The Buddhist pramāṇa theory having been founded by Dignāga was developed by his successors commencing with Dharmakīrti. It is commonly accepted that Dharmottara innovated the theory by introducing the division of the object of pramāṇa into the grasped (grāhya) and the judged (adhyavaseya). However, the purpose of his introduction and the historical development of the concepts of grāhya and adhyavaseya have not been fully elucidated. This paper clarifies the following. Dharmottara introduced the concepts in order to integrate Dignāga’s theory and Dharmakīrti’s on the object of pramāṇa. For Dharmottara the judged of both perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna) is a particular (svalakṣaṇa) that is continuous (santāna), whereas for Jñānaśrīmitra the judged of perception is a universal (sāmānyalakṣaṇa) and that of inference is a particular. Jñānaśrīmitra’s view is inherited by Ratnakīrti and Mokṣākaragupta. The conflict between Dharmottara and Jñānaśrīmitra is seen not only concerning the judged of perception but also concerning the grasped of inference. For Dharmottara the universal that is the grasped of inference belongs to the third domain, neither internal nor external, whereas for Jñ ̄anaśr ̄ımitra, who rejects the domain, it belongs to the internal domain.
