Mind and Liberation: The Sautrāntika Tenet System in Tibet: Perception, Naming, Positive and Negative Phenomena, Impermanence and the Two Truths in the Context of Buddhist Religious Insight as Presented in Ge-Luk Literary and Oral Traditions
The three-fold purpose of this study is (1) to detail Ge-luk-ba textual and oral presentations of major Sautrantika topics, (2) to establish Indian sources for the Ge-luk-ba presentation and contrast it with the very different interpretations of the 15th century Sa-gya-ba Dak-tsang and of modern scholarship based on Dignaga and Dharmak(')irti, (3) to assess the Ge-luk-ba presentation of Sautrantika in terms of liberative techniques, with specific reference to its acting as a basis for understanding Madhyamika.
According to Sautrantika, direct perception cognizes only ultimate truths--impermanent phenomena--and conceptual thought fully knows only conventional truths--permanent phenomena. The Ge-luk-ba discussion of the two truths is given in Chapter I and, in Chapter II, is contrasted with that of Dak-tsang, who often took issue with Ge-luk-ba views. Chapters III and IV analyze how the two types of perception--direct and conceptual--operate in relation to impermanent and permanent phenomena.
Objects observed by direct perception can be categorized according to whether or not they are cognized through the explicit elimination of another phenomenon, an object of negation (pratisedhya). Any object cognized through such an eliminative process is a negative phenomenon (pratisedha); objects not so cognized are positive (vidhi). This division is introduced in Chapter V and amplified in Chapters VI and VII. In order to complete the description of conceptual processes, Chapter VIII details how names are learned and applied. The final chapter of the Exposition examines the significance of the foregoing to the Buddhist presentation of a path to liberating wisdom.
Three of the major primary sources for this study appear in the Translation section with interpolated oral commentary: Selections from Den-dar-hla-ram-ba's (b. 1759) Generally and Specifically Characterized Phenomena (Rang spyi'i rnam gzhag); "Positive and Negative Phenomena" from Collected Topics by a Spiritual Son (Sras bsdus brva) by Nga-wang-dra-shi (b. 1648) and "Sautrantika Tenets" from Jang-gya's (b. 1717) Presentation of Tenets (Grub mtha'i rnam bzhag).
