The purpose of this essay is to outline a few characteristics of Buddhist epistemology. The aim of Bddhist epistemolgy, and Buddhism in general, is to eliminate suffering. The main cause of suffering is "ignorance," and suffering is elimated through wisdom. Both wisdom and ignorance are importance categories of this epistemology. Buddhist epistemology transcends epistemology itself because it has no object. The process of knowing constitutes the being of the object. It is therefore, not the knowledge of ojbect but the self-revelation of the object. The only object is the Buddha nature which is in the heart of individual human being. If the individual is enlightened, the Buddha. nature manifests itself. As all is nothingness, there is not subject/object dichotomy in Buddhist epistemology because of this absence of real object. What is real is the Buddha nature and the Buddha nature is the subject itself. Buddhist epistemology and ontology are all but one. As knowledge constitutes the noumena, Buddhist epistemology belongs to the realm of pure consciousness, i. e. "the eighth seed of consciousness" or the "storehouse consciousness". Consequently, the problem of Buddhist epistemology is one of "pure consciousness". If there exists any contamination, seminal consciousness has to be transformed into wisdom.
