentators have rejected an interpretation of saha (“together”,

“joint”) as just indicating simultaneity, for there are after all many cases where
ontologically different objects are cognised simultaneously. Simultaneous perception of
objects simply does not equal identity. 56 Rather, it must be necessary for perception to be
cognised when an object is perceived, and, conversely, that an object is perceived when
its perception is cognised. The second claim seems less controversial. It seems reasonable
that when I am aware of a perception that shows blue colour, blue colour is perceived.
The first claim is more controversial, for it is not obvious that a perception of an object is
not possible without a simultaneous awareness of that perception. In the
Pramāṇaviniścaya, Dharmakīrti sets out to justify this claim by arguing that “for someone
who does not perceive perception, the perception of the object is not established either.” 57
Perception cannot be cognised after it grasps its object, for this would lead to an infinite
regress since perception itself would have to be grasped by a further perception, and so
on. It therefore has to be cognised simultaneously with its object. But whether
Dharmakīrti anywhere establishes the premise of this argument, that all cognitions have
to be cognised, remains to be studied; as presented in PVin, the argument seems question-
begging.58

55PVin 1.54cd: sahopalambhaniyamād abhedo nīlataddhiyoḥ. PVin 1 40,1-3: na hi bhinnāvabhāsitve 'py

arthāntaram eva rūpaṃ nīlasyānubhāvāt tayoḥ sahopalambhaniyamād dvicandrādivat. na hy anayor ekākā-
rānupalambhe 'nyopalambho 'sti.
56 Cf. Iwata 1991: 66-103 for a detailed overview of commentarial interpretations of saha in sahopalamb-
haniyama, including rejections of simple simultaneity. Dharmakīrti uses the word “simultaneous” (sakṛt) in
387, but also makes it clear in the immediately following stanza 388 that there is no necessity of a (joint)
awareness for different objects like blue or yellow (saṃvittiniyamo nāsti bhinnayor nīlapītayoḥ).
57PVin 1.55ab: nāpratyakṣopalambhasyārthadṛṣṭiḥ prasidhyati. Cf. Kellner 2011b: 420, n.28 for a justif-
cation of this translation from the context, against one that takes the genitive apratyakṣopalambhasya as
an absolute genitive, following the Tibetan translation dmigs na: “if perception is not perceived ...”.
58 In Kellner 2011b, I argued that Dharmakīrti does not establish this claim in the Pramāṇaviniścaya pas-
sage, but it is cannot be ruled out that some of the arguments presented in the second half of the

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Commentators identify two further passages in the Pramāṇavārttika as stating the same
sahopalambhaniyama-inference. Of these, the passage 387-390ab is closer to the
Pramāṇaviniścaya version and contains the main ingredients of the inference: the
conclusion is that there is no “separation” or “difference” (vivekitā, 389) of object and
cognition, or, more focussed, that the object (artha) is not different from cognition, that it
“does not extend beyond” (avyatirekitva, 390) cognition. The reason is that the object is
necessarily brought to awareness simultaneously with cognition (sakṛt saṃvedyamānasya
niyamena dhiyā saha viṣayasya …, 387; cf. also saṃvittiniyama in 388). In stanza 389, the
necessity of the joint perception is explicated in two claims that anticipate the
corresponding two-part explication in PVin: “no object is [observed being experienced]
without awareness; nor is awareness observed being experienced without an object”
(nārtho 'saṃvedanaḥ kaścid anarthaṃ vāpi vedanam … saṃvedyamānaṃ dṛṣtaṃ); recall
that the corresponding part in the version in PVin is “there is no cognition of one of these
two without a [simultaneous] cognition of the form of the other”.

In the passage 333-335, the realist first asks what would be wrong in assuming that an ex-
ternal object is experienced. Dharmakīrti answers: “nothing at all! Only this [remains to
be asked:] Why would it be said that an external object is perceived?” At this point in the
discussion it is established for both parties that cognition has form. The question remains
whether this form originates from an external object or from imprints left by earlier expe-
rience in the mental series. Dharmakīrti answers in stanza 335:

Because [something blue] is not apprehended without the additional qualifier (upādhi)
of perception, [and] because [blue] is apprehended when this [qualifier of perception]
is apprehended, perception has the appearance of blue. There is no external object by
itself.59

Pramāṇavārttika’s chapter on perception, still largely unexplored, fulfl this task. For further philosophi-
cal reflection on the infinite regress cf. Siderits forthcoming b.
59 333-335: yadi bāhyo ’nubhūyeta ko doṣo naiva kaścana / idam eva kim uktaṃ syāt sa bāhyo ’rtho ’nubhūy-
ate // yadi buddhis tadākārā sāsty ākāraviśeṣiṇī / sā bāhyād anyato veti vicāram idam arhati // darśanopādhi-

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The argument is very close to a sahopalambhaniyama-inference, if not fully identical with
it: the conclusion is that there is no external object “by itself” (kevalaḥ), a conclusion that
can plausibly be understood to mean that there is no external object that would be differ -
ent of cognition, i.e., separate or independent from cognition. The reasoning to support
this conclusion consists in a joint apprehension, expressed in two claims that structurally
correspond to the ones from stanza 388. But there may be some significance to the char-
acterisation of perception as an “additional qualifier” (upādhi) of the apprehended object.
It is one thing to say that when blue is apprehended, it is always apprehended as qualified
by its perception, but it is another thing to say that when blue is apprehended, its percep-
tion is also apprehended. Whenever I perceive blue, I am aware of blue perceptually, but
this does not have to mean I am aware of the perception of blue (or of perceiving blue).
The argument presented in 335 may therefore be a weaker form of the sahopalamb-
haniyama-argument that does not yet involve the innate reflexive awareness of percep-
tion, svasaṃvedana, in quite the same way as the inference from PVin. But the conclu-
sion, that there is no external object by itself – independent from cognition –, seems to be
the same in all versions of this intriguing argument.

Dharmakīrti continues, in 336, by stressing that cognition’s restricted nature does not de-
pend on external objects; a mechanism of awakened imprints manages to account for it. 60
Earlier experience leaves traces in the mental series that give rise to object-specific cogni -
tions. Dignāga, as shown above, invoked a similar model at the end of the ĀP(V). Dhar -
makīrti thereby takes up the realist’s challenge that Vasubandhu’s opponent and
Kumārila both raise: that restricted awareness demands external reality. Imprints in the

rahitasyāgrahāt tadgrahe grahāt / darśanaṃ nīlanirbhāsaṃ nārtho bāhyo ’sti kevalaḥ // (333d: for ’nubhūyate
PrA’ reads ’nubhūyeta; 334: for -viśeṣiṇī PrA’ reads -niveśinī; 335: kevalaḥ PrB, and perhaps also PrA’ (difficult
to read), PVZh, against kevalam MA. The Tibetan translation yan gar found in Det, PVt and Rt is inconclusive.)
Cf. Taber 2010: 291 for translation and discussion of these stanzas.
60 336: kasyacit kiñcid evāntarvāsanāyāḥ prabodhakam / tato dhiyāṃ viniyamo na bāhyārthavyāpekṣayā //

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mental series also help to explain the difference between valid and invalid cognition that
according to Kumārila collapses without external objects: An invalid cognition is one
arising from imprints left behind in the mental series by a disturbed cognition, and that
therefore does not lead one to attain a desired goal. By contrast, a valid cognition is one
arising from strong imprints (dṛḍhavāsanā) that has an uninterrupted connection with the
desired goal and is reliable in action. 61 Even the determination of the causal relation
between seed and sprout or fire and smoke, and drawing inferences on its basis, is
possible without assuming external objects (392-396), just on the basis of mental
appearances; this is the doctrine of the wise (viduṣāṃ vādaḥ, 397). External objects are, in
short, not required to explain any of the phenomena that realists explain by them.
Dharmakīrti suggests an inference that nevertheless might be used to prove the existence
of external objects: external objects could be proven “from absence” (vyatirekāt). When all
other causes for a perception are assembled, and perception still does not arise, its ab-
sence logically implies that an additional cause is needed – and that further cause might
well be the external object, unless the idealist were to claim that that additional cause is a
special material cause of the cognition, i.e. a preceding mental episode in the same mental
series.62 It seems then, that this inference is a theoretical possibility, to be used if the
(superior) idealist account is not adhered to, if it is suspended for the purpose of
explaining things as they are in the world.
3 Conclusions: Dharmakīrti’s idealist position and aspects of logical method

Arguments from Dharmakīrti’s rich and extensive, and still largely unexplored analysis of
svasaṃvedana (425-539) might well have a further bearing on the refutation of external

61 PVin 1 43,14-44,6; cf. Krasser 2004: 143f. for text and translation.
62 PVin 1 58d: bāhyasiddhiḥ syād vyatirekataḥ, elaborated in PVin 1 43,10-12: satsu samartheṣu anyeṣu
hetuṣu jñānakāryāniṣpattiḥ kāraṇāntaravaikalyaṃ sūcayati. sa bāhyo 'rthaḥ syāt, yady atra kaścid
upādānaviśeṣābhāvakṛtaṃ kāryavyatirekaṃ na brūyāt. The basic argument is also offered in 390d-391ab
(Krasser 2004: 142f.). Some traditional interpreters seem to take this inference as a response by the
Sautrāntika to criticism by the Yogācāra, while others construe it as an expression of the Sautrāntika’s view
that the external object is only inferred, and not perceived (see Kyūma 2011: 314, n. 28 for textual
references).

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objects. As the discussion of the second group of arguments has shown, Dharmakīrti’s ar-
guments are terse to the point of occasionally being cryptic, and only a close reading –
invariably guided by pointers from commentaries – can advance our understanding of
them.

But, for now, let us suppose that the arguments discussed above are Dharmakīrti’s main
ones against external objects, and indicative of his strategy, assuming that he has one.
First of all, it is evident from them that Dharmakīrti nowhere produces straightforward
arguments that the external world does not exist. Like Dignāga, he does not advance the
kind of mereological arguments against external objects that Vasubandhu put forward in
Viṃśikā 11-15. Nor does he advance an argument from ignorance that, as we argued, can
be uncovered from the Viṃśikā. Dharmakīrti’s first group of arguments is quite involved,
for it points out defects in one specific realist theory, the Sautrāntika’s, that is in his view
the most rational one. These arguments lead Dharmakīrti to conclude that cognition is
not of anything else – and this conclusion is then supported by the second group of argu-
ments that argue from the nature of cognition. Nothing clearly indicates how Dhar -
makīrti conceived of the relationship between the two groups of arguments. But when
compared to the first group, the second group, while far more difficult to interpret,
presents stronger and more independent evidence for the absolute imperceptibility of ex-
ternal objects. It is not just that the most rational realist theory of perception has defects,
but even more: there is something to the very nature of cognition that makes it impossi -
ble for it to be of external objects.

Given that Dharmakīrti in all these arguments reveals himself as being chiefly concerned
with what we perceive, it seems prima facie reasonable to read him as pursuing the point
that the objects we experience are not, and indeed cannot be, outside consciousness. This
may initially reinforce the plausibility of Dan Arnold’s distinction between an “epistemic
idealism” (Dignāga/Dharmakīrti) and an ontologically committed “metaphysical idealism”

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(Vasubandhu).63 But one challenge to this distinction was recently raised by Isabelle Ratié.
If Dharmakīrti indeed argues for the complete and utter imperceptibility of the external
world, is this not tantamount to arguing for its non-existence in a different way? Is not
epistemic idealism already ontologically committed because what is absolutely impercep-
tible can only be non-existent? After all, in Dharmakīrti’s ontology existence is defined as
causal capacity, through the notion of arthakriyā. If an object is fully imperceptible and
can never produce even the minimal effect of a perceptual awareness, is it not thereby
non-existent?64

At this point, considerations of logical method and theory become pertinent. Dharmakīrti
was active after Vasubandhu, and the relationship between their views and arguments has
therefore historical dimensions that abstract comparison cannot properly grasp. Dhar-
makīrti introduced significant innovations in logical theory, notably the restriction of ac-
ceptable logical reasons to three, and only three, types. We should not only expect that
his various proofs are in accordance with his own theory or at least do not openly violate
it (however difficult the interpretation of that theory may turn out to be), but we should
also consider that features of logical theory determine the nature of claims that can be
proven with its help. Might the refutation of external objects be such a case? And is there
anything in Dharmakīrti’s work that signals how he might have, or could have, conceived
of Vasubandhu’s arguments against external objects from the vantage point of his own
position?

Dharmakīrti himself does not explicitly address Vasubandhu’s arguments. But as Arnold
(2008) and Ratié (2014) have noted, a rare passage in Manorathanandin’s Pramāṇavārt-
tikavṛtti on 335 speaks to this difference; it deserves to be quoted in full:

63 Cf. above p. ###.

64 Ratié 2014: 361.

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 “[Sautrāntika opponent:] No! Even so, [i.e.] even if there is no argument proving an
external object, which is [on your view?]65 beyond the reach of the senses, the non-ex-
istence of external objects is not [thereby] established. [Manorathanandin:] Because
[we] establish what [we] intend only as far as [saying] that cognition appears, whereas
the external object does not appear at all, we do not have any regard for negating the
external object, which behaves like an [imperceptible] demon [and] is without a means
of valid cognition that proves it.66 But if the opponent were to strongly insist on negat-
ing the [external object], he should be made to examine the master [Vasubandhu’s]
negation of atoms according to whether one supposes that [the external object] has
parts or is partless.”67

The Sautrāntika opponent points out that Dharmakīrti’s argument does not prove the
non-existence of external objects, even if he might have managed to establish that there is
no evidence for their existence. This, now, is a classic objection to arguments from igno-
rance: Absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence. Manorathanandin
does not dispute the objector’s point: indeed, Dharmakīrti did not prove the non-exis-
tence of external objects by showing that there is no evidence for them. Manorathanandin
does not say this explicitly, but a look at Dharmakīrti’s theory of inference supports an

65 It is not evident from the text whether the qualifier that the object is beyond the reach of the senses ex-
presses the Sautrāntika’s own position or that which he attributes to the Yogācāra. The former entails that
the Sautrāntika here claims the external object can only be inferred, and not perceived, but this is not such a
fixed position that it can be unproblematically supplied to Manorathanandin’s argument (cf. above n.
63###). But this point of uncertainty does not affect the main argument.
66 Here my translation follows Ratié 2014: 359, n. 22, against Arnold 2008: 16.
67 M1 220, 16-20 (MA 43a4-6): na, tathāpi parokṣasya bāhyasya sādhakasyābhāve ’pi nābhāvasthitir iti cet,
pratibhāsamānaṃ jñānaṃ bāhyaṃ tu na pratibhāsata eveti tāvataivābhimatasiddheḥ, sādhakapramāṇarahi-
tapiśācāyamānabahirarthaniṣedhe nāsmākam* ādaraḥ. yadi tu tanniṣedhanirbandho garīyān sāṃśatvānā-
ṃśatvakalpanayā paramāṇupratiṣedha** ācāryīyaḥ paryeṣitavyaḥ. [* For niṣedhe nāsmākam, the edition
prints niṣedhenāsmākam. The manuscript MA reads niṣedhesmākam, with -nā- added in the bottom margin
with a correction sign in the actual text. ** For paramāṇupratiṣedha MA, the edition M1 prints
paramāṇupratiṣedhe.] Cf. also Ratié 2014: 359, n. 23. My translation follows Ratié 2014: 358 (with minor and
largely stylistic differences), against Arnold 2008: 16 (who only translates Manorathanandin’s response).

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even stronger point: Dharmakīrti could not have proven the non-existence of external ob-
jects in this way.

In Dharmakīrti’s logical framework, negation is proven through a special type of reason

called “non-apprehension” (anupalabdhi), but the scope of this reason is very limited. One
can only infer that objects which would be necessarily perceived in a certain situation if
they existed, but which are not perceptually apprehended, are suitable for cognitive,
linguistic and physical treatment as non-existent. 68 This type of reason does not permit
universal ontological denial, for it presupposes that the negated object is of a kind that
will necessarily be perceived (given the presence of all additional causes for its
perception) if it exists. For that to be established requires that the object is one that can be
perceived in principle. Thus restricted, inferences based on the non-apprehension of a
perceptible object can only prove the occasional (situational) absence of objects, not the
non-existence of an entire class of objects. Throughout his works, Dharmakīrti offers
different reasonings for why general arguments from ignorance are flawed. 69 The most
straightforward of these is that remote objects (viprakṛṣṭa) – objects remote in time or
place, or by their very nature, such as piśāca-demons70 – cannot be proven as absent on
the ground that they are not apprehended through perception, inference and scripture
because they lack the causal capacity to produce a cognition of themselves. They might
therefore exist without giving rise to a pramāṇa, and the absence of a pramāṇa for them
cannot prove their non-existence.

Dharmakīrti, in short, effectively eliminates arguments from ignorance from his theory of
inference. It is, then, in keeping with his logical theory that the possibility for proving the

68 Cf. esp. Kellner 1999 and 2003 for further elaboration of Dharmakīrti’s complicated theory of non-appre-
hension.
69 For a brief overview cf. Kellner/Taber 2014.
70 To be precise, piśācas are thought of as imperceptibly by their nature (svabhāva) for human beings, i.e.,
in relation to a particular type of cognising subject. Cf. Kellner 1999 and now especially the pertinent re -
marks in Ratié 2014.

11/25/16 - 29
non-existence of external objects through arguments from ignorance is not even
considered in Dharmakīrti’s works (as far as I can tell), and that he does not conclude
from the absence of evidence for external objects that they do not exist. Dharmakīrti’s
proofs that external objects are absolutely imperceptible may entail their non-existence,
along the lines suggested by Ratié. The difference between epistemic and metaphysical
idealism may thereby become minimized and lose its significance as a heuristic device for
detecting different varieties of mere-cognition in Indian Buddhist thought. But his logical
theory prevents Dharmakīrti from proving the non-existence of external objects through
arguments that merely demonstrate their imperceptibility. This theory opens up an
evidential gap, in a manner of speaking, between imperceptibility and non-existence. A
Dharmakīrtian might claim that totally imperceptible objects are as good as non-existent,
but when further pushed to prove it would have to resort to other arguments than those
used by Dharmakīrti to refute external objects, one where absence of evidence does not
become evidence for absence.

Such arguments could, of course, be precisely those that Vasubandhu put forward in
Viṃśikā 11-15. According to Manorathanandin, Vasubandhu’s mereological arguments
merit consideration only if the opponent were to stubbornly insist 71 on negating the ex-
ternal object (proving its non-existence) after Dharmakīrti’s proofs of its imperceptibility
have been pointed out to him. Vasubandhu’s arguments are not declared to be invalid;
there is nothing formally wrong with them. It is only that they are irrelevant because
they prove something that is not of value, since the epistemic inaccessibility of the exter-
nal world is all there really needs to be shown. Metaphysical idealism, to use Arnold’s
term, is for those who insist on pursuing irrelevant questions.72

71 Interpreting Manorathanandin’s nirbandha as “insistence” (Ratié: “obstinacy”) is one significant depar-

ture from Arnold’s interpretation, where the word is taken (oddly) to refer to a neutral desire.
72 Ratié (op. cit.) entertains both possibilities in her interpretation of Manorathanandin’s passage: that the
ontological question becomes irrelevant or that epistemic idealism already entails an ontological position.
Considering Dharmakīrti’s elimination of arguments from ignorance, the second possibility seems a less
likely account of the systematic implications within Manorathanandin’s rich passage – even though, as

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4 References

4.1 Primary Sources in Sanskrit and Canonical Tibetan Translations

ĀP Dignāga’s Ālambanaparīkṣā. See Frauwallner 1930.

ĀPV Dignāga’s Ālambanaparīkṣāvṛtti. See Frauwallner 1930.

ASBh Abhidharmasamuccaya-bhāṣyam. Deciphered and edited by Nathamal Tatia. 2nd ed.

Patna: K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute 2005.

Det Devendrabuddhi’s Pramāṇavārttikapañjikā. Tibetan translation. Tshad ma rnam

’grel gyi dka’ ’grel, translated by Subhūtiśrī(śānti) and (Rma) Dge ba’i blo gros. D
4217 Che 1-326b4, P 5717b Che 1-390a8.

M1 Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika with a Commentary by Manorathanandin. Ed. by

Rāhula Sāṅkṛityāyana. Appendix to Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research
Society 24-26 (1938-1940).

MA Sanskrit manuscript (on paper) of Manorathanandin’s Pramāṇavārttikavṛtti,

written by Vibhūticandra. In: Shigeaki Watanabe (ed.): A Sanskrit Manuscript of
Manorathanandin’s Pramāṇavārttikavṛttiḥ. Facsimile Edition. Patna/Narita: Bihar
Research Society/Naritasan Institute for Buddhist Studies 1998.

MSg Asaṅga’s Mahāyānasaṅgraha. La somme du Grand Véhicule d'Asaṅga

(Mahāyānasaṃgraha) [édité et traduit] par Étienne Lamotte. Louvain-la-Neuve,
Université de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste 1973.

NV Nyāyabhāṣyavārttika of Bhāradvāja Uddyotakara. Edited by Anantalal Thakur.

New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research 1997.

PrA’ A modern transcript of an incomplete paper ms. of Prajñākaragupta’s

Pramāṇavārttikālaṅkārabhāṣya, written by Vibhūticandra, extending from the
commentary on PV 3.302 to the end of the work. Microfilm of the Nepal-German
Manuscript Preservation Project in Kathmandu (reel no. A1219/26) (cf. Kellner
2010a: 167 and 168).

PrB Palm-leaf manuscript of of Prajñākaragupta’s Pramāṇavārttikālaṅkārabhāṣya. In:

Shigeaki Watanabe (ed.): Sanskrit Manuscripts of Prajñākaragupta’s
Pramāṇavārttikabhāṣyam. Facsimile Edition. Patna/Narita: Bihar Research

Ratié then expounds, later Śaiva authors exploited it.

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 Society/Naritasan Institute for Buddhist Studies 1998.

PS Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya. Steinkellner, Ernst. 2005. Dignāga’s

Pramāṇasamuccaya, Chapter 1: A Hypothetical Reconstruction of the Sanskrit Text
with the Help of the Two Tibetan Translations on the Basis of the Hitherto Known
Sanskrit Fragments and the Linguistic Materials Gained from Jinendrabuddhi's Ṭīkā.
http://www.ikga.oeaw.ac.at/Mat/dignaga_PS_1.pdf, with revisions of 2014:
http://www.ikga.oeaw.ac.at/mediawiki/images/f/f3/Dignaga_PS_1_revision.pdf
(last accessed 25 June 2015).

PSV Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti. See PS.

PSṬ 1 Jinendrabuddhi’s Pramāṇasamuccayaṭīkā. Ernst Steinkellner, Helmut Krasser,

Horst Lasic: Jinendrabuddhi’s Viśālāmalavatī Pramāṇasamuccayaṭīkā, Chapter 1.
Part I: Critical Edition, Part II: Diplomatic Edition. [Sanskrit Texts from the Tibetan
Autonomous Region 1]. Beijing – Vienna: China Tibetology Publishing House –
Austrian Academy of Sciences Press 2005.

PV 3 Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika, chapter 3 (pratyakṣa). See Tosaki 1979 (stanzas 1-

319) and 1985 (stanzas 320-539).

PV 2 Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika, chapter 3 (pramāṇasiddhi). See Miyasaka 1971-

1972.

PVt Tibetan translation of Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika. Tshad ma rnam ’grel gyi

tshig le’ur byas pa, translated by Subhūtiśrīśānti and (Rma) Dge ba’i blo gros,
revised by *Bhavyarāja (Skal ldan rgyal po) and (Rṅog) Blo ldan śes rab,
retranslated or revised by Śākyaśrībhadra and Sa skya paṇḍita. D 4210 Ce 94b1-
151a7, P 5709 Ce 190a4-250b6.

PVZh Zha lu ri phug manuscript of PV, readings reported in: Pramāṇavārttikam by

Ācārya Dharmakīrti. Edited by Rāhula Saṅkṛtyāyana. Appendix to Journal of the
Bihar and Orissa Research Society 24 (1938).

PVin 1 Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇaviniścaya. Chapters 1 and 2. Ed. by Ernst Steinkellner.

[Sanskrit Texts from the Tibetan Autonomous Region 2]. Beijing – Vienna: China
Tibetology Publishing House – Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2007. For
Corrigenda, cf. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 51 (2007- 2008) 207-208,
as well as http://ikga.oeaw.ac.at/Mat/steinkellner07_ corrigenda.pdf (last visited
26 June 2015).

PVSV Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti. The Pramāṇavārttikam of Dharmakīrti: the

First Chapter with the Autocommentary. Edited by Raniero Gnoli. Serie Orientale
Roma 23. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1960.

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Rt Tibetan translation of Ravigupta’s Pramāṇavārttikavṛtti. Tshad ma rnam ’grel gyi
’grel pa las le’u gsum pa. D 4225, Phe 1-174a7; P 5722, Phe 1-208a7. Translators
unknown.

Sāṅkhyakārikā Sāṅkhyakārikā. Yuktidīpikā. The Most Significant Commentary on the

Sāṅkhyakārikā. Critically edited by Albrecht Wezler and Shujun Motegi. Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner Verlag 1998.

ŚV Svāmī Dvārikadāsa Śāstrī, Ślokavārttika of Śrī Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, with the

commentary Nyāyaratnākara of Pārthasārathi Miśra. Varanasi: Tara
Publications 1978.

TS Dvarikadas Shastri: Tattvasaṅgraha of Ācārya

Shāntarakṣita with the Commentary ‘Pañjikā’ of Shri Kamalashīla. 2 Vols.
Varanasi: Bauddha Bharati 1968; reprinted 1981.

TSP Kamalaśīla’s Tattvasaṅgrahapañjikā. See TS.

Vś Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā. Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi: Deux Traités de Vasubandhu:

Viṃśatikā et Triṃśikā. Edited by Silvain Lévi. Paris: Libraire Ancienne Honoré
Champion 1925.

4.2 Research Literature

Arnold 2008 Dan Arnold, “Buddhist Idealism, Epistemic or Otherwise:

Thoughts on the Alternating Perspectives of Dharmakīrti.” Sophia
47 (2008): 3–28.
Bronkhorst/Ramseier 1994 Johannes Bronkhorst, Yves Ramseier, Word index to the
Praśastapādabhāṣya : a complete word index to the printed editions
of the Praśastapādabhāṣya. Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass Publishers,
1994.
Coseru 2012 Christian Coseru, Perceiving Reality: Consciousness,
Intentionality, and Cognition in Buddhist Philosophy. New York:
Oxford University Press 2012.
Deleanu 2006 Florin Deleanu, The Chapter on the Mundane Path (Laukikamārga)
in the Śrāvakabhūmi. A Trilingual Edition (Sanskrit, Tibetan,
Chinese), Annotated Translation, and Introductory Study. 2
volumes. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies
2006.
Dreyfus 1997 Georges Dreyfus, Recognizing Reality: Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy

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 and its Tibetan Interpretations. Albany: State University of New
York Press 1997.
Dunne 2004 John Dunne, Foundations of Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy. Somerville:
Wisdom Publications 2004.
Eltschinger 2009 Vincent Eltschinger, “Ignorance, epistemology and soteriology –
Part I,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies
32/1-2 (2009 [2010]): 39-83.
Eltschinger 2010 Vincent Eltschinger, “Ignorance, epistemology and soteriology
– Part II”, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist
Studies 33/1-2 (2010 [2011]): 27-74.
Frauwallner 1930 Erich Frauwallner,. “Dignāgas Ālambanaparīkṣā: Text,
Übersetzung und Erläuterungen”, Wiener Zeitschrift für die
Kunde des Morgenlandes 37 (1930): 174–194.
Funayama 1990 Toru Funayama, “Bubun to zentai”, in: Tohō Gakuhō 62, 1990:
607–635.
Hayes 1988 Richard P. Hayes, Dignāga on the Interpretation of Signs.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 1988.
Iwata 1991 Takashi Iwata, Sahopalambhaniyama: Struktur und Entwicklung
des Schlusses von der Tatsache, dass Erkenntnis und Gegenstand
ausschliesslich zusammen wahrgenommen werden, auf deren
Nichtverschiedenheit. Vol. 1. Stuttgart: F. Steiner 1991.
Kapstein 1988 Matthew Kapstein, “Mereological Considerations in
Vasubandhu’s ‘Proof of Idealism’ (Vijñaptimātratāsiddhiḥ)”.
Idealistic Studies 18/1 (1988): 32–54.
Kellner 1999 Birgit Kellner, “Levels of (im)perceptibility. Dharmottara on the
dṛśya in dṛśyānupalabdhi”, in Shoryu Katsura (ed.): Dharmakīrti’s
Thought and its Impact on Indian and Tibetan Philosophy.
Proceedings of the Third International Dharmakīrti Conference,
Hiroshima, November 4–6, 1997. Wien: Verlag der
Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1999, 193–208.
Kellner 2003 Birgit Kellner, “Integrating Negative Knowledge into Pramāṇa
Theory: The Development of the dṛśyānupalabdhi in
Dharmakīrti’s Earlier Works”. Journal of Indian Philosophy 31/1–3
(2003): 121–159.
Kellner 2009 Birgit Kellner, “Buddhistische Theorien des Geistes —
Intentionalität und Selbstbewusstsein’”. In: Birgit Kellner,
Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (eds.), Denkt Asien anders?
Göttingen: V & R unipress 2009, 55-75.
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