Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

Indian Buddhists’ critiques of the Veda, attested from the early canonical sources, focused on disproving the superhuman ability of the supposed authors of the Veda, the Vedic ṛṣis, or on proving their immoral intentions. This traditional discourse of criticizing the Vedic authority, which was maintained by the sixth century Buddhist Bhāviveka, was not inherited by Dharmakīrti (c. 7^th cen.) and later Buddhist intellectuals such as Śāntarakṣita (725-788) and Kamalaśīla (740-795). Instead of continuing the traditional Buddhist discourse on the Veda, those later Buddhist masters began to argue that the Veda, the authorless text to the Mīmāṃsakas, is meaningless. This strategy, though initially begun with Saṅghabhadra (c. 420-480), came forefront in Dharmakīrti’s works and the traditional discourse subsided from the seventh century on.

This paper suggests that this change in Buddhist critiques of the Veda needs to be read in the background of Kumārila’s (c. 7^th cen.) formulation of the Mīmāṃsaka doctrine of the intrinsic validity of cognition (svataḥprāmāṇya). It goes over the inchoate ideas of the doctrine indicated in the early materials of Mīmāṃsā, the Mīmāṃsāsūtra and Śābarabhāṣya, and overviews how Kumārila structured the standard for valid cognitions and how he applied his theory to the case of the Veda. Then it demonstrates how Dharmakīrti’s main argument against the Veda can be dialogically read with the development of the Mīmāṃsaka defense of the Vedic authority which culminates in Kumārila’ works. It concludes that Dharmakīrti’s criticism may have tactically exploited the one possibility of invalid cognitions in Kumārila’s scheme, i.e. the case of non-cognition (ajñāna), which was supposed impossible to be caused by the Veda to the Mīmāṃsakas.