On Nyāyabindu 1.1: The Difference between Dharmottara’s and Vinītadeva’s Interpretations

Dharmakīrti (ca. 600–660 CE) states at the beginning of the Nyāyabindu (NB) that the accomplishment of all the objects of human pursuit is preceded by right knowledge and therefore he lets his students comprehend this knowledge (NB 1.1: samyagjñānapūrvikā sarvapuruṣārthasiddhir iti tad vyutpādyate // ). The Nyāyabinduṭīkā by Dharmottara (ca. 750–810 CE) and the Nyāyabinduṭīıkā by Vinītadeva (ca. 700 CE), commentaries on the Nyāyabindu, develop long arguments concerning its first sentence mentioned above. Their discussion involve various issues, such as: the meaning of the word sarva, the difference between the words pūrva and kāraṇa, the reason why the word pūrva is to be stated, the aim of the treatise, and how to comprehend right knowledge (samyagjñāna). The explanations given by the two commentators differ in several points. Some studies have been devoted to NB 1.1; for instance, Oki [1986] and Oki [2000] deal with Dharmottara’s and Vinītadeva’s works respectively, discussing the subject matter of the Nyāyabindu, the aim of this work, and so forth. To the best of my knowledge, however, little scholarly attention has been focused on the difference between the two commentators’ reflections on NB 1.1. The purpose of this paper is to consider this difference and to clarify the causes which have produced it, by investigating Dharmottara’s and Vinītadeva’s discourses on NB 1.1 in whole.広島大学比較論理学プロジェクト研究センター研究成果報告書（2018年度