Development of Buddhist Epistemology and Logic: from Dignaga to Dharmakirti

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The aim of this project is to compare the systems of epistemological logic of Dignaga and Dharmakirti two great logicians of Indian Buddhism, from the four angles, namely, Ontology, Epistemology, Logic and Linguistic Philosophy, so that we will be able to see the differences between them and to trace the historical development of Buddhist logic in India from the end of the fourth century to the seventh century.The main aim of my Dignaga study for the past four years was to produce a fully annotated English translation of the Nyayamukha that is only available in classical Chinese translation. When I pursued that work, I tried to utilize the newly discovered Sanskrit Manuscript of Jinendrabuddhi's Pramanasamuccaya-tika. Then I came to the conclusion that the critical edition of the latter should be completed before I publish the translation of the former, though I have already finished the first half of the annotated translation. Meanwhile I published a couple of academic papers on some important technical terms of Dignaga's logic e.g., drstanta, paksa, sapaksa and vipaksa.Regarding Dharmakirti, I published a paper which discusses his Ontology as well as Japanese translation of the beginning portion of the Pratyaksa chapter of the Pramanavarttika together with Manorathanandin's vrtti in order to present some materials for the study of his Epistemology. I also completed three unpublished papers on Dharmakirit which deal with his‘path to liberation', ‘proof of the existence of other minds' and ‘the concept of svabhava'.That is a rough sketch of my four years study. I prepared a booklet which contains most of my published papers related to the present project. In the years to come I shall try to continue to work on the critical edition of Jinendrabuddhi's tika. As a result I will be able to clarify the differences between Dignaga's and Dharmakirti's Epistemology and Logic.