Jñānaśrīmitra (fl. 975-1025 C.E.) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the epistemological (pramana) tradition of Buddhist philosophy, which goes back to Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Jñānaśrīmitra was also known as a Yogācāra Buddhist who defended a form of Buddhist idealism termed Sākāravada which holds that cognitive content or aspects of consciousness ("ākāras") are real and not illusory.
Jñānaśrīmitra was also a skilled poet, a dvāra-paṇḍita (gate-scholar) of Vikramaśīla university, and the teacher of Ratnakīrti. Jñānaśrīmitra was well known by Hindu and Jain thinkers and was one the most significant Buddhist figure of his era.
Philosophy
Epistemology
Jñanasrimitra's philosophical work focused on Buddhist logic and epistemology (pramāṇa), especially the theory of "exclusion" (apoha) outlined by Dignaga (c. 480 – c. 540 CE) and how it relates to the philosophy of language, meaning and the nature of conceptual thoughts and awareness. The basic theory behind apoha is that meaning comes from what something is not. For example, "cow" gets its meaning by excluding every non-cow. This was the basic theory of language used by Buddhist pramāṇa philosophers. In his Apohaprakaraṇa ("Monograph on Exclusion"), Jñanasrimitra elaborates on the theory of apoha and its relation to epistemology. He also defends the theory from Hindu critics, who posited competing theories of meaning.
Jñanasrimitra's Vyāpticarcā (Analysis of Pervasion) focuses on inferential relations which in Indian thought is termed vyapti (pervasion). This refers to the epistemic relations between two distinct entities such as smoke and fire. According to Horst Lasic, Jñanasrimitra's position on this topic is that "inference-warranting relations between two distinct entities must be effect-cause relations, and that the presence of such relations can be detected only through a specific sequence of perception and non-apprehension."
Sākāravada
Jñanasrimitra was a defender of Yogācāra idealism, affirming that "this entire triple-world is established to be nothing but consciousness (vijñaptimātra)."
Jñānaśrīmitra was a major defender of the Sākāra ("with images") school of Yogācāra Buddhism against Ratnākaraśānti, the principal defender of the rival Nirākāra school. This doctrine holds that all awareness events arise together with an "ākāra" (appearance, image, phenomenal form). Jñānaśrīmitra's Sākārasiddhiśāstra is his main defense of Sākāravada while his Advaitabinduprakaraṇa is his main defense of idealism (vijñaptimātratā).
For Jñānaśrīmitra, the manifestation of consciousness (i.e. prakāśa, the radiance, lucidity or shining forth of awareness) is the ultimate existence. Since consciousness is ultimate, appearances which manifest from consciousness are also real, not illusory.
Jñānaśrīmitra's Sākārasiddhi argues that the idea that something which is non-existent could manifest from that which is real (i.e. consciousness) is incoherent. This idea he terms asatkhyāti, "the manifestation of the nonexistent". Thus, for Jñānaśrīmitra, if consciousness is real (as all yogacarins agree), then the images which manifest or radiate from it must also be real. Nirakaravadins like Ratnākaraśānti say that false imagination (vikalpa) can make an unreal object manifest to awareness. Jñānaśrīmitra’s seeks to deny this and prove that if anything manifests to consciousness, it must exist (and further, to prove that what does not manifest, does not exist).
Ratnākaraśānti argues in his texts that an appearance can, upon analysis, be shown to be unreal, because it can be shown to be illusory by a later cognition that defeats it. Jñānaśrīmitra's main problem with this view is that if reality is not determined by what manifests to consciousness, how can you have any confidence in any subsequent defeater cognition? Jñānaśrīmitra argues that this view is epistemically self-defeating, since the defeater cognition is just another manifestation to consciousness which is as unreal as the cognition being defeated. This means that the defender of the view that appearances are unreal cannot have a robust epistemology without any cognition to ground himself on.