Indian Buddhist epistemology and the path to liberation

The path to liberation constitutes the background of much of the early South Asian philosophical discussion, which also finds its justification in the contribution it can provide to a theory of the `path`. This delineates methods of practice and patterns of religious behaviour with a transformative power that lead to the goal of liberation. The project is designed to investigate, translate and critically edit the section concerning the path to liberation, namely the margasatya-section, in Dharmakirti`s Pramanavarttika (including a newly surfaced manuscript), together with Manorathanandin`s Vrtti on it, and Vibhuticandra`s glosses. The section displays how one of the foremost and influential South Asian philosophers understood and justified the Bodhisattva path. Contrasting various models of liberation antagonistic to those expounded in the teaching of the four Truths, the text offers a historically relevant overview of the philosophical issues related to the contemporaneous debate about paths to liberation (6th-7th cent.). Dharmakirti`s overarching stance is that there cannot be liberation in connection with any form of view of a Self, and only a practice that addresses this view as obstacle can be successful against the perpetuation of suffering. The text also provides a distinct doctrinal backdrop for the entire philosophical enterprise in which Dharmakirti was engaged, namely to establish an epistemological method that demonstrates which contents remain valid after scrutiny. Manorathanandin`s commentary and Vibhuticandra`s glosses, being the last attested commentarial undertakings in Sanskrit on the Pramanavarttika, constitute a privileged observatory for the study of the reception of this work in the Northern Indian subcontinent around the beginning of the second millennium. They also provide textual materials for the reconstruction of ideas and interpretations whose sources are no longer available in Sanskrit. In view of the philosophical nature of the texts under consideration, objectives of the project are a methodologically informed philological and historical study of the selected texts together with a philosophical and hermeneutic analysis of them. Based on a reliable edition and a historically determined interpretative point of view, such as Manorathanandin`s one, the results of the project will enhance our understanding of the cultural and intellectual history to which the texts belong, highlighting how main epistemological subjects are brought into a discussion about the path and contributing to the study of path theories and their role in classical philosophy of South Asia.

The path to liberation constitutes the background of much of the early South Asian philosophical discussion, which also finds its justification in the contribution it can provide to a theory of the path. This delineates methods of practice and patterns of religious behaviour with a transformative power that lead to the goal of liberation. The concluded project was designed, first, to critically edit and translate the section concerning the path to liberation, namely the margasatya section, in Dharmakirtis Prama?avarttika (6th-7th century), together with Manorathanandins V?tti (ca. 11th century) on it, and Vibhuticandras glosses (ca. 1200). A first draft of the critical edition (including a newly surfaced manuscript) and English translation were prepared during the three-year project period. Reflections on method and some resulting consequences (which became a central part of the project) were partially incorporated in Pecchia, Dharmakirti on the cessation of suffering, Brill 2015. Aim of the project, however, was not only to edit and translate the above mentioned texts. In fact, these texts were the starting point to understand how Dharmakirti one of the foremost and influential South Asian philosophers viewed and justified the Bodhisattva path, and to investigate various models of liberation together with their role in the classical philosophy of South Asia. focusing on Dharmakirtis treatment, further research was conducted on the topics of meditation and yogic perception, and on selected Tantric texts. The methodologically informed philological and historical study of the selected texts made it possible to enhance our understanding of Dharmakirtis thought, its context and reception. The study also constitutes a solid ground for further investigations on the interaction between soteriological and philosophical discourses in South Asia. In the course of this research, the idea of path to liberation emerged as not sufficiently studied. An international symposium about the different traditions concerning paths to liberation was organized (Marga. Paths to Liberation in South Asian Buddhist Traditions, http://www.ikga.oeaw.ac.at/Events/Marga_2015). A volume containing the seventeen contributions to the symposium will be edited. Results of the project were and will continue to be presented in the form of articles, but they will primarily contribute to form the monograph that has already begun (working title: Dharmakirtis discussion of the path to liberation. A critical edition with translation and comments of Manorathanandin's V?tti and Vibhuticandra's glosses on Prama?avarttika II.217-285).