Manjushri the supreme deity, a fully enlightened being, has made the commitment for the benefit of sentient beings, to manifest as a Buddha activity, in the form of a bodhisattva, until samsara is empty. He chooses to appear as a bodhisattva even though he has fully attained enlightenment, because only someone who has already attained the stages of the realization can expound the profound meaning of the teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Ordinary people do not understand the profound meaning of the teachings of the Buddha Shakyamuni unless a realized being explains them. Manjushri is one of eight Bodhisattvas who have taken on the responsibility to explain the limitless teachings of the Buddha, both sutras and tantras, and to demonstrate their complete and accurate meaning. Manjushri, the wisdom aspect, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, makes the teachings clear and increases our own understanding of himself, so increasing our own wisdom. [...] excerpt from page 1.
MEDIATING THE POWER OF BUDDHAS: Ritual of the Manjusrimulakalpa by Glenn Wallis
Mediating the Power of Buddhas offers a fascinating analysis of the seventh-century ritual manual, the Manjusrimulakalpa. This medieval text is intended to reveal the path into a ritual universe where the power of a buddha abides. Author Glenn Wallis traces the strategies of the Manjusrimulakalpa to enable its committed reader to perfect the promised ritual, uncovering what conditions must be met for ritual practice to succeed and what personal characteristics practitioners must possess in order to realize the ritual intentions of the Buddhist community. The manual itself was written at a key point in Buddhist history, one when Hindu forms of practice were still imitated and on the cusp of the shift from Mahayana to Vajrayana (or Tantric) Buddhism. In addition, the Manjusrimulakalpa presents a rich compendium of Buddhist life in an earlier era, containing information on a variety of its readers' concerns: astrology, astronomy, medicine and healing, ritual practice, iconography, devotion, and meditation.
VADANYAYA: The Nyana Buddhist Controversy by Chinchore, Mangala R.
The present work attempts to critically evaluate the Nyaya--Buddhist controversy regarding the nature and status of Nigrahasthanas with special reference to Dharmakirti's Vadanyaya The standpoints of pre-Dharmakirti Nigrahasthanas are explicated and articulating Dharmakirti's line of thinking concerning them, his criticism of Nyaya Nigrahasthanas is given in details. Post-Dharmakirti Nyaya reactions to Dharmakirti are critically considered and methodological perspectives of Nyaya and Buddhism concerning Nigrahasthanas and their implications are discussed. The whole exercise aims at placing the Vadanyaya and the Nyaya - Buddhist controversy concerning Nigrahasthanas in its proper perspective within the framework of the History of Indian Philosophical Ideas understood appropriately.
BUDDHIST LOGIC: A Fresh Study of Dharmakirti's Philosophy by Bapat
This book is an attempt to reconstruct a better understanding of Dharmakirti's philosophy in a novel way. It relies upon Dharmakirti's principal works, the Pramana-Varttika, Nyayabindu, Hetubindu, and subordinate works such as Vadanyaya, Sambandhapariksa and Santanantarasiddhi. The author deeply explores Dharmakirti's treatment of perception, inference and the inter-relationship between the cognitive and certificatory aspects of Dharmakirti's epistemology.
FOUNDATIONS OF DHARMAKIRTI'S PHILOSOPHY by John D. Dunne
Throughout the history of Buddhism, few philosophers have attained the stature of Dharmakirti, the "Lord of Reason" who has influenced virtually every systematic Buddhist thinker since his time. Dharmakirti's revowned works, written in India during the philosophically rich seventh century, argue that the true test of knowledge is its efficacy, and likewise that only the efficacious is knowable and real.
HEART OF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY: Dinnaga and Dharmakirti by Amar Singh
This is an interesting and exciting book in showing how modern scholarship misunderstood three great Sautrantika critical philosophers. If the evidence adduced in this book is correct, then the history of Buddhist philosophy, fifth century onward, has to be rewritten. Also new studies and translations are implied of all the works of Dinnaga and Dharmakirti. The author sheds a new light, taking into consideration the views of ancient and modern scholars, on many complex and polemic issues of the Buddhist philosophy. The research is based on the discovery of the lost manuscripts of Dharmakirti by Rahula Sankrtyayana and it can be considered to be a corrective to Stcherbatsky's Buddhist Logic which is the heart of Buddhist philosophy. Stcherbatsky recognized this treasure of critical philosophy as "the most excellent achievement of Indian mind" which has further been evaluated in this book.
DHARMAKIRTI'S RUPAVATARA: A Critical Study by K. S. Lallithambal
Rupavatara is the first work composed in the prakria stle of treatment of the sutras of Astadhyahi and is written by Dharmakirti, 10th Centur A.D. The present study of Rupavatara is divided into three parts. Part I 'General', consisting of three chapters, aims at introducing the author and his work. Part II is termed 'Analytical Study' and contains an analysis of all the parts of the text. Part III, 'Observations', is a comparative study of Rupavatara with Kasika and later recasts Siddhantakaumundi is atrtempted. The last Chapter sums up the results of this critical study and concludes with an attempt to evaluate the work.
DHARMAKIRTI'S THEORY OF INFERENCE by Rajendra Prasad
In this rigorous study, Rajendra Prasad examines the system of inference developed by Dharmakirti, the celebrated seventh-century Buddhist logician. In a departure from the existing body of research on Dharmakirti, which is largely historical in nature, Prasad concentrates on an analysis of Dharmakirti's philosophy, specifically his theory of inference.
Prasad uses the tools of contemporary philosophical analysis to highlight the relevance of a classical theory in the world of modern formal logic. As a result, Dharmakirti's theory emerges as more than merely a self-contained phase in the evolution of Buddhist logic. Rather, it finds its place as part of a unified and continuing tradition of logical inquiry. Armed with a contemporary understanding of the distinction between epistemology and logic, Prasad isolates Dharmakirti's system of logic and demonstrates, with sharp conceptual clarity, its elegance and economy of construction, and also its shortcomings. This focus is enhanced by the author's reliance on the two texts that contribute most significantly to his analysis. These are Dharmakirti's Nyayabindu in which the logician's theory of inference is distilled and crystallized and Dharmottara's commentary on the Nyayabindu, the Nyayabindutika.
DHARMAKIRTI'S THOUGHT AND ITS IMPACT ON INDIAN AND TIBETAN PHILOSOPHY by S. Katsura
The proceedings of the Third International Dharmakirti Conference held in Hiroshima in 1997 collect a number of papers devoted to the study of the great seventh-century Buddhist philosopher, Dharmakirti, and his impacts upon the succeeding generations of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophers in India and Tibet. The Second International Dharmakirti Conference was held in Vienna, and its proceedings, Studies in the Buddhist Epistemological Tradition, have been published in this same series.
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