On satpratyayakartṛtva

Abstract

This article reevaluates the East Asian Buddhist yinming/inmyō (因明) tradition as a bridge between South Asian and East Asian traditions of Buddhist logic. Specifically, focus is placed on the concept of satpratyayakartṛtva or “producing the cognition ‘existent’,” which has its background in Vaiśeṣikasūtra I.2.7. In Xuanzang’s translation of Śaṅkarasvāmin’s Nyāyapraveśaka, this term was translated as zuo you yuan xing (作有縁性). Xuanzang’s disciple Wengui (文軌) seems to have understood well its original Sanskrit meaning, whereas another disciple, Ji (基), offered a different understanding based on the dual meaning of you yuan: the cognition ‘existent’ and the object that possesses the cognition. Although the second interpretation seems peculiar in this context, his intention lies in maintaining the rule that the property to be proved in this thesis, including satpratyayakartṛtva, should be applied to both the subject matter, i.e., sattā, as well as to similar examples, like sāmānyaviśeṣa. In order to satisfy the demand, Ji interpreted the Chinese term to mean “forming the object’s nature that produces a cognition.”