With all apologies for cross posting, this may be of interest to some members of the list.

Dear Friends,

below please find information on the seventh lecture in the Ghent Center for Buddhist Studies Spring Lecture Series (Permanent Training in Buddhist Studies (PTBS)) generously sponsored by the Tianzhu Foundation. Serena Saccone, Associate Professor at the University of Naples, “L’Orientale”, will give a lecture on May 04, 2021 at 19.00 Belgian time. All lectures in this series will be held remotely over Zoom. Interested parties are welcome to attend the series or individual talks. To get the Zoom link, please register by writing to CBS@ugent.be by the morning of May 04. The link will be sent out the day of the talk.

With my kind regards,

Charles DiSimone

One Flew Over the Nest: an Externalist Among Pramāṇavādins

Serena Saccone
 University of Naples, “L’Orientale”

Śubhagupta (8th cent.) is a key figure within the Buddhist tradition of logic and epistemology (pramāṇa). Most of his works are in fact a systematization, as well as elaboration, of the doctrines and arguments found in Dharmakīrti’s writings. In this respect, he shares views with (and perhaps also directly influenced) his fellow Buddhist contemporaries, Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, who represent the mainstream tradition in the 8th century. On the other hand, as seen in his magnum opus, the “Verses on the Demonstration of External Objects” (*Bāhyārthasiddhikārikā), Śubhagupta significantly deviates from that mainstream tradition on some crucial tenets by advocating the existence of external objects and the illogicality that cognitions bear their objects’ images (nirākāravāda). The main point of contention appears to be (to some extent) the theory of self-awareness (svasaṃvedana) of cognitions. In this lecture, I shall present the pivotal elements of that internal debate, which, arguably, made Śubhagupta the Buddhist externalist (bahirarthavādin) par excellence for that tradition.

Bio

Serena Saccone is an Associate Professor at the University of Naples, “L’Orientale.” She holds a PhD in Indology and Tibetology from the University of Turin and was a research fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2015 to 2021. Her main area of research is the intellectual history of Buddhism, focusing on South Asian authors from the early medieval period, with a specific interest in epistemology, logic and soteriology, as well as their interconnections. Saccone’s monograph, “On the Nature of Things” (2018), concerns the internal Buddhist debate on cognitions and their object in the 8th century. Her second book, “Tantra and Pramāṇa. Studies in the Sāramañjarī” (2021), co-authored with Péter-Dániel Szántó, deals with the interrelationship between Tantric Buddhism and the Dignāga-Dharmakīrtian tradition of logic and epistemology.

Dr. Charles DiSimone

Department of Languages and Cultures

Ghent University

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