Dignāga

Dignāga on the DRL

Classical Indian Authors

ཕྱོགས་གླང་

Wylie	phyogs glang
English Phonetics	Dignāga
Sort Name	Dignāga

Dates

Birth:	C. 480 CE
Death:	Southern India

Tibetan calendar dates

Dates of birth

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

Dates of passing

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

About

Biographical Information

Dignāga. [alt. Diṅnāga] (T. Phyogs glang; C. Chenna; J. Jinna; K. Chinna) (c. 480-c. 540). Indian monk regarded as the formalizer of Buddhist logic (nyāya; hetuvidyā). Dignāga was an influential innovator in Buddhist inferential reasoning or logical syllogisms (prayoga; sādhana), an important feature of Indian philosophy more broadly, which occupies a crucial place in later Indian and Tibetan philosophical analysis. The Indian Nyāya (Logic) school advocated that there were five necessary stages in syllogistic reasoning: (1) probandum or proposition (pratijñā), "The mountain is on fire"; (2) reason (hetu), "because there is smoke," (3) analogy (udāharana), "Whatever is smoky is on fire, like a stove, but unlike a lake"; (4) application (upanāya), "Since this mountain is smoky, it is on fire"; (5) conclusion (nigamana), "The mountain is on fire." Using the same example, Dignāga by contrast reduced the syllogism down to only three essential steps: (1) probandum or proposition (pakṣa), "the mountain is on fire"; (2) reason (hetu), "because there is smoke"; (3) exemplification (dṛṣṭānta), "whatever is smoky is on fire, like a stove," and "whatever is not on fire is not smoky, like a lake," or, more simply, "like a stove, unlike a lake." Dignāga is also the first scholiast to incorporate into Buddhism the Vaiśeṣika position that there are only two valid means of knowledge (pramāṇa): direct perception (pratyakṣa, which also includes for Buddhists the subcategory of Yogipratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna). Dignāga’s major works include his Pramāņasamuccaya ("Compendium on Valid Means of Knowledge"), Ālambanaparīkṣā ("Investigation of the Object"), and Nyāyamukha ("Primer on Logic"), which is available only in Chinese translation. (Source: "Dignāga." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 259. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

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Sādhana refers to a method of practice through which one can actualise a specific spiritual result, and by extension to the texts and manuals which present such methods. A sādhana in the Vajrayāna Buddhist context generally involves the worship and visualisation of a tantric deity, chanting of mantras, and associated practices. The practice often begins with verses of taking refuge and cultivating altruistic thought, then carrying out meditation on emptiness and the mandala of deity, seven-part worship, chanting of mantras, and finally the dissolution of the deity which was visualised.

In the Buddhist literature on pramāṇa, it refers to cognition that correctly apprehends its object without any deception or mistake. Such correct cognition include direct perception and inferential cognition.