Re: [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī

[Hartmut Buescher]

Dear Dean,
saw your message first now, after having written and sent off mine,
and, sure, we agree.  Hartmut

On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 8:55 PM Dean Michael Anderson <
eastwestcultural at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'd be hesitant in using terms like *ākāśagamin *to date a text unless
> there was an indication that it was part of a larger established doctrine.
> Those kinds of abilities were regularly mentioned.
>
> The idea of sages moving through space is mentioned as early as Rig Veda
> X.136 although it uses different terminology.
>
> In a forthcoming publication, I discuss how those types of experiences may
> be part of a body of experiences that are universal psychological
> responses to certain psychophysiological stimuli such as meditative
> practices, entraining to rhythmic chanting, drugs, etc. (See Yoga Sutras
> 4.1) I call it the yogic-shamanic continuum. Given that, using such
> experiences alone to date a text would probably be misleading.
>
> Best,
>
> Dean
>
>
>
> On Sunday, January 26, 2020, 4:30:43 PM GMT+5:30, Dan Lusthaus via
> INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>
> The idea of practitioners who become ākāśagamin is already in the
> Yogasūtra (4th-5th century? earlier?) which explains how to do it;
> pre-tantra. The term is probably older.
>
> YS 3, 42 kāyākāśayoḥ saṃbandhasaṃyamāl laghutūlasamāpatteś cākāśagamanam |
>
> Dan
> _______________________________________________
>
> On Sunday, January 26, 2020, 3:12:46 PM GMT+5:30, Johannes Bronkhorst via
> INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>
> Allow me to add a word of caution about chronology with respect to Manu.
> Even if *Vajrasūcī* 12 explicitly refers to *Mānava Dharmaśāstra* 5.48,
> the *Vasiṣṭha Dharmasūtra* (4.7) does the same (being much closer to
> Manu's text). And yet, Olivelle considers the *Mānava Dharmaśāstra*
> "clearly posterior to Vasiṣṭha".
>
> There are other cases which show that even literal quotations from and
> references to Manu do not necessarily prove that the text concerned is
> posterior to Manu. I discuss them in detail in the following article:
>
> “Manu and the Mahābhārata.” *Indologica. T. Ya. Elizarenkova Memorial
> Volume Book 2*. Ed. L. Kulikov & M. Rusanov. Moscow: Russian State
> University for the Humanities. 2012. (Orientalia et Classica, 40.) Pp.
> 135-156. (available on Academia and ResearchGate)
>
>  Johannes Bronkhorst
>
>
> On 26 Jan 2020, at 03:57, Hartmut Buescher via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> Dear followers of this thread,
>
>
> although there may have been several Aśvaghoṣas (as in the cases of
> Nāgārjuna,
> Āryadeva, Vasubandhu, etc.), including a Tantric *siddhācārya*, the one
> previously
> referred to as our point of departure in this context, is of course the
> one dated to
> the 1st–2nd century CE, who “is widely acknowledged as one of the
> earliest and
> greatest representatives of Indian *kāvya* literature” (Eltschinger, JIP
> 41 [2013]: 167),
> and who lived around the same time that has been estimated by Olivelle
> (“probably
> in the middle of the second century CE”, in *Hindu **Law*, 2018: 24) to
> be likewise that
> of the composition of the *Mānavadharmaśāstra*.
>
>
> For various reasons, I stumbled over *Vajrasūcī*, verse 12, which in the
> commentary
> (2nd ed. Mukhopadhyaya, 1960: 3) is introduced as having actually been
> uttered
> (*uktaṃ hi mānave dharme*) in this *Mānavadharmaśāstra* (MDh):
>
>
>           *ākāśagāmino viprāḥ patanti māṃsabhakṣaṇāt |*
> *          viprāṇāṃ patanaṃ dṛṣṭvā tato māṃsāni varjayet ||12||*
>
>
>           Due to consuming meat, the space-walking seers do fall.
>           Hence, observing the seers’ fall one should abandon meats.
>
>
> Although not being a direct quotation, the reference to MDh 5.48
> is clear enough, especially in consideration of VS 12d and MDh 5.48d
> (quoting Olivelle’s ed & tr in the following):
>
>
>           *nākṛtvā prāṇināṃ hiṃsāṃ māṃsam utpadyate kvacit |*
> *          na ca prāṇivadhaḥ svargyas tasmān māṃsaṃ vivarjayet || 48 ||*
>
>
>           One can never obtain meat without causing injury to living
> beings,
>           and killing living beings is an impediment to heaven; he
> should,
>           therefore, abstain from meat.
>
>
> While this reference may be considered as providing sufficient
> philological
> evidence for historically assuming VS to be later than MDh, the fact that
> the
> notion of an *ākāśagāmin* corresponds to that of a *khecara* would at
> least not
> contradict the assumption that the author of the *Vajrasūcī* may in fact
> have
> been associated with the social sphere of the *siddhācārya*s, being also
> the
> sphere of Vajrayāna.
>
>
> Another twist of the story is provided by the respective arguments for
> abstaining from consuming pieces of flesh from the corpses of brutally
> slaughtered animals, given particularly in Mahāyāna, prior to the
> antinomian
> Vajrayāna practice of ritually consuming flesh, the main Buddhist reason
> for not harming any living beings has been compassion (cf., e.g., the
> concise
> outline in Schmithausen’s “The Case of Vegetarianism – A Buddhist
> Perspective” [https://tinyurl.com/qqxhvrf]). – Comparing the two verses
> quoted
> above, it is in MDh 5.48, where compassion is appealed to. The *Vajrasūcī*,
>
> contrary to what we might expect, is not doing so. How to historically
> account
> for this evidence? Could it be that, while likewise casting a side-glance
> at his
> space-walking colleagues, *siddhācārya *Aśvaghoṣa’s intention has been to
> also
> include them in his critique of animal corpse consumers?
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Hartmut Buescher
> .
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 4:52 AM Hartmut Buescher <
> buescherhartmut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear followers of this thread,
>
>
> although there may have been several Aśvaghoṣas (as in the cases of
> Nāgārjuna,
> Āryadeva, Vasubandhu, etc.), including a Tantric *siddhācārya*, the one
> previously
> referred to as our point of departure in this context, is of course the
> one dated to
> the 1st–2nd century CE, who “is widely acknowledged as one of the
> earliest and
> greatest representatives of Indian *kāvya* literature” (Eltschinger, JIP
> 41 [2013]: 167),
> and who lived around the same time as that which has been estimated by
> Olivelle
> (“probably in the middle of the second century CE”, in *Hindu **Law*,
> 2018: 24) to be
> likewise that of the composition of the *Mānavadharmaśāstra*.
>
>
> For various reasons, I stumbled over *Vajrasūcī*, verse 12, which in the
> commentary
> (2nd ed. Mukhopadhyaya, 1960: 3) is introduced as having actually been
> uttered
> (*uktaṃ hi mānave dharme*) in this *Mānavadharmaśāstra* (MDh):
>
>
>           *ākāśagāmino viprāḥ patanti māṃsabhakṣaṇāt |*
> *          viprāṇāṃ patanaṃ dṛṣṭvā tato māṃsāni varjayet ||12||*
>
>
>           Due to consuming meat, the space-walking seers do fall.
>           Hence, observing the seers’ fall one should abandon meats.
>
>
> Although not being a direct quotation, the reference to MDh 5.48
> is clear enough, especially in consideration of VS 12d and MDh 5.48d
> (quoting Olivelle’s ed & tr in the following):
>
>
>           *nākṛtvā prāṇināṃ hiṃsāṃ māṃsam utpadyate kvacit |*
> *          na ca prāṇivadhaḥ svargyas tasmān māṃsaṃ vivarjayet || 48 ||*
>
>
>           One can never obtain meat without causing injury to living
> beings,
>           and killing living beings is an impediment to heaven; he
> should,
>           therefore, abstain from meat.
>
>
> While this reference may be considered as providing sufficient
> philological
> evidence for historically assuming VS to be later than MDh, the fact that
> the
> notion of an *ākāśagāmin* corresponds to that of a *khecara* would at
> least not
> contradict the assumption that the author of the *Vajrasūcī* may in fact
> have
> been associated with the social sphere of the *siddhācārya*s, being also
> the
> sphere of Vajrayāna.
>
>
> Another twist of the story is provided by the respective arguments for
> abstaining from consuming pieces of flesh from the corpses of brutally
> slaughtered animals, given particularly in Mahāyāna, prior to the
> antinomian
> Vajrayāna practice of ritually consuming flesh, the main Buddhist reason
> for not harming any living beings has been compassion (cf., e.g., the
> concise
> outline in Schmithausen’s “The Case of Vegetarianism – A Buddhist
> Perspective” [https://tinyurl.com/qqxhvrf]). – Comparing the two verses
> quoted
> above, it is in MDh 5.48, where compassion is appealed to. The *Vajrasūcī*,
>
> contrary to what we might expect, is not doing so. How to historically
> account
> for this evidence? Could it be that, while likewise casting a side-glance
> at his
> space-walking colleagues, *siddhācārya *Aśvaghoṣa’s intention has been to
> also
> include them in his critique of animal corpse consumers?
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Hartmut Buescher
> .
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 3:41 AM Dan Lusthaus via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> Dear Vincent,
>
> Thank you for your further comments.
>
> I didn’t mean to suggest that the yukta pramāṇa described in the Caraka
> Saṃhitā was the same as the dharmārthayuktaṃ vacanaṃ pramāṇam of the
> Vajrasūcī. Only that a pramāṇa explicitly based on yukta (however one
> parses that phrase) is something seen early on, and then it disappears. The
> yukta-pramāṇa of the Caraka is a fascinating thing whose loss probably was
> a loss for the entire Indian philosophical enterprise. Farmers and doctors
> shared a common concern, which is that to get from initial cause to actual
> fruition involves a process in time of multiple causes, with multiple
> stages, any of which can effect or nullify the outcome: planting a crop and
> being able to harvest; pregnancy making it to term; etc. Taking all
> relevant factors into account and calculating the probabilities of a
> successful final outcome was what yukta pramāṇa was designed to accomplish.
> In some ways, that is closer to the probabalistic reasoning that has
> displaced causal thinking in western philosophy (and some sciences) since
> the early 20th c than the more mechanistic cause and invariant effect
> reasoning more prevalent in Indian thought. Obviously, the Caraka’s yukta
> pramāṇa is not the same thing as drawing knowledge through discourse
> employing reasoning based on dharma and artha (or the meaning/purpose of
> dharma).
>
> The idea of prototypical ideas that emerge later under the rubric of
> Mīmāṃsā is intriguing. The Yogācārabhūmi is an often ignored treasure trove
> of ideas circulating in India earlier than is often recognized (as is the
> Tattvasiddhi, though not adequately captured in Sastri’s translations, in
> which many of the stock arguments repeated in pramāṇavāda texts are already
> found). Squeamishness about sacrifices is quite early — Jains and even
> Sāṃkhyans express those ideas, and one can see some reaction against that
> even in the Bhagavad Gītā (whether one dates that to 200 BCE or 200 CE).
> Dignāga does deal with Mīmāṃsā in PS, for which there is no (available)
> Chinese translation. (There is a hint that a one fascicle translation was
> made, but no evidence of it aside from a mention of its title in a
> catalogue of translations).
>
> The Chinese sources frequently cite a school by its founder’s name
> instead of the name of the school. Typically:
> Kapila 迦毘羅, the founder of Sāṃkhya 數論; Ulūka 優樓佉 (a.k.a. Kaṇâda 食米齋), the
> founder of Vaiśeṣika 勝論宗, and Ṛṣabha 勒沙婆, the founder of the Nirgranthas.
>
> As far as I can find, there is no Chinese version of Jaimini’s name.
> Again, I would be happy to learn otherwise.
>
> Dan
>
>
> On Jan 25, 2020, at 8:11 PM, Eltschinger, Vincent <
> Vincent.Eltschinger at oeaw.ac.at> wrote:
>
> Dear Dan,
> My impression is that the Buddhists became aware of Mīmāṃsā as a distinct
> religio-philosophical school (and not just as a purely intra-Brahmanical
> type of “theological/exegetical” inquiry) some time during the fourth
> century CE (or perhaps in the early fifth), even though the term may not
> occur, at least not regularly, before Dignāga (480-540). It is also around
> the fourth century CE that certain Buddhists started arguing against ideas
> that are close to those known to us from later Mīmāṃsaka sources (e.g., on
> sacrificial violence, the caste-classes, etc.), even though several among
> these ideas find interesting prototypes in the *Mānavadharmaśāstra*. This
> is especially the case in the so-called *paravāda* section of the
> *Yogācārabhūmi*. Hundreds of pages could be written on these topics.
> The stanza you quote is arguably the most important in the *Vajrasūcī*,
> for it spells out the philosophical-polemical program of the entire work. A
> rough translation might be: “The Vedas are authoritative (*pramāṇa*); the
> Smṛtis are authoritative; [any] speech/discourse endowed/connected (
> *yukta*) with *dharma *and *artha *is authoritative. A [person] for whom
> a [previously acknowledged] *pramāṇa* would cease (*na bhavet*) to be a
> *pramāṇa *[because it contradicts his/her position on the issue of the
> caste-classes], who [on earth] would take his/her speech/discourse to be a
>  *pramāṇa*/authoritative?” One can certainly discuss the exact structure
> and meaning of the compound *dharmārthayukta*, but seriously doubt that
> *yukta* here has anything to do with the *pramāṇa* the medical tradition
> refers to as *yukti *(see articles by Filliozat, Steinkellner, and
> others). Or did I miss the point?
> I entirely agree with you as regards Sāṃkhya and Vaiśeṣika: from the 1st-2
> nd to the 5th century, these traditions/schools are the most frequent
> targets of the Buddhist controversialists. The Nyāya (works by [the
> pseudo?]Nāgārjuna) and the Mīmāṃsā play a comparatively minor role, as do
> the Jains (targeted as early as Āryadeva’s *Catuḥśataka*, and more
> frequently from the *Yogācārabhūmi *onwards).
> Very best,
> Vincent
>
> Vincent Eltschinger, korrespondierendes Mitglied der OeAW
> Directeur d'études
> École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses
> Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus - 75014 Paris
> vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr
> 0033 1 56 61 17 34 / 0033 7 85 86 84 05
> ------------------------------
> *Von:* Dan Lusthaus <yogacara at gmail.com>
> *Gesendet:* Samstag, 25. Januar 2020 23:52:30
> *An:* Eltschinger, Vincent
> *Cc:* Matthew Kapstein; Olivelle, J P; indology at list.indology.info
> *Betreff:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī
>
> Dear all,
>
> Just to comment quickly, though I haven’t studied the Vajrasūcī in any
> depth, the same passage that Vincent highlighted, naming the Vedas,
> Grammarians, et al. is also the one that caught my attention, especially
> the mention of Mīmāṃsikas. As far as I can tell, while the others do get
> mentioned in Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, the only text
> preserved in Chinese that mentions Mīmāṃsikas is Xuanzang’s translation of
> Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpradīpa, which mentions them twice in close proximity:
>
> 《般若燈論釋》卷13〈22 觀如來品〉：「復有彌息伽外道言。佛家所說十二部經[1]者。非一切智人所說。有作者故。譬如鞞世師等論。」(CBETA,
> T30, no. 1566, p. 119, b15-17)
> [1]者＝有【宮】。
> [1]者＝有【宮】。
> “Again there are the non-Buddhist (tīrthika) Mīmāmsikas who say: ‘What is
> said by Buddhists In the twelve divisions of the their sūtras (canon), is
> that no person is omniscient, because they are conditioned (saṃskṭra),
> just as is stated in treatises by the Vaiśeṣikas, and so on.”
>
> 《般若燈論釋》卷13〈22 觀如來品〉：「如彌息伽外道所計韋陀聲是常者」(CBETA, T30, no. 1566, p. 119, c5-6)
> “This like the non-Buddhist Mīmāmsikas who imagine that the Word of the
> Vedas is eternal.”
>
> I have found no other mention of Mīmāṃsā in any other Chinese sources (if
> anyone has information on discussions I might have missed, please let me
> know). Bhāviveka, of course, devoted an entire chapter in his
> Madhyamakahṛdaya to Mīmāṃsā, but his description of their doctrines
> suggests they differed in several ways from the versions we are more
> familiar with post Prābhākara and Kumārila. It is the latter’s
> *Ślokavarttika*, of course, that made Mīmāṃsā hard to ignore for
> subsequent Buddhists.
>
> Harivarman’s *Tattvasiddhi* (translated by Kumārajīva at the beginning of
> the 5th c) identifies (among others) Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Nyāya, and Jains
> as pūrvapakṣins. More generally in Buddhist literature preserved in Chinese
> prior to the middle of the seventh century, the most commonly cited
> opponents are Vaiśeṣika and Sāṃkhya. Nyāya is mentioned infrequently, as
> are Jains.
>
> As for the pramāṇa issue mentioned by Matthew, the Vajrasūrī verse
> identifies what serve as authorities for non-Buddhists (the following verse
> turns to lineage):
>
> vedāḥ pramāṇaṃ smṛtayaḥ pramāṇaṃ dharmārthayuktaṃ vacanaṃ pramāṇam |
> yasya pramāṇaṃ na bhavetpramāṇaṃ kastasya kuryādvacanaṃ pramāṇam || 2 ||
>
> Which are more or less equivalent to śruti, smṛti, and āpti-pramāṇa, and
> analogous to “scripture and reason” (āgama, yukti) that was the established
> criteria for validity for Buddhists, even into the pramāṇavāda era. And, as
> I wrote elsewhere:
>
> *"Pramāṇa*-theory rst appears in the eleventh chapter of the first part
> (*Sūtra-sthāna*) of the *CS *[Caraka-saṃhitā]. Here the *CS *intriguingly
> proposes, along with the three *pramāṇas *one would expect (perception,
> inference, and authori- tative testimony), a fourth not found anywhere
> else: synthetic inductive reasoning (*yukta-pramāṇa*). Discussion of
> *pramāṇa *occurs in two other parts of the *CS*: part 3,
> *Vimāna-sthāna*, chap. 4 and chap. 8, but the unique *yukta-pramāṇa *is
> absent from those discussions, a sign of the strati ed nature of the text.”
> So a yukta pramāṇa suggest to me a possibly early date for that category.
>
> Has anyone considered whether it is possible that the verses may have been
> written by Aśvaghoṣa or someone relatively early while the prose exposition
> may have been added by a later hand?
>
> Dan
>
> On Jan 25, 2020, at 4:35 PM, Eltschinger, Vincent via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Dear Matthew,
> I was referring to *most *of the elements of the list I quoted, of
> course, not to the entire *Vajrasūcī*. But you are right, Matthew: the
> *Mahābhārata *plays an important role in the *Vajrasūcī*, as does… Manu –
> which may be the reason for Patrick’s query. It is well known that the
> *Vajrasūcī *attributes several verses to Manu that cannot be traced in
> the extant *Mānavadharmaśāstra *(if I remember well, this is the reason
> why some scholars tentatively attributed them to a lost Mānava
> *Dharmasūtra*). Whatever the case may be, we might perhaps agree that the
> *Vajrasūcī* is unlikely to have been composed before the 3rd-4th century
> CE. I am inclined to believe that it is even younger.
> Very best,
> Vincent
>
>
> Vincent Eltschinger, korrespondierendes Mitglied der OeAW
> Directeur d'études
> École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses
> Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus - 75014 Paris
> vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr
> 0033 1 56 61 17 34 / 0033 7 85 86 84 05
> ------------------------------
>
> *Von:* Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu>
> *Gesendet:* Samstag, 25. Januar 2020 22:13:42
> *An:* Eltschinger, Vincent; Olivelle, J P; indology at list.indology.info
> *Betreff:* Re: Vajrasūcī
>
> Not wishing to differ with my learned colleague Vincent Eltschinger's
> remarks (which are surely based on a deeper engagement with this corpus
> than my own), I tend nevertheless to think it not quite plausible that "most
> of its individual elements could have been known around 100 CE."
> My sense is that the several epic and puranic parallels point to a
> somewhat later period.
>
> Matthew
>
>
> Matthew Kapstein
> Directeur d'études,
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>
> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
> The University of Chicago
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Eltschinger, Vincent <Vincent.Eltschinger at oeaw.ac.at>
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 25, 2020 10:00 AM
> *To:* Olivelle, J P <jpo at austin.utexas.edu>; Matthew Kapstein <
> mkapstei at uchicago.edu>; indology at list.indology.info <
> indology at list.indology.info>
> *Subject:* AW: Vajrasūcī
>
> Dear Patrick,
> As you know, Aśvaghoṣa directed some arguments against the Brahmanical
> understanding of the caste-classes in one of his dramas, the
> *Śāriputraprakaraṇa*/*Śaradvatīputraprakaraṇa*, several fragments of
> which have been preserved in Central Asian manuscripts and edited by
> Heinrich Lüders around 1910. It is thus plausible that Aśvaghoṣa
> dedicated an individual treatise to this topic. The style, the method and
> the philosophical ressources of the *Vajrasūcī*, however, are very
> different from the ones we know from Aśvaghoṣa’s genuine works, and may
> presuppose Buddhist works such as the *Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna *if not
> Kumāralāta’s *Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā Dṛṣṭāntapaṅktiḥ*. Even if I am not aware
> of any convincing argument against the attribution of the *Vajrasūcī* to
> Aśvaghoṣa, I have always regarded the following statement as anachronistic:
>  *dṛśyante ca kvacic chūdrā api
> vedavyākaraṇamīmāṃsāsāṃkhyavaiśeṣikanagnā*jīvikādisarvaśāstrārthavidaḥ */.
> “And one observes in some cases that even *śūdra*s know the meaning of all
>  *śāstra*s such as the Veda, Grammar, Mīmāṃsā, Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika as well
> as [those of] the Jainas and the Ājīvikas.” (*-*nagnā- *em. : *lagnā- *Ed.)
> Although such a list is not *per se* impossible in Aśvaghoṣa’s time,
> i.e., although most of its individual elements could have been known around
> 100 CE, I do not believe that such an enumeration would have been possible,
>  *as a doxographic statement*, at that time, and even less so under Aśvaghoṣa's
> "pen." (The absence of the Nyāya from the list is intriguing.)
> Another element possibly deserving some consideration is the Sanskrit
> colophon in which Aśvaghoṣa is characterized as *siddhācārya *(*kṛtir
> iyaṃ siddhācāryāśvaghoṣapādānām iti*), an expression the exact meaning of
> which remains somewhat unclear to me.
> I am looking forward to reading other opinions on this interesting topic.
> Very best,
> Vincent
>
>
> Vincent Eltschinger, korrespondierendes Mitglied der OeAW
> Directeur d'études
> École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses
> Patios Saint-Jacques, 4-14 rue Ferrus - 75014 Paris
> vincent.eltschinger at ephe.sorbonne.fr
> 0033 1 56 61 17 34 / 0033 7 85 86 84 05
> ------------------------------
>
> *Von:* INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> im Auftrag von
> Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Gesendet:* Samstag, 25. Januar 2020 15:09:59
> *An:* Indology List; Olivelle, J P
> *Betreff:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī
>
> Dear Patrick,
>
> You'll find some discussion of it, inter alia, in Vincent Eltschinger, *"Caste"
> et Philosophie Bouddhique *WSTB 47 (2000). As you no doubt know, the
> Chinese translation is late - 10th c. if I recall correctly - and is
> attributed to DharmakIrti. I rather doubt that the true authorship can be
> established, given the available evidence. The emphasis on pramANa seems to
> suggest that it was written during the second half of the first millennium,
> not much before. But the way in which pramANa is used there does not
> resonate closely with the Buddhist pramANa school. The precise milieu in
> which it was composed remains a puzzle (at least to me!).
>
> all best,
> Matthew
>
> Matthew Kapstein
> Directeur d'études,
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>
> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
> The University of Chicago
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of
> Olivelle, J P via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 25, 2020 6:59 AM
> *To:* Indology List <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Subject:* [INDOLOGY] Vajrasūcī
>
> Does anyone know of newer work on the identity and date of the author of
> Vajrasūcī, often ascribed to Aśvaghoṣa? Any new ideas on its possible date?
> With thanks and best wishes,
>
> Patrick Olivelle
>
>


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