Refutation Without Vitaṇḍā: Dialectical Burdens in the Fangbian Xin Lun (*Upāyahṛdaya)

The Fangbian Xin Lun 方便心論 (*Upāyahṛdaya, T 1632), rendered into Chinese in 472, is the earliest extant Buddhist manual of debate. Because it trains its reader chiefly to object, it is readily read as instruction in refutation alone. This paper argues that the treatise instead distributes distinct burdens and entitlements between proponent and objector. Four features show this. Its epistemology ranks perception above scripture. Its objector advances a positive thesis, though only after the opponent’s alternative has failed. Its catalogue of defeat penalizes failures of understanding as well as failures of speaking. And its procedural rules bind both parties, denying a debater who has himself erred the standing to press his opponent’s error. The argument-forms it licenses as proper responses (相應), the Nyāyasūtra classifies as erroneous objections (jāti). What separates the two texts is not a repertoire but an allocation of burdens.