Mānasa-Pratyakşa: A Conundrum in the Buddhist Pramāṇa System

Abstract

Almost fifty years have passed since the first milestone was laid down for a critical study of the Buddhist pramāṇa system by Theodor Stcherbatsky with his publication of Buddhist Logic (2 vols., Bibliotheca Buddhica, XXVI, Leningrad, 1930–32). The intervening years have witnessed many significant publications providing fresh information on the works of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, the founding fathers of the Buddhist pramāna system. These publications place us on much sounder ground than ever before for making an intellectual excursion into the inner sanctum of the system. It is also true, however, that new findings in scholarship sometimes lead to hitherto unnoticed problems and occasionally revive some of the old ones, with their complexities now articulated in a new fashion. One such case in the Buddhist pramāna system is mānasa-pratyakşa (mental perception) as a variety of pratyaksa (perception). The question of why Dignāga deemed it necessary to postulate mānasa-pratyakşa and just what he meant by it still remains as much a conundrum to us as it was to post-Dharmakīrti philosophers in classical India and to Buddhist academics in Tibet. The aim of this article is merely to attempt to locate the proper place for a tiny missing piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle — a piece that has been shuffled and reshuffled over the centuries. It is written in a spirit of gratitude to Daniel H.H. Ingalls, Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University, who has patiently guided me on my venture into the maze of the Buddhist pramāna system.