What is bādha?: bādha is a way of dealing with contrasting Vedic rules, so as to know what to do when they seem to clash. E.g., what shall we do when we encounter a prescription telling us to do X and then one telling us not to do X?
How is bādha dealt with? Śabara’s investigation on the problem starts by asking what exactly is bādhita `blocked’ in such cases. Is it something already obtained (prāpta) or not? If it was already obtained to our treasure of knowledge, how can it then later be blocked without invalidating the epistemological status of the Veda? If it was not yet obtained, how can it be blocked?
The discussions on bādha become longer and longer in Kumārila’s commentary on Śabara and then in Somanātha’s sub-commentary on Kumārila. Somanātha explains that in case of bādha what happens is not that a later prescription or prohibition invalidates a previous one, for the reasons just said. Rather, what is blocked is only one’s understanding of that precept. One thought at first that “Do X” meant “Do X in all cases”, but after having heard “Do not do X in case of y”, one revises one’s understanding and comes to interpret “Do X” as “Do X in all cases apart from y”. Thus, the initial prescription is rephrased as referring to all but the content of the later deontic statement (y-vyatirikta X).
The first prescription had this restricted scope all the way long, so that no part of it is in fact invalidated, but one’s belief is blocked and needs a revision. Somanātha speaks here of the need to take back one’s previous opinion (buddhi-apahāra), not the existence of the epistemic content (viṣayasattva).
Somanātha articulates it in terms of the opposition between a sāmānyaśāstra ‘general teaching’ and a viśeṣaśātra ‘particular teaching’. This is tantamount to the well-known principle of jurisprudence that Lex specialis derogat legi generali, but the interesting point is how exactly this occurs. In order to avoid endangering the validity of the first prescription’s source, namely the Veda, Somanātha explains that the Veda initially produced only a cognition (jñāna), which is not necessarily valid, and that a specific understanding (vijñāna, interpreted as viśeṣa jñāna) comes about only thereafter, through the mechanism of bādha.
In some concluding verses he sums up the point by saying that as long as one looked at the Veda from a one-sided perspective (ekadeśa) one had a certain understanding of it. Later, through the completion of one’s perspective (paripūrṇa), one also gets a full (samasta) understanding of the meaning at stake.
Why is bādha relevant (for us)? It is interesting for us because it can show us new ways of dealing with such problems and it can drive out attention to problems we would not have considered otherwise.
Who wrote about it? All Mīmāṃsā authors needed to deal with this problem. In a sense, bādha is the reason for the existence of Mīmāṃsā. Had the Veda not entailed any seeming contradictions, the Mīmāṃsā enterprise would not have been undertaken.
Do readers share the impression that what we are dealing with in Somanātha’s interpretation is a device to account for belief-revision?
The main thing to be understand that badha is a specific term. Its meaning and application depends on time, space and situation . If any word depicted in Vedas, are fruitful in the desired case and gives positive result then it is acceptable otherwise not.
Thanks, Ramanath. The point is what happens to the Vedic words which are, as you say, not “acceptable”. One cannot just claim that the Veda was wrong. One might say that the Vedic words at stake don’t apply to the desired case, but what happens of them if they have no other case where they could apply? Somanātha’s solution is an attempt to avoid invalidating the Veda.
What do you think about the relationship between the broader sense of bādha (cognitive obstacle generally, whether perceptual or testimonial, etc.) and the narrower Vedic sense? In thinking about your question (“for us”), it seems that whether or not one finds Vedic interpretation to be a compelling project, all human beings are faced with cognitions which are later opposed by another one, and have to decide what to do with this experience. To put things simply, one might take solutions from a Vedic context and export them to the broader epistemic problem, or vice versa, take solutions from perception, etc. and import them to the Vedic context. Probably a kind of circle is involved in these texts (moving between both contexts) but I’m curious if you have any thoughts on how Śabara and Kumārila worked with laukika and vaidika contexts in this way.
Thank you, Malcolm. Historically speaking, I think it is clear that bādha developed first in a Vedic context and was then expanded to an epistemological one (like much of the pramāṇa-vocabulary). By the time of Kumārila, the laukika use of bādha was already current, and in fact Kumārila mentions the case of bādha by sense-perception over the other instruments of knowledge. Śabara does not mention laukika cases in that context, whereas Kumārila seems to put laukika and vaidika examples together.
Thanks–the question was prompted by my looking at Kumārila’s use of bādha in the context of upamāna recently, and how he uses it for both laukika and vaidika cases (it looks to me like Sucarita likes to do this a lot, too–certainly in his comments on this section, whereas Pārthasārathi focuses more on vaidika cases, but that may be a hasty generalization). In the context of upamāna, though, what is subject to bādha isn’t about testimonial cognitions, though, it’s about similarity judgments.
I suppose I’m also curious, beyond the historical development (from Vedic to epistemological contexts, as you say) about how the concept gets employed at a particular historical moment. That is, to what extent is one conception driving another–if we can say, that is.
(I’m also interested in the opposition of general and specific in Somanātha–does he use the term virodha? Is this idea in any way related to other instances of apparent conflict between general/specific that we’ve seen…e.g. in discussion of arthāpatti?)
Thanks Malcolm, I would love to know more about Kumārila’s use of bādha in upamāna. What exactly is bādhita?
As for virodha, it is interesting that you are raising the issue. Perhaps, like in the case of arthāpatti, the presence of virodha in these discussions belongs to a later development of Mīmāṃsā? I will keep an eye on it and let you know if I find out something.
Maybe I’ll put up a blog post about it–I’m about to get feedback on a paper on the topic at a workshop. Kumārila gives two cases, one laukika and one vaidika, where a previous judgment of similarity is bādhita, and turns out to be merely apparent or false (ābhāsa, mithyā).
And yes, do let me know.
This a fascinating discussion since central to the understanding of a rule or a concept is the idea of a constraint on its application . So if eectension and contraction are essential for thinking of a rule – how does custom and habit fold into the notion of a rule – for instance something like an appeal to common sense is appealed to in some Paninian sutras – is there a similar appeal to common sense in any of the commentaries on Sabara or Kumarila?
Thanks, Veena, this is a good point. Yes, common sense is set as the default value for most rules in Mīmāṃsā. Our common experience is considered to be valid unless and until it is later falsified (e.g., in case one finds out one was dreaming or intoxicated and the like).