Analysis Of Current Structure

This paper’s research object is the first chapter of Dignaga’s Pramanasamuccaya. In the history of Buddhist philosophy, Dignaga is a critical philosopher who is considered as the founder of medieval Indian logic. The representative work in his earlier stage is Nyayamukha which is concentrated on the problem of logic argument in debate. The representative work in his later stage is Pramanasamuccaya which is based on the Nyayamukha and mainly dealt with epistemological problems. Dignaga is one of Six Ornaments in Tibetan, his masterpiece Pramanasamuccaya has only left two Tibetan language translation versions. Therefor, in the circle of Chinese Buddhist philosophy, there are just a few researchers pay attention to Pramanasamuccaya.Since last century, more and more researchers pay close attention to the theory of knowledge in Buddhist philosophy. A lot of books talk about the theory of knowledge in Pramanasamuccaya. These researchers spread in Europe and American and also Japan. In China, there are few scholars in Taiwan and Hong Kong tried to keep up with this trend. However, in mainland China there are just several degree dissertations related to the first chapter of Pramanasamuccaya. In that chapter Dignaga mainly talk about perception (pratyaksa). He defined pratyaksa as pratyaksam kalapanapodham which means perception is free from conceptual construction (kalpana)This paper’s topic is the first chapter of Pramanasamuccaya. Because before Dignaga, no one in Indian had defined pratyaksa like that. And after Dignaga, his opinion had aroused controversy. His theory of knowledge had almost influenced every Indian Buddhist philosopher after him. In this paper, I would like to make a point that Dignaga had realized the boundary of language and concept. His definition of pratyaksa was try to reveal the limit of language. In his theory of knowledge, there are two separate means of cognition, pratyaksa and anumana. So, as a mean of cognition, what pratyaksa dealt with is inexpressible.This paper trying to reveal the structure of pratyaksa through Dignaga’s definition of pratyaksa. And the main point of this paper is that four types of pratyaksa are not separate from each other but as a unity in Dignaga’s theory. These four types of pratyaksa are:sense perception, mental perception, self-cogtion(or self-awareness), yogic percpeption. This paper consider that four types pratyaksa are four indispensable links in the cognition structure of pratyaksa. This idea is also a necessarily result of deduction of Dignaga’s theory of knowledge.This paper is divided into three chapter. First chapter is try to talk about the problem of Dignaga’s definition of pratyaksa and the object of pratyaksa. The first step is to analysis two concepts, pratyaksa and kalpana, from semantic and philosophy perspectives. This paper object the opinion that pratyaksa is corresponding from the external world. Pratyaksa is caused by the sense-organ. However, sense-organ is not exactly mean the material sense organ like eyes or ears. Precisely speaking, sense-organ is a function or a capacity of pratyaksa. And kalpana essentially is imagination which associate things and words. The second step is to state that the object of perception (pratyaksa) is svalaksana. Which is neither things-in-itself like Kant’s meaning nor point-instant as Stcherbatsky’s idea. Svalaksana is not external but an internal presentation.The second chapter is talking about the problem of manasa-pratyaksa (mental perception). The main point is that Manasa-pratyaksa is not a hypothesis but a critical link between sense organ and self-awareness. Manasa-pratyaksa regenerate what it received from sense organ. Moreover, it is not limited by sense organ. This paper is object the idea that manasa-pratyaksa equal with sense perception or equal with yogic perception. Some radical view thought that manasa-pratyaksa is not working. They are all wrong.The first part of the third chapter would like to criticised that svasaamvedana (self-cognition) is not a part of manasa-pratyaksa but an independent pratyaksa which can make the object of cognition as a unified presentation. It’s the prerequisite of knowledge formation. This paper make a point that svasaamvedana including fellings like desire, pleasure, pain,etc.so that it can explain the complexity of human consciousness. Without svasaamvedana, how can memory possible. The second part of this chapter would like to emphasis the meaning of yogic perception,which including the deliberation meaning and epistemology meaning. Yogic perception is the result of the deduction of pratyaksa’s structure. In this stage, yogic perception deprive feelings like desire, pleasure, pain which contained in svasaamvedana. These feelings come along with the object of cognition, and twist the presentation of objects. Therefor, yogic perception recognize an object as it is.The conclusion of this paper is that sense perception, mental perception, self-cogtion, yogic percpeption are all free from conceptual construction. They are directly means of cognition. And become a unified structure of pratyaksa, inside this structure these four links are indispensable.