PRAMANA-VARTTIKA

(Sanskrit: "Explanation of Evidence"), perhaps the foremost work on Buddhist logic and epistemology, written in the 7th century, when logic had become a dominant concern in Buddhist thought and Buddhism itself was losing ground in India. The Pramana-varttika is the chief work of Dharmakirti, originally a southern Indian Brahman. The Pramana-varttika is written in about 2,000 stanzas of mnemonic verse, and its four chapters deal, respectively, with inference, the validity of knowledge, sense perception, and syllogism. Composed as comprehensive commentaries on an earlier work by Dignaga, Dharmakirti's treatises in turn stimulated a great number of commentaries and have become the standard works in their field, especially in Tibet.