Buddhist Logic - Pramana Sets As Determining Traditions of Dharma

Pramana Sets As Determining Traditions of Dharma

Decisive in distinguishing Buddhadharma from what is generally understood as Sanatana Dharma is the issue of epistemological justification. All schools of Indian logic recognize various sets of 'valid justifications for knowledge' or pramana. The Buddhadharma recognizes a pramana set that is smaller than the other Dharmic Traditions. Most pramanavada of Dharmic Traditions accept 'perception' (Sanskrit: pratyakṣa) and 'inference' (Sanskrit: anumāna), for example, but for some schools of Sanatana Dharma and Buddhadharma the 'received textual tradition' (Sanskrit: āgamāḥ) is an epistemological category equal to perception and inference (although this is not necessarily true for some other schools). The Buddhadharma accepts 'received textual tradition' or āgamāḥ, including Buddhavacana, only if it accords with pratyakṣa and anumāna. Historically, Shakyamuni Buddha was qualifying the unquestionable authority of the Vedas on grounds of ahimsa as according to the Vedic Tradition of Sanatana Dharma, the Vedas are apauruṣeya "not of human agency," are supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called śruti ("what is heard"). Vedic injunctions required sacrifices, Śrauta (an etymon of the English 'slaughter'), particularly 'animal sacrifices' (Pashu-Yajna, Ashvamedha) and which the compassionate Shakyamuni Buddha countered.

Thus, in the Sanatana Dharma traditions, if a claim was made that could not be substantiated by appeal to the textual canon, it would be considered as ridiculous as a claim that the sky was green and, conversely, a claim which could not be substantiated via conventional means might still be justified through textual reference, differentiating this from the epistemology of hard science. Some schools of Buddhadharma, on the other hand, rejected an inflexible reverence of accepted doctrine. As the Buddhavacana Kalama Sutta III.65 states:

Do not accept anything by mere tradition ... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures ... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions ... But when you know for yourselves – these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness – then do you live acting accordingly.

This verse is however taken out of context. In the Kalama Sutta the Buddha was talking to non-Buddhists and those were not already Buddhist disciples. Dhammapala's commentary on the Nettipakarana says "for there is no other criterion beyond a text."