This study identifies points of formal and substantive contact between Derrida and traditional Indian thought. Reading Bhartrhari with Derrida highlights the error of previous interpretations that have read the Vakyapadiya through Advaitic eyes. It also highlights Bhartrhari's accommodation of Buddhist stress on individual experience while retaining an orthodox grounding in Vedic dharma, now reinterpreted as Sabdatattva. Derrida, however，challenges Bhartrhari's notion of pratibha or "pure" mystical perception. The study calls into question current suggestions that Derrida can be understood as a Madhyamikan Buddhist--for this analysis shows him to agree with Bhartrhari on exactly those points which separate Bhartrhari and Nagarjuna.
