The Geluk epistemological system is built upon thinking and practices formulated in eleventh-century Tibet, which in turn traced their roots back to Indian authors living between the fifth and seventh centuries. If there is one thing that could be said to characterize the tradition, it is the pursuit of certainty. The tradition’s basic understanding of our situation is a standard Buddhist one. The principal predicament is that sentient beings are caught within samsara, a state characterized by dissatisfaction and suffering. The Buddha diagnosed this malady, fully exposing its hidden depths and identifying its causes. Then, driven by an incomparable altruism, he gave teachings that in the short term offered solace to those who suffered and could ultimately release them from their plight. Based on this understanding, those in the Indian and Tibetan epistemological tradition acknowledged the Buddha as the unsurpassed physician and the supremely compassionate one, but they also fostered a new image. This emphasized the Buddha as the ultimate and unerring authority, an entirely trustworthy and reliable source of knowledge.
The tradition’s quest for certainty has manifested in two distinctive ways. The first was its development of a comprehensive theory of knowledge. The epistemological tradition rejects the idea that spiritual practice should be defined by pure faith, especially in revelatory scriptures and ritual performance. Specifically, in terms of the Buddhist path, it also dismisses the view that realization should be approached solely as a mystical process, the only access to which is through experience. The tradition regards spiritual realization as falling within the domain of knowledge. As such, it is something that must be based on identifiable principles, which could serve as the basis of a theory. The epistemological tradition has therefore, perhaps more than any other in Buddhism, been prepared to stand apart from the path of realization, to analyze and discuss the workings of the processes it involves.
The second distinctive way that the tradition’s quest for certainty has manifested is its engagement with other traditions and those holding different views. A passage by Bhāviveka cited by one of our authors in this volume points to the issues at stake:
Being a text handed down in an unbroken tradition,
it is claimed, is what makes it a “scripture.”
But since the same applies to everyone’s texts,
what is it that gives [what they say any] certainty?
That is, the tradition has been shaped by the awareness that Buddhism did not stand in isolation. Other religious schools had their own understandings of reality, of the main dilemma faced by beings, and of the solution to that dilemma. They also claimed that their scriptures and teachings embodied certainty. Hence, in addition to the deeper questions about how it was possible to be certain that what the Buddha taught was correct—and indeed, how one can be certain of anything at all—there was the issue of how Buddhists distinguished themselves from others, especially when, in medieval India, there were so many commonalities among different religious traditions. Those in the Indian Buddhist epistemological tradition, and then later those in Tibet, have therefore always kept a very keen eye on what might be termed “the opposition,” meaning those who express alternative views and who call into question aspects of the Buddhist account. The tradition’s authors tend to structure their writings as discourses, and the extent to which they are prepared to represent differing points of view and engage with those holding them is exceptional.
The view that definite knowledge of things is possible was not exclusive to Buddhism, nor did it likely have its origin in Buddhism. Early Indic philosophers had wrestled with the issue of how knowledge was gained, and they developed the idea that it was possible to distinguish particular sources that could yield incontestable knowledge, and they referred to these sources as pramāṇa. And as our authors saw it, Indic religio-philosophical schools were in agreement about the possibility of indisputable knowledge and the fact that religious practice should be premised upon it. According to many Tibetan scholars, even deniers of religion like the early materialist thinkers, who claimed only to trust their senses, thereby implicitly accepted at least one form of pramāṇa. But these schools held competing notions of exactly what constituted pramāṇa and diverse understandings of how such notions supported their own tenets and made them superior to those of others. Reflecting how seriously the issue of certain knowledge was treated in some Buddhist quarters, the composers of the Sanskrit treatises that are the focus of the present volume are now commonly described as having belonged to the Pramāṇa school or tradition and are simply referred to by many as “Pramāṇaists.”
The Indian Pramāṇa tradition is especially associated with Dignāga (fifth to sixth century) and Dharmakīrti (seventh century), whose deliberations and writings had a massive intellectual impact in India and neighboring lands, particularly in Tibet. Dignāga and Dharmakīrti are generally seen as the two most significant Buddhist contributors to the Indian discourse on pramāṇa, those who went furthest in the development of a distinctively Buddhist epistemology. Other Indian schools of thought recognized a wide range of things as pramāṇa. Scripture, personal testimony, and even tradition itself were identified as sources of incontestable knowledge. Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, and their followers pursued a more radical line. Disputing the reliability of many of these proposed sources, they advocated a notion of pramāṇa rooted in awareness, arguing that the only actual pramāṇas—epistemic means that could be relied on to provide certain knowledge—were cognitions within the individual’s own continuum. Of the various kinds of cognition, they said that only two, perception and inference, could be pramāṇas. Accordingly, in the Buddhist context, pramāṇa is frequently translated as “valid cognition,” and the defense of the assertion that pramāṇa is limited to these two forms—along with the explication of their workings and the refutation of alternative sources of certain knowledge—serves as the intellectual wellspring for the tradition.
"The Buddha invited his followers to test what he taught."
The assertion that these were the only two kinds of pramāṇa especially challenged the idea that revelation and scripture in themselves were reliable sources of knowledge or articulations of truth. While Dignāga famously hailed the Buddha as pramāṇa on the grounds that he was unerring, this was not meant entirely literally. Even the veracity of the Buddha’s own words—as recorded in the Buddhist scriptures—could not be accepted unquestioningly. According to an oft-cited passage on assaying gold, the Buddha invited his followers to test what he taught. But given that so much of this related to phenomena outside the experience and immediate perceptual range of ordinary beings, including realizations of ultimate reality, how might they go about this? It was here that the tradition said systematized analysis and logic found their place. It encouraged structured thinking, partly to combat the idea that religion should be left to blind faith, but equally aware that misguided direction or a lack of rigor could result in dubious or even mistaken deductions. For inferential cognitions to be pramāṇa, they must be based on sound, incontrovertible reasoning, grounded in logical principles. Part of the task, as Dignāga and Dharmakīrti saw it, was to set out these principles, identify the rules of correct reasoning, and in the process, root out spurious arguments and erroneous systems of thinking. Not only would individuals with a thorough grasp of correct reasoning have at their disposal the means of generating inferential cognition for themselves, but they would also be in a position to present correct lines of reasoning to others and allow them, in turn, to develop their own inferences.
If liberation from suffering (that is, nirvana) and full enlightenment were realities, it would not be sufficient to simply claim that certain beings had experienced them. Their possibility and existence, together with details of the various stages of the path, must be knowable to those who might aspire to achieve them. Inference was what made knowledge of the path and its goals accessible to such individuals, and as potential objects of inference, this path and its goals were viewed as amenable to methodical examination. Consequently, an analytical approach associated with correct inference was held to provide the means for testing what the Buddha had taught.
Within the writings on pramāṇa, as exemplified by the three works translated in this volume, we therefore see vital intersections among the spheres of textual analysis, logic, and spiritual practice. For our authors, the Buddhist path could be charted out in a detailed, graduated fashion. Both the understanding of that path and the progression along it were governed by coherent, determinable rules. This meant that advancement to its highest levels was in theory open to all, rather than just the extraordinary few whose greatness seemed preordained.
Models of Understanding
Referencing some basic models and frameworks structuring Tibetan Buddhism provides us with a clearer picture of the place of pramāṇa within that tradition. Introductions to Mahayana Buddhism usually discuss the two great schools of thought: Cittamātra (“Mind Only”) and Madhyamaka (“Middle Way”). We encounter various characterizations of them outside the Tibetan tradition. Opinions differ on how fitting it is to describe Cittamātra philosophy as a form of idealism; and Madhyamaka, with its emphasis on negation rather than affirmation, has a long history of being represented as a kind of nihilism. Exactly where these two schools have stood in relation to each other, philosophically and historically, is also a source of much discussion, but they are frequently depicted as rival systems. Within the Tibetan tradition, however, the predominant trend has always been to find a means of accommodating both philosophies. Apparent clashes and tensions between their views and any qualms regarding their chronology and historical popularity have been ironed out and explained through the application of joint hermeneutic and doxographic models. The two systems have been represented not simply as plausible or valid interpretations of the Buddha’s teachings but exactly what he intended to convey. The differences in them related to their audiences—those individuals and groups to whom the Buddha spoke directly—whose capacities and dispositions he had in mind when delivering the teachings in question. The perspective of a Mahayana instruction was oriented toward either Cittamātra or Madhyamaka, depending on its intended recipients.
The different views espoused by the Buddha were collated and elucidated by some of his foremost followers in later centuries. The treatises and commentaries they composed served as the basis for the formation of different schools of Buddhist philosophy. For those in the Tibetan tradition, the fact that the Buddha was the initiator of this process and approved of the multiplicity of views it gave rise to has not been understood to imply spiritual relativism. The schools had varying presentations of the path and had different versions of what constituted ultimate reality, so not all of them could be the truth. Tibetan thinkers, seeking to comprehend and organize the Indian Buddhist legacy, most commonly referred to four distinct Buddhist philosophical schools in India and ordered these hierarchically. In ascending order these were the Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika, the two schools belonging to the Śrāvaka or Hinayana system, holding a philosophical view that lent toward realism. Above these were the Cittamātra (or Yogācāra) and Madhya-maka, the two schools of the Mahayana system. Although each individual eventually had to progress to the highest of the four views, the lower ones could partly act as steppingstones, bringing about a gradual refinement of understanding.
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The works in this volume demonstrate how important scholastic rigor has been to Tibetan religion. They illustrate how those who follow the tradition have viewed the systematic approach as necessary not only for textual analysis—for those seeking to unravel the complexities of the Indian Buddhist scriptures and treatises—but also for practitioners aiming to progress along the spiritual path and achieve the higher Buddhist goals.
