The role of Aspects and forms (akara) for the constitution of Buddhist doctrinal models as presented in Jnanasrimitras Sakarasiddhisastra

The present project is designed as the first phase of a large undertaking which aims at clarifying the status of `forms` or `aspects` (akara) in Indian Buddhist thought. As an initial step towards a comprehensive historical as well as theoretical study of the subject-matter, the present project comprises two concrete goals: (a) Beginnings of a critical edition of Jnanasrimitra`s Sakarasiddhisastra (SSS) together with a translation and structural analysis; (b) an enquiry into the way in which SSS presents the divergent viewpoints on this subject-matter as constitutive for different doctrinal models of Buddhist thought. Discussions about `forms` and `aspects` in Indian philosophy are distributed amongst two thematically different complexes of largely epistemological problems. The first, the `formquestion`, is concerned with whether or not individual instances of cognitions carry a `form` or an `imprint` that is projected on them on part of non-cognitive real entities. For a representationalist brand of Buddhist epistemology, this question is answered in the affirmative, which makes them advocates of the theory that cognition is `with form` (sakara). By contrast, realist brands of Indian philosophy are classified as advocates of the theory that cognition is `without form` (nirakara). The second complex of problems, the `aspect-problem`, is concerned with the status of subjective and objective aspects of a uniform copitive event within consciousness. As conceptualized within idealist Buddhist thought, the opposing responses to the `aspect-problem` have lead to the conflicting theories of the `aspect-posession` (sakaravijnanavada) and `aspectlessness` (nirakaravijnanavada) of consciousness. In the treatises of the Buddhist epistemological `school`, the `form-question` and `aspect-problem` are discussed side by side, often intertwined in complex argumentations, which necessitates an enquiry into their historical as well as theoretical relationship. Furthermore, their close association with the co-presence of representationalist and idealist elements within the epistemological `school` necessitates an exammation of how the respective stances taken on the `form-question`/`aspect-problem` are viewed as constitutive of individual doctrinal `schools` in Buddhist thought. It is this latter aspect with which the present project is concerned. Utilizing SSS as a textual basis, it aims at establishing how the individual theorems are presented within the framework of `doctrinal models`, by which are understood logically consistent and theoretically cohesive sets of interconnected theorems, adherence to which constitutes different `schools`. The results of the present project will shed new light on the place of epistemological thought in the last phase of Indian Buddhism, and contribute to the necessary reevaluation of the interrelation between the the different philosophical `schools`, associated with the labels of Sautrantika and Vijnanavada, on the one hand and the so-called Buddhist epistemological `school` on the other.

Main goal of the project was an inquiry into the question as to whether the discussion about the status of "forms"/"aspects" (akara) was constitutive for so-called doctrinary models in the logico-epistemological school of Buddhism in India. This question was to be studied on the basis of the Sakarasiddhisastra (SSS) by Jñanasrimitra (ca. 11. c. C.E.), of which a critical edition was to be supplied. However, the linguistic and historical peculiarities of SSS revealed it to be inadequate as a starting-point for a project of this kind and scope. In its place, the Madhyamakala kara (MA) by Santarak ita, together with the commentary Madhyamakala karapañjika by Kamalasila, was used as textual basis for pursuing the main project goal. These texts have now been philologically studied, and a German translation has been produced. The project was carried out in the larger context of a comprehensive, long-term inquiry into the relationship between the so-called "dogmatic" schools of Buddhism Sautrantika and Vijñanavada/Yogacara and the so-called logico-epistemological school of Buddhism. As such, it was also intended to provide a novel approach towards a more precise notion of "school" as it can be meaningfully applied to Buddhism as a philosophical-religious movement. The actual study of MA lead to further refinement of the originally posited notion of a "doctrinary model". This notion is now to be applied in a further project, which aims to investigate the views on the nature of "aspects"/"forms" in the literature of the Vijñanavada school proper. This further project, carried out at the Institute for the Culture and History of India and Tibet of the University of Hamburg, is being funded by a fellowship from the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Foundation.