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126 MANGALA R. CIIINCIIORE

without such a sort of clue one may not get an appropriate insight into the T.P. Dińndga in his T.P. seems to be attempting to articulate his notion of rcality and / or the meaning of exislence_t which has bearing on ontology. In Pramana-samuccaya , on the olher hand, he seems basically to be concemed with logico-epistemological problems. The respective tillcs of latter*s six chaptcrs, viz._f Pratyaksa, Svarthźnumana, Pararthanumana, Hetu-Drstanta, Apoha and Jati , appear to make it amply elear. Thus, therein DińnSga seems to provide methodological as well as logico-epistemological structure of his philosophy, at once comprehensive constructively but poiemical of opposed trends. But such a structure he could not have chanced upon accidcntally. Nor was his consideralion of such issues as naturę of real, status of universal, naturę of inference and fallacies of it, determiners of our perceptual cognition, etc. in his other works irrelevant in his philosophical enlerprise. Hcnce, starling from his earliest trealise, through many minor works he wrote, to Pramana-samuccaya as culmination of it, one has carefully to mark its landmarks and notę phases of its growih and devclopmcnt logelhcr with intcrconneclions betwecn them. It is along this route that we propose to highlight imporlancc of T.P.

To be able to follow through this route carefully one has to look to chronological priority in the writings of DińnSga. According to some, in Dińnaga*s writings there are two phases,^iq viz., one, under Vasubandhu*s inlluence, he wrote works like AJambana-Panksa,²⁰ Abhidharmakośavritimarmapradlpa, etc., whereas in the second slage of his acadcmic carcer he noticed inadequacies and defeets in the writings and thoughts of Vasubandhu and hence changed and modified them by writing works like Pramana-samuccaya, NySya-mukha, Hctu-mukha, etc. rejecting and criticising the views of his predccessors.

This vicw seems to be marking two stages within Dińn3ga^fs intcllcctual growth, viz., an influenced stage and an independent slage. Perhaps, there were thrcc stages, instead of two, in the growth and dcvelopment of Dihn3ga^vs philosophy, viz., (I) the formative stage, (ii) the groping or experimental stage, and (iii) the finał independent stage.

In the formative stage he seems to be impressed and influenced by the vicws of his predccessors like Vasubandhu and under their impact attempted to respond to eilher other predccessors or contcmporaries - within the tradition or outside of it. In this stage Dińn2ga seems to have written works like Prajńaparamita -pindartha -saitigraha, A bhidarmakosa vrUimarmapradJpa, Yog-Svałara_t etc. basically attempting to deal with dilTcrent problems of philosophical conccm within the framework of the philosophical enlerprise of his predecessors like Vasubandhu. Over and above clarifying their thought morę elaborately hc also seems to have questioned the acceptability of the views of opponents poinling out inadcąuacics of the lallcr, especially as they were found unacccptable within the framework of the philosophies of the predccessors.