Taking the Enemy as Medicine: Dialectic and Therapy in the Work of Two Early Indian Doxographers

Abstract

This article discusses the function of dialectic in religious history, focusing on the works of two major sixth century Indian intellectuals and doxographers Bhāviveka and Haribhadra Sūri, who belonged to the competing Madhyamaka Buddhist and Jaina traditions respectively. The article studies how these two figures used medical metaphors for their dialectic purposes.