Today I discussed with Sudipta Munsi how Jayanta (9th c., Kaśmīr) speaks of the motivator of exhortative sentences. Why do we undertake activities upon hearing an exhortative sentence?

Among the possible candidates are one’s desire (rāga) for the output of the activity, and the cognition that the enjoined activity is the means to achieve one’s welfare etc. (śreyassādhanatva).

Jayanta thinks that the latter theory is untenable, since one does not undertake activities, even if conducive to one’s welfare, unless one desires it (as we all know when it comes to brushing our teeth or doing daily workouts). The refutation then becomes more technical, because Jayanta explains that the śreyassādhanatva theory is introduced as part of the bhāvanā theory, but this cannot work.

In fact, according to the latter theory, the nature of an action (bhāvanā) consists of three elements (1. thing to be realised, 2. instrument to realise it and 3. procedure). For the śreyassādhanatva, the two relevant parts are the first two. But an activity delimited by these two parts does not have the form of being the means to one’s welfare (śreyassādhanatva) since it is “incomplete” (aniṣpanna). Why so? Because one can only speak of śreyassādhanatva at the end of the process, once the activity is pariniṣpanna ‘complete’. Thus, śreyassādhanatva comes at the end of the process and cannot be the motivator.

Maṇḍana Miśra, possibly because of similar criticisms, inserts the element of desire within the śreyassādhanatva, which he therefore more frequently calls iṣṭasādhanatva, i.e. the idea that an action is the ‘instrument to realise something desired’.