Ratnakīrti

"[4] Ratnakīrti's "Refutation of Other mindstreams" (Santānāntaradūṣaṇa) argued that knowledge of external streams of consciousness (citta-santāna) is a form of inference (anumāna) and not direct perception (pratyakṣa).

This kind of thought-tagging cannot just boil down to belonging to a specific set of mental events forming a maximally connected series, the standard Buddhist reductionist account of a person.

But such branding of thoughts in terms of irreducibly distinct persons that have them is of course not possible within the Buddhist conception of the mind.

Ratnakīrti's theory sees no logical foundation for individuating mindstreams, and so there are no boundaries between minds from the perspective of ultimate truth.

[8] Since this non-duality of mind only applies at the level of ultimate truth, Ratnakīrti does not think this invalidates the Mahayana path which is based on compassion for all beings (who do exist at the level of conventional truth as impermanent phenomena).

[9] Ratnakīrti elaborates his concept of ultimate reality further in his “Debating Multifaceted Nonduality” (Citrādvaitaprakāśavāda).

[10] According to Ratnakīrti's Citrādvaitaprakāśavāda, whatever is manifest to awareness is one single (eka), nondual (advaita) image.

[11] Thus, for Ratnakīrti, at the level of ultimate truth, there is nothing but a single multifaceted image which also includes self-awareness (svasamvedana).

[11][5] All other objects that are not this non-dual self-aware manifestation (such as persons, universals, concepts, the external world etc) can only be conventionally real (samvrti).

[13] Ratnakīrti's "Refutation of Arguments Establishing Īśvara" (Īśvarasādhanadūṣaṇa) argued against the Hindu concept of a creator God.

The text begins with an explanation of the Nyāya belief system, followed by a criticism of inferences that establish an intelligent creator.