Since the 19th-century reforms associated with Ju Mipham, Nyingma philosophy has emphasized its traditional use of normative epistemological discourse (pramāṇa) in the service of validating the tantric view of primordial or timeless purity.[1] Mipham traces this practice to Establishing Appearance as Divine (Snang ba lhar bsgrub pa), a short commentary, attributed to the translator Rongzom (rong zom fl. 11th–12th c.), on a ninth-century work ascribed to Padmasambhava that systematizes material drawn mostly from the 13th chapter of the premier scripture of the Nyingma, Secret Essence Tantra (Guhyagarbha Tantra).[2] Mipham’s own text on Nyingma views, Precious Beacon of Certainty (Nges shes rin po che sgron me), describes the Old School practice of setting tantric pramāṇa to the task of validating the inseparability of the two truths qua primordial purity as the distinctive provenance of Old School Vajrayāna philosophy, a practice traced to Establishing Appearance as Divine:

Naturally occurring gnosis itself is the epistemological warrant
Accessing the coalescence of one truth, the way of things;
Apart from ignorance alone,
There exists nothing to be rid of—just ignorance;
For that reason, this approach to pramāṇa
Establishing the nature of all appearance as divine,
Of the tradition of early translations alone,
Is the lion’s roar of good explanation
Of the all-knowing Rongzom paṇḍita.[3]

An 11th- or 12th-century work, Establishing Appearance as Divine was composed in a time when Buddhist Tibet was animated by a ferocious absorption of and interest in the knowledge and cultural cachet associated with (1) esoteric rituals of Vajrayāna and (2) normative Indian logico-epistemology (tshad ma, pramāṇa). Tibetan authors married the two trends, thus yoking classical Indian logic and epistemology to the task of warranting, validating, and authorizing—which need not be the same thing as proving something in a way that is logically obvious or adjudicating it as rationally undeniable—the Vajrayāna worldview.[4]

The worldview animating Vajrayāna meditation is different from the typical karma-saṃsāra-mokṣa worldview structuring most classical Buddhist doctrines.[5] In Vajrayāna, for example, instead of conditioning and suffering driven by the three poisons of ignorance, attachment, and aversion, what is considered to be the underlying dynamic of being is the omnipresence of awakening and sentience as an expression of timeless awareness or primordial gnosis. Reality is rooted in awakening, not suffering. The body, the mind, and the world along with its resources are presented differently as well. In Vajrayāna practice, rather than a world of suffering to be rid of, one sees oneself in the form of a buddha,[6] in a buddha’s environment filled with a buddha’s resources, and acting as a buddha.[7] In the early Dzokchen (rdzogs chen) of Rongzom, the ordinary dualistic mind—and everything it experiences, whether positive (virtuous, pure, etc.) or negative (nonvirtuous, impure, etc.)—is not impure and karmic but pure and buddhic. Such a “tantric view of purity” is key for the practice of Vajrayāna.[8]

Rongzom contrasts Vajrayāna, meaning “indestructible” or “adamantine vehicle” of the tantras, with a “dialectical vehicle” (mtshan nyid theg pa, lakṣanayāna) of the sūtras that includes śrāvaka, pratyeka, and nontantric bodhisattva paths.[9] Vajrayāna, known also as “the vehicle of secret mantra” (gsang sngags kyi theg pa, [*guhya]mantrayāna[10]), is sometimes referred to as “the resultant vehicle” (’bras bu’i theg pa, phalayāna) in contrast to “the causal vehicle” (rgyu’i theg pa, hetuyāna) of exoteric Mahāyāna,[11] the latter phrase emphasizing the fact these traditions are steeped in path models predicated upon causality as a means for religious fulfillment (transformation).[12] In contrast, when Vajrayāna is described as “the resultant vehicle” by virtue of its supposedly superior methods (the tantric view of purity sometimes counted among them[13]), it is gesturing toward so-called taking the result—the perfection of Buddhahood and, as it were, how things look from there—“as the path” (’bras bu lam khyer).[14]

As is well known, Vajrayāna is supposed to be transmitted and practiced in secret. This is because inter alia it is easy to misunderstand.[15] Misunderstanding, here, does not just impede practice. Practice of Vajrayāna based in misunderstanding brings profound metaphysical harms to oneself and others.[16] Therefore, many traditional Tibetan presentations (e.g., lam rim literature) stipulate a systematic and rational understanding of a variety of path models as a vital prerequisite for success on the path.[17] To avoid the metaphysical harm derivative of incorrect practice, classical Tibetan exegesis exhorts the cultivation of a rationalistic comprehension of the whole of the presentation of Buddhist practice[18] with Vajrayāna as the culmination.[19] However, some traditions, lineages, or teachers may deny any soteriological role for logic;[20] still, others organize the path around the clarifications of logic and supposed perspicacity of epistemology.[21] This may also lead to a rationally derived sectarian conviction in the supremacy of the Buddhist religion.[22]

For those emphasizing the integration of logico-epistemology along the path, “mere belief,” the “faith” (dad pa,śrāddha) of religion, may be insufficient for success in practice. Meditative realization of emptiness may be necessary yet insufficient for awakening—that is, an incomplete approach to the path.[23]

The tension between faith and reason is notable in Buddhism. In the broadest terms, Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy grapples, on one hand, with the emphasis on developing a profound faith (dad pa, śraddhā) and confidence or trust (yid ches, pratyaya) in the Buddha’s teachings, such as the doctrine of emptiness (stong nyid, śūnyatā), which points toward an ineffable and nonpropositional reality that is, by definition, beyond the propositions ascribable via reason. On the other hand, texts, authors, and traditions have also emphasized rationality as a means to realize that reality.[24] Resolution of this tension in classical terms may position faith as the inspiration to engage the path and reason as a tool critical to its completion. Both, then, are ultimately seen as provisional, based in culture (i.e., convention), and ultimately jettisoned in the face of the innate purity, said in tantras like Secret Essence (Guhyagarbha), to be at the root of all perceptible appearances (snang ba).[25]

This problem is particularly meaningful in the context of Indian Buddhist pramāṇa epistemology. For the so-called Prāmāṇika,[26] rationality (rigs pa, yukti) is synonymous with rational validity or reasoned argument (rigs pa,nyāya);[27] rationality only applies to the empirical (don mthong ba, dṛṣṭārtha) and does not apply to the metaphysical (don ma mthong ba, adṛṣṭa), which is considered the province of scriptural or verbal authority (āgama). Thus, Eltschinger writes, Dharmakīrti and his Indian followers “sharply contrast yukti and āgama, reason(ing) and scriptural/verbal authority” and treat “proper scriptural objects” as being beyond either perception of inference.[28] Thus, scriptural and verbal authority, rather than rationality, adjudicate metaphysical claims. In a circular turn, however, the Prāmāṇikas presumed that the validity of verbal and scriptural statements, too, must be assessed (parīkṣā, vicāra) via reasoning because, as per the classical position, neither scripture nor statements are authoritative in and of themselves. Their reliability (bslu ba med pa, avisaṃvāda) “concerning transempirical matters is to be inferred, or, better perhaps, transferred” when empirical matters are rationally established as reliable; and when a scripture is taken as reliable, that comes down to a rational assessment—even if the subject is metaphysical.[29] This philosophical procedure is due, in part, to the fact pramāṇa discourse is pan-Indian in context (i.e., used by Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike). It becomes necessary because, in that context, a non-Buddhist will not be expected to assent to the authority of Buddhist scriptural statements without putatively neutral criteria, such as culturally acceptable chains of conceptual association leading to some supposedly inevitable state of affairs obvious to all parties (i.e., reasoning).

The issue becomes more complicated when the scripture is esoteric and largely disinterested in the empirically based observations structuring the classical logic that govern inferences concerning, say, smoke on a mountain pass or the fact a given thing is a product. In this case, there is a tension between scholastic rationality and the esoteric claims in tantra. For example, if there are no empirical statements one can use to adjudicate a scripture’s reliability with respect to nonempirical claims, such as asserting that reality is divine, what criteria can be used to determine whether or not the claims are reliable and achievable in practical terms?[30] For the historian of Buddhism Ronald Davidson, the use of epistemological logic in the tantric context is a public performance meant to shift an audience’s center of allegiance of authority from the disembodied and distant personage of the Buddha to the physically present body of the tantric master.[31]

The complete and genuine practice of Vajrayāna requires, though, a totalizing divine vision of beings in the world and all the stuff composing it.[32] As we see below, Establishing Appearance as Divine does not assert a requirement for the rational comprehension of the Buddhist teachings writ large or the realization of emptiness in the classical sense—or even the idea that the esoteric view of purity can be logically established with the same certainty as, say, inferential knowledge of fire on a mountain pass. Instead, it asserts the reality and validity of the tantric commitments (samaya) to pure view that are taken by all those initiated into Tibet’s highest practices, Vajrayāna. That pure view, in favor of seeing reality as buddhic and nirvanic in nature, is a different perspective than what is advocated in nontantric path models, where the recognition of the impermanent and dissatisfying nature of corrupt samsaric phenomena instigates their rejection and abandonment (cf. the fourth Noble Truth). The tantric view is focused on the timeless perfection of all phenomena and their buddhic nature. Such a view primes exercitants for the Vajrayāna practice style grounded in and authorized by the Vajrayāna worldview, which is structured by the tantric view of purity.

In his Extensive Discourse on Tantric Commitments (Dam tshig mdo rgyas),[33] Rongzom connects faith in the dharma and a pure view of the teacher, which are attitudes not forsaken by insiders even when one’s life is at stake, to a set of 13 root commitments shared between exoteric and esoteric Mahāyāna.[34] The practice of the tantric view of purity is an art of the imagination, initially. Its practice is not unlike an acculturation, assimilation, and enframing, which along with bodhicitta, is the root of Vajrayāna’s ethical commitment. In the resultant vehicle of Vajrayāna, one practices the fruit of the path—that is, being awakened—which is initially rooted in the imagination and motivated by compassion. The following passage from his Extensive Discourse on Tantric Commitments begins by summarizing the primacy of guarding in this context. This guarding is key to success in practice and realized through engagement with tantric authority and authoritative scripture (lung), the guru’s ad hominem pith instructions (man ngag), and rationality that is ideally guided by a direct intellect or “forthright imagination” (blo gzu bo), which is a type of imagination attuned to the view of primordial purity.[35] Moreover, rather than any supposed perspicacity of logical representation, tantric logic is organized around the confidence it bestows, confers, or otherwise empowers upon the insider with respect to pure view.[36] In Extensive Discourse on Tantric Commitments, it states:

In sum, in this [Vajrayāna] practice of enjoining deity to one’s ordinary body, speech, and mind, being based in bodhicitta is the bedrock (rdo gzhi) of all samaya, as is commonly known in both kriyā and yoga [systems of tantra]. Thus, it is proclaimed in [The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi, Vajrapāṇyabhiṣeka Tantra] scripture itself that [these] are established through pith instructions, scripture, and reasoning.[37]

The through line connecting the three tantric pramāṇa or epistemological warrants of the Vajrayāna to divine appearance is set out in an Indian tantra, The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi,[38] which states that what makes the guru’s pith instruction a reliable (mi bslu ba) pramāṇa is the successful outcome that occurs as a result of practicing said instructions to the letter—that is, in accordance with the guru’s instructions:[39]

If one asks: what, in that context, is pith instruction? In this case, it concerns a Buddhist master and a student. When the student, with a qualified Buddhist master, practices [the master’s] pith instructions to the word (tshig bzhin), the [pith instruction] is a pramāṇa or “valid knowledge warrant” (tshad ma). That pramāṇa is pith instruction.[40]

Teaching on rational dharmas pertains to either dharmas of scripture or dharmas of manifest realization, both of which are qualified by reasoning.[41] When we ask about epistemological warrant (tshad ma, pramāṇa), here, The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi identifies teachings that stick­­ over time—proclamations of the Awakened One composed from words whose meanings are not significantly changed over time—that are therefore incontrovertible epistemological warrants for the world of pure, naturally timeless divinity and, in this context, considered dharmas of scripture.[42] Manifestly realized dharma, on the other hand, is manifest realization, direct perception, and the attainment of the fruit of what is called reality (chos nyid, dharmatā).[43] This type of teaching, Rongzom writes, is formed under the influence of the discourse on valid direct perception. And the reality fabricated in direct perception under the power of discriminating insight is also described vis-à-vis the reasoning of reality and the reasoning of causal reality:[44]

And the practice of the yoga that causes the attainment of that reality, which is proclaimed to be rational, is a pramāṇa vis-à-vis reasoning. This teaching, the essence of the path, is asserted to be within the [purview of the] reasoning of causal reality and the reasoning of dependence. And that reality is actually divinity.[45]

There is no proper vessel for the tantric teachings devoid of a firm basis in bodhicitta. A practice, such as deity yoga, is an ethical practice when animated by bodhicitta.[46] In support of this view, Rongzom cites The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi to explain the critical incorporation of compassion at the junction of pure view and ethics in the practice of tantra.[47]

In [The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi] Tantra itself, it is taught:[48]

Śāntamati, at the time of practicing bodhicitta, the door to secret mantra practice lies in one’s [imagining] oneself embodied in divine form. If imagined with certainty, [divine] pride will arise; and whether on the go, standing, or seated, it will manifest. When imperturbable, [such a pure view of oneself as divine] qualifies the ethical discipline.[49]

Having centered the link between tantric ethics, bodhicitta, and the divine pride associated with the practice of pure view—imagining everything as divine—Rongzom cites The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi (in language buttressing its authority in matters of tantric ethics) on how such a practice plays out in the perception of the exercitant. And he uses a notable term here: “pure (lucid) imagination” or “pure (vivid) intellect.”[50]

Moreover, whenever a type of pure (lucid) imagination merges the three doors [i.e., ordinary body, speech, and mind] with divine buddha-body, buddha-speech, and buddha-mind, any movement of limbs is mudrā and any utterance is mantra. That alone is proclaimed as the grounding of ethical discipline, for it is proclaimed [in The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi Tantra]:[51]

Mañjuśrī, in that case, a son or daughter of good lineage seeing the maṇḍala, generating of bodhicitta, skilled in the method of compassionate mind and the secret mantra teaching of the way of syllables, should think about this in the following manner: there is no imagination outside speech; there is no speech outside of imagination; the imagination as such is speech and speech per se is imagination; there is no divine form outside the imagination. The imagination as such is speech; speech per se is imagination—and divine form as such is imagination and speech per se is divine form, as well.[52]

In fact, it is conviction in the view that ordinary phenomena and awakened phenomena cannot in reality be separated that constitutes the attainment of a pure imagination, so-called.[53]

When possessed of pure imagination, all images at all times are [pure]: one’s own body is perceived as equivalent to divine form; one’s speech is perceived as equivalent to divine speech, and one’s imagination is perceived as divine imagination, [all of which] pertains to a meditative state of equipoise.[54]

As is stated in The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi, there is nothing else to the practice of secret mantra but the triad of divinized bodily movement (i.e., mudrā), divine speech (i.e., mantra), and divine mind (i.e., the tutelary deity or devatā), each of which correlates to a valid epistemological warrant (e.g., scripture as buddha-body, pith instructions as buddha-speech, and tutelary deity as dialectic rationality).[55] In this context, there are two types of divinity. The first is the fruit of the essence, which is called the realization of reality; the second is the fruit of ripening, a category governed by convention only (tha snyad du ltung ba; literally: “falling into convention”).[56] As Rongzom states:

Both what is governed by convention and what is the essence of convention are proclaimed to be imagined, etc., which is explained in great depth. In short, in order to penetrate reality, in the method in which the ripening of all various phenomenal features imagined is called the divinity associated with the essence of the fruit, reality is called the divine fruit of the essence such that the incontrovertibility of reality and the means to attain it is proclaimed to be pramāṇa.[57]

In this context, the result consists in the realization of the divine fruit of the essence (’bras bu’i ngo bo’i lha), which is taught to transcend the scope of worldly direct perception and logical inference.[58]

Thus, the pramāṇa in the secret mantra approach to the path are described as three types: sublime scripture, sublime pith instruction, and sublime reasoning. These three are incontrovertible with respect to the manifest realization of reality and thus the label pramāṇa is established. The sublime object of reasoning in the secret mantra approach to the path is taught to transcend ordinary direct perception and inference, though it is authorized in scripture and by reasoning.[59]

Likewise, it is the core of good practice in Vajrayāna to rid oneself of ordinary conceptions about oneself. In the tantric context, one “abandons” the ordinary body in initially imagined divinization. In generating divine pride as a consequence of one’s ethical commitment to remaining in the pure view, the pure vision of primordially pure reality associated with the pure imagination of secret mantra practice is itself a salvific disclosure of reality.[60] With this context in mind, we can more fully appreciate the argument advanced throughout Establishing Appearance as Divine.

Attributed to the 11th-century translator Rongzom,[61] Establishing Appearance as Divine is composed as a short vāda-śāstra style essay.[62] As such, it is composed as the type of scholastic-style debate associated with the (later) pramāṇa tradition.[63] It stands out as the earliest Tibetan-authored tantric pramāṇa text.[64] Not unlike typical vāda-śāstra, Establishing Appearance as Divine is organized around a primary philosophical position (dam bca’, pratijñā), which is stipulated at the top of the text as its probandum (grub par bya ba, sādhya). All subsequent argumentation is, in some measure, evidence or argument in support of authorizing the tantric thesis in logico-epistemological terms, in the tantric context, as we shall see below. 

Unlike typical pramāṇas, concerned for the most part with forming logical inferences for ordinary but obscured phenomena, such as the presence of fire beyond the line of sight based on the presence of smoke, Establishing Appearance as Divine’s tantric pramāṇa concerns a logical and epistemological authorization of a view espousing tantric purity.[65] In short, everything, whether good or bad, is nothing but awakening. That being the case, there need not be—in fact, cannot be—any effort that produces divine reality; it is always already here and now. The first sentence of Establishing Appearance as Divine asserts the tantric thesis:

In the system of the vajra vehicle of secret mantra, it is proclaimed that [subject:] all worldly and transcendent phenomena, without distinction, [predicate:] are primordially perfected[66] as the maṇḍala of vajra-like buddha-body, -speech, and -mind and, as such, [(dis-)analogy:] not akin to something practiced or achieved in the here and now.[67]

Found throughout Rongzom’s writings[68] and Old School philosophical Vajrayāna more broadly, the tantric thesis is rooted in discourse around the Old School’s premier scripture, Secret Essence Tantra. This position prima facie contradicts the path structure associated with the Four Noble Truths, where work along the path rids oneself of suffering and its causes in order to attain an end to suffering. If the five psychophysical aggregates are buddhas (i.e., primordially pure and beyond suffering)[69] and not instances of samsaric suffering, that would contravene the traditional teaching in which aggregates are identified as sources of suffering.[70] Moreover, the idea of being already and always perfect rhetorically collapses the path-fruit structure[71] insofar as being already and always perfect means there is nothing to be cultivated and brought to fruition (i.e., through practicing the path). This is the reason for the disanalogy: it is “not akin to something practiced or achieved in the here and now.”[72] Finally, inasmuch as ordinary conceptions and articulations of body, speech, and mind are instances of conventional truths and the “indestructible” (vajra) perfect “abode” (maṇḍala) of buddhified aggregates as deities are ultimate truths, the fact all of it is encompassed—for us—as illusory mere appearance[73] collapses the conventional-ultimate binary in any significant ontological or epistemological sense.[74] This collapse thereby structures the tantric view of the inseparability of the two truths, which is only consummated in the Dzokchen approach to the tantric path[75] and which is only debated in the context of mere appearance.[76]

Rongzom’s imagined interlocutor instigates Establishing Appearance as Divine’s philosophical evaluation of the tantric thesis by pointing to the untenable idea of positing primordial perfection in terms of causally produced (i.e., karmic) phenomenological appearance. It contradicts the teaching so well-known in Perfection of Wisdom(Prajñāpāramitā) teachings that the illusory is empty of reality. That is, anything that does not exist as it appears is, in the end, unreal in any significant sense. How could something that is illusory be considered perfect?

To that [thesis], one could object: “all these phenomena appearing within the experiential domain of sentient beings are not as they appear. They are fictions and, for that reason, not suitable as primordially perfected.”[77]

Without equivocation, Rongzom centers the idea of mere appearance. Not only is mere appearance all there is for us to argue about, but all appearance is fiction. Fictions are all we have to talk about. Moreover, the philosophical discourse used in different doctrinal orientations shapes the reality experienced vis-á-vis mere appearance differently.[78]

To that, it is said that not only are they [i.e., mere appearances] just fictions (’khrul ba), but there are no other phenomena whatsoever to set forth and demonstrate besides the confusions (’khrul ba) of sentient beings. These phenomena, known as confusing [or fictive] appearances (’khrul snang), are it![79] That being the case, non-Buddhists imagine a self of persons that exists permanently. Some Vaibhāṣikas assume the existence of the person is characterized by impermanence. Some Vaibhāṣikas, along with the Sautrāntikas, negate the self but insist upon the existence of phenomena such as the empty aggregates and so on. Yogācāra asserts the existence of the characteristics of dependent phenomena that are empty of the imagined, the existence of which is qualified by emptiness. Madhyāmikas assume that, ultimately, all phenomena are free from extremes, such as existence and nonexistence, such that conceptual elaborations are totally eliminated. And in the secret mantra approach [to the path], the two types of truth are inseparable, primordially perfected, and so on. Sentient beings set forth and debate their individual views based on the character of shared perceptible appearances; and that is the reason they are not debating about the existence of [some] subject matter other than [illusory] appearance.[80]

In fact, everything that appears in our experience—“phenomena”—is a fiction. In contrast to path models such as that espoused in exegetical writings on Perfection of Wisdom, in which the wisdom of insight into reality replaces the clinging of ignorance to unreal illusions, the tantric view jettisons such dualist paradigms.[81] There is no nonfiction element conjured to replace the fiction element, thereby bringing about an awakening element. Rather, everything is fictive appearance; there is nothing we can describe as experience in the mind that is not a fiction; the mind is a realm of fictive appearance only; and the path does not consist in replacing a fiction with a nonfiction in the ordinary mind. Perfection, in this context, is an allusion to the emptiness structuring the very possibility of the existence of anything. It has never been produced, so it is unadulterated by fabrication:

Therefore, all these phenomena that appear pertain to nothing more than confusion/fiction. Further, it is not the case that some nonfiction is established when the fictions are eliminated. Fictions are perfected since they are [already and always] totally pure in terms of their essential nature. Since that is so, all phenomena are primordially manifestly complete and perfect.[82]

If a thoroughgoing illusionism seems hard to swallow in the philosophical sense, Rongzom recognizes that and proceeds to double down—to use a popular gambling phrase—on the primacy and supremacy of perceptible illusory appearance. The distinction between a sentient being suffering in saṃsāra and an awakened being in buddhahood are basically the same in both being empty illusions. Therefore, any distinction posited between them constitutes an act of the imagination.[83]

The interlocutor rejects this position in hermeneutical terms, suggesting Rongzom has misinterpreted the import of the teachings. Behind the response is the presumption that because the subject is characterized by its phenomenal attributes (mtshan ma), those characteristic signs must characterize some-thing; there must be some foundation—a bottom—obviating Rongzom’s reductive philosophical fall into a view that wipes away elements animating the soteriological thrust of the classical Buddhist worldview.

Here, one might point out: “although [the tantric thesis is] proclaimed in that manner in scripture, uncertainty about whether it is meant literally or it has some underlying purport means that while it is possible to prove the essential purity of phenomena (chos), it is illogical [to assume] that the nature of this subject (chos can) appearing as a phenomenal sign is itself primordially perfect. On such a view as that, there would be no basis at all for afflicted states of mind or conditioned existence. There is also no reasoning that would establish such a philosophical position as that!”[84]

There are several points to note here. First, the interlocutor intimates Buddhist hermeneutics and suggests the possibility of reading the tantric thesis as a purely provisional statement, contra Rongzom. Second, the interlocutor’s remark stipulates a classical view espoused in Abhidharma, Perfection of Wisdom, and Madhyamaka texts[85] wherein one of three types of concentration known as the “doors to liberation” (rnam par thar pa’i sgo, vimokṣamukha) pertains to an absence of any and all phenomenal signs. This meditative state, called “the signlessness” (mtshan ma med, animitta), corresponds to a pacification of suffering. Here, “signless” refers to a state of peace.[86] Thus, for the interlocutor, the idea that illusion is perfection is absurd since it collapses the classical path-fruit binary structuring the worldview and soteriology behind the Four Noble Truths. Third, a parallel in the Tibetan shows the juxtaposition between “perceived objects” or “phenomena,” which are qualified by natural purity (ngo bo nyid kyis dag pa) that is their ultimate nature and the subjectively inflected “object possessor” or “subject” to whom characterized objects appear (chos can mtshan mar snang ba). Having framed initial objections against the tantric thesis in terms of pure against impure, thereby complaining about the collapse of the binary structure of the Four Noble Truths, Rongzom launches a discussion about the scope of dialectical philosophy and reasoning in adjudicating the tantric thesis.

In the first in a series of passages that follows next, Establishing Appearance as Divine offers a nuanced assessment of the role of insight derived from modes of rationality, such as dialectical logic. In short, being sentient is to naturalize one’s experience. In other words, a sentient being naturally assents to the reality of her own experience, which is based in phenomenological appearances that are shaped, at least for philosophers, by the doctrinal or philosophical orientations they embrace. With the nuance, if not equivocation, that sometimes typifies Rongzom’s qualifications, he sets “the significance of the deep and the profound” (zab cing rgya che ba’i don), what we call the ultimate truth of things, beyond the reach of our imagination,[87] which includes the jurisdiction of the intellect. Nevertheless, the fact insight does not penetrate the ultimate does not mean there is no place for insight on the path. Yet the soteriological cap on the reach of insight allows Rongzom to assert the primacy of a mode of awakening that need not be organized around rationality. This mode is faith. Faith steeped in the confidence in the validity and authenticity of the scriptural tradition and pith instructions of one’s lineage and guru respectively can convey one to the profound depths of the ultimate truth. In the preceding passage, chos qua ultimate object is juxtaposed with chos can qua conventional subject. Also, of note here is a shift in juxtaposition. Instead of “phenomena” (chos), Rongzom correlates reality (chos nyid) with “objects” (don)[88] in a way that lends his analysis to the following explanation of reasoning. He writes:

From time immemorial, sentient beings have assumed the validity of the objects appearing within their experience and have offered intellectually confused proofs and refutations [about them], even though dialectics are incapable of proving what is of deep and profound significance. Nevertheless, reality being inconceivable does not mean there is no technique for penetrating [that deeper significance] by means of discriminating awareness. That being the case, it is entirely unproblematic if the devout, accessing [what is of deep and profound significance] through faith alone and having presumed scripture and the teacher’s pith instructions to be valid, access [the deep and profound] with confidence.[89]

There are clear limits on the efficacy of attempts to generate insight. Dialectical logic and intellect more broadly, governed as they both are by convention, cannot reach the profound depth of ultimate truth, which lies beyond the jurisdiction of language and ideas. That does not mean, however, that we cannot use insight to dive to some significant depths.[90]

The next passage in Establishing Appearance as Divine presents the fourfold logic (rigs pa rnam pa bzhi, yukti-catuṣṭayam), which have been the subject of a previous study.[91] The four types of logic are (1) the reasoning of reality (chos nyid kyi rigs pa, dharmatāyukti), (2) the reasoning of causal efficacy (bya ba byed pa’i rigs pa, kāryakāraṇayukti), (3) the reasoning of dependence (ltos pa’i rigs pa, apekṣāyukti), and (4) the reasoning of valid proof (’thad pa sgrub pa’i rigs pa, upapattisādhanayukti).[92] The Buddhist roots of the fourfold logic are in the Yogācāra-oriented, Discourse Unraveling the Intent (Saṁdhiniromocana Sūtra),[93] a work labeled “the quintessentially hermeneutical scripture of the Mahāyāna.”[94] By and large, this work is a classic of Yogācāra thought from the third century and crucial to Sanskrit and Tibetan elaborations of esoteric Buddhist philosophy.[95]

Having contextualized logic and asserted its limited scope and, further, gestured toward the supremacy of faith as a method for awakening, Establishing Appearance as Divine’s presentation of the fourfold logic begins by contextualizing classical Buddhist notions of dialectical thinking and the generation of the wisdom of insight. Just because intellectual insight cannot penetrate the depths of reality, that does not mean there is no role for insight in penetrating the depths of reality—that is, “reality being inconceivable does not mean there is no technique for penetrating [the depth and profundity of reality] by means of discriminating awareness.”[96] What role, then, can insight play in establishing the tantric view of purity— that persons and the world are the maṇḍala of vajra body, speech, and mind itself?

To that, we respond as follows: In secret mantra, the logic setting forth the so-called three types of pramāṇa—scripture, pith instructions, and reasoning­—in this context, does not contravene the object delimited in a being’s discriminating insight based in sublime scripture and pith instruction vis-à-vis the [reasoning of] dependence, activity, or reality.[97]

In the context of the reasoning of reality, which is invoked through pointing toward the ultimate in recognized conventional terms, a type of analogy can prove the tantric thesis. For those for whom the reasoning of reality—that is, the invoking of conventional descriptions of the ultimate—suffices, the other three types of logic are rendered moot because they are couched in the validity of samsaric conventions and causal conditions. In the simplest terms, just as all worldly and transcendent phenomena are qualified by pure emptiness and thus already perfect in reality, so too are the ordinary aggregates a maṇḍala of vajra-like buddha-body, -speech, and -mind because all phenomena, at their very bottom, are qualified by pure emptiness that is an absence of solid reality, which is an illusion.

What if someone argues it [i.e., the primordial purity of all phenomena qua maṇḍala] is not logically established [and therefore] there could be no arriving at [the truth or reality of] it? To that [charge], as well [we say], it is provable in accordance with those [scripture and pith instructions insofar as they are taken as valid], too.[98]

The word “those” (de dag) refers to things and words: the Dzokchen scripture and the pith instructions of one’s tantric guru. The argument goes: those with faith in the teaching who have accepted scripture and pith instructions as authentic arrive at what is of deep and profound significance by virtue of their faith alone.[99] Key to this argument is the insider presumption—vowed pledge or commitment—of a pure view.

Those for whom Dzokchen scripture and the guru’s pith instructions are valid and authentic, the tantric thesis asserting the primordial purity of reality is provable through the reasoning of reality, which is said to be the chief type among the fourfold logic evoked through recourse to explicit description of ultimate truth:

The reasoning of reality proves that phenomena are perfected as the maṇḍala of vajra buddha-body, -speech, and -mind. As it states in sūtra: “form is empty of its own nature. Why? Because that is its nature.” All phenomena consist in purity by nature. Therefore, the reality of phenomena is devoid of any impure quality. Thus, purity of one’s own ordinary body, speech, and mind is one’s own reality, as well; and that purity is perfected. That is why ordinary body, speech, and mind—distinguished in terms of their [ultimate] purity—should be identified [as] the maṇḍala of vajra buddha-body, -speech, and -mind itself, inseparable [from], without conceptual decoration [with respect to], and completely [inter]penetrating [with, pure buddha-body, buddha-speech, and buddha-mind].[100] In that way, when proving something in terms of the reasoning of reality, the other three types of reasoning are superfluous. This is because [the reasoning of reality] is the basis of the [other] three, and because it is the main one of them.[101]

The force of this argument rests less on detached, objective rationality than it does upon one’s commitment to the view of emptiness. For those who do not or cannot initially accept the direct pointing toward the ultimate that is the reasoning of reality, they may still infer the tantric thesis by virtue of the reasoning of causal reality. Here, we find two correlations based in common observations in the Vajrayāna world: (1) medicine works; likewise, (2) so does the practice of Vajrayāna.

Others could ask, as well: “Since that reality has not been established for us, are the other types of reasoning needed?” Those can also be established. To wit, the reasoning of causal activity causes comprehension [of a] cause by means of the thing’s effects [i.e., what it does]: just as the observation that medicine brings about vitality and poison brings about death pertains to a comprehension of an agent in terms of its activity, so too does the observation that whosoever meditates upon [body, speech, and mind] as the maṇḍala of vajra buddha-body, -speech, and -mind obtains the accomplishment of pure body, speech, and mind prove, via the reasoning of causal activity, that all perceptible phenomena have the nature and power of vajra buddha-body, -speech, and -mind.[102]

The first correlation amounts to the reasoning of causal reality because it is rooted in an observation that medicine heals, which amounts to an inference based in the observation of the work (i.e., healing) of a cause (i.e., medicine). The correlation here is structured around the presumption of necessary relations obtaining between cause and effect, specifically in the context of the activity of an agent: medicine is associated with vitality (positive and tending toward the pure) and poison with disease (negative and tending toward the corrupt). This establishes a clear relationship between an agent (medicine or poison) and its activity (bringing about vitality or death). The second correlation of the analogy extends this correlation structure from the therapeutic powers of medicine to the therapeutic powers of Vajrayāna practice. Just as physical substances as causes have predictable effects, so too do Vajrayāna practices. To be clear, however, the analogy is not Vajrayāna is like medicine. The analogy is that your knowledge that reality is primordially pure is based in your presumption of the efficacy of Vajrayāna practice (i.e., what tantric meditations, such as deity yoga, do to a person),not unlike the way your knowledge of medicine is construed in your understanding of what medicine does or what it causes, knowledge of which is based in the observation of results produced—that is, Buddhists observe realized beings and infer the veracity of Buddhist practices. In this sense, knowledge of x is based in y. Meditation on the maṇḍala of vajra buddha-body, -speech, and -mind is a mode of agency, and the activity consists in the accomplishment of budda-body, -speech, and -mind. The analogy warrants the inference that primordial purity, which is described here in terms of recognizing all perceptible phenomena possess “the nature and power of vajra buddha-body, -speech, and -mind qualifying all apparent phenomena,” is based in the common presumption among insiders that the practice works because phenomena are empty and are therefore pure.[103] The force of this analogy is rooted in the presumed supremacy of Vajrayāna vis-à-vis the common perception—or perhaps we should say presumption—that deity yoga works. Dedicated and trained practitioners achieve awakening and its attendant visionary experiences of the self and the world as consisting in the primordially perfect elements of buddha maṇḍalas.

Since both the reasoning of reality and the reasoning of causal activity depend on the veracity of Buddhist teachings, both types of logic attempt inferences that are based in the intentions of people who want to practice the Buddhist path and therefore both types amount to so-called scripturally based inference rather than inferences made through the force of objective reality. Rather than being a classical pramāṇa focused on common but obscure conventions and structured in an outward-facing orientation (as a pan-Indian debate style), the force of scripturally based logic––the criteria structuring the validity of the tantric inference––is only accepted by insiders.[104] In the Indian Buddhist context, the validity of such “scriptural inference is in no way” given in the force of fact or vastubala-pravṛtta, the objective:

Scriptural inference, as is amply mentioned in Dharmakīrti and his commentators, depends upon abhyupagama, “acceptance,” and that in itself is probably sufficient to show that it is not objective. At any rate, as if that were not enough, they explicitly tell us that it is not objective and not certain.[105]

According to Establishing Appearance as Divine, however, the primordially pure power and nature of phenomena are not simply inferred on the basis of scripture without any recourse and basis in fact. The factual force that is brought to bear in such arguments, however, may be so subtle as to not be immediately recognized as such. An inference, though, may be formed via the reasoning of causal reality. Here, the object of inference—the primordial purity of phenomena, such as the aggregates, faculties, and so on—is recognized after having it explained through recourse to an analogy about a precious jewel unrecognized as a jewel. This analogy suggests that reality, like an unappreciated gemstone, contains extraordinary qualities that need be disclosed or revealed by means of recognition, reverence, and an understanding of how the world works. This perspective asserts a deeper engagement with the ordinary and a recognition of its inherent value (i.e., pure divinity) as extraordinary. The tantric thesis is not validated by [conceptual] proof alone without relying upon the force of fact.[106] Just as someone who has found a precious jewel, but has hitherto made no occasion for using it, may not recognize it as such. And having set it aside as insignificant and not seen its qualities, later someone with knowledge of jewel types may point it out. Because of that, having cleaned it up and honored it, the extraordinary qualities emerge from the jewel from that point on. Like the determination of it as an actual jewel by means of observation of its function [i.e., the way it works in the world as a valued object; the value/significance (cf. Tibetan don; Sanskrit artha) it evinces/causes/brings about], if the ordinary body, speech, and mind are not recognized and revered as divine, their qualities will not be observed; and when recognized and revered as such, qualities are observed within [the body qua] basis itself for that reason.[107]

Primordially pure reality, like a precious jewel and modern, unpegged financial currencies, has value only insofar as it is recognized externally. Yet that value has an inherent worth that may not be immediately apparent without a preceding direct experience or insight. In this way, there is a direct connection between the emergence of the truth, veneration, and recognition. This is not unlike the way Vajrayāna practice can be seen as a recognition and veneration of oneself as divine (i.e., deity yoga).

Establishing Appearance as Divine presents the reasoning of dependence, in which effect is understood by means of cause, in terms of Yogācāra: all phenomena—everything in our experience—comes down to phenomenological appearance rather than some external reality. Thus, even the primordial purity of reality comes down to mental appearance (i.e., the mind qua apparent object) understood as a result (i.e., caused). The reasoning of dependence participates in a sliding scale of reality. In this context, the authenticity of any apparent object is greater to the degree that it is perceived as primordially pure. The more primordially pure a perceptible object appears, the more real or authentic it is.

The reasoning of dependence (ltos pa’i rigs pa) also establishes it. In those cases, the cause of a thing brings about the realization of its effects. That establishes production. In dependence upon a seed, there is a sprout.[108] It is used to validate conventions: the convention “bad” is validated in dependence upon the convention “good.” Similarly, all perceptible phenomena are phenomenal appearances of mind as such (sems nyid kyi rnam par snang ba). Thus, all pure and impure dimensions of experience are mental effects generated in dependence upon mental causes. Therefore, all pure and impure dimensions of experience are mental outcomes (“effects”) generated via karmic predisposition; both are established as authentic. As to designating which one is mistaken and which is unmistaken, that is established by the reasoning on dependence. Thus, it is certainly to be realized that the pure domain of experience is the authentic perceptible appearance.[109]

Summing up the presentation—and pramāṇa, or the reasoning of logical proof, has thus far been omitted—Establishing Appearance as Divine declares that successful use of the reasoning of reality, causal reality, and dependence nullifies the requirement for pramāṇa logic. The logic and discourse used by Prāmāṇikas has itself a smaller scope than Buddhist notions of causality and reality, which encompass the proper function of all reasoning of logical proof.[110] Also notable is Rongzom’s characterization of the reasoning of logical proof as coarser by comparison to classic pramāṇa reasoning because the latter only shows evidence (e.g., “there’s smoke, so . . .”); it does not directly disclose (e.g., scripture, pith instructions, and the above three reasonings).[111] Thus begins the framing of Establishing Appearance as Divine’s presentation of pramāṇa in which Rongzom shows his mastery of the subject while reiterating for his audience the relative coarseness of the pramāṇa mode of discourse relative to authentic tantric pramāṇa of scripture, which in some sense is what this argument is all about: scripture’s authenticity and primacy on the path.

For those of inferior faculties, the reasoning itself is [required] to be established in advance to assess the meaning it constructs through the introduction of (i) a logical subject of an inference (chos can, dharmin), (ii) something to prove [about that commonly accepted subject[112]—the predicated] property to be proved (bsgrub bya, sādhya), a comparison via (iii) analogical example (dpe, upamā); and the determination (nges pa) of (iv) pervasion relations (khyab pa, vyāpti) [obtained between inferential reasons (hetu) and the property predicated (sādhya)], [including] counter-pervasion relations (ldog khyab, vyatirekavyāpti), [all of which are elements that] must obtain. Yet, questions [may linger, such as when it is said]: “inasmuch as that alone is proof for some people and insofar as there are some for whom no confidence comes about through validation via the reasoning of logical proof itself, prove it [differently—via scriptural proof]!”[113]

The following scripturally based syllogism is, we read, formulated in a way satisfying to proponents of tantric pramāṇa and classical pramāṇa. It offers a structural analog that Rongzom will unpack below in a complex discussion based in arguments around the differences in the perceptions of humans and hungry ghosts. Found in a quatrain of classical Mahāyāna poetry from Ornament of the Light of Awareness That Enters the Domain of All Buddhas (Viṣayāvatārajñānālokālaṁkāra Sūtra), it states:

Eternally unborn phenomena are tathāgata,
All phenomena have similarities with the sugata;
Yet, the intellectually immature fix on features, 
Wandering in a world of phenomena that do not exist. 

In that context, the logical argument is that “eternally unborn phenomena are tathāgata.” The logical subject of the syllogism is “all phenomena.” The comparison via analogical example is “like the sugata.” As for the probandum, “all phenomena are tathāgata” is to be proved . . . That being the case, on this view, the proof is this: [the subject,] all phenomena [the predicate] are tathāgata [i.e., consist in suchness] because [the reason] eternally unborn phenomena are tathāgata [i.e., consist in suchness][114] like [the example] the bliss-gone ones (sugata) of the three times.[115]

An instructive ethical tension plays out here in the epistemological context. The syllogism uses scripture as criteria to validate a metaphysical claim based in the theoretical presumption that emptiness and pure appearance are two sides of the same coin. It is not so much based in the veracity of an empirical convention as in conventional instability under deconstructive analysis. Recall that scriptural inference is a pseudo-inference, with force only insofar as there is “acceptance” (khas len, abhyupagama) on behalf of both parties concerning the argument’s underlying validating criteria—that is, sarvadharmāśūnyatā tathāgatā. This is the point on which the force of Establishing Appearance as Divine’s argument turns. For the proponent of the view that emptiness is the way things are, particularly for someone with samaya, the validity and authority of this scriptural syllogism cannot be nullified by appeal to contradictory logic or contrary conventional direct perception, the validity of which turns on not asserting (khas mi len) pure view that is at the center of samaya via such a syllogism even given direct perception of legitimate conventions.[116] Unlike the Indian context, in which pramāṇa discourse was typically based in outward-facing pan-Indic criteria, the force of Establishing Appearance as Divine’s argument is based in common insider stipulations such as samaya. In this way, tantric pramāṇa turns in new avenues of inter-Buddhist discourse and exchange in the renaissance era.[117]

Establishing Appearance as Divine subordinates the pramāṇa of direct perception to tantric pramāṇa on the basis of the Buddhist presumption that the empty appearance of primordial purity is more soteriologically potent than any direct perception of social constructions. Thus, on this view, since conventions are the purview of ordinary beings and the primordially pure pertains to the jurisdiction of sublime beings, the former is the province of the intellectually immature (byis pa’i blo can) and therefore more coarse by comparison, though, as we learn, both are mere appearance.[118] Taking that logic to its end amounts to insisting that the difference between buddha and sentient being is a mere appearance.[119] Rongzom leans into the efficacy of analogical styles of validating this view:

While one may assume phenomena to be perfect in nature due to [their absence of] essence, one could question whether or not there is a rational logical proof that proves the maṇḍala of vajra buddha-body, -speech, and -mind at the level of mere appearance. That, too, is provable (bsgrub par bya)—that is, it is provable in an instant or provable in progressive stages. For those with minimal obsessive fixation on their own perceptions, understanding comes about by means of instantaneous proof. For them, it is proved primarily through analogy.[120]

At this point, Establishing Appearance as Divine begins a graded series of analogy structures, not because they are Establishing Appearance as Divine’s inferential argument, but because of what they each show—offer an analog—about the way scriptural authorization is structured and processed. The first compares perception of a stream and how that perception differs between humans and hungry ghosts. It sets a stream of water qua appearance as analog in comparing perception (and the role of approach to the path, forthright imagination, and so on) in the analogy’s function as an instantaneous proof for those with minimal fixation and obsession with their apparent realities. The reality and substance of a stream’s appearance in the mind is due, in part, to gross factors such as embodiment, including physiology; and to subtler factors, such as karmic dispositions. That the stream can be perceived differently by different beings due to such varying conditions is indicative of its emptiness.

In the first member of an extended analogy structure, a pervasion relation—a flawless connection (skyon med ’brel ba) obtaining (“is determined”; nges pa, niścaya) between a reason (rgyu mtshan, hetu) and the probandum, including the counter-pervasion relations—is exemplified as the operation of an instantaneous proof, which only works in the minds of persons for whom fixation on and obsession with phenomena (i.e., what appears in the mind) are minimal.[121] Critically, these persons have a forthright imagination. That is, they naturally assent to the dialectical train of thought analyzing reality in which the purer an appearance is, the truer or more real it is. The analogy also plays on language with intimations of tantric empowerment via the term for “control over” (dbang ba):

In that case, hungry ghosts see a stream of water as pus, though some of them also heard humans see [the stream as] water. Some[122] among hungry ghosts contend in that context[123] that pus is the actual reality and that the water is a wholly imagined form (kun brtags pa’i gzugs). For others, the argument is: pus is an impure appearance, and for that reason, the water seen by humans[124] is itself something authentic. Because of that, they have said: “Friends, this pus filling the stream commonly perceived by hungry ghosts like us is seen as water alone by humans. If those empowered to use water,[125] having dedicated it, make a gift of it [to hungry ghosts], it appears as just water to hungry ghosts as well and exists as a resource. Thus, it is not unlike [what you have heard vis-à-vis the dedicated] water we have obtained at various times in the past.”

When establishing the connection [in the context of an instantaneous proof], the above constitutes a proper pervasion relationship.^[126]

We see this rhetorical structure again below—that is, the flawless connection is obtained when x is a case in point, the argument is y, and for that reason z—on that basis of which, such-and-such: a and b. In that next step, an analogy models a pervasion relation criterion that shifts the argument from the impure view dominating the world of hungry ghosts to the pure view dominating the world of yogins wherein “realization” corresponds to seeing the divine maṇḍala of reality.[127] Notably, faithful devotion plays out here in epistemological contexts; gaining information from a presumably trusted source—that is, a scripture, one’s guru, or rational analyses—comprises an important element of an argument only some accept. Realization, in this context, corresponds to experiencing the divine maṇḍala structuring pure reality.[128] Conversely, the rejection of these pramāṇas is indicative of a lack of refinement and attunement to the truth of purity due to karmic obstruction, and so on:

The statement—[just as] “when those empowered with water dedicate and make a gift of it, all the water that is itself present in experience is just water, like the water we have heard about again and again”—establishes proper and definite pervasion relations here.

Same with respect to these appearances of ordinary physical bodies and environmental resources commonly perceived by people. Some have heard that completely pure beings see them as a divine maṇḍala [i.e., buddha-bodies and buddhified resources]; that it is taught in the secret mantra approach to the path that [apparently ordinary physical bodies and environmental resources] are the divine maṇḍala itself. Based on that, some among them assume ordinary body and resources to be the genuine reality while the divine vision is something wholly imagined, and so on. Some assume that, since the perception of ordinary body and resources is impure, then in accordance with what is seen by pure beings and exalted in the secret mantra approach to the path, they assume that divinity is itself the reality of things.^[129] Consequently, they have declared: “Friends, these objective appearances of ordinary physical bodies and resources that are common perceptions for people like us are the divine maṇḍala itself. If those empowered to practice in the pure domain of experience^[130] make a gift of [their] yogic attainment [of seeing appearances as divine], then for people too, these experiences will be present in perception and experienced as divine. Hence, it is similar to in the past when some among people like us—those for whom, from time to time, yogic attainment arose—attain divine realms of experience.”^[131]

A prime criterion undergirding the conceptual connections between the overarching parts of this argument—that is, acceptance of the idea that there is such a thing as yogic attainment and that it can be gifted to, or otherwise conferred upon, another in such a way as to affect or effect their reality—is deeply tantric. It is part and parcel of a worldview in which the ritual called “empowerment” confers a perfection that cannot be intellectually constructed but can be ritually initiated.[132] Sublime divinity is available within the profane world, as is well known. The power behind empowerment concerns purification, perfection, and maturation.[133] One hears this idea discussed in terms of ripening a potency (ye shes) within the mind stream of trainees. We see it in the idea that touching particular objects within a Vajrayāna regime can offer sudden flashes of pure vision. It is not uncommon to read of saints whose awakening was conferred (“gifted”) in initiation:[134]

The proof stated here that is the determination of pervasion relations [for this tantric pramāṇa is as follows]: “Ifthose with control over [or initiated into or empowered within] the pure domain of experience make a gift of their yogic attainment,[135] then everything that is present as a resource within the divine domain of experience is divinity itself [for the recipient], just as it is the divine domain of experience for someone with yogic attainment. [Thus,] when those empowered to practice in the completely pure realm of experience make a gift of their yogic attainment, this domain of experience is present as a resource within the divine realm of experience.”[136]

Before turning to progressive (i.e., noninstantaneous) inferences of purity, Establishing Appearance as Divine takes aim again at the idea that the above “instantaneous” logic validating primordial purity could be undermined by direct perception of correct conventions (i.e., impure saṃsāra). Such refutation, however, is impossible on the tantric view because direct perception is shaped in toto via karmic obscuration.[137] Yet it is not the case they have no role at all. Just as coal may seem valueless before becoming recognized as precious, so too can profound insights emerge even amid flawed perceptual faculties. Here, the author uses this compelling imagery to underscore the importance of patience, openness, and reliance on credible guidance on the path to an instantaneous inference of primordial purity, which evolves based on the percipient’s openness and the kindness of teachers. In this passage, manifesting a realization of primordial purity of reality is analogized to the recognition of a precious metal:

[The proof,] moreover, is not undermined by direct perception,[138] which is tainted by karmic obscuration [ex hypothesi]. For example, it is similar to compassion having stirred the gods to offer gold to a destitute woman in the world in the past, which [initially] appeared [to her] as coal. Similarly, for those who have a connection of karma and compassion, the appearance [of gold] gradually emerges[139] and, in this way, that destitute women can perceive and then put to use just a little bit of the gold the fire god (Agni) offered to her.[140]

There are those who must realize the divinity of appearance in progressive stages. They are fixated on the import of ordinary logic and rationality. Thus, primordial purity is not established in their perspective. Since the audience may not initially accept the thesis of primordial purity, the argument must begin somewhere else:

If their own perceptions are not initially established as being true, then those who are exceedingly obsessed with their own perceptions will not engage with the basis itself.[141] Therefore, with people like that, establish their ideas first, then, gradually introduce them to different philosophical perspectives.[142]

The proponent of the tantric view then centers illusory appearance with regard to any percept acceptable to the audience—for example, water or pus—such that a common substrate becomes acceptable. Both water and pus are reducible to phenomenological appearance. In this way, a common quality—both being fluid—is foregrounded as an acceptable subject of inquiry. Thus, both water and pus qua appearance correspond to a common perception of fluidity.[143] This connection is required to establish pervasion relations. Once mere appearance is centered with respect to both water and pus, the two are rendered as “similar” or “comparable,” by virtue of common basis and inasmuch as they are subject to forthright imagination. In this way, and in accordance with the sliding scale of reality, it can be progressively inferred that water is more real than pus.[144] On this view, all appearances may be seen as signs of primordial.[145] To be sure, the same basis may appear in diametrically opposed ways:

Accordingly, what appears to ordinary beings moving through conditioned existence, even from the point of view that all phenomena are nothing but illusory appearance—these apparent bodies and objective resources composing body, speech, and mind that are naturally dissatisfying—are not only features of a world giving rise to afflictive states, though. They are features of awakening embodying the completely pure field and domain composing buddha-body, buddha-speech, and buddha-mind, like what appears for pure beings; and it is declared that apparent divinity for those who have attained sublime yogic accomplishment, just as a vase, pillar, and the like for ordinary sentient beings, are mental images. Thus, any and everything whatsoever—appearing as divine for some and appearing as vases, [pillars,] and the like, for others—is mental appearance, entirely appearance in character.[146]

Just as fluidity can be accepted as the common basis for different appearances (water and pus), there is a common locus between sentient beings and awakened ones. Both are conceived on the basis of bodies, resources, and domains of experience. They are comparable by virtue of being reducible to perceptible appearance as such. Insofar as a comparable or shared commonality is accepted by parties to the debate, the presumption of their shared basis in mere appearance obtains.[147] The logic of forthright imagination obtains, too, since both are reducible to mental perceptions, which are entirely appearance in character.[148] “Likewise, it is proclaimed that even appearances associated with meditation, the all-encompassing sense fields and the like, mastered forms, being instances of forms in the phenomenological field[149] [i.e., imagined], are not said to pertain to the character of a thing” in the world.[150] Although sentient being and buddhahood are basically the same in the deepest sense, impure appearance is confusing by nature (i.e., causes suffering), and that nature is an unreal fiction:

After having first established that [suffering and awakening] are comparable, the reality of suffering should then be refuted. Since appearances of freedom [e.g., awakening] and worlds of freedom [i.e., maṇḍalas], are pure, they are not fictions. That which is mistaken pertains to that which is impure; and the impure is confused. This pervasion [relation] is comparable. The following ought to be realized with certainty, “the pure and the confused should be seen like that, as well. Thus, according to this very logic of definite pervasion relations, the appearance of the ordinary is confused—an appearing fiction. Divinity is an appearance that is unmistaken—an appearance of the unmistaken.”[151]

A question steeped in obviating creeping solipsism arises about the scope of pure appearance: Is purity merely a “subjective” quality of gnosis? On this view, if things are only pure from a given perspective (i.e., from a buddha’s point of view), can purity comprise a totalizing metacategory? Perhaps, the interlocutor wonders, purity is subjective in scope; it is only something in the gnostic awareness, like an ingredient composing the gnosis of an awakened one. If so, can we really say purity applies to all appearances, for everyone? As the interlocutor puts it, “when appearance is divine, since [it is just] one’s own appearances that become [divine], the character of common appearance does not [become divine].”[152] Establishing Appearance as Divine says no. Just as the appearance of fluidity is the acceptable criterion—the common basis for inquiry and exchange between the hungry ghost seeing pus and the human seeing water—apparent bodies and resources—whether an ordinary body in saṃsāra or an enjoyment body (slong spyod sku, sambhogakāya) in a maṇḍala—comprise an acceptable basis upon which one can logically assert an argument differentiating sentient beings and buddhas, both of which appear due to causality, even a resource such as a vajra maṇḍala or a triad of buddha-body, -speech, and -mind:

Just so, for hungry ghosts, appearance as pus derives from comparable individual karma and appearance as water also derives from comparable individual karma.[153] Therefore, it is not tenable to declare different bases.[154] For both, the common appearance of fluidity is non-mistaken. Thus, because of that, it is logically possible [for both parties] to take the river as the logical subject of a syllogism. If that, too, is refuted, because the appearance of pus itself is one’s own appearance, then no logical subject of a syllogism that is established for both proponent and opponent [in a debate] could be found. Likewise, in common perception, in both the appearance of impure aspects of body, speech, and mind and in the pure appearance of vajra buddha-body, buddha-speech, and buddha-mind, a body-speech-mind triad qualifies the field and resources.[155] Both are [respectively] correct common perceptions. Given that is the case here, positing appearance as the logical subject is tenable.[156]

Pure appearance and the perception thereof are both rooted in karma. Not only does this position make the epistemology of mere appearance easier to argue,[157] but also it relegates any discussion of the perception of purity ex hypothesi to the conventional because it is derivative of habitual tendencies associated with the two types of mental fixation. Positive habitual tendencies appear as extraordinary buddha attributes, such as the major and minor marks of a nirmāṇakāyabuddha. What is more, habitual tendencies derived from ultimately false views of the self cause one’s ordinary mind stream, which one identifies with oneself (bdag rgyud) to appear different from the divine continuum (lha rgyud)—that is, to appear as if the two exist as things that are in reality objectively separate though they are not.[158] While there is an opportunity here for Rongzom to discuss the content and scope of awakening as a gnostic state, he is clearly uninterested in saying anything more than (i) we can speak meaningfully about awakening and purity and gnosis and (ii) that these are in the end beyond words and ideas grounded in worldly convention. Using words and languages to describe buddhahood is like trying to imagine a new color beyond those of the visible light spectrum:

It is the habitual tendency toward linguistic expression that causes characteristic marks to appear differently.[159] The nature of production derives from habitual tendencies associated with the limbs of conditioned existence.[160] The complete exhaustion of all habitual tendencies is not even the appearance of the completely pure domain of experience. That the existence or non-existence of an awakened one’s pure worldly gnosis exists should be analyzed in a similar manner, though it is an unimaginable phenomenon.[161]

Before abruptly ending, having set a clear epistemological limit on awakened gnosis vis-à-vis conceptual knowledge, Establishing Appearance as Divine leans into classical Mahāyāna teachings in which consciousness is described as luminous (read: pure) and indestructible (read: primordial), citing perhaps The Condensed Points of Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā-pindārtha, attributed to Dignāga) and Discourse on the Stem Array (Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra).[162] Rongzom also gestures toward his elite audience of literati by presuming they follow his hermeneutical logic, adding, “although unnecessary, more citations could be offered [to justify] what is well-known in the secret mantra approach to the path.”[163] As the latter Wittgenstein declared, “explanations come to an end somewhere.”[164] Establishing Appearance as Divine’s explanation—it is not, strictly speaking, presented as an airtight logical argument—ends abruptly here, summing up his argument that the primordial purity of reality can be authorized in the context of pramāṇa on the basis of correctly posing a commonly acceptable subject predicate. While careful not to offer any avenue for obvious hypostatization, Rongzom takes the time to reiterate that all the things we speak and think about are situated within a context that collapses in awakening, where words and ideas fail to be either literal or precise.[165] He offers one more example of a syllogism—a flawless proof—authorizing the tantric view regardless of its ontological and epistemological negation in typical terms:

Summarizing what is being validated, it is declared: “for as long as everything is separated into appearances such as space and time[166]—perceived in association with completely pure bodies and resources or completely impure bodies and resources [that endure in spacio-temporal terms]—then, since they pertain to experience of a single moment in the ground consciousness [hetu], there is no primordium that is[167] an attainable quality capable of being attained [pratijñā][168]—just as, by example, the properties of space are not affirmed in space [udāharana].”[169] This [syllogism], too, is a flawless proof.[170]

The text ends with an admission of the difficulty of Establishing Appearance as Divine’s stated task:

Proving fictive experience to be authentic in that way is not without problems under the power of appearance itself. If the intelligent establish [the divinity of appearance] in this very manner, it will not in fact be impossible to prove purity by nature (sādhya). Dharmabhadra composed The Great Establishing Appearances as Divine. May it be virtuous![171]

In the classical mode of vāda-śāstra, Establishing Appearance as Divine opens with the tantric thesis stating that all people, places, and things—everything imaginable—is characterized by a sort of innate purity constituting the Vajrayāna ideal of innate perfection: 

According to the system of the vajra vehicle of secret mantra, all worldly and transcendent phenomena are primordially perfected as the maṇḍala of vajra-like buddha-body, vajra-speech, and vajra-mind and, as such, not akin to something brought about in the here and now.[172]

The remainder of Establishing Appearance as Divine is dedicated toward offering validation in logical terms that authorizes the view of Vajrayāna. An objection follows: it is inconsistent (mi rung, ayogyatā) to assert, among other things, that worldly phenomena, which are proclaimed to be illusory, are primordially perfect. A complex reason is offered: (i) All views have their own particular philosophical focus or perspective;[173] (ii) in Vajrayāna, it is the inseparability of the two truths, which, in stipulating the illusory nature of all phenomena, requires the collapse of the pure-impure binary that structures the view of the critic; and (iii) the pure (e.g., buddha) and impure (e.g., sentient being) being the same in consisting in empty appearance means that their only difference is in terms of their mere appearance by force of the imagination.

Rationalist analogical descriptions (dper brjod pa, udāharaṇa) are given, with the first being the reasoning reality. In short, phenomena consist in purity by nature. Therefore, the reality of phenomena is devoid of any impure quality.[174] Thus, purity of one’s own ordinary body, speech, and mind is one’s own reality as well, and that purity is perfected. The force of empirical fact is brought to bear on rationalist arguments in favor of the view of purity.

An extensive application of analogs (nye bar sbyar ba, upanaya), which is situated in the context of a critique of the scope of dialectical logic, begins in hermeneutic terms that facilitate the author’s presentation of instant and progressively validated scriptural inferences. For the audience amenable to validating the tantric thesis of the purity, including the philosophical fundamentality of mere appearance, a verse from Mahāyāna sūtra metaphorizing phenomena qua emptiness as buddha-nature will suffice. Key here is the stipulation of the sūtra’s validity and authority, which signals the intra-Buddhist nature of Establishing Appearance as Divine’s discourse. Buddhists who deny the validity of the tantric thesis may accept the validity of the sūtra’s statement. In what follows, Establishing Appearance as Divine models the acceptance of scripture to show that the tantric thesis, though offering a different perspective than that found in most nontantric Mahāyāna sources, is authorized in Buddhist terms.

As mentioned above, the compelling force of these arguments is not found prima facie. The legitimacy of Establishing Appearance as Divine’s argument is not obvious. This is not an argument aimed at non-Buddhists, that much is obvious from the criteria employed throughout. Although so-called scriptural inference is offered in more than one form (and rhetorical order), that does not constitute a true inference. Rather, it is a pseudo-inference “precisely because it bears upon facts to which we have no access other than testimony in scripture”:[175]

We accept scriptural inference, not because it is a genuine pramāṇa, but rather to be able to engage in the spiritual path. As Dharmakīrti had put it, “because there is no other way” . . . scriptural inference is an inference because of the thought of people who want to engage themselves on the spiritual path; it is not an inference objectively.[176]

Dharmakīrti himself emphasizes the crucial importance of scripture in our lives despite its problematic logical status, stating that “a person cannot proceed without relying on the validity of scripture.”[177] When we recall that Prāmāṇika discourse restricts argument to the truth of a proposition and requires that one accept (at least provisionally) the existence of that proposition’s pakṣadharma, which in the extended argument is, strictly speaking, the common basis for dispute—that is, fluidity, mere appearance, forthright imagination in which the purer, the truer, and so on—it becomes clear Establishing Appearance as Divine’s logic is most obviously amenable to those stipulating the validity of Vajrayāna teachings, even when they are contravened by ordinary convention. Establishing Appearance as Divine’s argument is at its strongest, in fact, in daring Prāmāṇika philosophers with Vajrayāna samaya to deny the view of purity espoused in the tantras in favor of a lower path model. 

This is not to say Rongzom has not proved anything. With typical nuance (some may say equivocation), Rongzom states in conclusion that, given the wide horizon of acceptable forms of rationality, the logical validation of illusions as primevally pure and divine in nature, though not without its own theoretical problems, is possible. The acme of tantric pramāṇa, here, is formed less as an outward-facing attempt at establishing what is a logically inevitable epistemological warrant than as an inward-facing presentation authorizing a Vajrayāna view, which is in fact warranted vis-à-vis the fruits of a constant practice committed to the enduring imagination of primordial perfection qua deity and sublime environs. While this may not satisfy a non-Vajrayāna Prāmāṇika epistemologist,[178] it would be a mistake to conclude that Rongzom simply dismisses the idea that the tantric view can be proven—or that Establishing Appearance as Divine does not in fact present a proof authorizing a view. Rather, in thinking along with Establishing Appearance as Divine, the horizon of what constitutes proof—the criteria forming a warrant—is stretched such that a teacher’s efficacious instructions, put into practice properly, is a warrant and so too is an efficacious practice of yoga. Rongzom’s argument works to show how, in the end, proof of the tantric view of purity is not necessarily logical in the sense of empirically based rationality attempting to deduce some logically undeniable and inevitable conclusion obvious to all. Rongzom’s tantric pramāṇa is not just like Dharmakīrti’s, though there are significant analogs, such as how centering the Buddha as a pramāṇa, as per Dharmakīrti’s Compendium of Valid Cognition (Pramāṇavarttika), is like centering the local guru’s efficacious pith instructions in practice as pramāṇa with recourse to The Ritual Initiation of Vajrapāṇi Tantra. While this may not prove the tantric thesis beyond a doubt to outsiders who do not stipulate the veracity and authority of the Buddhist teachings, especially Vajrayāna, it does make more sense when we recall that this type of vāda literature is traditionally less concerned with being right about a point disputed between two parties, such as whether or not there is fire on the mountain pass, than it is about persuading a party of the authority of a presentation, which includes a style of argument and subsequent conclusion. In her Indian Dialectics: Methods of Philosophical Discussion, Esther Solomon writes:

Vāda is primarily meant for the discernment of truth or the real nature of the thing under investigation and imparting the truth as one understands it to the other party; that is to say, in vāda, there is no consideration of victory or defeat.[179]

It is helpful to recognize Establishing Appearance as Divine as this type of pramāṇa-vāda text, which provides “a widely accepted and interscholastic framework for the exploration of a variety of different philosophical views.”[180] The compelling nature of its argument, moreover, is specifically tantric and implicit within the text. As shown above, at the center of Rongzom’s conception of an ethical practice of Vajrayāna lies the forthright imagination in which one assents to the view the purer, the truer. This is not simply an ideological injunction. This is at the core of the deepest commitments to practice Vajrayāna. The key to practice is envisioning oneself and the world as divine. Done properly, what begins in the art of the imagination constitutes a pramāṇa via the efficacy of ethical tantric practice refined through the teacher’s pith instructions.[181]

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