From Effable to Ineffable: Debate over the Self-Contradiction of “Supportlessness (Nirālambanatā)” between Yogācāra and Kumārila

This paper examines the debate over supportlessness (nirālambanatā) of cognition between Yogācāra and Kumārila. Yogācāra proposes this doctrine to express its distinctive theory of mind-only (cittamātra) from an epistemological perspective. It holds that no extramental objects exist for any states of cognition, which has aroused controversy since its transmission. One of the early opponents is Kumārila, a famous Mīmāṃsā philosopher, who provides extensive arguments against supportlessness in the Nirālambanavāda Chapter of his Ślokavārttika. As Taber (1994, 34) concludes, Kumārila primarily argues that the thesis of supportlessness undermines itself because its proof is either non-extramental, thus not objective, or extramental, thus contradicting its thesis. Through conceptual and textual analysis based on Yogācāra treatises, with particular focus on the soteriological perspective, this paper finds that Yogācāra’s thesis of supportlessness does not undermine itself, insofar as it is a pedagogical expression, and that it instrumentally serves to counter conceptualization through names.