Siddhānta
siddhānta (T. grub mtha' གྲུབ་མཐའ་; C. zong; J. shū; K. chong) is translated as "tenet," "tenet system," "established conclusion," etc. This term is used to refer to the philosophical schools of India (both Buddhist and non-Buddhist).
According to the Princeton Dictionary, the most important examples of Buddhist siddhānta texts in India are the Tarkajvālā by Bhāvaviveka, and the Tattvasamgraha by Shantarakshita.[1] Both of these texts "set forth the positions of non-Buddhist and Buddhist philosophies in order to demonstrate the superiority of their respective Madhyamaka positions."[1]
Important non-Buddhist siddhanta texts in India include Śaṅkarācārya’s Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, which seeks "to demonstrate the superiority of Śaṅkara’s own Advaita Vedāṇta philosophy" (in comparison to other systems).[1]
The Princeton Dictionary states:
- As a literary genre, siddhānta reaches its full development in Tibet, where ever more detailed classifications of Indian and later Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian schools of Buddhism are found. [...] Customarily Tibetan Buddhist siddhāntas employ the following structure: under the rubric of non-Buddhist (T. phyi pa) philosophies, they discuss the positions of the six schools that include Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Jaina, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, and Mīmāṃsā. They are all dismissed as inferior, based on their assertion of the existence of a self (atman) and a creator deity (īśvara), both positions that are refuted in Buddhism.
In the Tibetan system, the Indian Buddhist schools are set forth in a framework of four tenet systems, presented in ascending order, "starting with the Hinayana schools of Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika, followed by the Mahāyāna schools of Chittamatra and Madhyamaka."[1]
The term siddhānta is also one of the sixteen categories of the Nyaya school; in this context siddhānta means an "established conclusion," referring to a "conclusion" that is established through reasoning and debate.[2]
Alternate translations
- established conclusion (Salvini, "Language and Existence in Madhyamaka and Yogacara")
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: 2014), s.v. siddhānta
- ↑ Nagarjuna 2018, p. 124.
Sources
Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University- Nagarjuna (2018), Crushing the Categories (Vaidalyaprakarana), translated by Westerhoff, Jan, Wisdom Publications
External links
གྲུབ་མཐའ་, Christian-Steinert Dictionary
grub_mtha', Rangjung Yeshe Wiki