Dating Indian philosophy almost invariably ends up in a Procrustean bed. Chronologies, whether traditional or modern, are not entirely absent, but they tend to be frustratingly approximate and bitterly controversial. The timeline of major events and figures in Indian Buddhism is no exception to this paradigm of haziness, probably the only certitude of the subcontinent’s historiography. The present essay ventures out into one of its chapters without hoping to dispel the fog. If anything, it will only stir it. In spite of dealing with topics related to Buddhist logic, this essay is not the product of a well-reasoned plan, let alone extensive expertise in the field. While tackling a different project, it became necessary to touch upon the dating of Dignāga, the man who found the Buddhist theory on knowledge a pile of mostly unpolished bricks and left it an elaborate edifice of logic (hetuvidyā) and epistemology (pramāṇavāda). 1 Rather than simply copying Dignāga’s dates from a standard reference source, I thought a bit of fact checking wouldn’t do any harm. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Before I knew it, I was scribbling far too many a line for a mere footnote. And tinkering with Dignāga’s dates set off a chain reaction affecting the chronology of his successors. The more I looked into the details, the clearer it appeared that there is sufficient room for the revisitation of the timeline. Eventually, the footnote exploded into a long-though-far-fromcomprehensive essay on the early Pramāṇavāda chronology from the 4th to the 7th century. Apart from the new hypothesis on Dignāga’s dates, I cannot claim much originality for the rest of the chronology. Nonetheless, I dare hope that some rambling thoughts might bear the light of day without over-taxing the patience of the intrepid reader.
目次
Dignāga 12 Sthiramati 19 Bhāviveka 23 Dharmapāla 23 Dharmakīrti 24 Devendrabuddhi and Śākyabuddhi 39 In Lieu of Conclusion 40 Bibliography 41 Traditional Sources and Abbreviations 41 Modern Sources and Editions 42
