Conceptual Metaphor Theory, an approach to human thought and language that began with the work of Lakoff and Johnson, claims that metaphor is not merely a linguistic phenomenon, but is implicated in structuring human thought. On this view, that people use words like "attack" and "defend" to describe argumentative moves demonstrates that they think of argument as a kind of war. This is opposed to the view that some words like "attack" are polysemous, sometimes meaning to engage in physical warfare (...) and sometimes meaning to argue against a position. One implication of CMT is that nearly all human concepts are understood metaphorically, so that reasoning about argumentation turns out to involve concepts of... (shrink)

The complexity and fluidity of emotions in the epic of Mahābhārata present before us an interesting case for delving into the phenomenology of emotions. In the rationalist tradition of Kant, emotions are considered as an impediment to moral discernment. The rationalist account of emotions considers it as an animal instinct which needs to be controlled through the exercise of Reason. The paper problematizes the rationalist interpretation of emotions mainly on two counts. First, it ignores the evaluative content of the emotions (...) and considers it as a non-cognitive element. Second, it also overlooks the productive role of various emotions like guilt, shame, remorse in moral deliberation. The paper critically analyzes the episode of Yudhiṣṭhira’s grief in Śānti Parva and argues that the grief of Yudhiṣṭhira cannot be explained as personal loss. Rather, Yudhiṣṭhira’s grief should be understood as a case of moral conflict where a moral agent finds it difficult to justify his moral choices. Yudhiṣṭhira’s analysis of the futility of war and the condemnation of violence should be understood as the evaluative perspective offered by his emotions. The phenomenological analysis of Yudhiṣṭhira’s grief allows us to understand the significance of emotions in constituting the moral perspective on any conflicting situation. Hence, emotions cannot be relegated to the domain of irrationality rather they become the site where the truth unveils itself. (shrink)

Rāmānujācārya’s Tantrarahasya, a philosophical treatise mainly dedicated to the hermeneutics and epistemology of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā School, might be considered hardly more than a jigsaw of reused passages, since one third of it has a direct source, and a further third has its roots in interlanguage usage. It is thus a perfect case study for investigating the compositional habits of philosophical authors in pre-modern śāstra literature. The article analyses the formal aspects of textual reuse by Rāmānujācārya and draws some general (...) conclusions regarding the author’s intellectual affiliation to Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā on the basis of the way he reuses his school’s texts as compared to the reuse of other schools’ texts. A final section discusses the possibility of generalising these results to the approach to textual reuse of the whole Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. (shrink)

The Mīmāṃsāka doctrine of "svatah prāmānya" has seldom been given the serious philosophical attention it deserves. This doctrine in fact grows out of a sophisticated critique of epistemological foundationalism. This critique, as well as the larger project that it serves, has striking similarities with the philosophical project advanced in William Alston's "Perceiving God". A comparison of the two helps to highlight the strengths and the problems of both projects, and shows, perhaps more importantly, that the Mīmāṃsāka doctrine is in fact (...) still relevant, as it resembles one of the more interesting positions currently in play in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In Indian philosophy, Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsakas and Advaita Vedāntins recognize abhāva or anupalabdhi (non-apprehension) as an independent source of knowledge; but no other school of Indian philosophy agrees with them on this issue, and for that reason, arguments have been given by the latter schools for rejecting anupalabdhi as an independent means of knowledge. In this paper, I am going to evaluate only those arguments which have been given by the Vaiśeṣika thinkers, who admit only two pramāṇa-s, viz. pratyakṣa and anumāna, (...) and reject anupalabdhi as an independent pramāṇa. There have been many scholarly studies dealing with the arguments against the reduction of non-apprehension to some other source of knowledge that have been offered by the Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā and Advaita Vedānta, but there is hardly any full-length work that deals with the Vaiśeṣika’s reduction of non-apprehension to some other source of knowledge. In the present paper, an attempt has been made at providing a clear and specific account of the same. (shrink)

In _Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief_, Dan Arnold examines how the Brahmanical tradition of Purva Mimamsa and the writings of the seventh-century Buddhist Madhyamika philosopher Candrakirti challenged dominant Indian Buddhist views of epistemology. Arnold retrieves these two very different but equally important voices of philosophical dissent, showing them to have developed highly sophisticated and cogent critiques of influential Buddhist epistemologists such as Dignaga and Dharmakirti. His analysis--developed in conversation with modern Western philosophers like William Alston and J. L. Austin--offers an innovative (...) reinterpretation of the Indian philosophical tradition, while suggesting that pre-modern Indian thinkers have much to contribute to contemporary philosophical debates. In logically distinct ways, Purva Mimamsa and Candrakirti's Madhyamaka opposed the influential Buddhist school of thought that emphasized the foundational character of perception. Arnold argues that Mimamsaka arguments concerning the "intrinsic validity" of the earliest Vedic scriptures are best understood as a critique of the tradition of Buddhist philosophy stemming from Dignaga. Though often dismissed as antithetical to "real philosophy," Mimamsaka thought has affinities with the reformed epistemology that has recently influenced contemporary philosophy of religion. Candrakirti's arguments, in contrast, amount to a principled refusal of epistemology. Arnold contends that Candrakirti marshals against Buddhist foundationalism an approach that resembles twentieth-century ordinary language philosophy--and does so by employing what are finally best understood as transcendental arguments. The conclusion that Candrakirti's arguments thus support a metaphysical claim represents a bold new understanding of Madhyamaka. (shrink)

This article is an attempt at understanding the use that Abhinavagupta, the Kashmiri Śaiva philosopher and scholar of poetics, makes of a few concepts and theories stemming from the tradition of Vedic ritual exegesis. Its starting point is the detailed analysis of a key passage in Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the “aphorism on rasa” of the Nāṭyaśāstra, where the learned commentator draws an analogy between the operation of the non-prescriptive portions of the Veda in the ritual and the “generalisation” taking place, (...) according to him, in the appreciation of a work of art. Arguing against the tendency of modern historiography to explain this analogy exclusively in terms of Kumārila’s theory of effectuation in its two modalities, the article endeavours to show how Abhinavagupta relies on a variety of other textual sources he knew extensively and presumably first-hand. Some of them belong to the great Mīmāṃsaka tradition ; others, to different trends of medieval Brahmanism claiming exegetical heritage, as in the case of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāyamañjarī The nature of Abhinavagupta’s debt to Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka and his concept of bhāvanā is also reconsidered in light of these new findings. This investigation finally leads to identify, in the Abhinavabhāratī, an original theory of scriptural narratives and their efficacy, irreducible to any of its exegetical sources. According to this theory, mythological passages of the Veda directly prompt action, through the same capacity of abstraction or “de-temporalisation” that is at work in our appraisal of literature and theatre. (shrink)

In the present paper we model the Navya-Nyāya analysis of Vedic and secular injunctions and prohibitions by means of Giordani’s and Canavotto’s system ADL of dynamic deontic logic. Navya-Naiyāyikas analyze the meaning of injunctions and prohibitions by reducing them to plain indicative statements about certain properties whose presence or absence in the enjoined or prohibited action serves as a criterion for the truth or falsity of the “inducing” or “restraining knowledge”, a kind of qualificative cognition instilled in the recipient of (...) an injunction or prohibition. Thus, Navya-Naiyāyikas have found their own way to solve Jørgensen’s Puzzle concerning the very idea of a deontic logic as a tool to analyze arguments based on sentences which do not seem to be truth-apt. The teleological aspect of the Navya-Nyāya characterization of an enjoined or prohibited action can also give a clue to solutions of other puzzles and paradoxes which have beset the development of deontic logic in the West. A specific contrary-to-duty puzzle from the Indian tradition is related to the śyena, a malefic sacrifice meant for harming one’s enemy. The Vedic injunction to perform such a sacrifice runs counter to a religious practitioner’s duty not to harm a living being. In the present paper we examine the cogency of the very different solutions to this dilemma suggested by the Mīmāṃsaka Prabhākara on the one hand and the Navya-Naiyāyika Gaṅgeśa on the other hand. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn my response to Ganeri's [2018] paper, I take Buddhagosha's deflationary account of episodic memory one step further through the analysis of the Madhyamaka philosopher Candrakīrti who, like Buddhagosha, explicitly defends episodic memory as a recollection of the objects experienced in the past, rather than subjective experience. However, unlike Buddhagosha, Candrakīrti deflates episodic memory by showing the incoherence of the Sautrāntika-Yogācāra's thesis that episodic memory requires the admission of reflexive awareness. Also unlike Buddhagosha, Candrakīrti shows the incoherence of the Mimāṁsāka-Naiyāyika's (...) self-implication requirement thesis, therefore directly countering Tulving's challenge to the Buddhist philosophers, by arguing that episodic memory is capable of mental time travel without any reference to the operation of enduring self. I will thus suggest that Candrakīrti may have even greater success in deflating the self-implication requirement of episodic memory. (shrink)

The two theories of verbal cognition, namely abhihitānvaya and anvitābhidhāna, first put forth by the Bhāṭṭa and Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas respectively in the second half of the first millennium C.E., can be considered as being foundational as all subsequent thinkers of the Sanskritic intellectual tradition engaged with and elaborated upon these while debating the nature of language and meaning. In this paper, I focus on the first chapter of Śālikanātha’s Vākyārthamātṛkā and outline the process of anvitābhidhāna described therein. Śālikanātha explains this (...) as comprising three steps, and thereafter discusses each of these three to elaborate upon and philosophically defend this conception of how one cognizes sentential meaning. The aim of this paper is to present Śālikanātha’s three-step model, and thus demonstrate especially the distinct conception of abhidhāna for the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas as complex and chronologically extended as contrasted with the Bhāṭṭa conception of abhidhāna as non-complex and instantaneous. Such an understanding of the disparate semantic contents with which the Bhāṭṭas and Prābhākaras use the identical term abhidhāna is crucial for any correct study of their respective doctrines. (shrink)

The phenomenon of recognition is a point of contention in the debate between the orthodox Hindus and Buddhists on whether the self exists. The Hindus, including Naiyāyikas and Mīmāṃsakas, argue that recognition evidences the existence of the self, while Buddhist philosopher Śāntarakṣita maintains that there is no self and recognition should be explained in another way. This article examined two disputes, focusing on the two subsidiary aspects of a recognition: memory and self-recognition. For Hindus, it is the existence of the (...) self that makes memory and self-recognition possible. For Buddhists, it is due to the phenomena of memories and self-recognitions that people postulate the existence of the self. I argue that Buddhist explanation of memory is more acceptable, while their debates on self-recognition should be considered as a tie. (shrink)

Among the means of valid cognition, the one which appears first in every enumeration, which was considered as being the basis of all other means of knowledge and which was considered as a legitimate method of knowledge by all schools of Indian thought is perception (pratyakṣa). With regard to perception, we can naturally expect such questions as ‘what is it to perceive’ or ‘what do we mean when we say that something is perceived’. It is generally believed that the philosophical (...) theories of perceptions are really theories about what we mean by ordinary perceptual statements. In considering our knowledge about the external world, the philosopher tends to consider the way in which perception can and does provide us with the knowledge and the nature, extent and certainty of knowledge it provides us with. It is a well acknowledged fact that perception is the fundamental source of knowledge. In Buddhist epistemology, a systematic discussion on perception is found in the writings of Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya with vṛitti, who belongs to Yogācāra school of Buddhism of Mahayana tradition. An attempt has been made in this paper to explain and examine critically the first chapter of Pramāṇasamuccaya with vṛitti, i.e., perception with special reference to Non-Buddhist schools, namely Nyāyayikas, Vaiśeṣikas, Sāṁkhyans and Mīmāṁsakas. To explain it, the paper has been divided into three sections. Section I deals with Dignāga’s theory of perception and examination of non-Buddhist school's theory of perception, section II deals with Dignāga’s examination of nature of Perception with reference to non-Buddhists schools and section III deals with conclusion. (shrink)

The vexed issue of the precise connection between words and things has been a major preoccupation over the centuries summoning the resources of metaphysics, philosophy of language, linguistics, ontology and increasingly semiological analysis. Philosophy in India produced a number of different and often conflicting solutions, only to be rivalled by an equally bewildering variety witnessed in the ancient and modern West. I want to bring to the foreground the late Professor Bimal K. Matilal’s development of Nyaya-Vaisesika realist approach to the (...) aporia, and interject the analysis with dissident voices, especially of Mimamsakas and Buddhists. Significantly, it will be the living ghosts of Putnam and Dummett that I will invoke to haunt Matilal’s variation on metaphysical realism. Matilal veered closer to a realist metaphysic, which is inflected in his own formulation of a theory of language appropriate to this ontology, this despite his idealized attraction to phenomenalist-constructivism ; his flirtations with Bhartrharian holism and lately with Derridean deconstruction in his epiloquia. But my critique focuses on his famous earlier analysis of Jnana or cognition and his defence of a particular linguistic-ontology within a narrowly circumscribed naturalized epistemology. (shrink)

This essay asks what the terms mokṣa and dharma mean in the anomalous and apparently Mahābhārata-coined compound mokṣadharma, which provides the title for the Śāntiparvan’s third and most philosophical anthology; and it further asks what that title itself means. Its route to answering those questions is to look at the last four units of the Mokṣadharmaparvan and their three topics—the story of Śuka, the Nārāyaṇīya, and a gleaner’s subtale—as marking an “artful curvature” that shapes the outcome of King Yudhiṣṭhira’s philosophical (...) inquiries of Bhīṣma into a ”return” to this world to take up the topic of the fourth anthology, a King’s generous giving, in the Anuśāsanaparvan’sDānadharmaparvan. Usages of the term mokṣa in the narratives in these units are considered in the light of The Laws of Manu’s usage of mokṣa to define the “renunciatory asceticism of a wandering mendicant” after the fulfillment of one’s debts. Usages of mokṣadharma are discussed in conjunction with its overlapping term nivṛittidharma. With the term dharma itself, it is a matter of finding the best contextual translation. A pitch is made that these four units, and particularly the Nārāyaṇīya, should no longer be thought of as “late” additions. (shrink)

How is it possible to say that truth can be of one kind at the conventional level and totally different in the ultimate plane? As Matilal ( 1971 , p. 154) points out, Kumārila (ca. 600–650), a Mīmāṃsaka philosopher, claims that the Buddhist doctrine of two truths is “a kind of philosophical ‘double-talk’.” It is Prajñākaragupta (ca. 750–810), a Buddhist logician, who tries to give a direct answer to this question posed by Kumārila from the Buddhist side. He argues that (...) even a Mīmāṃsaka cannot demonstrate the validity ( prāmāṇya ) of the Veda without accepting two truth levels. His point is this. Consider the proposition to be proved: the Veda is valid. If the Veda is already known as valid, then it is useless to prove this proposition. But if it is already known as invalid, then it is impossible to prove this proposition. Therefore in the argument to prove the proposition, the Veda is not to be regarded either as valid or as invalid. This means that at the first stage of the argument one has the concept of the Veda as neutral in validity. However, as soon as one acquires the knowledge of the Veda as valid through the argument, one has to repudiate such a conception of the Veda. The acceptance of the Veda as neutral in validity is to the acceptance of the Veda as valid as the conventional truth is to the ultimate truth. (shrink)

The character of Lord Kṛṣṇa has long confounded students of the Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata. In addition to the problem of his divinity, many have questioned the nature of Kṛṣṇa’s ethical standpoint, some presenting him as a being who transcends questions of right and wrong, others depicting him as unconcerned with the ethical limitations of human beings. This paper explores these issues through a close examination of Kṛṣṇa’s first significant dialogue with Yudhiṣṭḥira in the epic, in which he seeks to (...) convince Yudhiṣṭhira to slay the autocrat of Magadha, Jarāsaṃdha. It is argued that, through this dialogue, Kṛṣṇa reveals himself to be neither ethically transcendent nor amoral; rather, he is deeply committed to a traditional system of ethics according to which defense of one’s kin group is the highest value and justifies all action. (shrink)

This paper mainly addresses the following issues: how Buddhists deal with future existence, the difference between yogic perception and the cognition of ordinary people with regard to future entities, and how Buddhists resolve the contradiction between the theory of momentariness and that of action and its fruit. According to the Sarvāstivādins, a future entity exists in reality as long as there is cognition that has this entity as its object. According to the Sautrāntikas, however, that theory does not hold true. (...) A future entity is just what will occur hereafter, and it is never the case that such an entity exists at present. Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla do not directly negate an opponent’s argument that the distinction between past and future entities is made by yogic perception, but implicitly accept it. They state that because a future entity is situated in a causal stream, yogis can cognize it through purified worldly cognition. As for an effect that will occur in the future, Buddhists do not seem to follow the model that one and the same agent of action will necessarily receive the fruit of past action, which is often seen in other schools such as the Naiyāyikas and Mīmāṃsakas. Rather, Buddhists adopt the theory of the uninterrupted succession of cause and effect. (shrink)

The paper offers a close examination of the Mahābhārata’s adhyāya 5,70, one of the more interesting and representative chapters to analyse Yudhiṣṭhira’s attitude on the dharma of the king and warfare. In this long chapter addressing Kṛṣṇa, the king deprived of his kingdom presents two different attitudes. On one hand, he states that even though peaceful conflict resolution would be the best to regain the kingdom, the war must be accepted if it is inevitable. On the other hand, he expresses (...) his disapproval of war as evil in any form. Yudhiṣṭhira’s ambivalent utterance is analysed against the background of early Buddhist ethics, totally condemning war, and other passages from the Mahābhārata, especially those glorifying the dharma of kṣatriyas. (shrink)

The article concerns a mediaeval Indian debate over whether, and if so how, we can know that a self exists, understood here as a subject of cognition that outlives individual cognitions, being their common substrate. A passage that has not yet been translated from Sanskrit into a European language, from Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāyamañjarī, ‘Blossoms of Reasoning’, is examined. This rich passage reveals something not yet noted in secondary literature, namely that Mīmāṃsakas advanced four different models of what happens when the (...) self perceives itself. The article clarifies the differences between the four, and the historical and logical relationships between them. It also hypothesizes pressures that constituted the need for the creation of the newer views, i.e. perceived problems with the earlier views, which the proponents of the newer views saw themselves as overcoming. (shrink)

Bhāvanā, “bringing into being,” is one of Mīmāṃsā’s hallmark concepts. It connects text and action in a single structure of meaning. This conjunction was crucially important to Mīmāṃsā’s own interpretive enterprise, and functioned— controversially but influentially—in a broader theory of language. The goal of this paper is to outline bhāvanā’s major contours as it is developed by Kumārilabhaṭṭa and some his followers (Maṇḍanamiśra, Pārthasārathimiśra, Someśvarabhaṭṭa, Khaṇḍadeva, and Āpadeva) and to examine some of the arguments they marshaled in support of it. (...) Bhāvanā is shown to open up, for these Mīmāṃsakas, an understanding of the “deep structure” of Vedic injunctions and the vocabulary for systematically representing it; it accounts for both what people do when they perform an action that is enjoined (ārthī bhāvanā) and what the injunction itself does when it motivates people to performance (śābdī bhāvanā). Bhāvanā has resonances with, and relevance to, contemporary discussions of the nexus of language, understanding, and action, and its value as a carefully-elaborated concept of hermeneutical significance should not be overlooked. (shrink)

The present article examines two narratives from the epic Mahābhārata (MBh), focused on the topic of desire (kāma) and the relationship erotic – ascetic (kāma – tapas). The first one is about the horned ascetic Ṛṣyaśṛṅga (MBh, 3); the second – about the teaching of God Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva to the king Yudhiṣṭhira, culminating in the “Song of Kāma” (MBh, 14). Both narratives are interpreted in the perspective of Hindu ethics, whose foundation is dharma, a key concept of Hinduism. The epics (...) propagate an ideal dharmic code of conduct, based on the so-called four life goals – puruṣārtha. One of these four life goals is kāma – the realm of desires, emotions and sensual pleasures. The present analysis aimed at introducing how, by activating the didactic- pedagogical and receptive potential of storytelling, are communicated fundamental behavioural norms and principles regarding the “correct” realization of the individual in the sphere of desires, which means not to kill/annihilate the desires, but to learn to grasp and manage them. (shrink)

This essay argues that whereas Mīmāṃsaka commentator Uṃvekabhaṭṭa puts forth an externalist interpretation of svataḥ prāmāṇya, the later interpretation thereof due to Pārthasārathimiśra is distinctly internalist in flavor. Specifically, it is argued that Pārthasārathimiśra's position can most aptly be construed as a form of phenomenal conservatism à la Michael Huemer, and thus that it is consistent with a form of internalism called Appearance Internalism.

Recent studies of Nyäya’s account of testimony have illustrated its anticipation of contemporary testimonial antireductionism, the position that testimony cannot be reduced to a more fundamental means of knowledge like inference or perception. This paper discusses another relevant but less discussed anticipation of current debate, involving the status of speaker belief in testimonial exchange. Is a speaker’s veridical apprehension of the content of his utterance a necessary condition on testimonial exchange? This was a source of much disputation among Indian epistemologists, (...) particularly Naiyäyikas (adherents of the Nyäya, or “Logic” school) and Mimamsakas(adherents of the Mimamsa, or “Exegete” school). (shrink)

The practice of rational debate between philosophers from different traditions, especially between Hindu—Naiyāyika and Mīmāṃsaka—, Buddhist and Jain philosophers, is unique in classical India. Around the 7th c., a pan-Indian consensus was achieved on what counts as a satisfactory justification. The core of such discussions is an inferential reasoning whose structure is such that it ensures that its conclusions are recognised as knowledge statements, irrespective of the obedience of the interlocutor. In this line, stories of conversion following those philosophical debates (...) are commonplace in the narratives of the different traditions and regularly involve the conversion of a royal patron. Beside the influence of argumentative practices on social and political changes, theories of argumentation have deeply influenced the whole edifice of philosophy in pre modern India, since no philosopher can claim a thesis without being committed to defend it in this highly regulated dialogical framework. Moreover, the characterisation, as well as the methods to test the validity of this justification, raised the question of the existence of shared principles and was a battlefield for the different traditions to establish their own conceptions on the constitution of the world and on our ability to know it. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the contribution of the minority tradition that is Jainism to the framework of philosophical disputation in India. (shrink)

The epistemology of śabda is one of the main themes in Bhaṭṭa Jayanta’s Nyāyamañjarī, and, in the hypotheses explored in this paper, also the conceptual basis of Jayanta’s textual re-use. The sixth chapter of the Nyāyamañjarī contains a debate between Vaiyākaraṇas and Mīmāṃsakas who, respectively, advocated an holistic or atomistic theory of language. Selected Jayanta’s re-uses from Vyākaraṇa, Mīmāṃsā, and Nyāya sources are here surveyed and analyzed, with a focus on their meaning and on the context. The method of analysis (...) is partially following Moravcsik’s scheme for a classification of citations, as well as Small’s classification by symbolic functions. By re-using texts Jayanta not only imparted authority to his own arguments, but also reassessed the relation of his tradition with other ones. Re-used ideas and words stand for symbols of those authors’ tenets, and those authors represent symbols of their respective traditions. Moreover, by quoting a certain author Jayanta often anointed him with a symbolic status of trustworthy authority, and his statement with a status of śabdapramāṇa. (shrink)

The role of memory in one’s cognition of sentential meaning is a pivotal topic in Indian philosophical debates on the nature of language. The Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsakas claim in their doctrine of abhihitānvaya that words denote word-meanings which in turn lead one to sentential meaning, with memory playing only a limited role in this process. The Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas however assign memory a central role and assert that each word in a sentence denotes the connected sentential meaning. This paper is a philosophical (...) and philological study of the arguments presented by the influential Prābhākara thinker Śālikanātha in his Vākyārthamātṛkā-I in order to substantiate the role of memory as part of the doctrine of anvitābhidhāna. The VM-I commences these discussions with an objection of the Bhāṭṭa pūrvapakṣin against this Prābhākara doctrine, and thereafter proceeds to refute this objection by demonstrating the role of memory, specifically in regard to word-meaning. Śālikanātha lays out his refutation by means of several layers of intricate argumentation, and this paper attempts to follow the text closely and present cogently his philosophical reasoning. The aim of this paper is thus to not only demonstrate the early pre-empting of this Bhāṭṭa objection by Śālikanātha himself but also his own responses to this, thereby enabling one to understand with greater clarity a cornerstone of the elaborate doctrine of anvitābhidhāna. (shrink)

Linguistic convention is one of the central notions of Indian philosophy of language. The well-known view of samaya/saṃketa is its conception as the agreement initiating the relationship between words and their previously unrelated meanings. However, in Indian philosophy of language, we also encounter two other important but little-researched interpretations of samaya/saṃketa, which consider it as the established usage of words. I present a new classification of traditions of Indian thought based on their view of linguistic convention. This classification is to (...) be verified and expanded in further studies. As far as I know, such a classification has never been undertaken before. 1) Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Buddhism, and later classical Yoga of the Tattvavaiśāradī accept samaya/saṃketa as an agreement initiating the relationship between words and their previously unrelated meanings. 2) Bhartṛhari the Grammarian and the continuators of his thought acknowledge samaya/saṃketa as the established usage of words that is rooted in the natural relationship between words and their meanings; the convention manifests the relationship. This view was probably also shared by Mīmāṃsakas and Advaitins. 3) Classical Yoga of the Yogasūtrabhāṣya and probably also earlier Grammar thought of the Mahābhāṣya accept linguistic convention as the established usage of words, but this usage, though having neither a beginning nor an end, is not based on any natural and necessary word–meaning relationship. In this view, linguistic convention not only manifests the word–meaning relationship but also keeps it in existence. Another new contribution of this research is my explanation for why the same Sanskrit term samaya/saṃketa was applied to the different ways of understanding linguistic convention. I explain this through the common aspects of all three kinds of samaya/saṃketa. The first aspect is the content of all these kinds of samaya/saṃketa. Irrespective of how linguistic convention is understood, its content is the same: “such and such a word has such and such a meaning”. The second aspect is the crucial role of linguistic convention in language acquisition, communication, and transmission. (shrink)

This chapter is about a classical Indian debate about the Independent Check Thesis, the thesis that, if an agent is to rationally believe (or judge) that she knows that p, she must rely on some source of information that provides her independent evidence about the truth or reliability of her belief (or judgement) that p. While some Buddhists and Nyāya philosophers defended this thesis, the Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsakas rejected it. Here, I reconstruct the Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsakas’ arguments against the Independent Check Thesis. (...) I show that these arguments reveal a tension between this thesis and a plausible principle that connects knowledge and action. (shrink)

Modern scholarship has often wondered whether Indian Buddhist idealism is primarily epistemic or metaphysical: does this idealism amount to a kind of transcendental scepticism according to which we cannot decide whether objects exist or not outside of consciousness because we can have no epistemic access whatsoever to these objects? Or is it rather ontologically committed, i.e., does it consist in denying the very existence of the external world? One could deem the question anachronistic and suspect that with such an inquiry (...) we project onto Ancient and Medieval India a distinction that remains profoundly alien to it, were it not for a few preserved texts where Indian authors themselves distinguish between two such kinds of idealism within the Buddhist philosophical tradition. As already pointed out by Dan Arnold, this is the case in the commentary by Manorathanandin on Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika; but the difference between two varieties of Buddhist idealism is also alluded to in Hindu sources, both Mīmāṃsaka and Śaiva. The present article offers a new analysis of Manorathanandin’s short and somewhat ambiguous distinction, and it examines in this connection some important remarks found in the works of the Śaiva nondualists Utpaladeva (c. 925–975) and Abhinavagupta (c. 975–1025). It shows that according to these authors, in fact the epistemic version of the Buddhist argument in favour of idealism is already metaphysical insofar as it necessarily involves a denial of the existence of the external world, and it attempts to assess the faithfulness of this Śaiva interpretation to its Buddhist sources. (shrink)

Studies of Indian philosophy have generally overemphasized the con-sistency of philosophical systems over time, and consequently slighted later works as derivative. This paper seeks to reassess the “system” as a basic category for analyzing Sanskrit philosophy, in particular by examining the changes that took place in hermeneutics, or Mīmāṃsā, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it became commonplace for Mīmāṃsā authors to criticize long established Mīmāṃsā positions. At first this criticism is selective and largely directed at more recent authors, (...) but the margins of acceptable criticism are gradually broadened to the point when even the foundational works of the tradition are routinely attacked, and works are produced whose sole purpose appears to be to attack established Mīmāṃsā tenets, sometimes without even attempting to replace them with a more workable set of views. It becomes increasingly difficult to see what if anything one must believe to be considered a Mīmāṃsaka. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics: Debates on Gender, Varna, and Species by Ruth VanitaBrian Black (bio)The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics: Debates on Gender, Varna, and Species. By Ruth Vanita. Oxford: Oxford Unity Press, 2021. Pp. 298. Hardcover £70.00, isbn 978-0-19-285982-2. Ruth Vanita's The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics: Debates on Gender, Varna, and Species examines how the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa (...) discuss questions of justice. She reads the epics as bhakti texts to focus on their depictions of discrimination based on social categories such as gender, varṇa, species, age, and disability. The book claims that the epics criticize oppression in two main ways: by articulating philosophical ideas about social justice and by celebrating characters of a low social status. Six of the twelve chapters are devoted to themes related to gender, including marriage, independence, consent, gender-crossing, parenting, and masculinity. Focusing on the words and actions of characters in the narrative, Vanita does not directly address the question of whether we can take the marginal voices in the text as representing authentic voices of its social context. She also sidesteps the issue of patriarchy: "Every written text ever composed is, in the widest sense, patriarchal, since it was composed in a male-dominated society. Patriarchy is the air we breathe. Therefore, explaining the meaning of a text as patriarchal is as useful as explaining people's actions by the fact that they breathe" (p. 22). I was left wondering, however, if this explanation serves the interests of her study. In a book about oppressed characters, it seems crucial to say more about how systems of oppression operate. Even if we assume that all societies are patriarchal, this does not mean that they are all patriarchal in the same ways or to the same degree. Vanita is an imaginative reader, whose often speculative interpretations offer some valuable perspectives and raise interesting questions. One of the most refreshing features of the book is its extensive discussions of a number of characters and sub-stories rarely analyzed in scholarly literature. In particular, I enjoyed reading Vanita's take on the Mahābhārata's story of Diśā and Aṣṭāvakra (Mbh 13.19–22), where she shows her sensitivity to the ambiguities of this intriguing episode. This story, which appears in the Anuśāsana Parvan, begins when the ascetic Aṣṭāvakra wants to marry the sage Vadānya's daughter, Suprabhā. Before offering his consent, Vadānya sends Aṣṭāvakra to visit the aged female sage Diśā. As Vanita observes, this episode "maps a landscape of desire" [End Page 1] (p. 77) and raises a number of interesting questions about female sexuality as well as female independence. Vanita sees Diśā's motives, rather than merely testing Aṣṭāvakra's desires, as combining her role as a teacher with her own sexual yearnings. Vanita concludes that Diśā's message is that "desire cannot be entirely overcome" (p. 82). From this, she sees Diśā as advocating the conversion of "feverish agitation into happiness within marriage" (p. 83). Vanita's analysis of this story is both engaging and compelling, yet her claim that this episode is an integral part of Yudhiṣṭhira's education as a king remains undeveloped. I wanted to hear more about how this one story fits into the context of the countless others that Bhīṣma recounts to Yudhiṣṭhira. Moreover, her conclusion at the end of the chapter (ch. 4), that the epics "celebrate single women" (p. 85), seems a bit of a stretch considering the few examples she discusses. In chapter 6, Vanita revisits the encounter between Sulabhā and King Janaka (Mbh 12.308), which she discussed in detail twenty years ago.1 Her return to this episode examines the sexual power dynamics between the female sage and the legendary king from Upaniṣadic lore. As Vanita observes, Sulabhā takes the form of a beautiful young woman to test Janaka's claim to be liberated. Vanita explains:We may expect ordinary people to notice a person's looks first of all, but one who claims to be... (shrink)

Vaisnavism in Bengal is justifiably renowned for its remarkable elaboration of the philosophy and cult of Divine Love as the essential expression of the nature of the God, Visnu-Krsna. This text, the first of six constituent parts expounding the philosophy of Bengal Vaisnavism, critically analyses the eight traditional bases of knowledge as a means of discovering the nature of Ultimate Reality. The author rejects most of the traditional pramänas as inadequate and false in providing "right cognition" of Ultimate Reality: namely, (...) perception inference, comparison, postulation, quantitative reasoning and tradition. Like both Mïmämsäka and Vedänta, he declares that, in the final analysis, only Sruti or Scripture serves as an infallible source of knowledge. But against the Vedänta of Sankara he rejects the notion that Bhagavat-Krsna, the Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer of the universe, can be fully apprehended through mystical intuition and claims that the non-phenomenal or spiritual nature of God is accessible only through devotional love and personal surrender. The devotional path to God encompasses but transcends both the paths of mystical knowledge and ascetic mortification. The highest aspect of the "power of essential selfhood" is personified in Krsna's eternally youthful consort, Rädhä. It is through the mystical realization of Ultimate Reality as the Divine Duality-in-Union as Rädhä-Krsna, that one experiences absolute Being, Consciousness and Bliss which is Brahman of the Upanisads and Vedänta. Sanskrists and students of Indian religion and philosophy will welcome the publication of this most valuable text which attempts for the first time to present the entire philosophy and theology of Gaudiya Vaisnavism of Bengal in systematic form and comprehensive manner.--J. B. L. (shrink)

This is a translation of an Advaita Vedanta classic by Srï Suresvaräcärya, a disciple of Srï Sankaräcärya. A converted Mïmämsaka, Srï Suresvaräcärya lucidly provides an exposition of the concentrated substance of the whole of Vedanta. The first chapter shows that as ignorance is the root of all afflicted actions, knowledge is the way of release. The second chapter ascertains by reason the discrimination between self and non-self. The third chapter shows that discriminating reason alone is not enough, that the scriptural (...) injunction "That thou art" must be understood in order to gain release from ignorance. Ignorance, however, has no ontological standing; it is an illusion engendered by egoism. The fourth chapter is a recapitulation of the text with an explanation that he who achieves illumination becomes the ideal, the godhead, himself. The translation is excellent and the Sanskrit text clear. This is a must for all who want to probe the Advaita Vedanta on its own ground. Neither the translation nor the notes at the end interfere with the text.--P. J. H. (shrink)

This is the best book to date on Buddhist theory of perception as found in the Pramänasamuccaya of Dignäga, 480 to 540 A.D. The book offers seventy pages of translation, copious notes, and two Tibetan editions in transliteration of Dignäga's chapter on perception. The translation is strikingly good with the necessary additions carefully bracketed to allow as much as possible a fluent reading if one disregarded the brackets. The translation is a presentation of the theory of perception, an examination of (...) a definition of perception found in a work attributed to Vasubandhu, followed by examinations of non-Buddhist theories of perception: Nyäya, Vaisesika, Sämkhya, and Mïmämsaka. Mistakenly Hattori says, "Unlike his predecessors, Dignäga does not accept the unconditional authority of Scripture." If that were true, then Dignäga's teacher Vasubandhu, his teacher's brother Asanga, the great Nägärjuna, and many other Buddhist scholars who differentiated between scriptures requiring interpretation and those not requiring interpretation would have to be accused of unconditionally accepting all scriptures. Also, he says, "There is a commentary... by the great Tibetan scholar Darma Rinchen. However, I have not utilized it since I thought that the examination of it might serve to clarify only the Tibetan interpretation of Dignäga's thought." Rather, it would seem that this dimly lit field needs as much light as possible even if from the tinted lanterns of Tibet. However, all in all the book is excellent; it is not light reading or even particularly appealing to those whose interest is religious practice.--P. J. H. (shrink)