Indian Buddhist philosopher and logician. He asserted that inference and direct perception are the only valid kinds of knowledge and that, in the processes of the mind, cognition and the cognized belong to distinct moments. According to him, the object of inference, either analytical or synthetic, is the universal (sāmānyalakṣaṇa) and the object of perception—which may be perceived by the five senses, by the mind, by self-consciousness, or by the practice of Yoga—is the pure particular (svalakṣaṇa).

Dharmakīrti claimed that every person is a transitory being and, in his turn, assumes the continuous existence of an individual. The individual is a continuation of moments, compiled by imaginative and discriminative thinking.