‘등불의 비유’로 본 자기인식의 문제

Abstract

This paper is composed by the Dharmakīrti's description “All mind and mental activities are the self-cognition.” The theory of self-cognition(svasaṃvedana) most of all has developed with the theory of sākāravādin. It is insisted that the object of cognition is not the external object, but we can only recognize the ākāra which appears in awareness. The ākāra could be said the cognition itself. Therefore all the cognition is the reflexive awareness, the self-cognition. The origin of self cognition back to the Mahāsāṃghika. They admit the self-cognition of the mind and mental activities. They said that mind is like a lamp. It illuminates other things, simultaneously it illuminates itself. So the mind can recognize other things simultaneously it can recognize itself. However the metaphor of lamp was refuted by Sarvāstivādin and Mādhyamika. They insisted that the metaphor of lamp is not achieved. The lamp can not illuminate itself, like as the fingers can not point out itself. In the same manner the cognition can not cognize itself. The Sautrāntika and Yogacāra developed the theory of self-cognition, although they was standing on the different point. Sautrāntika approve the existent of external things, but Yogacāra does not approve it. Notwithstanding they have something in common that the external object itself does not perceived and we can only recognize the ākāra of object in awareness. Dignāga was the first Yogacāra scholar to systemize the theory of self-cognition in his epistemological system. And it was Dharmakīrti who succeed the epistemology of Dignāga. When he wrote the Pramāṇavārttika, he approved the self-cognition regardless of the difference between Sautrāntika and Yogacāra. He referred the metaphor of lamp again. He insist that all the cognition is reflexively the cognition of itself like a lamp. It is necessary to notice the commentary of Pramāṇavārttika. Manorathanandin and Devendrabuddhi approve the self cognition. But it does not mean they approve the self cognition from the viewpoint of paramārtha. It must be said that the lamp illuminates itself in the meaning of upācara. It is worth while to notice the self-cognition with the problem whether it was approved by the Buddhist afterwards on the level of paramārtha or saṃvṛtti. The theory of self-cognition could suggest the alternative to understand the theoretical difference between Yogacāra and Mādhyamika.