A Buddhist critique of the Lokāyata materialism from the 8th century. The Lokāyata-parīkşā Chapter XXII of Śāntarakşita’s Tattva-sańgraha with Kamallaśīla’s Paňjikā. A critical edition from the Sanskrit manuscripts and the Tibetan version, with an introduction and an annotated translation

The following dissertation presents a critical edition and an annotated English translation of Chapter XXII Lokāyata-parīkṣā (‗Examination of the Lokāyata system‘) of the Tattva-saṅgraha (‗Compendium of Principles‘) by the 8th -century Buddhist monk and teacher Śāntarakṣita, with the commentary Tattva-saṅgraha-pañjikā thereon by Kamalaśīla (also 8th century). In this chapter Śāntarakṣita attempts to prove the beginninglessness and endlessness of the dependent arising as taught by Buddha Gautama. In doing so he engages in a fictitious debate with an adversary representing the now near-forgotten Lokāyata school of classical Indian materialism (fl. between the 6th and 9th cent.), and refutes the adversary‘s critique of the concept of rebirth. In my dissertation I make inquiry into what the text of the Lokāyata-parīkṣā is and what it says, and I investigate Śāntarakṣita‘s and Kamalaśīla‘s account of the Lokāyata. The first two questions, which are the central questions of the present work, I answer respectively in my critical edition (section 2 of the dissertation) and my annotated translation of the Lokāyata-parīkṣā (section 4). Section 1 (‗Introduction‘) is divided into four parts. Part one briefly presents the Tattva-saṅgraha and the Pañjikā, and their authors. Part two gives a (critical) summary of the text-witnesses. Part three examines the purpose and the adversary of the Lokāyata-parīkṣā. Also discussed in this subsection are some selected problems concerning the account of the Lokāyata. Part four presents my concluding remarks. The dissertation also offers an edition of the Tibetan versions of the two texts (section 3), which allows the reader to consult the Tibetan text with the critically edited Sanskrit text, and the English translation. The annotations to my translation provide what I regard as a philological-cumexegetical commentary on the text, namely, their purpose is primarily to examine the variae lectiones and the emendations, and to elaborate on the often complex discourse (needless to say, a proper exegesis is a sine qua non for establishing the preferred reading of the text). The dissertation‘s approach towards the Lokāyata-parīkṣā is, thus, first and foremost philological and text-critical. The study is augmented by a presentation of the adversary, and an evaluation of the text as a source-material for the philosophical enterprise of the Lokāyata. The Tattva-saṅgraha and the Pañjikā were the subject of major studies by two prominent Polish scholars of the pre-war Warsaw school of Buddhist studies. These are Stanisław Schayer (1899-1941), founder (in 1932) and first director of the Oriental Institute (from 2008 Faculty of Oriental Studies) at the University of Warsaw, and Arnold Kunst (1903-1981), student of Stefan Stasiak (Lvov, now Lviv, Ukraine), Schayer, and Erich Frauwallner (Vienna). Schayer‘s Contributions to the Problem of Time in Indian Philosophy, published in Kraków, 1938 by Polska Akademia Umiejętności (reedited by Marek Mejor in 2012), presented an annotated translation of Chapter XXI Traikālya-parīkṣā (‗Examination of [the Doctrine of] the Existence of Three Times‘), with Kamalaśīla‘s commentary thereon, together with a pioneering study of the Indian notion of time. Arnold Kunst in his doctoral dissertation, published in 1939 under the title Probleme der buddhistischen Logik in der Darstellung des Tattvasaṅgraha (Polska Akademia Umiejętności, Prace komisji orientalistycznej Nr. 33, Kraków 1939), offered an edition of the root text in Sanskrit and Tibetan, with a German translation, of Chapter XVIII Anumāna-parīkṣā (‗Examination of Inference‘), with Kamalaśīla‘s commentary thereon. Both works were based on the printed edition by Krishnamacharya, carefully collated with the Tibetan versions (which were, additionally, evaluated by Kunst in the preface to his study). In his In memoriam to Arnold Kunst, David SEYFORT RUEGG (1983: 3) praised the two Polish scholars for having been ‗responsible for inaugurating in Europe the careful study on both a philological and philosophical basis of Śāntarakṣita‘s Tattvasaṃgraha.‘ I sincerely hope that the research carried out in the present dissertation proves a worthy addition to the Polish studies on the Tattva-saṅgraha and the Pañjikā.