Dignāga
480 CE–540 CE · Kāñcīpuram
c. 480–540 CE
Dignāga is the founder of the Buddhist logico-epistemological (pramāṇa) tradition, active roughly 480–540 CE. His Pramāṇasamuccaya ('Compendium of the Means of Valid Cognition') reorganized Buddhist epistemology around two sources of valid knowledge—perception and inference—and introduced the influential apoha ('exclusion') theory of how words mean. His work transformed Indian philosophical debate well beyond Buddhism and set the agenda completed by Dharmakīrti. He is well attested as a historical figure, with a traditional South Indian origin.
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Kāñcīpuram
What they did here
Birthplace of Dignāga.
About Kāñcīpuram
Kāñcīpuram, in modern Tamil Nadu, India, was the capital of the Pallava dynasty and an important centre of learning where Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism all flourished. It is associated with the Theravāda commentator Dhammapāla, said to have been born there, and with the Buddhist logician Dignāga, who is reported to have studied or taught in the region.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Dignāga’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Graeco-Roman world
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Works
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