Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacarita contains two sharply argumented critiques of the non-Buddhists’ self: one against Arāḍa Kālāma’s (proto-)Sāṅkhya version of the ātman in Canto 12, and one of a more general import in Canto 16. Close scrutiny of the latter?s narrative environment reveals Aśvaghoṣa’s indebtedness, in both contents and wording, to either a Mahāsāṅghika(/Lokottaravādin) or—much more plausibly—a (Mūla)sarvāstivāda account of the events that saw the Buddha preach selflessness to King Bimbasāra and his Magadhan subjects. Besides hinting at this genetic relationship, the present (...) essay aims at exhibiting the structure and contents of Aśvaghoṣa’s arguments against the self, some of which can pride themselves of a long posterity in the controversy over the self. (shrink)

Though perhaps a dubious honor, Dharmakīrti is the first philosopher in any tradition to explicitly recognize the epistemological threat of solipsism, devoting an entire essay to the problem—The Justification of Other Minds. This essay revisits Ratnakīrti’s Doing Away with Other Beings as a diagnosis of Dharmakīrti’s attempt to reconstruct the very idea of other beings, with particular attention to Ratnakīrti’s sensitivity to the conceptual preconditions for a genuine threat of solipsism. Along with the diagnosis of the conditions for the emergence (...) of a problem of genuine solipsism, this essay takes as its focus Ratnakīrti’s criticism of attempts to meet with the problem. In particular, I shall stress an insight Ratnakīrti adduces in the course of his diagnosis. Attempts to meet the problem of solipsism head on, Ratnakīrti shows us, obscure what the preconditions for a genuine problem reveal: the fact of our possessing two incommensurable conceptions of mind, one of which is intrinsically and entirely first-personal—in a sense to be clarified in the course of this essay—and the other not. I conclude this essay with an inconclusive sketch of the difficulties that remain when considering what Ratnakīrti would have us conclude from his own diagnosis. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to analyze, classify and illustrate different scholarly approaches to the Sanskrit philosophical commentaries as reflected in some influential and especially thoughtful studies of Indian philosophy; at the same time it highlights some specific features involving commentary and annotation in general, drawing from results of studies on commentaries conducted in other disciplines and fields, such as Classical and Medieval Studies, Theology, and Early English Literature. In the field of South Asian Studies, philosophical commentaries may be assessed (...) from various overlapping and not always exclusive points of view, such as preservation of otherwise lost historical information, historical authenticity and reliability, interpretational innovation, spiritual or experiential insight, philosophical creativity, intellectual liveliness, doxographic intent, degree of incidentality, expository breadth and explanatory depth. The essay provides numerous examples taken from classical to early modern philosophical literature, especially of the Brahminical and Buddhist traditions, and also discusses their diverging perception by modern scholars and interpretators. (shrink)