An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy: An Annotated Translation of the Tarkabhasa of Moksakaragupta.

• Author: Wedemeyer, Christian K.
• Position: Book Review

An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy: An Annotated Translation of the Tarkabhasa of Moksakaragupta. By YUICHI KAJIYAMA. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, vol. 42. Vienna: ARBEITSKREIS FUR TIBETISCHE UND BUDDHISTISCHE STUDIEN UNIVERSITAT WIEN, 1998. Pp. vii + 173. [euro]16.

This work, something of a quiet classic in studies of Buddhist pramana, has now been reissued. In addition to the original Kyoto edition of 1966, the text of this book was reprinted in a collection of Professor Kajiyama's papers, also published in Kyoto (Y. Kajiyama, Studies in Buddhist Philosophy [Kyoto: Rinsen, 1989]). As both of these editions are hard to obtain in the best of circumstances--and certainly beyond the ability of most students to purchase--its publication in an affordable paperback form in Vienna's excellent Tibetan and Buddhist Studies series is most welcome. One distinctive feature of the present edition is that it is a facsimile of a copy of the first edition presented by the author to Professor Erich Frauwallner, "in which Kajiyama-sensei entered all his corrections in his own hand."

The work translated, concerned as it is with "logicspeak" (tarka-bhasa), is (as the title in part suggests) a useful resume of the main lines of Buddhist philosophical debate concerning epistemic authority (pramana) in the mid-to-late first millennium. It does not, however, (as the title might also be interpreted) provide an overview of discussions within Buddhist philosophy as a whole--though the work does conclude with a very brief trot through some few issues related to the "four schools" of Buddhist philosophy (pp. 139-51).

From his vantage point, ca. the twelfth century, Moksakaragupta is able to survey and encapsulate the chief lines of argument which had been enunciated in Buddhist epistemological thought during the centuries of its flourishing in India. His work provides something of a primer on the subject, and, judiciously used, it can be of immense benefit to students and scholars of Indian (and later Tibetan) philosophy. In the elliptical discourses of Indo-Tibetan philosophical works, entire standard lines of argument are often gestured to by later authors in an abbreviated way, without spelling out the details of their premises. For those not (or not yet) deeply steeped in this literature, works such as the Tarkabhasa can serve as convenient sourcebooks to identify many of these arguments. The schematic breakdown of the topics covered in...