Dharmak?rti on Compassion and Rebirth with a Study of Backward Causation in Buddhism

Dharmakīrti on Compassion and Rebirth highlights the religious dimension of Buddhist logic and epistemology by way of studies of some fundamental and religiously controversial issues in Dharmakīrti’s ideas about compassion, karma, rebirth, modes of meditation, the reliability of the Buddha, the four noble truths, the path to enlightenment, and so on. The book also presents the first attempt to translate large portions of Prajñākaragupta’s masterpiece, the Pramāṇavārttikālaṅkārabhāṣya. At the occasion of this second edition, a new study has been added, namely of one of the most remarkable theories developed by Prajñākaragupta, the so-called doctrine of a future cause (bhāvikāraṇavāda). This is a highly original doctrine of backward causation, or retro-causation, which Prajñākaragupta employs in his proof of rebirth, his explanation of the yogic perception of past and future objects, and his understanding of pervasion (vyāpti) as an essential feature of inference.