[Buddha-l] Sabba Sutta

[Jayarava]

Hi Dan 

Thanks your your long reply. I'm confused though. You cited a bunch of authors who were all at least one century post Dignaga. Are these the same bunch that you now refer to as his contemporaries? 100 years ago was my great-grandfather's contemporaries!

Similarly you say:
> Secondly, there were several prongs to my claim, the fact
> that their contemporaries and near contemporaries, and early
> commentators all identified them as Yogacaras being only one of those
> prongs.

But who are "they" in this case? Also you say there was more than one prong, but you seem to be one pronged as far as I can see. You only seem to talk about later commentators.

> That means, for instance, that Bhavaviveka (ca. 6th c.) treats
> Dignaga as a key Yogacara figure, devoting much of his
> effort at critiquing Yogacara to dealing with Dignaga's system;

I still can't see how you can claim anything but influence here. Perhaps you could cite a central Yogacara doctrine and show us how Dignaga as a "key Yogacara figure" writes about it with a particularly Yogacara flavour? By contrast many people choose to treat Gotama as a avatar of Viṣnu but this ignores every thing attributed to him as a thinker. 

Can you say why you think Richard's claim that Dignaga was probably not affiliated to *any school* but an original thinker might be wrong? You have still only cited circumstantial evidence, and not Dignaga himself. Is there anything concrete about Dignaga's work that makes it stand out as Yogacara? That is, if I read something of his on it's own would I immediately by struck by how Yogacara it is, or would that conclusion be dependent on my knowing that he is considered a Yogacarin? 

I note that Skilton's Concise History has no problems with Dignaga being someone difficult to pin down: "though often associated with the Yogacarin or Sautrantika Schools because of passing references to doctrines of those schools in their works, the doctrinal affiliation of these teachers [Dignaga and Dharmakirti] is not easy to discern, since the focus of their thought is so narrow". (p.129) 

So would you say that there is more than a 'passing reference' to Yogacara doctrines in Dignaga then, or has Skilton got it about right? 

Regards
Jayarava