Dharmakīrti wrote the Pramāṇavārttika, an extended verse commentary on Dignāga's epistemology that became the central text of the Buddhist logico-epistemological tradition. He gave rigorous formulations of inference and perception, argued that only momentary particulars have causal efficacy and are therefore ultimately real, and defended the Buddhist denial of a persisting self through this framework.
Intellectual setting
Dharmakīrti wrote as the Buddhist epistemological (pramāṇa) tradition founded by Dignāga was being contested by Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā realists over the reality of universals and the reliability of the senses, and his systematic commentary set the terms of this debate for centuries of subsequent Buddhist, Nyāya, and Jain philosophy across South and Central Asia.
Key ideas
Momentariness (kṣaṇikatva)
Dharmakīrti argued that whatever is real must have causal efficacy (arthakriyā), and that anything with causal efficacy must be changing, so that all existing things are momentary rather than persisting substances—an argument used to support the Buddhist denial of a permanent self.
Apoha and the exclusion theory of concepts
Developing Dignāga's apoha theory, Dharmakīrti held that general concepts and words do not refer to real universals but function by excluding a particular from what it is not, allowing conceptual thought to organize unique particulars without positing shared universal properties.
Legacy
The Pramāṇavārttika became the foundational text of Buddhist logic and epistemology in Tibet, where it remains central to monastic philosophical curricula, and Dharmakīrti's arguments continue to be studied in comparative epistemology and philosophy of language.