The article is about Buddhism - a philosophical teaching that is often mistaken for a religion. This is probably not a coincidence. After reading a short article about Buddhism, you will decide for yourself to what extent Buddhism can be classified as a religious teaching, or rather, it is a philosophical concept.
Buddhism: briefly about religion
First of all, let's state from the outset that while Buddhism is a religion for most people, including its followers, Buddhism has never actually been a religion and never should be. Why? Because one of the first enlightened ones, Buddha Shakyamuni, despite the fact that Brahma himself charged him with the responsibility of transmitting the teachings to others (which Buddhists prefer to remain silent about obvious reasons), never wanted to make a cult out of the fact of his enlightenment, much less a cult of worship, which nevertheless subsequently led to the fact that Buddhism began to be understood more and more as one of the religions, and yet Buddhism is not one.
Buddhism is primarily a philosophical teaching, the purpose of which is to direct a person to search for truth, a way out of samsara, awareness and vision of things as they are (one of the key aspects of Buddhism). Also, in Buddhism there is no concept of God, i.e. it is atheism, but in the sense of “non-theism”, therefore, if Buddhism is classified as a religion, then it is a non-theistic religion, just like Jainism.
Another concept that testifies in favor of Buddhism as a philosophical school is the absence of any attempts to “link” man and the Absolute, while the very concept of religion (“linking”) is an attempt to “link” man with God .
As a counter-argument, defenders of the concept of Buddhism as a religion present that in modern societies people professing Buddhism worship Buddha and make offerings, and also read prayers, etc. To this, we can say that the trends followed by the majority in no way reflect the essence of Buddhism, but only show how much modern Buddhism and its understanding have deviated from the original Buddhism concepts.
Thus, having understood for ourselves that Buddhism is not a religion, we can finally begin to describe the main ideas and concepts on which this school of philosophical thought is based.
Briefly about Buddhism
If we talk about Buddhism briefly and clearly, then it could be characterized in two words - “deafening silence” - because the concept of shunyata, or emptiness, is fundamental to all schools and branches of Buddhism.
We know that, firstly, during the entire existence of Buddhism as a philosophical school, many of its branches have been formed, the largest of which are considered to be the Buddhism of the “great vehicle” (Mahayana) and the “small vehicle” (Hinayana), as well as the Buddhism of “diamond paths" (Vajrayana). Also great importance acquired Zen Buddhism and the teachings of Advaita. Tibetan Buddhism is much more distinct from the main branches than other schools, and is considered by some to be the only true path.
However, in our time it is quite difficult to say which of the many schools is really closest to the original teachings of the Buddha about the dharma, because, for example, in modern Korea even newer approaches to the interpretation of Buddhism have appeared, and, of course, each of them claims to be the right truth.
The Mahayana and Hinayana schools rely mainly on the Pali canon, and in the Mahayana they also add the Mahayana sutras. But we must always remember that Shakyamuni Buddha himself did not write anything down and transmitted his knowledge exclusively orally, and sometimes simply through “noble silence.” Only much later did the Buddha's disciples begin to write down this knowledge, and thus it has come down to us in the form of a canon in the Pali language and Mahayana sutras.
Secondly, due to man’s pathological craving for worship, temples, schools, centers for the study of Buddhism, etc. were built, which naturally deprives Buddhism of its pristine purity, and each time innovations and new formations again and again alienate us from the fundamental concepts. People, obviously, much prefer the concept of not cutting off what is unnecessary in order to see “what is”, but, on the contrary, endowing what already is with new qualities, embellishment, which only leads away from the original truth to new interpretations and unjustified hobbies ritualism and, as a consequence, to the oblivion of the origins under the weight of external decor.
This is not the fate of Buddhism alone, but rather The general trend, which is characteristic of people: instead of understanding simplicity, we burden it with more and more new conclusions, while it was necessary to do the opposite and get rid of them. This is what Buddha spoke about, this is what his teaching is about, and the ultimate goal of Buddhism is precisely for a person to realize himself, his Self, the emptiness and non-duality of existence, in order to ultimately understand that even the “I” is not really exists, and it is nothing more than a construct of the mind.
This is the essence of the concept of shunyata (emptiness). To make it easier for a person to realize the “deafening simplicity” of Buddhist teachings, Shakyamuni Buddha taught how to properly perform meditation. The ordinary mind accesses knowledge through the process of logical discourse, or rather, it reasons and draws conclusions, thereby arriving at new knowledge. But how new they are can be understood from the very prerequisites for their appearance. Such knowledge can never be truly new if a person came to it by a logical path from point A to point B. It is clear that he used starting and passing points in order to come to a “new” conclusion.
Conventional thinking does not see any obstacles in this; in general, this is a generally accepted method of obtaining knowledge. However, it is not the only one, not the most faithful and far from the most effective. The revelations through which the knowledge of the Vedas was obtained are different and fundamentally great way access to knowledge, when knowledge itself reveals itself to a person.
Features of Buddhism in brief: meditation and 4 types of emptiness
It was not by chance that we drew a parallel between two opposite ways of accessing knowledge, since meditation is the method that allows, over time, to obtain knowledge directly in the form of revelations, direct vision and knowledge, which is fundamentally impossible to do using this method. called scientific methods.
Of course, Buddha would not give meditation so that a person learns to relax. Relaxation is one of the conditions for entering a state of meditation, therefore it would be wrong to say that meditation itself promotes relaxation, but this is how the meditation process is often presented to ignorant people, beginners, which is why they get the wrong first impression, with which people continue live.
Meditation is the key that reveals to a person the greatness of emptiness, that same shunyata that we talked about above. Meditation is a central component of the teachings of Buddhism, because only through it can we experience emptiness. Again, we are talking about philosophical concepts, not physical-spatial characteristics.
Meditation in the broad sense of the word, including meditation-reflection, also bears fruit, because a person already in the process of meditative reflection understands that life and everything that exists is conditioned - this is the first emptiness, Sanskrit shunyata - the emptiness of the conditioned, which means that the conditioned lacks the qualities of the unconditioned: happiness, constancy (regardless of duration) and truth.
The second emptiness, Asanskrita shunyata, or the emptiness of the unconditioned, can also be understood through meditation-reflection. The emptiness of the unconditioned is free from everything conditioned. Thanks to Asanskrit shunyata, vision becomes available to us - seeing things as they really are. They cease to be things, and we observe only their dharmas (in this sense, dharma is understood as a kind of flow, not in the generally accepted sense of the word “dharma”). However, the path does not end here either, because Mahayana believes that the dharmas themselves have a certain substance, and therefore emptiness must be found in them.
From here we come to the third type of emptiness - Mahashunyata. In it, as well as in the following form of emptiness, shunyata shunyata, lies the difference between Buddhism of the Mahayana tradition and Hinayana. In the two previous types of emptiness, we still recognize the duality of all things, duality (this is what our civilization is based on, the confrontation of two principles - bad and good, evil and good, small and great, etc.). But this is where the error is rooted, because you need to free yourself from accepting the differences between the conditioned and unconditioned existence, and even more - you need to come to understand that emptiness and non-emptiness are just another creation of the mind.
These are speculative concepts. Of course, they help us better understand the concept of Buddhism, but the longer we cling to the dual nature of existence, the further we are from the truth. In this case, truth again does not mean some idea, because it would also be material and belong, like any other idea, to the world of the conditioned, and therefore could not be true. By truth we should understand the very emptiness of mahashunyata, which brings us closer to true vision. Vision does not judge, does not divide, that is why it is called vision, this is its fundamental difference and advantage over thinking, because vision makes it possible to see what is.
But mahashunyata itself is another concept, and therefore cannot be complete emptiness, therefore the fourth emptiness, or shunyata, is called freedom from any concepts. Freedom from thought, but pure vision. Freedom from theories themselves. Only a mind free of theories can see the truth, the emptiness of emptiness, the great silence.
This is the greatness of Buddhism as a philosophy and its inaccessibility compared to other concepts. Buddhism is great because it does not try to prove or convince anything. There are no authorities in it. If they tell you that there is, don’t believe it. Bodhisattvas do not come to force anything on you. Always remember the Buddha's saying that if you meet Buddha, kill Buddha. You need to open up to the emptiness, hear the silence - this is the truth of Buddhism. His appeal is solely to personal experience, the discovery of a vision of the essence of things, and subsequently of their emptiness: this briefly contains the concept of Buddhism.
The wisdom of Buddhism and the teaching of the “Four Noble Truths”
Here we deliberately did not mention the “Four Noble Truths,” which talk about dukkha, suffering, one of the cornerstones of the Buddha’s teachings. If you learn to observe yourself and the world, you yourself will come to this conclusion, and also to how you can get rid of suffering - the same way you discovered it: you need to continue to observe, to see things without “slipping.” into judgment. Only then can they be seen as they are. Incredible in its simplicity philosophical concept Buddhism, meanwhile, is accessible for its practical applicability in life. She doesn't set conditions or make promises.
The doctrine of reincarnation is also not the essence of this philosophy. The explanation of the process of rebirth is perhaps what makes it suitable for use as a religion. By this she explains why a person appears in our world over and over again, and it also acts as a reconciliation of a person with reality, with the life and embodiment that he lives at this moment. But this is only an explanation already given to us.
The pearl of wisdom in the philosophy of Buddhism lies precisely in the ability and possibility of a person to see what is, and to penetrate behind the veil of secrecy, into the void, without any outside intervention, in the absence of an intermediary. This is exactly what makes Buddhism so much more religious philosophical teaching than all other theistic religions, because Buddhism provides a person with the opportunity to find what is, and not what is needed or someone ordered to look for. There is no goal in it, and therefore, it gives a chance for a real search, or, more correctly, for a vision, a discovery, because, no matter how paradoxical it may sound, you cannot find what you are striving for, what you are looking for, what you are expecting, i.e. Because what you are looking for becomes just a goal, and it is planned. You can truly find only that which you do not expect and do not look for - only then does it become a real discovery.
Hello, dear readers – seekers of knowledge and truth!
Probably, everyone who is even slightly interested in Buddhist teachings has had the question: “Is Buddhism a philosophy or a religion?” On the one hand, everyone around says that Buddhism is one of the main world religions. On the other hand, we usually call it "Buddhist philosophy, teaching."
So where is the truth? Let's try to figure this out. In the article below we discuss what philosophy and religion are, by what criteria Buddhism can be classified as a philosophy, and by what criteria – as a religion. At the end, we will summarize all the arguments and come to conclusions about which category Buddhism belongs to - philosophical or religious.
Philosophy and religion - what are the differences?
Our world is very multifaceted. And in terms of worldview, you can find hundreds of different views here. Some of them are called philosophy, others - religion. Another difficulty lies in the fact that in Eastern countries, where Buddhism is mainly widespread, there is no clear distinction between the concepts of “religion” and “philosophy.”
There have been disputes on this basis for centuries, and researchers still cannot come to a consensus. Controversy over Buddhism persists primarily because every year it attracts more and more new adherents. To understand which category it can be classified into, it is worth first defining what is philosophy and what is religion.
Literally, philosophy can be translated from Greek as “to love wisdom,” which perfectly reflects the essence of the concept. Philosophy always strives to study the world, our life, and the structure of the Universe from all sides. Different directions philosophies study the process of cognition, the value system, existence, knowledge based on their own experience, cause-and-effect relationships.
Philosophical concepts have their founders, and over time they are supplemented and transformed. They are based on scientific works, theories, laws. Philosophy is “friends” with science and, to some extent, it itself is considered a science.
Religion is a set of views that are based on faith - in higher powers, in the supernatural, in one God or in several gods. Religion unites people and dictates its own indisputable rules and dogmas.
At the same time, believers unite in organizations where ceremonies, sacred actions, services, and rituals are held. To do this, they gather in specially designated places, for example, in churches, temples, monasteries, synagogues.
Both philosophy and religion answer important questions for humans: is it possible to know the world, where the truth is hidden, is there a God, what is a person like, what is good and what is bad. But at the same time, philosophy provides arguments (often logical), which a person may or may not believe, accept or not, and which may change over time depending on scientific discoveries and new concepts.
In religion, God is transcendental, truths are unquestioningly accepted on faith, higher powers are spoken of in one way or another, there are rules that must be followed.
Buddhism as a philosophy
Buddhism does not speak about the divine principle that exists in the Universe and in each of us, but about spiritual Awakening - bodhi. Buddhists are not “slaves of God”, but “followers of the Teaching”.
That is, unlike the view of religions, we should strive not for God, but for our own Enlightenment. It is based on the Teaching, which in itself speaks of closeness to philosophy.
This Teaching has a founder -. He was not God, but a great Teacher who was able to walk his own path, learn the truth and throw all his strength into helping others. He was an ordinary person, and we know about him that his name was Sidhartha Gautama, he lived in India, was the son of a king from the Shakya family, he had a wife and a son, and the reality of his existence is beyond doubt.
The teaching does not talk about the divine origin of the world and otherworldly forces. There are many Buddhist sutras that have existed since early Buddhism and become texts that detail the essence of the teachings.
In some of them you can learn about various demons, deities, x - but you cannot talk about their divine or hellish nature, because they, just like us, are living beings and revolve in samsara - the cycle of death and rebirth. And no one worships them - even Teacher Buddha spoke about not making a cult out of him or anyone else.
In Buddhism there is no sin and its atonement - there is a concept. She, just like philosophy, explains that any action will be followed by a result in the future, that is, everything has its causes and consequences.
Also, the Buddhist Teaching is not blind faith in what an authority says. Any rule or saying must be passed through the prism of one’s own experience and tested “in one’s own skin.” Buddha also spoke about this.
Buddhist philosophy, unlike religion, not only recognizes science, but also tries to go hand in hand with it. A good example This is the current Dalai Lama XIV - he works closely with researchers, is interested in science and even wrote more than one scientific work himself.
Summarizing the features of Buddhism, we can say that it does not have those basic features inherent in religion:
- God who created the world and rules it
- sins and their atonement;
- uncompromising faith;
- strict rules, dogmas;
- a single canon, which is considered sacred for all directions of religion.
Buddhism does not require its followers to accept its teachings as the only true ones. To become a Buddhist, you do not have to renounce your original religion.
The ideas of Buddhism are embodied in modern culture, for example in literature: Jack Kerouac and his “Dharma Bums”, Hermann Hesse and the novel “Siddhartha”, Victor Pelevin and his “Zen Buddhist”, as he calls it, novel “Chapaev and Emptiness”. This perception is far from religious and more like philosophical.
Buddhism as a religion
On the other side, the main objective Buddhism is to save people, help them achieve the truth, gain freedom. Why is this not the goal of religion?
Buddhism has long transcended the borders of certain countries and nationalities, reaching many followers around the world. It is for this reason that it is called a world religion along with Islam and Christianity.
Over the 2.5 thousand years of its existence, the teachings of the Buddha have changed greatly, dividing into many schools, the views of which can be completely different. In some directions, for example in Vajrayana, there is ritualism, which is so inherent in religion.
In some traditions, even the Buddha, as well as other bodhisattvas, are deified: altars are erected to them, statues are erected, and offerings are made to them. We all know so well about Buddhist prayers, which are essentially prayers found in other faiths.
Exist various kinds Buddhist temples, monasteries, datsans, khurals. Services, holidays, and rituals are held here, which is something you will never find in philosophy. Monks, lamas, pujas, offerings, reading sutras, thangkas that are so similar to iconography, certain clothes - these are, without a doubt, signs of religion that are very clearly manifested in the Buddhist tradition.
Summarizing
It is not for nothing that Wikipedia defines Buddhism as a religious and philosophical teaching. It combines features of both, so it is very difficult to answer the question posed unambiguously.
Of course, attributes like temples, customs, rituals, sculptures are religious, while the Teaching itself is pure philosophy.
Due to its versatility and multiplicity of directions, Buddhism can be called both a confession and a philosophical worldview. Much of the understanding depends on the context and the particular line of thought.
So, for example, it seems to be a philosophy that is popular now, including in the West. At the same time, the Gelug tradition of the Tibetan sense, which is widespread in Russia, has all the features of a religion. Therefore, Buddhist thought should be considered from the point of view of both religion and philosophy. And, of course, keep in mind that Buddhism is still different in its different directions.
Conclusion
Thank you very much for your attention, dear readers! We hope that in our article you have found the answer to your question.
Subscribe to updates to find out even more interesting things!
The philosophy of Buddhism was born from the spirit itself Ancient India, in which by that time the richest World culture the search for “truth” - the search for spiritual liberation, enlightenment. This culture was created over centuries by forest hermits, yogis and ascetics who practiced various methods meditation and looking for ways to find the truth. Buddha was one of these hermits for seven years. The philosophy of Buddhism embodied his spiritual experience of experiencing the truth.
Traditionally, the philosophy of Buddhism originates from the Buddha's sermon on the “four noble truths”, which were revealed to him in a state of enlightenment. Themes of truths: 1) about suffering; 2) the cause of suffering; 3) about eliminating the cause of suffering; 4) about the path that leads to the end of suffering.
According to the first truth, the entire existence of man is suffering, dissatisfaction, disappointment. Even the happy moments of his life ultimately lead to suffering, since they involve “separation from the pleasant.” Although suffering is universal, it is not the original and inevitable state of man, since it has its own cause - the desire to possess something or the thirst for pleasure - which underlies the attachment of people to existence in this world. This is the second noble truth.
The pessimism of the first two noble truths is overcome by the next two. The third truth says that the cause of suffering, since it is generated by man himself, is subject to his will and can be eliminated by him - in order to put an end to suffering and disappointment, one must stop experiencing desires.
How to achieve this is explained in the fourth truth of the Noble Eightfold Path: “This noble eightfold path is: right views, right intentions, right speech, right actions, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness and right concentration.”
Thus, the eightfold path includes three main components: the culture of behavior (right thought, word, action), the culture of meditation (right awareness and concentration) and the culture of wisdom (right views).
A culture of behavior is the five (or ten) basic commandments: do not kill, do not take someone else’s property, do not lie, do not get drunk, do not commit adultery; as well as the virtues of generosity, good behavior, humility, purification, etc.
The culture of meditation is a system of exercises leading to the achievement of inner peace, detachment from the world and curbing passions. The culture of wisdom is the knowledge of the four noble truths.
Of all the four noble truths, it is the eightfold noble path that constitutes the philosophy of Buddhism. The Buddha not only talks about the possibility of liberation, but also points out the path by following which each person, on his own, without the help of the Buddha, is able to achieve freedom and become a Buddha himself. This is all very different from others. famous religions- not a single religious teaching recognizes that a person can, through his own efforts, make himself a god-like being.
By taking this path, one can come to the highest goal of a person - exit from the cycle of rebirth (samsara), which means the end of suffering and the achievement of a state of liberation - this is nirvana. Following only moral precepts brings only temporary relief.
The Four Noble Truths are in many ways similar to the principles of treatment: medical history, diagnosis, recognition of the possibility of recovery, prescription of treatment. Not by chance Buddhist texts they compare the Buddha with a healer who is engaged not in general reasoning, but in the practical healing of people from spiritual suffering. And the Buddha calls on his followers to constantly work on themselves in the name of salvation, and not waste time ranting about subjects that they do not know from their own experience. He compares a lover of abstract conversations with a fool who, instead of allowing an arrow that has hit him to be pulled out, begins to talk about who fired it, what material it was made of, etc.
Other important tenets of the Buddha's teaching are the three characteristics of existence (trilakshana): suffering (duhkha), changeability (anitya) and the absence of an unchanging soul (anatman), as well as the doctrine of the dependent arising of all things (pratya samutpada).
There is nothing eternal in the world - every existence has a beginning and an end, and if so, then there cannot be an unchanging soul. Man consists of five aggregates, literally “piles,” of elements (skandhas): bodily (rupa), sensations (vedana), discrimination (sanjna), karmic impulses (sanskar) and consciousness (vijnana). After death, most of the skandhas are destroyed.
TEACHING ABOUT THE WORLD AND MAN. Philosophical essence The sermons of the founder of Buddhism was to affirm the dependence of the world on man, as well as the dynamic and changeable (anitya) nature of everything that exists, including man. Buddha believed that a person does not consist of a body and an unchanging soul (anatma-vada), as in Brahmanism, but from five groups ( skandha ) elements – dharm , shaping physical and mental phenomena. Nevertheless, universal variability does not mean chaos, since it is subject to the law of the interdependent arising of dharmas ( Pratitya-samutpada ). This is the picture of the world from which Buddha derives his four noble truths : universal variability causes suffering for all living things (first truth); suffering has its own cause - desire (second truth); this cause can be eliminated (third truth); exists eightfold path to the elimination of suffering (fourth truth).
After the death of Buddha, through the efforts of his followers, the Buddhist canon was created Tripitaka (Pali Tipitaka), the oldest version of which is preserved in the school Theravada (teaching of the elders). From t.zr. Theravada, everything that we observe, and we ourselves, is a stream of instantly flashing elements of existence - dharmas, which replace each other so quickly that it seems to us that we and the things around us are unchanged. In Theravada, the ideal is cultivated arhata – perfect saint, who has eradicated all the weaknesses of human nature, the importance of the practice of meditation is emphasized, therefore big role it plays on classifications of personality types and meditation methods corresponding to each type.
Philosophical ideas Vaibhashika and Sautrantika schools are reflected in "Abhidharmakoshe" , text created in the 4th century. AD Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu , who later converted to Mahayana. The basic idea of Vaibhashika is that all dharmas - past, present and future - exist, but in different forms(the dharmas of the present are manifested, the dharmas of the past and future are unmanifested). Therefore, dharmas do not actually arise or disappear, but only pass from one stage of existence to another. All of them are divided into composed, constantly in “excitement” and filling the observable world, and uncomposed, “calmed” (primarily nirvana ).Samsara (empirical existence) and nirvana (liberation from rebirth) are mutually exclusive: while the dharmas are in “unrest”, nirvana will not come, and, on the contrary, when their “excitement” ceases, the world of samsara will simply disappear. If samsara is the state of the whole world, then nirvana is the state of only a person. And the only way to it is to eradicate in oneself the false opinion about “selfhood”, the unchanging “I”, which passes during rebirth from body to body. A Buddhist must look at himself and the world not as in “I” and the world, or, in philosophical language, subject and object, but as an impersonal flow of elements. Representatives of the Sautrantika school believed that only the dharmas of the present exist, the dharmas of the past and the future are unreal. Nirvana is not some special state, but the simple absence of samsara.
Mahayana philosophy related to names Nagarjuna , Vasubandhu, Chandrakirti , Shantarakshita and others, continues to develop Buddhist teachings about nirvana and samsara. If in the previous schools, which the Mahayanists united with the concept of Hinayana - “narrow path”, the main thing was the opposition of these concepts, here they are practically identified. Since every being is capable of spiritual improvement, it means that everyone has “Buddha nature” and it must be discovered. Thus, nirvana, understood as the realization of “Buddha nature,” is latently contained in samsara. Mahayana goes further than Hinayana in the question of the absence of a soul, or self, in everything that exists. The world and everything contained in it, including dharma, are deprived of their own support, depend on each other, and therefore are relative, empty (shunya). Therefore, suffering is explained by the lack of meaning and value in this world, while nirvana is associated with the comprehension of its true basis - emptiness ( sunyata ) and with the understanding that any teaching about him is untrue. Mahayana philosophers emphasize that all concepts are relative, including relativity itself, therefore at the highest stages of meditation one should abandon concepts in general and comprehend the world purely intuitively.
IN Vajrayana a fundamentally new attitude towards man—the subject of enlightenment—is developed. If in other areas of Buddhism the human body was assessed mainly negatively, because was considered a symbol of the passions that keep a person in samsara, then tantrism puts the body at the center of his religious practice, seeing in it a potential carrier of higher spirituality. The realization of the vajra in the human body is a real combination of the absolute (nirvana) and the relative (samsara). During a special ritual, the presence of Buddha nature in a person is revealed. By performing ritual gestures (mudras), the adept realizes the Buddha nature in his own body; by pronouncing sacred incantations (mantras), he realizes the Buddha nature in speech; and by contemplating the deity depicted on the mandala (the sacred diagram or diagram of the universe), he realizes the Buddha nature in his own mind and, as it were, becomes a Buddha “in the flesh.” Thus, ritual transforms human personality into Buddha and everything human becomes sacred.
V.G.Lysenko
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE AND LOGIC. The doctrine of knowledge (pramana-vada), including logic, began to be developed in Buddhism relatively late, in the 6th–7th centuries, through the efforts of outstanding Indian thinkers Dignaghi And Dharmakirti . Before them, in early Buddhism, knowledge was not seen as the result cognitive activity, but as a means of achieving liberation from suffering. This is not rational knowledge, but mystical enlightenment (prajna), reminiscent of the enlightenment (bodhi) of the Buddha. Subsequently, a large fund of epistemological ideas and concepts put forward by Nagarjuna was formed in the schools of Buddhism, Asanga and his brother Vasubandhu, but there were no systematic theories of knowledge and logic. A significant contribution to the development of Buddhist epistemology and logic was also made by Dharmottara (9th century).
The mentioned thinkers based their theory of knowledge on the ontological division previously accepted in Brahman schools of two areas of reality: the lower (samvritti-sat) and the higher (paramartha-sat), considering them as two independent areas of knowledge, each of which corresponds to its own truth: the lower (samvritti -satya) and highest (paramartha-satya). For Buddhists, the highest truth is dharma (in all the meanings given to it at that time - ontological, psychological, ethical), leading to supreme reality– the flow of dharmas that calms down in nirvana; it is comprehended through the practice of yoga, concentration, changing states of consciousness. The lowest truth is the result of cognition of the empirical world in the course of special cognitive procedures, also called instruments of reliable knowledge, sensory perception and inference, interpreted by Buddhists and how logical operation, and how thinking in general. The consequence of this idea of the process of cognition of the world was the development within the framework of Buddhist epistemology of logic, which never had the status of an independent and purely formal discipline, like the European one. Buddhists described the cognitive situation in two ways: in terms of ultimate reality and in terms of empirical reality. In the first case, they said that at the moment of sensory cognition there is an outbreak of a certain complex of dharmas, including a chain of elements constructing an object and a chain of dharmas constructing a subject. These two chains are connected by the law of dependent arising, so some of them flare up together with others: for example, the dharma of color, the dharma of the organ of vision and the dharma of pure consciousness, flaring up together, create what is called the sensation of color. The dharma of consciousness is always supported by the object and the perceptive faculty.
The transformation of sensation into sensory knowledge (into a perceptual judgment) has been described in different ways in schools of Buddhism. The Yogacaras (to which Dignaga and Dharmakirti belonged) believed that sensory knowledge is the result of an external projection of ideas of consciousness, namely the variety of it that forms the basis of personality ( adayavijnana ). Sautrantikas believed that a reverse process takes place: it is not the ideas of consciousness that are projected outward, but external reality that generates ideas-copies of things in the consciousness. The Vaibhashiks argued that sensory knowledge is not expressed in the ideas of objects that make up the content of consciousness, but the contents of consciousness at the moment of sensory perception constitute the directly sensory qualities of the perceived objects themselves. The concept of inference, adjacent to the concept of perception, contains epistemological and logical components, because, on the one hand, it provides a philosophical explanation of the intellectual processes that take place during the acquisition of inferential knowledge, on the other hand, it equips with the means of formal logical analysis of reasoning, used not only in the process knowledge, but also in religious and philosophical polemics. In addition to the above-mentioned concept of inference, the logical part of Buddhist epistemology contains in implicit form a theory of judgments, a classification of logical errors ( dosha ), including polemical errors, the theory of meanings of linguistic expressions ( apoha-vada ) and the theory of argumentation and polemics (vada-nyaya, tarka-nyaya).
Speaking about inference as thinking in general, Buddhists noted that the knowledge obtained with its help has nothing to do with reality; everything that is communicated to us by thinking about the phenomenal world is illusory, “constructed” according to special laws of reason. The main known property of intellectual constructions is, according to Dharmakirti, their ability to be expressed in words. Inferential knowledge was understood as the result of intellectual processing of information received in perception: it follows the perception of the logical attribute of an object and the justification of the inextricable connection between the object and its logical attribute.
The core of the Buddhist teaching on inference was three concepts. The first is about dividing inference into “for oneself” and “for another” depending on its purpose and structure (inference “for oneself” is a means of knowing an object by its sign, it contains two statements and is similar to an enthymeme in Western logic: “ There is fire on the mountain, because there is smoke”; the conclusion “for others” is a means of argumentation, it consists of three statements: “There is fire on the mountain, because there is smoke there, like in a hearth”). The second was the concept of the tripartite middle term, according to which the middle term of the conclusion had to be distributed in the minor premise; must always be present where there are major and minor terms; be absent where the named terms are absent. The third was the classification of inferences depending on the varieties of the middle term into “based on causation,” “based on identity,” and “negative inferences,” for which Buddhists counted 11 modes.
Of extreme interest is the theory of meanings developed by Buddhists (apoha-vada), which substantiates the purely relative or negative meaning of all names and sayings. It is interesting because it solves the problem of representing in language the content of thinking about the world of things, which in Western logic received a satisfactory solution only in the 19th century. In alo-ha-vada it is stated that words do not tell us anything about reality (dharmas) and carry information about physical world in a certain way: they, firstly, fix a certain state of affairs established through thinking in the world of sensory things, which is constantly changing. Therefore, words designate things and situations only relatively. Secondly, when we name a thing or assert something about a thing in a statement, then at the same time we deny everything that is not the named thing (i.e., saying A, we deny ˥A), and that which is not inherent in this thing (saying “S is P”, we at the same time deny that “S is ˥P”.
Literature:
1. Androsov V.P. Nagarjuna and his teachings. M., 1990;
2. Lysenko V.G. Early Buddhist philosophy. - In the book: Lysenko V.G..,Terentyev A.A.,Shokhin V.K. Early Buddhist philosophy. Philosophy of Dhainism. M., 1994;
3. Dharmakirti. A short textbook of logic, with commentary by Dharmottara. - In the book: Shcherbatskaya F.I. Theory of knowledge and logic according to the teachings of later Buddhists, parts 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1995;
4. Shokhin V.K. The first philosophers of India. M., 1997;
5. Murti T.R.V. The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. A Study of the Māḍhyamika System. L., I960;
6. Stcherbatsky Th. Buddhist Logic, v. 1–2. N.Y., 1962;
7. Ci R. Buddhist Formal Logic, v. 1. L., 1969;
8. Singh J. An Introduction to Madhyamaka Philosophy. Delhi etc., 1976.
