Taking as its starting point the essay “Summary of the Refutation of God” of Śaṅkaranandana (940/50-1020/30 in Kashmir), this habilitations thesis sets out the development of the polemic debate between the Buddhist epistemological school and the theistic Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika school from its initial stages, as observed in the works of Dharmakīrti (ca. 600-660). For this purpose the relevant passages from Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika (PV 2.8-16) and Pramāṇaviniscaya (PVin 3.70-75), together with the commentaries by Devendrabuddhi, Śākyabuddhi, Dharmottara and Manorathanandin, are presented in a critical edition with an annotated translation. This (critical and facsimile) edition and the interpretation of the ĪAS make a work by Śaṅkaranandana accessible for the first time. The edition is supplemented by an incomplete anonymous commentary that deals with about half of the ĪAS. An introductory study discusses and explains Dharmakīrti’s arguments against the existence of God, emphasized in the polemics of the following centuries, as well as relevant material from the works of Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla and Prajñākaragupta. Another focus of this study is the theistic tradition’s rejection of Buddhist criticism. Here, the corresponding counterarguments of Śaṅkarasvāmin, Trilocana, Vācaspatimiśra, Jayantabhaṭṭa, Bhāsarvajña and Vittoka that determine the polemic debate are depicted on the basis of a systematic presentation of selected passages. The study is rounded off with a philosophical-historical classification of Śaṅkaranandana’s ĪAS with respect to the arguments of the aforementioned scholars and in the light of Utpaladeva’s treatise “Proof of the Existence of God” (Īśvarasiddhi).
