Sautrāntika

Sautrāntika was an early Buddhist philosophical school that privileged the sutras and held that external objects are known through mental representations.

Buddhist epistemology: The study of knowledge, perception, and reliable cognition within Buddhist philosophy. Sautrāntika arguments about mental representations became a major strand of Buddhist theories of knowledge.
Representationalism: The view that cognition presents objects through internal mental representations. Sautrāntika holds that perception presents a mental representation caused by an external object.
Vaibhāṣika: A Sarvāstivāda Buddhist school associated with the Kashmir Abhidharma tradition. Vaibhāṣika held that external objects are directly perceived, unlike Sautrāntika representationalism.
Sūtra: A Buddhist discourse presented as a teaching of the Buddha or an authoritative record of one. The school’s name reflects its preference for sutras over certain Abhidharma authorities.
Abhidharma: Systematic Buddhist analysis of experience, mental events, and the constituents of existence. Sautrāntika developed amid debates over Abhidharma analysis and scriptural authority.
Bāhyārthasiddhikārikā: A short Buddhist treatise by Dharmakīrti arguing for the existence of external objects. It develops an argument for external objects from Sautrāntika representational premises.
Yogācāra: A Buddhist philosophical tradition that analyzes cognition and is often associated with idealism. Yogācāra challenges the external-world realism defended by Sautrāntika thinkers.
Abhidharmakośabhāṣya: Vasubandhu’s commentary on the Abhidharmakośa, a major source for Buddhist doctrinal debate. Its critiques and explanations are central sources for reconstructing Sautrāntika positions.
Momentariness: The Buddhist doctrine that conditioned phenomena arise and perish in successive moments. Sautrāntika used momentary causal events to explain how objects are known.
Svalakṣaṇa: A uniquely particular, momentary entity contrasted with conceptual generalities in Buddhist philosophy. Sautrāntika treats real particulars as causal sources of perceptual representations.

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