title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The religious conflict was probably only one reason for the move to Mannheim. In addition, converting the old-fashioned hill-top castle into a Baroque palace would have been difficult and costly. By moving down into the plain, the prince-elector was able to construct a new palace, Mannheim Palace, that met his every wish.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Karl Phillip's successor Karl Theodor planned to move his court back to Heidelberg Castle. However, on 24 June 1764, lightning struck the Saalbau (court building) twice in a row, again setting the castle on fire, which he regarded as a sign from heaven and changed his plans. Victor Hugo, who had come to love the ruins of the castle, also saw it as a divine signal:


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: In the following decades, basic repairs were made, but Heidelberg Castle remained essentially a ruin.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: In 1777, Karl Theodor became ruler of Bavaria in addition to the Palatinate and removed his court from Mannheim to Munich. Heidelberg Castle receded even further from his thoughts and the rooms which still had roofs were taken over by craftsmen. Even as early as 1767, the south wall was quarried for stone to build Schwetzingen Castle. In 1784, the vaults in the Ottoheinrich wing were filled in, and the castle used as a source of building materials.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: As a result of the German mediatisation of 1803, Heidelberg and Mannheim became part of Baden. Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden welcomed the addition to his territory, although he regarded Heidelberg Castle as an unwanted addition. The structure was decaying and the townsfolk were helping themselves to stone, wood, and iron from the castle to build their own houses. The statuary and ornaments were also fair game. August von Kotzebue expressed his indignation in 1803 at the government of Baden's intention to pull down the ruins. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the ruined castle had become a symbol for the patriotic movement against Napoleon.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Even before 1800, artists had come to see the river, the hills and the ruins of the castle as an ideal ensemble. The best depictions are those of England's J. M. W. Turner, who stayed in Heidelberg several times between 1817 and 1844, and painted Heidelberg and the castle many times. He and his fellow Romantic painters were not interested in faithful portrayals of the building and gave artistic licence free rein. For example, Turner's paintings of the castle show it perched far higher up on the hill than it actually is.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The saviour of the castle was the French count Charles de Graimberg. He fought the government of Baden, which viewed the castle as an "old ruin with a multitude of tasteless, crumbling ornaments", for the preservation of the building. Until 1822, he served as a voluntary castle warden, and lived for a while in the Glass Wing (Gläserner Saalbau), where he could keep an eye on the courtyard. Long before the origin of historic preservation in Germany, he was the first person to take an interest in the conservation and documentation of the castle, which may never have occurred to any of the Romantics. Graimberg asked Thomas A. Leger to prepare the first castle guide. With his pictures of the castle, of which many copies were produced, Graimberg promoted the castle ruins and drew many tourists to the town.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The question of whether the castle should be completely restored was discussed for a long time. In 1868, the poet Wolfgang Müller von Königswinter argued for a complete reconstruction, leading to a strong backlash in public meetings and in the press.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: In 1883, the Grand Duchy of Baden established a "Castle field office", supervised by building director Josef Durm in Karlsruhe, district building supervisor Julius Koch and architect Fritz Seitz. The office made a detailed plan for preserving or repairing the main building. They completed their work in 1890, which led a commission of specialists from across Germany to decide that while a complete or partial rebuilding of the castle was not possible, it was possible to preserve it in its current condition. Only the Friedrich Building, whose interiors were fire damaged, but not ruined, would be restored. This reconstruction was done from 1897 to 1900 by Karl Schäfer at the enormous cost of 520,000 Marks.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The oldest description of Heidelberg from 1465 mentions that the city is "frequented by strangers", but it did not really become a tourist attraction until the beginning of the 19th century. Count Graimberg made the castle a pervasive subject for pictures which became forerunners of the postcard. At the same time, the castle was also found on souvenir cups. Tourism received a big boost when Heidelberg was connected to the railway network in 1840.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Mark Twain, the American author, described the Heidelberg Castle in his 1880 travel book "A Tramp Abroad":


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: In the 20th century, Americans spread Heidelberg's reputation outside Europe. Thus, Japanese also often visit the Heidelberg Castle during their trips to Europe. Heidelberg has, at the beginning of the 21st century, more than three million visitors a year and about 1,000,000 overnight stays. Most of the foreign visitors come either from the USA or Japan. The most important attraction, according to surveys by the Geographical Institute of the University of Heidelberg, is the castle with its observation terraces.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The Heidelberg professor Ludwig Giesz wrote, in his 1960 essay titled ""Phenomenology of the Kitsches"", about the meaning of the ruins for tourism:


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Also Günter Heinemann raises the question of whether one could restore the Heidelberg Castle incompletely. Near the view from the Stück-garden over the deer moat ("Hirschgraben") of the well-kept ruins of the castle interior, he asks himself whether one should not redevelop the whole area again.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Frederick V, Elector Palatine married the English king's daughter Elizabeth Stuart. The marriage involved great expense. Expensive festivities were organized and for them; he commissioned the Elizabeth gate at the piece garden be built.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: From October 1612 until April 1613, Frederick V spent nearly a half year in England, and though only 17 years old, thereby took up contact with important architects, who later undertook changes and new building plans for the Heidelberg Castle. Inigo Jones and Salomon de Caus, who knew each other well, stood in the service of the English king's court. Caus accompanied the newlyweds on their return journey to Heidelberg. Jones came to Heidelberg as well in June 1613. Very soon, the building of an enormous garden was tackled. However, the plants were intended for level ground, and the slope of the mountain had to be converted. First earth movements had to be achieved, which contemporaries regarded as the eighth wonder of the world.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Under the rule of Frederick V, the Palatine sought Protestant supremacy in the Holy Roman Empire, which however ended in a debacle. After 1619, Frederick V—against the expressed advice of many counsellors—was chosen as the Bohemian king, he could not maintain the crown after he lost at the Battle of White Mountain (Bílá hora) (height 379m/1243 ft) against the troops of the Emperor and the Catholic League. He was mocked as the "Winter King" since his kingdom had lasted only somewhat more than one winter. With the Thirty Years War, Frederick V entered another phase of his career: political refugee.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: As Frederick V left Heidelberg, it is said that his mother, Louise Juliana of Nassau proclaimed: "Oh, the Palatine is moving to Bohemia." After his escape to Rhenen in the Netherlands, Emperor Ferdinand II in 1621 put the imperial ban on Friedrich (Prince Electors). The Rhein Palatinate was transferred in 1623 to Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria, who also bought the Upper Palatinate from the emperor.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: In Rhenen, to the west of Arnhem, the family lived on saved public funds and the generous support of the English king, initially also of the Netherlands, united by the support of the government. For the remainder of his life, Frederick hoped to win back his position in the Palatinate, but he died in exile in 1632.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine was the duchess of Orléans and the sister-in-law of Louis XIV of France. When the Palatinate-Simmern branch of the Wittelbachs died out, Louis XIV laid claim to the Palatinate and started the War of the Grand Alliance, which laid waste to the Palatine. Liselotte, as she is affectionately known, was forced to look on helplessly as her country was ravaged in her name.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Liselotte, granddaughter of Frederick V, was born in Heidelberg Castle and grew up at her aunt Sophia of Hanover's court in Hanover. She often returned to Heidelberg with her father. At the age of 19, she was wedded for political reasons to the brother of the king of France. It was not a happy marriage. When her brother Charles died without issue, Louis XIV claimed the Palatinate for himself and declared war on her.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Even after thirty-six years in France, she still thought of Heidelberg as her home, and wrote in a letter to Marie Luise von Degenfeld:


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The House of Orléans is descended from the children of Liselotte and Philipp, which came to the French throne in 1830 in the person of Louis-Philippe of France.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Liselotte is estimated to have written 60,000 letters, around one-tenth of which, survive to this day. The letters are penned in French and German and describe very vividly life at the French court. Most of them she wrote to her aunt Sophia and her half-sister Marie-Luise, but she also corresponded with Gottfried Leibniz.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Liselotte's upbringing was rather bourgeois. Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine loved to play with his children in the town of Heidelberg and to go for walks along the slopes of the hills of the Odenwald. Liselotte, who later described herself as a "lunatic bee" (German: "dolle Hummel"), rode her horse at a gallop over the hills round Heidelberg and enjoyed her freedom. She often slipped out of the castle early in the morning to climb a cherry tree and gorge herself with cherries. In 1717, looking back on her childhood in Heidelberg, she wrote:


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The French "Kupferstecher" (copperplate engraver) Count Charles de Graimberg fled the French Revolution and emigrated with his family to England.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: He applied in 1810 to Karlsruhe, in order to begin training with the Hofkupferstecher of Baden, Christian Haldenwang, who was a friend and neighbour of Graimberg's brother Louis. After Graimberg went to Heidelberg to sketch the Castle for a landscape, he stayed for the remaining 54 years of his life. With his copper passes of the Castle ruins, he documented its condition and put the foundation-stone for the Roman Castle, which should protect the ruin against final decay.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: In his house (today: Palace Graimberg, at the beginning of the footpath to the Castle) he developed a curiosity cabinet with pieces of find from the Castle, which later became the basic pieces of the Kurpfälzisches Museum. He, by the way, financed his collection "of the Altertümer" for the history of the city and the Castle, from his own fortune. It is due to him that the Castle still stands. He accomplished also the first historical excavations in the Castle and lived a time long in the Castle yard, in order to prevent that the citizens of Heidelberg take building material for their houses from the Castle out-fallow.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: In order Graimberg's wrote Thomas A. Leger's the first sources written on the basis written Castle leader. A copy of this leader from that 1836 "Le guide des voyageurs dans la ruine de Heidelberg " ("Guide for travellers in the ruins of the Heidelberger Castle"), was acquired by Victor Hugo during his stay in Heidelberg. This copy provided with notes is issued today in "the Maison de Victor Hugo" in Paris.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Of Charles de Graimberg reminds an honour board, which was attached 1868 at the passage to the Altan: "The memory of Karl count von Graimberg, born in Castle of Paars (near Château-Thierry) in France 1774, died in Heidelberg 1864.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The forecourt is the area enclosed between the main gate, the upper prince's well, the Elisabeth gate, the castle gate and the entrance to the garden. Around 1800 it was used by the overseer for drying laundry. Later on it was used for grazing cattle, and chickens and geese were kept here.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The building standing on the site of the Friedrichsbau contained the court chapel. However, since there were severe structural damages which could not be repaired according to the experts , Elector Friedrich IV had the residential building erected between 1601 and 1607. Johannes Schoch (ca. 1550-1631) was the architect of the building. The facades were endowed with the statues of the electors’ ancestors – which was a familiar concept given the Ottheinrich's wing. Sebastian Götz from Chur (ca. 1575 – post-1621) was the main sculptor working with Schoch.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Friedrich's wing houses the court chapel on the ground floor and the prince's apartment on the upper levels.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Although there were two significant fires in 1693 and 1764, it is the best preserved building part of the castle. From 1890 to 1900, the Friedrichsbau was fundamentally renovated in the ‘historicist style’ according to the designs of the Karlsruhe professor Carl Schäfer. The present form of the roof and the room furnishings on second and third floors are among the implementations of this renovation.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The approach to the forecourt takes you across a stone bridge, over a partially filled-in ditch. The main gate was built in 1528. The original watchhouse was destroyed in the War of the Grand Alliance and replaced in 1718 by a round-arched entrance gate. The gate to the left of the main entrance was closed by means of a drawbridge.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: In 1961 a stone tablet was erected on a ruined wall of the aviary to replace an older tablet. The inscription on the tablet includes verses by Marianne von Willemer reflecting on her last meeting with Johann Wolfgang Goethe written on 28 August 1824, on the occasion of Goethe's 75th birthday.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Directly across from the Goethe memorial tablet, stands the Ginkgo tree, from which Goethe gave a leaf to Marianne von Willemer as a symbol of friendship. The poem was published later as ""Suleika"" in West-östlicher Diwan.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The letter containing this poem with which Goethe included two Ginkgo leaves can be viewed in the Goethe Museum in Düsseldorf. The Ginkgo, planted in 1795, that Goethe lead Marianne von Willemer to in September 1815, is no longer standing today. Since 1928 the Ginkgo tree in the castle garden was labelled that it was "the same tree that inspired Goethe to create his fine poem". The tree was probably still standing in 1936.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The former harness room, originally a coach house, was in reality begun as a fortification. After the Thirty Years War it was used as a stables as well as a toolshed, garage and carriage house.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The Upper Prince's Fountain was designed and built during the reign of Prince Karl Philipp. Over the gate to the fountain house is his monogram with the date 1738 chiseled in the stone. On the right side of the stairway to the fountain is the following inscription:


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The inscription was a chronogram for the date 1741. Through this fountain and the Lower Prince's Fountain were the water needs of the Prince's residences in Mannheim met until into the 19th century.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: The water quality in Mannheim was so bad, that upper-class families of the court financed this transport of water from Heidelberg to Mannheim. In the princely residence, until 1777 there was a court position titled ""Heidelberg Water-filler"".


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Roux, Jacob Wilhelm Christian: Six views of Heidelberg and its castle / drawn and engraved by Prof. Roux. Together with a short text by A. Schreiber. Heidelberg: Engelmann, 1826.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Metzger, Johann: Beschreibung des Heidelberger Schlosses und Gartens : nach gründlichen Untersuchungen und den vorzüglichsten Nachrichten bearbeitet. Heidelberg: Osswald, 1829.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Metzger, Johann: An historical description of the Castle of Heidelberg and its gardens: composed from careful researches and authentic accounts. Heidelberg: Meder, 1830.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Chézy, Helmina von: Manual for travellers to Heidelberg and its environs : a guide for foreigners and natives; with an appendix and the panorama of the Heidelberg castle, maps and plans. 3. ed. of the description of Heidelberg, Mannheim etc.. Heidelberg: Engelmann, 1838.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Richard-Janillon, Vincent [ed.]: Wanderings through the ruins of Heidelberg Castle and its environs. [From the German by H. J. Grainger]. Heidelberg, 1858


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Heidelberger Schlossverein [Hrsg.] Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Heidelberger Schlosses — 3.1896 <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2905.11</nowiki>


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Waldschmidt, Wolfram: Altheidelberg und sein Schloß : Kulturbilder aus dem Leben der Pfalzgrafen bei Rhein Jena: Diederich, 1909.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Sauer, Fritz: Das Heidelberger Schloß im Spiegel der Literatur : eine Studie über die entwicklungsgeschichtlichen Phasen seiner Betrachtungsweise. Heidelberg: Winter, 1910.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Cohn HJ. The Early Renaissance Court in Heidelberg. European Studies Review. 1971;1(4):295-322. doi:10.1177/026569147100100401


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Hitchcock, Henry Russell: German Renaissance architecture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1981.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Müller, Jan-Dirk, Der siegreiche Fürst im Entwurf der Gelehrten, in, Buck, Augus (ed.), Höfischer Humanismus, Weinheim 1989.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Kühnle, Johannes: Schloss Heidelberg : Geschichte, Architektur, Kuriositäten ; Gedichte, Lieder, Impressionen, Rundgang. Leimen (bei Heidelberg): Jk-Multimedia Consult, 2000


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Hoppe Stephan: Die Architektur des Heidelberger Schlosses in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts. Neue Datierungen und Interpretationen. (online auf ART-Dok) In: Volker Rödel (Red.): Mittelalter. Schloss Heidelberg und die Pfalzgrafschaft bei Rhein bis zur Reformationszeit. (= Schätze aus unseren Schlössern. Band 7). Regensburg 2002, S. 183–190 und S. 205–210. <nowiki>http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2010/994</nowiki>


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Volker Rödel (Red.): Mittelalter. Schloss Heidelberg und die Pfalzgrafschaft bei Rhein bis zur Reformationszeit (=Schätze aus unseren Schlössern, 7). Regensburg 2002.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Morgan, Luke, Nature as model: Salomon de Caus and early seventeenth-century landscape design, Philadelphia 2007.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Wacker, Heiko P.: Das Heidelberger Schloss : Burg - Residenz - Denkmal. Ubstadt-Weiher ; Heidelberg ; Basel: Verl. Regionalkultur, 2012.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Hanschke, Julian: Neue Forschungen zur Baugeschichte des Heidelberger Schlosses : Vorabauszug aus dem für 2015 geplanten Abschlussband zu dem am Institut für Baugeschichte (KIT) 2010-2013 durchgeführten Forschungsprojekt. Karlsruhe: KIT, 2014. <nowiki>https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000043430/3245789</nowiki>


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Mauntel, Christoph; Meyer, Carla; Wendt, Achim (ed.), Heidelberg in Mittelalter und Renaissance, Ostfildern 2017.


title: Heidelberg Castle

text: Buselmeier, Michael (ed). Alles will für dich erglühen: das Heidelberger Schloss in Texten und Bildern. Heidelberg: Morio Verlag, 2018.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: Avelia Liberty, also known as the Acela II, is a high-speed passenger train built for the North American market by French manufacturer Alstom and assembled in the United States. Amtrak has ordered 28 trainsets for use on its flagship "Acela" service along the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C., via New York City and Philadelphia.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: It is part of the Avelia family of high-speed trains, which also includes the Avelia Horizon (now known as TGV M) designed for the TGV, but adapted to conform with North American railroad standards, including U.S. Federal Railroad Administration crashworthiness standards. Amtrak says that compared to the prior generation, these trainsets would allow for improved frequency and greater capacity on the "Acela" service.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: , two prototype trainsets were undergoing testing and construction of the other trainsets was ongoing. Trains are expected to enter passenger service in the fall of 2023.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: In August 2016, Amtrak announced a $2.4 billion loan from the United States Department of Transportation for the purchase of new high-speed trainsets for the "Acela" service from Alstom. Alstom will also provide long-term technical support and supply spare components and parts. These next generation trainsets would replace the 20 existing Bombardier-Alstom trainsets that were nearing the end of their useful service life.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: Amtrak said that the Avelia Liberty trainsets would allow for improved frequency and greater capacity on the "Acela" service. The 28 trainsets ordered (compared to the 20 older trainsets) would allow for more frequent service on the route, including half-hourly peak service between New York City and Washington, D.C. Each of the new trainsets will also have 378 seats and 8 wheelchair locations for a total capacity of 386 passengers (25% more than the current trainsets), allowing for greater passenger capacity.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: U.S. assembly of the trainsets is taking place at Alstom's plants in Hornell and Rochester, New York. Initial construction of car bodies and major components began at Hornell in October 2017. The first prototype set was sent to the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colorado in February 2020 for testing on the high-speed test track. During the nine months of expected trials, the trainsets were tested at speeds up to . A second prototype was delivered in March 2020 to Amtrak for testing along the service tracks in the Northeast which began in May 2020. The first test run up to Boston South Station occurred on September 28.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: By 2020, the first trainset was expected to enter revenue service in early 2022, with all trainsets in service by late 2022, at which point Amtrak would retire the previous "Acela" fleet. However, , full high-speed testing is not expected to begin until late 2022.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: Although Amtrak initially favoured a New Pendolino derivative, the trainset trailers are based on the AGV and power car design is based on Avelia Horizon. The trainsets will be equipped with an active tilt system, dubbed Tiltronix by Alstom and based on Pendolinos, that will allow higher speeds on curved portions of the corridor track at a maximum tilt angle of 6.3°.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: Each Avelia Liberty trainset has power cars at each end of the train, and (initially) nine articulated passenger cars. An additional three passenger cars can be added if demand grows. The power cars include a Crash Energy Management system to help meet Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Tier-III standards while allowing a 30% reduction in train weight. These trains will also have USB ports, power sockets, Wi-Fi, accessibility features, and other conveniences.


title: Avelia Liberty

text: The new trainsets, along with track and signaling improvements, will allow for an initial improvement in maximum regular service speed to on some portions of the route. Many investments into track and signaling upgrades are currently underway or completed.


title: Round steak

text: A round steak is a beef steak from the "round", the rear leg of the cow. The round is divided into cuts including the eye (of) round, bottom round, and top round, with or without the "round" bone (femur), and may include the knuckle (sirloin tip), depending on how the round is separated from the loin. This is a lean cut and it is moderately tough. Lack of fat and marbling makes round dry out when cooked with dry-heat cooking methods like roasting or grilling. Round steak is commonly prepared with slow moist-heat methods including braising, to tenderize the meat and maintain moisture. The cut is often sliced thin, then dried or smoked at low temperature to make jerky.


title: Round steak

text: Rump cover, with its thick layer of accompanying fat, is considered one of the best (and most flavorful) beef cuts in many South American countries, particularly Brazil and Argentina. This specific cut does not tend to be found elsewhere, however.


title: Round steak

text: British cuts topside and silverside together are roughly equivalent to the American round cut. New Zealand cuts also use these terms (or sometimes "outside round" for silverside).


title: Seiche

text: A seiche ( ) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors, caves and seas. The key requirement for formation of a seiche is that the body of water be at least partially bounded, allowing the formation of the standing wave.


title: Seiche

text: The term was promoted by the Swiss hydrologist François-Alphonse Forel in 1890, who was the first to make scientific observations of the effect in Lake Geneva. The word had apparently long been used in the region to describe oscillations in alpine lakes. According to Wilson (1972), this Swiss French dialect word comes from the Latin word meaning "dry", i.e., as the water recedes, the beach dries. The French word or (dry) descends from the Latin.


title: Seiche

text: Seiches in harbours can be caused by "long period" or "infragravity waves", which are due to subharmonic nonlinear wave interaction with the wind waves, having periods longer than the accompanying wind-generated waves.


title: Seiche

text: Seiches are often imperceptible to the naked eye, and observers in boats on the surface may not notice that a seiche is occurring due to the extremely long periods.


title: Seiche

text: The effect is caused by resonances in a body of water that has been disturbed by one or more factors, most often meteorological effects (wind and atmospheric pressure variations), seismic activity, or tsunamis. Gravity always seeks to restore the horizontal surface of a body of liquid water, as this represents the configuration in which the water is in hydrostatic equilibrium.


title: Seiche

text: Vertical harmonic motion results, producing an impulse that travels the length of the basin at a velocity that depends on the depth of the water. The impulse is reflected back from the end of the basin, generating interference. Repeated reflections produce standing waves with one or more nodes, or points, that experience no vertical motion. The frequency of the oscillation is determined by the size of the basin, its depth and contours, and the water temperature.


title: Seiche

text: The longest natural period of a seiche is the period associated with the fundamental resonance for the body of water—corresponding to the longest standing wave. For a surface seiche in an enclosed rectangular body of water this can be estimated using Merian's formula:


title: Seiche

text: where "T" is the longest natural period, "L" is the length, "h" the average depth of the body of water, and "g" the acceleration of gravity.


title: Seiche

text: Higher order harmonics are also observed. The period of the second harmonic will be half the natural period, the period of the third harmonic will be a third of the natural period, and so forth.


title: Seiche

text: Seiches have been observed on both lakes and seas. The key requirement is that the body of water be partially constrained to allow formation of standing waves. Regularity of geometry is not required; even harbours with exceedingly irregular shapes are routinely observed to oscillate with very stable frequencies.


title: Seiche

text: Low rhythmic seiches are almost always present on larger lakes. They are usually unnoticeable among the common wave patterns, except during periods of unusual calm. Harbours, bays, and estuaries are often prone to small seiches with amplitudes of a few centimetres and periods of a few minutes.


title: Seiche

text: The original studies in Lake Geneva by François-Alphonse Forel found the longitudinal period to have a 73-minute cycle, and the transversal seiche to have a period of around 10 minutes. Another lake well known for its regular seiches is New Zealand's Lake Wakatipu, which varies its surface height at Queenstown by 20 centimetres in a 27-minute cycle. Seiches can also form in semi-enclosed seas; the North Sea often experiences a lengthwise seiche with a period of about 36 hours.


title: Seiche

text: The National Weather Service issues low water advisories for portions of the Great Lakes when seiches of 2 feet or greater are likely to occur. Lake Erie is particularly prone to wind-caused seiches because of its shallowness and its elongation on a northeast-southwest axis, which frequently matches the direction of prevailing winds and therefore maximises the fetch of those winds. These can lead to extreme seiches of up to between the ends of the lake.


title: Seiche

text: The effect is similar to a storm surge like that caused by hurricanes along ocean coasts, but the seiche effect can cause oscillation back and forth across the lake for some time. In 1954, the remnants of Hurricane Hazel piled up water along the northwestern Lake Ontario shoreline near Toronto, causing extensive flooding, and established a seiche that subsequently caused flooding along the south shore.


title: Seiche

text: Lake seiches can occur very quickly: on July 13, 1995, a large seiche on Lake Superior caused the water level to fall and then rise again by three feet (one metre) within fifteen minutes, leaving some boats hanging from the docks on their mooring lines when the water retreated. The same storm system that caused the 1995 seiche on Lake Superior produced a similar effect in Lake Huron, in which the water level at Port Huron changed by over two hours. On Lake Michigan, eight fishermen were swept away from piers at Montrose and North Avenue Beaches and drowned when a seiche hit the Chicago waterfront on June 26, 1954.


title: Seiche

text: Lakes in seismically active areas, such as Lake Tahoe in California/Nevada, are significantly at risk from seiches. Geological evidence indicates that the shores of Lake Tahoe may have been hit by seiches and tsunamis as much as high in prehistoric times, and local researchers have called for the risk to be factored into emergency plans for the region.


title: Seiche

text: Earthquake-generated seiches can be observed thousands of miles away from the epicentre of a quake. Swimming pools are especially prone to seiches caused by earthquakes, as the ground tremors often match the resonant frequencies of small bodies of water. The 1994 Northridge earthquake in California caused swimming pools to overflow across southern California. The massive Good Friday earthquake that hit Alaska in 1964 caused seiches in swimming pools as far away as Puerto Rico. The earthquake that hit Lisbon, Portugal, in 1755 caused seiches away in Loch Lomond, Loch Long, Loch Katrine and Loch Ness in Scotland and in canals in Sweden. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake caused seiches in standing water bodies in many Indian states as well as in Bangladesh, Nepal, and northern Thailand. Seiches were again observed in Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in India as well as in many locations in Bangladesh during the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.


title: Seiche

text: The 1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake is known to have generated seiches as far away as Norway and southern England. Other earthquakes in the Indian sub-continent known to have generated seiches include the 1803 Kumaon-Barahat, 1819 Allah Bund, 1842 Central Bengal, 1905 Kangra, 1930 Dhubri, 1934 Nepal-Bihar, 2001 Bhuj, 2005 Nias, 2005 Teresa Island earthquakes. The February 27, 2010 Chile earthquake produced a seiche on Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, with a height of around 0.5 feet. The 2010 Sierra El Mayor earthquake produced large seiches that quickly became an internet phenomenon.


title: Seiche

text: Seiches up to at least 1.8 m (6 feet) were observed in Sognefjorden, Norway, during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake in Japan.


title: Seiche

text: Seiches have been observed in seas such as the Adriatic Sea and the Baltic Sea. This results in the flooding of Venice and Saint Petersburg, respectively, as both cities are constructed on former marshland. In St. Petersburg, seiche-induced flooding is common along the Neva River in the autumn. The seiche is driven by a low pressure region in the North Atlantic moving onshore, giving rise to cyclonic lows on the Baltic Sea. The low pressure of the cyclone draws greater-than-normal quantities of water into the virtually land-locked Baltic. As the cyclone continues inland, long, low-frequency seiche waves with wavelengths up to several hundred kilometres are established in the Baltic. When the waves reach the narrow and shallow Neva Bay, they become much higher—ultimately flooding the Neva embankments. Similar phenomena are observed at Venice, resulting in the MOSE Project, a system of 79 mobile barriers designed to protect the three entrances to the Venetian Lagoon.


title: Seiche

text: In Japan, seiches have been observed in Nagasaki Bay, most often in the spring. During a seiche event on 31 March 1979, a water-level displacement of was recorded at Nagasaki tide station; the maximum displacement in the whole bay is thought to have reached as much as . Seiches in Western Kyushu—including Nagasaki Bay—are often induced by a low in the atmospheric pressure passing South of Kyushu island. Seiches in Nagasaki Bay have a period of about 30 to 40 minutes. Locally, seiches have caused floods, destroyed port facilities and damaged the fishery: hence the local word for seiche, , from , meaning 'the dragging-away of a fishing net'.


title: Seiche

text: On occasion, tsunamis can produce seiches as a result of local geographic peculiarities. For instance, the tsunami that hit Hawaii in 1946 had a fifteen-minute interval between wave fronts. The natural resonant period of Hilo Bay is about thirty minutes. That meant that every second wave was in phase with the bay, creating a seiche. As a result, Hilo suffered worse damage than any other place in Hawaii, with the combined tsunami and seiche reaching a height of along the Bayfront, killing 96 people in the city alone. Seiche waves may continue for several days after a tsunami.


title: Seiche

text: Tide-generated internal solitary waves (solitons) can excite coastal seiches at the following locations: Magueyes Island in Puerto Rico,


title: Seiche

text: and in the Bay of Fundy in eastern Canada, where seiches cause some of the highest recorded tidal fluctuations in the world.


title: Seiche

text: A dynamical mechanism exists for the generation of coastal seiches by deep-sea internal waves. These waves can generate a sufficient current at the shelf break to excite coastal seiches.


title: Seiche

text: Seiches are also observed beneath the surface of constrained bodies of water, acting along the thermocline.


title: Seiche

text: where "T" is the natural period, "L" is the length of the water body, formula_4 the average thicknesses of the two layers separated by stratification (e.g. epilimnion and hypolimnion), formula_5 the densities of these two same layers and "g" the acceleration of gravity.


title: Seiche

text: As the thermocline moves up and down a sloping lake bed, it creates a 'swash zone', where temperatures can vary rapidly, potentially affecting fish habitat. As the thermocline rises up a sloping lake bed, it can also cause benthic turbulence by convective overturning, whereas the falling thermocline experiences greater stratification and low turbulence at the lake bed. Internal waves can also degenerate into non-linear internal waves on sloping lake-beds. When such non-linear waves break on the lake bed, they can be an important source of turbulence and have the potential for sediment resuspension


title: Seiche

text: On September 19, 2022, a seiche reaching occurred at Devils Hole at Death Valley National Park in the U.S. after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit western Mexico, about away. Seiches were also observed in the cave after powerful earthquakes in 2012, 2018 and 2019.


title: Seiche

text: Engineers consider seiche phenomena in the design of flood protection works (e.g., Saint Petersburg Dam), reservoirs and dams (e.g., Grand Coulee Dam), potable water storage basins, harbours and even spent nuclear fuel storage basins.


title: Cessna Citation family

text: The Cessna Citation is a family of business jets by Cessna that started in 1972 with the entry into service of the first model. In the fifty years following the 1969 first flight, more than 7,500 Citations were delivered, forming the largest business jet fleet. Deliveries reached 8,000 by 2022, while logging over 41 million flight hours.


title: Cessna Citation family

text: The line started with the small Citation I prototype flying on September 15, 1969, and produced until 1985, developed into the 1978-2006 Citation II/Bravo, the 1989-2011 Citation V/Ultra/Encore and the CitationJet since 1993.


title: Cessna Citation family

text: The standup Citation III/VI/VII was delivered from 1983 to 2000; its fuselage was reused in the Citation X/X+ delivered from 1996 to 2018, the Sovereign from 2004 to 2021 and the Excel since 1998.


title: Cessna Citation family

text: The Mustang was a Very Light Jet delivered from 2006 to 2017 while the flat floor fuselage Latitude has been delivered since 2015 and the larger Longitude from 2019.


title: Cessna Citation family

text: The aircraft are named after Citation, a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the American Triple Crown.


title: Cessna Citation family

text: The Model 526 CitationJet was a twin-engine, two-seat tandem military trainer developed from the Model 525 as a candidate for the Joint Primary Aircraft Training System competition (JPATS). The two models share 75% of their parts, including wing, engines, landing gear, and other systems. First flown in December 1993, the 526 did not succeed at the JPATS contest, and only two examples were built in total.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Buddhist philosophy refers to the philosophical investigations and systems of inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in India following the parinirvana of The Buddha and later spread throughout Asia. The Buddhist path combines both philosophical reasoning and meditation. The Buddhist traditions present a multitude of Buddhist paths to liberation, and Buddhist thinkers in India and subsequently in East Asia have covered topics as varied as phenomenology, ethics, ontology, epistemology, logic and philosophy of time in their analysis of these paths.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Pre-sectarian Buddhism was based on empirical evidence gained by the sense organs ("ayatana") and the Buddha seems to have retained a skeptical distance from certain metaphysical questions, refusing to answer them because they were not conducive to liberation but led instead to further speculation. A recurrent theme in Buddhist philosophy has been the reification of concepts, and the subsequent return to the Buddhist Middle Way.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism. These elaborations and disputes gave rise to various schools in early Buddhism of Abhidharma, and to the Mahayana traditions such as Prajnaparamita, Madhyamaka, Buddha-nature and Yogācāra.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Various elements of these three phases are incorporated and/or further developed in the philosophy and worldview of the various sects of Buddhism that then emerged.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Philosophy in India was aimed mainly at spiritual liberation and had soteriological goals. In his study of Mādhyamaka Buddhist philosophy in India, Peter Deller Santina writes:


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: For the Indian Buddhist philosophers, the teachings of the Buddha were not meant to be taken on faith alone, but to be confirmed by logical analysis ("pramana") of the world. The early Buddhist texts mention that a person becomes a follower of the Buddha's teachings after having pondered them over with wisdom and the gradual training also requires that a disciple "investigate" ("upaparikkhati") and "scrutinize" ("tuleti") the teachings. The Buddha also expected his disciples to approach him as a teacher in a critical fashion and scrutinize his actions and words, as shown in the "Vīmaṃsaka Sutta."


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Scholarly opinion varies as to whether the Buddha himself was engaged in philosophical inquiry. The Buddha (c. 5th century BCE) was a north Indian śramaṇa (wandering ascetic), whose teachings are preserved in the Pali Nikayas and in the Agamas as well as in other surviving fragmentary textual collections (collectively known as the Early Buddhist Texts). Dating these texts is difficult, and there is disagreement on how much of this material goes back to a single religious founder. While the focus of the Buddha's teachings is about attaining the highest good of nirvana, they also contain an analysis of the source of human suffering, the nature of personal identity, and the process of acquiring knowledge about the world.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Buddha defined his teaching as "the middle way" (Pali: "Majjhimāpaṭipadā"). In the "Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta", this is used to refer to the fact that his teachings steer a middle course between the extremes of asceticism and bodily denial (as practiced by the Jains and other ascetic groups) and sensual hedonism or indulgence. Many sramanas of the Buddha's time placed much emphasis on a denial of the body, using practices such as fasting, to liberate the mind from the body. The Buddha, however, realized that the mind was embodied and causally dependent on the body, and therefore that a malnourished body did not allow the mind to be trained and developed. Thus, Buddhism's main concern is not with luxury or poverty, but instead with the human response to circumstances.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Certain basic teachings appear in many places throughout these early texts, so older studies by various scholars conclude that the Buddha must at least have taught some of these key teachings:


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: According to N. Ross Reat, all of these doctrines are shared by the Theravada Pali texts and the Mahasamghika school's "Śālistamba Sūtra". A recent study by Bhikkhu Analayo concludes that the Theravada "Majjhima Nikaya" and Sarvastivada "Madhyama Agama" contain mostly the same major doctrines. Richard Salomon, in his study of the Gandharan texts (which are the earliest manuscripts containing early discourses), has confirmed that their teachings are "consistent with non-Mahayana Buddhism, which survives today in the Theravada school of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, but which in ancient times was represented by eighteen separate schools."


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: However, some scholars such as Schmithausen, Vetter, and Bronkhorst argue that critical analysis reveals discrepancies among these various doctrines. They present alternative possibilities for what was taught in early Buddhism and question the authenticity of certain teachings and doctrines.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: For example, some scholars think that karma was not central to the teaching of the historical Buddha, while others disagree with this position. Likewise, there is scholarly disagreement on whether insight was seen as liberating in early Buddhism or whether it was a later addition to the practice of the four "dhyāna." According to Vetter and Bronkhorst, "dhyāna" constituted the original "liberating practice", while discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development."" Scholars such as Bronkhorst and Carol Anderson also think that the four noble truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism but as Anderson writes "emerged as a central teaching in a slightly later period that still preceded the final redactions of the various Buddhist canons."


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: According to some scholars, the philosophical outlook of earliest Buddhism was primarily negative, in the sense that it focused on what doctrines to "reject" more than on what doctrines to "accept". Only knowledge that is useful in attaining liberation is valued. According to this theory, the cycle of philosophical upheavals that in part drove the diversification of Buddhism into its many schools and sects only began once Buddhists began attempting to make explicit the implicit philosophy of the Buddha and the early texts.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The four noble truths or "truths of the noble one" are a central feature of the teachings and are put forth in the "Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta". The first truth of dukkha, often translated as "suffering", is the inherent unsatisfactoriness of life. This unpleasantness is said to be not just physical pain, but also a kind of existential unease caused by the inevitable facts of our mortality and ultimately by the impermanence of all phenomena.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: It also arises because of contact with unpleasant events, and due to not getting what one desires. The second truth is that this unease arises out of conditions, mainly 'craving' (tanha) and ignorance (avidya). The third truth is then the fact that if you let go of craving and remove ignorance through knowledge, dukkha ceases (nirodha). The fourth is the eightfold path which are eight practices that end suffering. They are: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right samadhi (mental unification, meditation). The goal taught by the Buddha, Nirvana, literally means 'extinguishing' and signified "the complete extinguishing of greed, hatred, and delusion (i.e. ignorance), the forces which power "samsara".


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Nirvana also means that after an enlightened being's death, there is no further rebirth. In early Buddhism, the concept of dependent origination was most likely limited to processes of mental conditioning and not to all physical phenomena. The Buddha understood the world in procedural terms, not in terms of things or substances. His theory posits a flux of events arising under certain conditions which are interconnected and dependent, such that the processes in question at no time are considered to be static or independent. Craving, for example, is always dependent on, and caused by sensations. Sensations are always dependent on contact with our surroundings. Buddha's causal theory is simply descriptive: "This existing, that exists; this arising, that arises; this not existing, that does not exist; this ceasing, that ceases." This understanding of causation as "impersonal lawlike causal ordering" is important because it shows how the processes that give rise to suffering work, and also how they can be reversed.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The removal of suffering, then, requires a deep understanding of the nature of reality (prajña). While philosophical analysis of arguments and concepts is clearly necessary to develop this understanding, it is not enough to remove our unskillful mental habits and deeply ingrained prejudices, which require meditation, paired with understanding. According to the Buddha of the early texts, we need to train the mind in meditation to be able to truly see the nature of reality, which is said to have the marks of suffering, impermanence and not-self. Understanding and meditation are said to work together to 'clearly see' (vipassana) the nature of human experience and this is said to lead to liberation.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Buddha argued that compounded entities lacked essence, correspondingly the self is without essence. This means there is no part of a person which is unchanging and essential for continuity, and it means that there is no individual "part of the person that accounts for the identity of that person over time". This is in opposition to the Upanishadic concept of an unchanging ultimate self (Atman) and any view of an eternal soul. The Buddha held that attachment to the appearance of a permanent self in this world of change is the cause of suffering, and the main obstacle to liberation.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The most widely used argument that the Buddha employed against the idea of an unchanging ego is an empiricist one, based on the observation of the five aggregates that make up a person and the fact that these are always changing. This argument can be put in this way:


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: This argument requires the implied premise that the five aggregates are an exhaustive account of what makes up a person, or else the self could exist outside of these aggregates. This premise is affirmed in other suttas, such as SN 22.47 which states: "whatever ascetics and brahmins regard various kinds of things as self, all regard the five grasping aggregates, or one of them."


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: This argument is famously expounded in the "Anattalakkhana Sutta". According to this text, the apparently fixed self is merely the result of identification with the temporary aggregates, the changing processes making up an individual human being. In this view, a 'person' is only a convenient nominal designation on a certain grouping of processes and characteristics, and an 'individual' is a conceptual construction overlaid upon a stream of experiences just like a chariot is merely a conventional designation for the parts of a chariot and how they are put together. The foundation of this argument is empiricist, for it is based on the fact that all we observe is subject to change, especially everything observed when looking inwardly in meditation.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Another argument for 'non-self', the 'argument from lack of control', is based on the fact that we often seek to change certain parts of ourselves, that the 'executive function' of the mind is that which finds certain things unsatisfactory and attempts to alter them. Furthermore, it is also based on the Indian 'Anti Reflexivity Principle' which states an entity cannot operate on or control itself (a knife can cut other things but not itself, a finger can point at other things but not at itself, etc.). This means then, that the self could never desire to change itself and could not do so (another reason for this is that in most Indian traditions besides Buddhism, the true self or Atman is perfectly blissful and does not suffer). The Buddha uses this idea to attack the concept of self. This argument could be structured thus:


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: This argument then denies that there is one permanent "controller" in the person. Instead, it views the person as a set of constantly changing processes which include volitional events seeking change and an awareness of that desire for change. According to Mark Siderits:"What the Buddhist has in mind is that on one occasion one part of the person might perform the executive function, on another occasion another part might do so. This would make it possible for every part to be subject to control without there being any part that always fills the role of the controller (and so is the self). On some occasions, a given part might fall on the controller side, while on other occasions it might fall on the side of the controlled. This would explain how it's possible for us to seek to change any of the skandhas while there is nothing more to us than just those skandhas."As noted by K.R. Norman and Richard Gombrich, the Buddha extended his anatta critique to the Brahmanical belief expounded in the "Brihadaranyaka Upanishad" that the Self (Atman) was indeed the whole world, or Brahman. This is shown by the "Alagaddupama Sutta", where the Buddha argues that an individual cannot experience the suffering of the entire world. He used the example of someone carrying off and burning grass and sticks from the Jeta grove and how a monk would not sense or consider themselves harmed by that action. In this example, the Buddha is arguing that we do not have direct experience of the entire world, and hence the Self cannot be the whole world. In this sutta (as well as in the "Soattā Sutta") the Buddha outlines six wrong views about Self:


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: "There are six wrong views: An unwise, untrained person may think of the body, 'This is mine, this is me, this is my self'; he may think that of feelings; of perceptions; of volitions; or of what has been seen, heard, thought, cognized, reached, sought or considered by the mind. The sixth is to identify the world and self, to believe: 'At death, I shall become permanent, eternal, unchanging, and so remain forever the same; and that is mine, that is me, that is my self.' A wise and well-trained person sees that all these positions are wrong, and so he is not worried about something that does not exist."


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Furthermore, the Buddha argues that the world can be observed to be a cause of suffering (Brahman was held to be ultimately blissful) and that since we cannot control the world as we wish, the world cannot be the Self. The idea that "this cosmos is the self" is one of the views rejected by the Buddha along with the related Monistic theory that held that "everything is a Oneness" (SN 12.48 "Lokayatika Sutta"). The Buddha also held that understanding and seeing the truth of not-self led to un-attachment, and hence to the cessation of suffering, while ignorance about the true nature of personality led to further suffering.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: All schools of Indian philosophy recognize various sets of valid justifications for knowledge, or "pramana" and many see the Vedas as providing access to truth. The Buddha denied the authority of the Vedas, though, like his contemporaries, he affirmed the soteriological importance of having a proper understanding of reality (right view). However, this understanding was not conceived primarily as metaphysical and cosmological knowledge, but as a piece of knowledge into the arising and cessation of suffering in human experience. Therefore, the Buddha's epistemic project is different from that of modern philosophy; it is primarily a solution to the fundamental human spiritual/existential problem.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Buddha's epistemology has been compared to empiricism, in the sense that it was based on the experience of the world through the senses. The Buddha taught that empirical observation through the six sense fields (ayatanas) was the proper way of verifying any knowledge claims. Some suttas go further, stating that "the All", or everything that exists ("sabbam"), are these six sense spheres (SN 35.23, Sabba Sutta) and that anyone who attempts to describe another "All" will be unable to do so because "it lies beyond range". This sutta seems to indicate that for the Buddha, things in themselves or noumena, are beyond our epistemological reach ("avisaya").


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Furthermore, in the Kalama Sutta the Buddha tells a group of confused villagers that the only proper reason for one's beliefs is verification in one's own personal experience (and the experience of the wise) and denies any verification which stems from a personal authority, sacred tradition ("anussava") or any kind of rationalism which constructs metaphysical theories ("takka"). In the Tevijja Sutta (DN 13), the Buddha rejects the personal authority of Brahmins because none of them can prove they have had personal experience of Brahman. The Buddha also stressed that experience is the only criterion for verification of the truth in this passage from the Majjhima Nikaya (MN.I.265):


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Furthermore, the Buddha's standard for personal verification was a pragmatic and salvific one, for the Buddha a belief counts as truth only if it leads to successful Buddhist practice (and hence, to the destruction of craving). In the "Discourse to Prince Abhaya" (MN.I.392–4) the Buddha states this pragmatic maxim by saying that a belief should only be accepted if it leads to wholesome consequences. This tendency of the Buddha to see what is true as what was useful or 'what works' has been called by scholars such as Mrs Rhys Davids and Vallée-Poussin a form of Pragmatism. However, K. N. Jayatilleke argues the Buddha's epistemology can also be taken to be a form of correspondence theory (as per the 'Apannaka Sutta') with elements of Coherentism and that for the Buddha, it is causally impossible for something which is false to lead to cessation of suffering and evil.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Buddha discouraged his followers from indulging in intellectual disputation for its own sake, which is fruitless, and distracts one from the goal of awakening. Only philosophy and discussion which has pragmatic value for liberation from suffering is seen as important. According to the scriptures, during his lifetime the Buddha remained silent when asked several metaphysical questions which he regarded as the basis for "unwise reflection". These 'unanswered questions' (avyākata) regarded issues such as whether the universe is eternal or non-eternal (or whether it is finite or infinite), the unity or separation of the body and the self, the complete inexistence of a person after Nirvana and death, and others. The Buddha stated that thinking about these imponderable (Acinteyya) issues led to "a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views" (Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta).


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: One explanation for this pragmatic suspension of judgment or epistemic Epoché is that such questions contribute nothing to the practical methods of realizing awakeness and bring about the danger of substituting the experience of liberation by a conceptual understanding of the doctrine or by religious faith. According to the Buddha, the Dharma is not an ultimate end in itself or an explanation of all metaphysical reality, but a pragmatic set of teachings. The Buddha used two parables to clarify this point, the 'Parable of the raft' and the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow. The Dharma is like a raft in the sense that it is only a pragmatic tool for attaining nirvana ("for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto", MN 22); once one has done this, one can discard the raft. It is also like medicine, in that the particulars of how one was injured by a poisoned arrow (i.e. metaphysics, etc.) do not matter in the act of removing and curing the arrow wound itself (removing suffering). In this sense, the Buddha was often called 'the great physician' because his goal was to cure the human condition of suffering first and foremost, not to speculate about metaphysics.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Having said this, it is still clear that resisting (even refuting) a false or slanted doctrine can be useful to extricate the interlocutor, or oneself, from error; hence, to advance in the way of liberation. Witness the Buddha's confutation of several doctrines by Nigantha Nataputta and other purported sages which sometimes had large followings (e.g., Kula Sutta, Sankha Sutta, Brahmana Sutta). This shows that a virtuous and appropriate use of dialectics can take place. By implication, reasoning and argument shouldn't be disparaged by Buddhists.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: After the Buddha's death, some Buddhists such as Dharmakirti went on to use the sayings of the Buddha as sound evidence equal to perception and inference.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Another possible reason why the Buddha refused to engage in metaphysics is that he saw ultimate reality and nirvana as devoid of sensory mediation and conception and therefore language itself is "a priori" inadequate to explain it. Thus, the Buddha's silence does not indicate misology or disdain for philosophy. Rather, it indicates that he viewed the answers to these questions as not understandable by the unenlightened. Dependent arising provides a framework for analysis of reality that is not based on metaphysical assumptions regarding existence or non-existence, but instead on direct cognition of phenomena as they are presented to the mind in meditation.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Buddha of the earliest Buddhists texts describes Dharma (in the sense of "truth") as "beyond reasoning" or "transcending logic", in the sense that reasoning is a subjectively introduced aspect of the way unenlightened humans perceive things, and the conceptual framework which underpins their cognitive process, rather than a feature of things as they really are. Going "beyond reasoning" means in this context penetrating the nature of reasoning from the inside, and removing the causes for experiencing any future stress as a result of it, rather than functioning outside the system as a whole.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Buddha's ethics are based on the soteriological need to eliminate suffering and on the premise of the law of karma. Buddhist ethics have been termed eudaimonic (with their goal being well-being) and also compared to virtue ethics (this approach began with Damien Keown). Keown writes that Buddhist Nirvana is analogous to the Aristotelian Eudaimonia, and that Buddhist moral acts and virtues derive their value from how they lead us to or act as an aspect of the nirvanic life.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Buddha outlined five precepts (no killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, or drinking alcohol) which were to be followed by his disciples, lay and monastic. There are various reasons the Buddha gave as to why someone should be ethical.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: First, the universe is structured in such a way that if someone intentionally commits a misdeed, a bad karmic fruit will be the result. Hence, from a pragmatic point of view, it is best to abstain from these negative actions which bring forth negative results. However, the important word here is "intentionally": for the Buddha, karma is nothing else but intention/volition, and hence unintentionally harming someone does not create bad karmic results. Unlike the Jains who believed that karma was a quasi-physical element, for the Buddha karma was a volitional mental event, what Richard Gombrich calls 'an ethnicized consciousness'.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: This idea leads into the second moral justification of the Buddha: intentionally performing negative actions reinforces and propagates mental defilements which keep persons bound to the cycle of rebirth and interfere with the process of liberation, and hence intentionally performing good karmic actions is participating in mental purification which leads to nirvana, the highest happiness. This perspective sees immoral acts as unskillful ("akusala") in our quest for happiness, and hence it is pragmatic to do good.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The third meta-ethical consideration takes the view of not-self and our natural desire to end our suffering to its logical conclusion. Since there is no self, there is no reason to prefer our own welfare over that of others because there is no ultimate grounding for the differentiation of "my" suffering and someone else's. Instead, an enlightened person would just work to end suffering "tout court", without thinking of the conventional concept of persons. According to this argument, anyone who is selfish does so out of ignorance of the true nature of personal identity and irrationality.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The main Indian Buddhist philosophical schools practiced a form of analysis termed "Abhidharma" which sought to systematize the teachings of the early Buddhist discourses (sutras). Abhidharma analysis broke down human experience into momentary phenomenal events or occurrences called ""dharmas"". Dharmas are impermanent and dependent on other causal factors, they arise and pass as part of a web of other interconnected dharmas, and are never found alone. The Abhidharma schools held that the teachings of the Buddha in the sutras were merely conventional, while the Abhidharma analysis was ultimate truth (paramattha sacca), the way things really are when seen by an enlightened being. The Abhidharmic project has been likened as a form of phenomenology or process philosophy. Abhidharma philosophers not only outlined what they believed to be an exhaustive listing of "dharmas", or phenomenal events, but also the causal relations between them. In the Abhidharmic analysis, the only thing which is ultimately real is the interplay of dharmas in a causal stream; everything else is merely conceptual ("paññatti") and nominal.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: This view has been termed "mereological reductionism" by Mark Siderits because it holds that only impartite entities are real, not wholes. Abhidharmikas such as Vasubandhu argued that conventional things (tables, persons, etc.) "disappear under analysis" and that this analysis reveals only a causal stream of phenomenal events and their relations. The mainstream Abhidharmikas defended this view against their main Hindu rivals, the Nyaya school, who were substance theorists and posited the existence of universals. Some Abhidharmikas such as the Prajñaptivāda were also strict nominalists, and held that all things - even dharmas - were merely conceptual.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: An important Abhidhamma work from the Theravāda school is the Kathāvatthu ("Points of controversy"), attributed to the Indian scholar-monk Moggaliputta-Tissa (–247 BCE). This text is important because it attempts to refute several philosophical views which had developed after the death of the Buddha, especially the theory that 'all exists' ("sarvāstivāda"), the theory of momentariness ("khāṇavāda") and the personalist view ("pudgalavada") These were the major philosophical theories that divided the Buddhist Abhidharma schools in India. After being brought to Sri Lanka in the first century BCE, the Theravada Pali language Abhidhamma tradition was heavily influenced by the works of Buddhaghosa (4-5th century AD), the most important philosopher and commentator of the Theravada school. The Theravada philosophical enterprise was mostly carried out in the genre of Atthakatha, commentaries (as well as sub-commentaries) on the Pali Abhidhamma, but also included short summaries and compendiums.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Sarvāstivāda was one of the major Buddhist philosophical schools in India, and they were so named because of their belief that dharmas exist in all three times: past, present and future. Though the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma system began as a mere categorization of mental events, their philosophers and exegetes such as Dharmatrata and Katyāyāniputra (the compiler of the Mahavibhasa, a central text of the school) eventually refined this system into a robust realism, which also included a type of essentialism. This realism was based on a quality of dharmas, which was called svabhava or 'intrinsic existence'. Svabhava is a sort of essence, though it is not a completely independent essence, since all dharmas were said to be causally dependent. The Sarvāstivāda system extended this realism across time, effectively positing a type of eternalism with regards to time; hence, the name of their school means "the view that everything exists".


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Other Buddhist schools such as the Prajñaptivadins ('nominalists'), the Purvasailas and the Vainasikas refused to accept the concept of svabhava. The main topic of the Tattvasiddhi Śāstra by Harivarman (3-4th century AD), an influential Abhidharma text, is the emptiness (shunyata) of dharmas.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Theravādins and other schools such as the Sautrāntikas attacked the realism of the Sarvāstivādins, especially their theory of time. A major figure in this argument was the scholar Vasubandhu, an ex-Sarvāstivādin, who critiqued the theory of all exists and argued for philosophical presentism in his comprehensive treatise, the Abhidharmakosa. This work is the major Abhidharma text used in Tibetan and East Asian Buddhism today. The Theravāda also holds that dharmas only exist in the present, and are thus also presentists. The Theravādin presentation of Abhidharma is also not as concerned with ontology as the Sarvāstivādin view, but is more of a phenomenology and hence the concept of svabhava for the Theravādins is more of a certain characteristic or dependent feature of a dharma, than any sort of essence or metaphysical grounding. According to Y Karunadasa:


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: In the Pali tradition it is only for the sake of definition and description that each dhamma is postulated as if it were a separate entity; but in reality, it is by no means a solitary phenomenon having an existence of its own...If this Abhidhammic view of existence, as seen from its doctrine of dhammas, cannot be interpreted as a radical pluralism, neither can it be interpreted as an out-and-out monism. For what are called dhammas -- the component factors of the universe, both within us and outside us -- are not fractions of an absolute unity but a multiplicity of co-ordinate factors. They are not reducible to, nor do they emerge from, a single reality, the fundamental postulate of monistic metaphysics. If they are to be interpreted as phenomena, this should be done with the proviso that they are phenomena with no corresponding noumena, no hidden underlying ground. For they are not manifestations of some mysterious metaphysical substratum, but processes taking place due to the interplay of a multitude of conditions.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: What emerges from this Abhidhammic doctrine of dhammas is a critical realism, one which (unlike idealism) recognises the distinctness of the world from the experiencing subject yet also distinguishes between those types of entities that truly exist independently of the cognitive act and those that owe their being to the act of cognition itself.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: What emerges from the dhamma theory is best described as dhamma realism, for, as we have seen, it recognizes only the ultimate reality of the dhammas.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Although the dhamma theory is an Abhidhammic innovation, the antecedent trends that led to its formulation and its basic ingredients can be traced to the early Buddhist scriptures which seek to analyse empiric individuality and its relation to the external world.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: An important theory held by some Sarvāstivādins, Theravādins and Sautrāntikas was the theory of "momentariness" (Skt., kṣāṇavāda, Pali, khāṇavāda). This theory held that dhammas only last for a minute moment ("ksana") after they arise. The Sarvāstivādins saw these 'moments' in an atomistic way, as the smallest length of time possible (they also developed a material atomism). Reconciling this theory with their eternalism regarding time was a major philosophical project of the Sarvāstivāda. The Theravādins initially rejected this theory, as evidenced by the Khaṇikakathā of the Kathavatthu which attempts to refute the doctrine that "all phenomena (dhamma) are as momentary as a single mental entity." However, momentariness with regards to mental dhammas (but not physical or rūpa dhammas) was later adopted by the Sri Lankan Theravādins, and it is possible that it was first introduced by the scholar Buddhagosa.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: All Abhidharma schools also developed complex theories of causation and conditionality to explain how dharmas interacted with each other. Another major philosophical project of the Abhidharma schools was the explanation of perception. Some schools such as the Sarvastivadins explained perception as a type of phenomenalist realism while others such as the Sautrantikas preferred representationalism and held that we only perceive objects indirectly. The major argument used for this view by the Sautrāntikas was the "time-lag argument." According to Mark Siderits: "The basic idea behind the argument is that since there is always a tiny gap between when the sense comes in contact with the external object and when there is sensory awareness, what we are aware of can't be the external object that the senses were in contact with, since it no longer exists." This is related to the theory of extreme momentariness.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: One major philosophical view which was rejected by all the schools mentioned above was the view held by the Pudgalavadin or 'personalist' schools. They seemed to have held that there was a sort of 'personhood' in some ultimately real sense which was not reducible to the five aggregates. This controversial claim was in contrast to the other Buddhists of the time who held that a personality was a mere conceptual construction (prajñapti) and only conventionally real.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: From about the 1st century BCE, a new textual tradition began to arise in Indian Buddhist thought called Mahāyāna (Great Vehicle), which would slowly come to dominate Indian Buddhist philosophy. Buddhist philosophy thrived in large monastery-university complexes such as Nalanda and Vikramasila, which became centres of learning in North India. Mahāyāna philosophers continued the philosophical projects of Abhidharma while at the same time critiquing them and introducing new concepts and ideas. Since the Mahāyāna held to the pragmatic concept of truth which states that doctrines are regarded as conditionally "true" in the sense of being spiritually beneficial, the new theories and practices were seen as 'skillful means' (Upaya). The Mahayana also promoted the Bodhisattva ideal, which included an attitude of compassion for all sentient beings. The Bodhisattva is someone who chooses to remain in "samsara" (the cycle of birth and death) to benefit all other beings who are suffering.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Major Mahayana philosophical schools and traditions include the Prajnaparamita, Madhyamaka, Tathagatagarbha, the Epistemological school of Dignaga, Yogācāra, Huayan, Tiantai and the Chan/Zen schools.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The earliest Prajñāpāramitā-sutras ("perfection of insight" sutras) (circa 1st century BCE) emphasize the shunyata (emptiness) of phenomena and dharmas. The Prajñāpāramitā is said to be true knowledge of the nature of ultimate reality, which is illusory and empty of essence.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Prajñāpāramitā teachings are associated with the work of the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna ( – ) and the Madhyamaka (Middle way) school. Nāgārjuna was one of the most influential Indian Buddhist thinkers; he gave the classical arguments for the empty nature of phenomena and attacked the Sarvāstivāda and Pudgalavada schools' essentialism in his magnum opus, "The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way" ("Mūlamadhyamakakārikā"). In the "Mūlamadhyamakakārikā", Nagarjuna relies on reductio ad absurdum arguments to refute various theories which assume svabhava (an inherent essence or "own being"). In this work, he covers topics such as causation, motion, and the sense faculties.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Nagarjuna asserted a direct connection between, even identity of, dependent origination, non-self ("anatta"), and emptiness ("śūnyatā"). He pointed out that implicit in the early Buddhist concept of dependent origination is the lack of anatta (substantial being) underlying the participants in origination, so that they have no independent existence, a state identified as śūnyatā (i.e., emptiness of a nature or essence ("svabhāva sunyam").


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Later philosophers of the Madhyamaka school built upon Nagarjuna's analysis and defended Madhyamaka against their opponents. These included Āryadeva (3rd century CE), Nāgārjuna's pupil; Candrakīrti (600–), who wrote an important commentary on the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā; and Shantideva (8th century). Buddhapālita (470–550) has been understood as the originator of the 'prāsaṅgika' approach which is based on critiquing essentialism only through "reductio ad absurdum" arguments. He was criticized by Bhāvaviveka ( – ), who argued for the use of syllogisms "to set one's own doctrinal stance". These two approaches were later termed the Prāsaṅgika and the Svātantrika approaches to Madhyamaka by Tibetan philosophers and commentators.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Influenced by the work of Dignaga, Bhāvaviveka's Madhyamika philosophy makes use of Buddhist epistemology. Candrakīrti, on the other hand, critiqued Bhāvaviveka's adoption of the epistemological ("pramana") tradition on the grounds that it contained subtle essentialism. He quotes Nagarjuna's famous statement in the "Vigrahavyavartani" which says "I have no thesis" for his rejection of positive epistemic Madhyamaka statements. Candrakīrti held that a true Madhyamika could only use "consequence" ("prasanga"), in which one points out the inconsistencies of their opponent's position without asserting an "autonomous inference" ("svatantra"), for no such inference can be ultimately true from the point of view of Madhyamaka.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: In China, the Madhyamaka school (known as Sānlùn) was founded by Kumārajīva (344–413 CE), who translated the works of Nagarjuna to Chinese. Other Chinese Madhymakas include Kumārajīva 's pupil Sengzhao, Jizang (549–623), who wrote over 50 works on Madhyamaka, and Hyegwan, a Korean monk who brought Madhyamaka teachings to Japan.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The Yogācāra school ("Yoga practice") was a Buddhist philosophical tradition which arose in between the 2nd century CE and the 4th century CE and is associated with the philosophers Asanga and Vasubandhu and with various sutras such as the Sandhinirmocana Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra. The central feature of Yogācāra thought is the concept of "Vijñapti-mātra", often translated as "impressions only" or "appearance only" and this has been interpreted as a form of Idealism or as a form of Phenomenology. Other names for the Yogacara school are 'Vijñanavada' (the doctrine of consciousness) and 'Cittamatra' (mind-only).


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Yogacara thinkers like Vasubandhu argued against the existence of external objects by pointing out that we only ever have access to our own mental impressions, and hence our inference of the existence of external objects is based on faulty logic. Vasubandhu's "Vijnaptimatratasiddhi", or "The Proof that There Are Only Impressions" (20 verses), begins thus:"I. This [world] is nothing but impressions, since it manifests itself as an unreal object,


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Just like the case of those with cataracts seeing unreal hairs in the moon and the like."According to Vasubandhu then, all our experiences are like seeing hairs on the moon when we have cataracts, that is, we project our mental images into something "out there" when there are no such things. Vasubandhu then goes on to use the dream argument to argue that mental impressions do not require external objects to (1) seem to be spatio-temporally located, (2) to seem to have an inter-subjective quality, and (3) to seem to operate by causal laws. The fact that purely mental events can have causal efficacy and be intersubjective is proved by the event of a wet dream and by the mass or shared hallucinations created by the karma of certain types of beings.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: After having argued that impressions-only is a theory that can explain our everyday experience, Vasubandhu then appeals to parsimony - since we do not need the concept of external objects to explain reality, then we can do away with those superfluous concepts altogether as they are most likely just mentally superimposed on our concepts of reality by the mind. Inter-subjective reality for Vasubandhu is then the causal interaction between various mental streams and their karma, and does not include any external physical objects. The soteriological importance of this theory is that, by removing the concept of an external world, it also weakens the 'internal' sense of self as an observer which is supposed to be separate from the external world. To dissolve the dualism of inner and outer is also to dissolve the sense of self and other. The later Yogacara commentator Sthiramati explains this thus:"There is a grasper if there is something to be grasped, but not in the absence of what is to be grasped. Where there is nothing to be grasped, the absence of a grasper also follows, there is not just the absence of the thing to be grasped. Thus there arises the extra-mundane non-conceptual cognition that is alike without object and without cognizer."Vasubandhu also attacked the realist theories of Buddhist atomism and the Abhidharma theory of svabhava. He argued that atoms, as conceived by the atomists (un-divisible entities), would not be able to come together to form larger aggregate entities, and hence that they were illogical concepts.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Later Yogacara thinkers include Dharmapala of Nalanda, Sthiramati, Chandragomin (who debated Candrakirti), and Śīlabhadra. Yogacarins such as Paramartha and Guṇabhadra brought the school to China and translated Yogacara works there, where it is known as Wéishí-zōng or Fǎxiàng-zōng. An important contribution to East Asian Yogācāra is Xuanzang's "Cheng Weishi Lun", or "Discourse on the Establishment of Consciousness Only".


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Jñānagarbha (8th century) and his student Śāntarakṣita (725–788) brought together Yogacara, Madhyamaka and the Dignaga school of epistemology into a philosophical synthesis known as the "Yogācāra-Svatantrika-Mādhyamika". Śāntarakṣita was also instrumental in the introduction of Buddhism and the Sarvastivadin monastic ordination lineage to Tibet, which was conducted at Samye. Śāntarakṣita's disciples included Haribhadra and Kamalaśīla. This philosophical tradition is influential in Tibetan Buddhist thought.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The "tathāgathagarbha sutras", in a departure from mainstream Buddhist language, insist that the potential for awakening is inherent to every sentient being. They marked a shift from a largely apophatic (negative) philosophical trend within Buddhism to a decidedly more cataphatic (positive) modus. The main topic of this genre of literature is the "tathāgata-garbha," which can mean the womb or embryo of a Tathāgata (i.e. a Buddha). Another similar term used for this idea is "buddhadhātu" (source of the Buddhas).


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Prior to the period of these scriptures, Mahāyāna metaphysics had been dominated by teachings on emptiness in the form of Madhyamaka philosophy. The language used by this approach is primarily negative, and the "tathāgatagarbha" genre of sutras can be seen as an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings of dependent origination using positive language instead, to prevent people from being turned away from Buddhism by a false impression of nihilism.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: In these sutras, the perfection of the wisdom of not-self is stated to be the true self; the ultimate goal of the path is then characterized using a range of positive language that had been used previously in Indian philosophy by essentialist philosophers, but which was now transmuted into a new Buddhist vocabulary to describe a being who has successfully completed the Buddhist path.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The word "self" ("atman") is used in a way idiosyncratic to these sutras; the "true self" is described as the perfection of the wisdom of not-self in the "Buddha-Nature Treatise", for example. Language that had previously been used by essentialist non-Buddhist philosophers was now adopted, with new definitions, by Buddhists to promote orthodox teachings.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The "tathāgatagarbha" does not, according to some scholars, represent a substantial self; rather, it is a positive language expression of emptiness and represents the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. In this interpretation, the intention of the teaching of "tathāgatagarbha" is soteriological rather than theoretical.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The "tathāgathagarbha", the Theravāda doctrine of "bhavaṅga", and the Yogācāra store consciousness were all identified at some point with the luminous mind of the Nikāyas.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: In the Mahayana "Mahaparinirvana Sutra", the Buddha insists that while pondering upon Dharma is vital, one must then relinquish fixation on words and letters, as these are utterly divorced from liberation and the Buddha-nature.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Dignāga (–540) and Dharmakīrti (c. 6-7th century) were Buddhist philosophers who developed a system of epistemology (pramana) and logic in their debates with the Brahminical philosophers in order to defend Buddhist doctrine. This tradition is called "those who follow reasoning" (Tibetan: "rigs pa rjes su 'brang ba"); in modern literature, it is sometimes known by the Sanskrit ""pramāṇavāda"", or "the Epistemological School." They were associated with the Yogacara and Sautrantika schools, and defended theories held by both of these schools. Dignaga's influence was profound and led to an "epistemological turn" among all Buddhists and also all Sanskrit language philosophers in India after his death. In the centuries following Dignaga's work, Sanskrit philosophers became much more focused on defending all of their propositions with fully developed theories of knowledge.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The "School of Dignāga" includes later philosophers and commentators like Santabhadra, Dharmottara (8th century), Jñanasrimitra (975–1025), Ratnakīrti (11th century) and Śaṅkaranandana (fl. c. 9th or 10th century). The epistemology they developed defends the view that there are only two 'instruments of knowledge' or 'valid cognitions' ("pramana"): "perception" ("pratyaksa") and "inference" ("anumāṇa"). Perception is a non-conceptual awareness of particulars which is bound by causality, while inference is reasonable, linguistic and conceptual.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: These Buddhist philosophers argued in favor of the theory of momentariness, the Yogacara "awareness only" view, the reality of particulars ("svalakṣaṇa"), atomism, nominalism and the self-reflexive nature of consciousness ("svasaṃvedana"). They attacked Hindu theories of God (Isvara), universals, the authority of the Vedas, and the existence of a permanent soul ("atman").


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Vajrayāna (also Mantrayāna, Sacret Mantra, Tantrayāna and Esoteric Buddhism) is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition associated with a group of texts known as the Buddhist Tantras which had developed into a major force in India by the eighth century. By this time Indian Tantric scholars were developing philosophical defenses, hermeneutics and explanations of the Buddhist tantric systems, especially through commentaries on key tantras such as the "Guhyasamāja Tantra" and the "Guhyagarbha Tantra".


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: While the view of the Vajrayāna was based on Madhyamaka, Yogacara and Buddha-nature theories, it saw itself as being a faster vehicle to liberation containing many skillful methods ("upaya") of tantric ritual. The need for an explication and defense of the Tantras arose out of the unusual nature of the rituals associated with them, which included the use of secret mantras, alcohol, sexual yoga, complex visualizations of mandalas filled with wrathful deities and other practices and injunctions which were discordant with or at least novel in comparison to traditional Buddhist practice. The "Guhyasamāja Tantra", for example, states: "you should kill living beings, speak lying words, take things that are not given and have sex with many women". Other features of tantra included a focus on the physical body as the means to liberation and a reaffirmation of feminine elements, feminine deities and sexuality.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The defense of these practices is based on the theory of transformation which states that negative mental factors and physical actions can be cultivated and transformed in a ritual setting. The "Hevajra tantra" states:


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Those things by which evil men are bound, others turn into means and gain thereby release from the bonds of existence. By passion the world is bound, by passion too it is released, but by heretical Buddhists, this practice of reversals is not known.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Another hermeneutic of Buddhist Tantric commentaries such as the "Vimalaprabha" of Pundarika (a commentary on the "Kalacakra Tantra") is one of interpreting taboo or unethical statements in the Tantras as metaphorical statements about tantric practice. For example, in the "Vimalaprabha", "killing living beings" refers to stopping the prana at the top of the head. In the Tantric Candrakirti's "Pradipoddyotana", a commentary to the "Guhyasamaja Tantra", killing living beings is glossed as "making them void" by means of a "special samadhi" which according to Bus-ton is associated with completion stage tantric practice.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Douglas Duckworth notes that Vajrayāna philosophical outlook is one of embodiment, which sees the physical and cosmological body as already containing wisdom and divinity. Liberation (nirvana) and Buddhahood are not seen as something outside or an event in the future, but as imminently present and accessible right now through unique tantric practices like deity yoga, and hence Vajrayāna is also called the "resultant vehicle". Duckworth names the philosophical view of Vajrayāna as a form of pantheism, by which he means the belief that every existing entity is in some sense divine and that all things express some form of unity.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Major Indian Tantric Buddhist philosophers such as Buddhaguhya, Padmavajra (author of the "Guhyasiddhi"), Nagarjuna (7th-century disciple of Saraha), Indrabhuti (author of the "Jñānasiddhi"), Anangavajra, Dombiheruka, Durjayacandra, Ratnākaraśānti and Abhayakaragupta wrote tantric texts and commentaries systematizing the tradition.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Others such as Vajrabodhi and Śubhakarasiṃha brought Tantra to Tang China (716 to 720), and tantric philosophy continued to be developed in Chinese and Japanese by thinkers such as Yi Xing (683–727) and Kūkai (774– 835).


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: In Tibet, philosophers such as Sakya Pandita (1182-28–1251), Longchenpa (1308–1364) and Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) continued the tradition of Buddhist Tantric philosophy in Classical Tibetan.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Tibetan Buddhist philosophy is mainly a continuation and refinement of the Indian traditions of Madhyamaka, Yogacara and the Dignaga-Dharmakīrti school of epistemology or "reliable cognition" (Sanskrit: "pramana", Tib. "tshad ma"). The initial efforts of Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla brought their eclectic scholarly tradition to Tibet. Other influences include Buddhist Tantras and the Buddha nature texts.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The initial work of early Tibetan Buddhist philosophers was in the translation of classical Indian philosophical treatises and the writing of commentaries. This initial period is from the 8th to the 10th century. Early Tibetan commentator philosophers were heavily influenced by the work of Dharmakirti and these include Ngok Loden Sherab (1059-1109) and Chaba Chökyi Senge (1182-1251). Their works are now lost.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The 12th and 13th centuries saw the translation of the works of Chandrakirti, the promulgation of his views in Tibet by scholars such as Patsab Nyima Drakpa, Kanakavarman and Jayananda (12th century) and the development of the Tibetan debate between the prasangika and svatantrika views which continues to this day among Tibetan Buddhist schools. The main disagreement between these views is the use of reasoned argument. For Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla and their defenders, reason is useful in establishing arguments that lead one to a correct understanding of emptiness, then, through the use of meditation, one can reach non-conceptual gnosis that does not rely on reason. For Chandrakirti, however, this is wrong, because meditation on emptiness cannot possibly involve any object. Reason's role here is to negate any essence or essentialist views, and then eventually negate itself along with any conceptual proliferation ("prapañca").


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Another very influential figure from this early period is Mabja Jangchub Tsöndrü (d. 1185), who wrote an important commentary on Nagarjuna's "Mūlamadhyamakakārikā". Mabja was studied under the Dharmakirtian Chaba and also the Candrakirti scholar Patsab. His work shows an attempt to steer a middle course between their views, he affirms the conventional usefulness of Buddhist pramāṇa, but also accepts Candrakirti's prasangika views. Mabja's Madhyamaka scholarship was very influential on later Tibetan Madhyamikas such as Longchenpa, Tsongkhapa, Gorampa, and Mikyö Dorje.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: There are various Tibetan Buddhist schools or monastic orders. According to Georges B.J. Dreyfus, within Tibetan thought, the Sakya school holds a mostly anti-realist philosophical position (which sees "saṁvṛtisatya" / conventional truth as an illusion), while the Gelug school tends to defend a form of realism (which accepts that conventional truth is in some sense real and true, yet dependently originated). The Kagyu and Nyingma schools also tend to follow Sakya anti-realism (with some differences).


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: The 14th century saw increasing interest in the Buddha nature texts and doctrines. This can be seen in the work of the third Kagyu Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339), especially his treatise ""Profound Inner Meaning"". This treatise describes ultimate nature or suchness as Buddha nature which is the basis for nirvana and samsara, radiant in nature and empty in essence, surpassing thought.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Dolpopa ("Dol-bo-ba", 1292–1361), founder of the Jonang school, developed a view called shentong (Wylie: gzhan , 'other empty'), which is closely tied to Yogacara and Buddha-nature theories. This view holds that the qualities of Buddhahood or Buddha nature are already present in the mind, and that it is empty of all conventional reality which occludes its own nature as Buddhahood or Dharmakaya. According to Dolpopa, all beings are said to have Buddha nature, which is real, unchanging, permanent, non-conditioned, eternal, blissful and compassionate. Dolpopa's shentong view taught that ultimate reality was truly a "Great Self" or "Supreme Self" referring to works such as the "Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra", the "Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra" and the "Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra." This view had an influence on philosophers of other schools, such as Nyingma and Kagyu thinkers, and was also widely criticized in some circles as being similar to the Hindu notions of Atman. The Shentong philosophy was also expounded in Tibet and Mongolia by the later Jonang scholar Tāranātha (1575–1634).


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: In the late 17th century, the Jonang order and its teachings came under attack by the 5th Dalai Lama, who converted the majority of their monasteries in Tibet to the Gelug order, although several survived in secret.


title: Buddhist philosophy

text: Je Tsongkhapa (Dzong-ka-ba) (1357–1419) founded the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, which came to dominate the country through the office of the Dalai Lama and is the major defender of the Prasaṅgika Madhyamaka view. His work is influenced by the philosophy of Candrakirti and Dharmakirti. Tsongkhapa's magnum opus is "The Ocean of Reasoning", a Commentary on Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika. Gelug philosophy is based upon the study of Madhyamaka texts and Tsongkhapa's works as well as formal debate (rtsod pa).