Preliminary program

Monday May 18th (Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika 1)
Chair: John Nemec
8.30 onwards: Breakfast
9–10 Alessandro Ganassi, The final argument from Śūnyavāda’s pūrvapakṣa: how the nature of things can be contradictory (ŚV, sūnyavāda)
10–10:15 Tea break
10:15-11:15am Zihao Wu, Toward a more comprehensive understanding of svataḥprāmāṇya: suspension of awareness beyond temporal sequence
11:15–11:30 Tea break
11:30–12:30 Devansh Bharadvaj, Kumārila on the perception of the self (ŚV, ātmavāda)
12:30–2 Lunch break
Chair: Daniele Cuneo
2–4:30: Taisei Shida, Ślokavārttika Śabdādhikaraṇa vv. 1–19b & 163c–201b

Tuesday May 19th (Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika 2; Kumārila’s Tantravārttika 1)
Chair: Manasicha Akepiyapornchai
8:30 onwards: Breakfast
9–10: Sarju Patel, svataḥprāmāṇya in Kumārila and Bhāsarvajña
10–10:15 Tea break
10:15–12:45: Jonathan Peterson, brāhmaṇapratyakṣa (TV)
12:45–2:15 Lunch break
Chair: Ajay Rao
2:15-4:45pm: Andrew Ollett, āgnēyyadhikaraṇa (TV ad 3.2.8)
4:45–5: Tea break
5–6: Aaron Minnick, Kumarila on caste (TV ad 1.2.2)

Wednesday May 20th (Kumārila’s Tantravārttika 2)
Chair: Vincent Lee
8.30 onwards: Breakfast
9–10: Nirali Patel, Kumārila has his yogic cake and eats it: Kumārila on ātmatuṣṭi (TV 1.3.adh.7)
10–10:15 Tea break
10:15–12:45: Alessandro Graheli, Kumārila on Grammar in the vyākaraṇādhikaraṇa (TV 1.3.adh. 9)
12:45–2:15 Lunch break
Chair: tbd
2:15–4:45: Monika Nowakowska, upāṃśuyājādhikaraṇa (TV ad MS 2.2.9-12)
4:45–5 Tea break
5-6: Nilanjan Das, Kumarila on the meaning of common nouns

Thu May 21st (Kumārila’s Tantravārttika 3)
Chair: Munena Moiz
8.30 onwards: Breakfast
9–10 Kiyotaka Yoshimizu, Nitya or Kāmya from the Mīmāṃsā Viewpoint (TV ad 2.4, adh. 1)
10-10.15: Tea break
10.15–12:45: Larry McCrea, vacanavyakti from Grahaikatvādhikaraṇa (TV ad 3.1.7, pp. 705-709 in the Anandashrama 1st ed.)
12:45-2:15pm Lunch break
Chair: Jesse Pruitt
2:15-4:45pm: Akane Saito, śeṣatvasya lakṣyanirdeśādhikaraṇa and teṣāmarthādhikaraṇa (TV ad MS 3.1.3-6, 7-10)

Fri May 22nd (Kumārila’s Tantravārttika 4, Kumārila’s Ṭupṭīkā)
Chair: Shashank Rao
8:30 onwards: Breakfast
9–11:30: Kei Kataoka, The Definition of a Single Sentence in Kumārila’s Tantravārttika: A Translation of the Ekavākyatālakṣaṇādhikaraṇa (TV 2.1.46)
11:30–11:45: Tea Break
11.45–12.45: Akane Saito, Theories of Error in Medieval Indian Philosophy, with special focus on Kumārila
12:45-2:15: Lunch break
Chair: tbd
2:15-4:45pm: Elisa Freschi adhikāra (ṬṬ ad 6.1.1–3)

Venue: University of Toronto, Mississauga campus

However, Maṇḍana then has to harmonize this point with the pre-existing Mīmāṃsā account of duties distinguishing between three sets of sacrifices, namely:

1. —nitya karman ‘fixed sacrifice’, to be performed regularly (typically each day), no matter what, but where a performance yathāśakti ‘as much as one can’ is acceptable.
2. —naimittika karman ‘occasional sacrifice’, to be performed whenever the occasion arises (e.g., an eclypse or the birth of a son). As in the above case, yathāśakti performance is acceptable.
3. -kāmya karman ‘elective sacrifice’, to be performed only if one wants their results and which needs to be performed exactly as prescribed (yathāvidhi or yathānyāya), no relaxing of the norms allowed.

Once a sacrifice has been undertaken, even if it is kāmya, its completion becomes compulsory and the way of such completion remains yathāvidhi in the case of kāmya sacrifices.
How can this difference be kept if all commands are nothing but statements about instrumentality? Would not a statement about instrumentality correspond only to the kāmya category?

Maṇḍana dedicates to this problem the next verses and commentary of his Vidhiviveka, where he examines several possibilities. The main constraints, are, again, keeping the distinction between nitya/naimittika sacrifices on the one hand and kāmya sacrifices on the other hand, as well as the distinction between yathāśakti and yathāvidhi modes of performance. He therefore explores multiple possible understanding of śakti ‘ability’, phala ‘result’ and adhikāra ‘eligibility, especially in conversation with Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā interlocutors insisting on how all sacrifices are compulsory and how the mentions of result found in conjunction with kāmya rituals is only a way to identify the adhikārin ‘eligible person’ for their performance. For instance, which kind of result could make it possible for a command about a nitya karman to lead one to perform the sacrifice every single day? Are there really results that are always desired? And even if such a result could be found, why would one need to keep a distinction in the yathāśakti and yathānyāya performance? If all sacrifices are instruments to realise a certain result, why would some of them need an accurate performance and other not so? The situation is further complicated by the presence of elective sacrifices prescribed to people ‘who desire heaven’ (svargakāma). In which sense are they different from nitya sacrifices, that also lead to heaven?

Unfortunately, the Vidhiviveka is characterised by a terse style, to say the least. Maṇḍana was probably so much into the topic that at times he seems to take important intermediate passages for granted and just leaves the reader wonder. Fortunately, a more generous commentator, Vācaspati, solves most of the doubt and adds further interesting discussions in his Nyāyakaṇikā.
Last, Sanskritists and philosophers of duty have a duty of gratitude to Elliot Stern, who created the first critical edition of the text, including also its previously unpublished commentaries.

Curious to know more? We will discuss chapters 12–14 of the Vidhiviveka in this workshop: https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/workshop-maṇḍana-on-ritual-duties/

Organisers: Suganya Anandakichenin, Elisa Freschi, Naresh Keerthi, Srilata Raman

(Photo by Suganya Anandakichenin)

Please register (with an email stating your interests and affiliation) by December the 1st at this address: elisa.freschi@utoronto.ca (places are limited, apologies in advance if your request cannot be accommodated)

Program:

Discussants: Anusha Rao, Jesse Pruitt, Mirela Stosic, Manasicha Akepiyapornchai, Sathvik Rayala, Janani Mandayam Comar, Prathik Murali, Giulia Buriola

Thanks to the generous support from the Lorne Thyssen Research Fund for Ancient World Topics (Wolfson College, Oxford), Max Müller Fund (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford), and Wolfson College Academic Committee (Oxford), the 9th Coffee Break Conference has successfully taken place at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, on 4-6 Dec 2018.

The theme of the conference was “Science and Technology in Premodern Asia”, and there
were altogether 5 panels, on Medicine, Music, Astronomy and Mathematics, Language
Science, and Technology. On the first morning (4 Dec), Prof. Christopher Minkowski from the
Faculty of Oriental Studies delivered the keynote speech titled “The Study of Science and
the Study of Indian Science”, and after that altogether 23 speakers delivered their papers
over the three days. The speakers were mostly from different parts of Europe, but also a
few were coming from the United States and India. For details of the talks and their
presenters, please see the conference program here.

On the final day of the conference (6 Dec), we organised the following two activities: Show
& Tell of manuscripts at the Weston Library, and a visit to the Museum of the History of
Science. On the whole, the conference went on smoothly, according to our plan. Currently,
the possibilities of publishing the conference proceedings are being discussed.

Yiming Shen is a PhD student in Oxford.

The final round-table tried to extract some general conclusions of the three-days discussion:

STEP 1. Should we use European categories at all?
Most of the art-historians and some of the philologists among us suggested just to refrain from using European categories such as Renaissance. They influence their users with unneeded assumptions and offer no concrete advantage. One of the philologists suggested therefore a 20–30 ys moratorium in the use of such categories.

Most other scholars, however, rather agreed on the need to use (also) European categories. In a beautiful simile, a musicologist explained that our categories are unavoidable and we should rather be aware of them and careful in their use: “One of the practices in ethnomusicology is to transcribe music that is traditionally transmitted orally into European staff notation in order to preserve and convey the music being discussed. However, it became apparent fairly early in the history of the discipline that by transcribing music that is not based on concepts in European art music into staff notation, the music thus conveyed was altered substantially. The categories and concepts through which we understand European art music are not necessarily significant in the music of other cultures, but it is almost impossible to bypass them as they become part of the way that those trained in European art music then perceive music”.

STEP 2: Careful and self-conscious use of “Renaissance”
In order to use the term and concept of “Renaissance”, we need a working definition of it. The following working definition has been therefore suggested (notes on each word follow):

What does Renaissance mean? An efflorescence prompted among a group of people by a revival of the past after an interruption.
An efflorescence is needed, since a revivalistic movement not leading to any new outburst in the arts, literature, philosophy, etc. cannot be labelled “Renaissance”.
It is difficult to define how many people make “a group”, but there needs to be a movement, not just a few connected individuals not gaining momentum.
The rupture element is also needed, otherwise there is just continuity. In other words, each generation is quite naturally inspired by the preceding one, but a Renaissance is characterised by the fact that one seeks inspiration from a more distant past. This past needs to be real (not mythical*), but not the immediately preceding one (otherwise it is just continuity). The past must therefore be felt to have been dormant for a while. Further, the appeal to be the past must be something one is aware of, something deliberate and intentional (otherwise, again, there is just continuity) and usually something the audience is also aware of. Therefore, one needs a golden age period which is specifically located and gives inspiration for a new efflorescence.
Please note that in the case of performative arts we don’t really know whether the elements we go back to were really existing, since we don’t have visual or audio recordings (as pointed out by LPe).
Why can’t the past be just a mythical one? Readers who are familiar with South Asia will for instance be reminded of the omnipresent hints at the lunar dynasty (virtually each king claims to descend from it). However, we don’t have any real artefacts we can look back to in the case of the lunar dynasty; there is no lunar poetry, no lunar painting, no lunar capitals.

STEP 3. Beware of the political element
As highlighted by AP, CF and others, the use of the term “Renaissance” is not value-neutral. By saying that something is a “Renaissance”, one is often issuing a statement of value. Nor can scholars forget that this is already happening in front of our eyes, with the term “Renaissance” appropriated by various groups, usually for controversial political purposes (as discussed, for instance, in BL’s speech). Thus, we don’t want to lean back in our armchairs and issue verdicts about Renaissances in the world, but nor can we just abjure our scholarly responsibility while others are issuing these verdicts already, for non-scholarly purposes.

STEP 4. Should we add also some specific elements to the operative definition above?
The main problem is finding a balance between a precise definition (a vague definition is just useless) and a too-narrow one. Thus, the following criteria are, as stressed by EM, sufficient, but not necessary conditions. Renaissance(s) are complex phenomena, but they may entail one or the other elements between individuality, secularism, knowledge circulation (CP) and the formation of a Canon (the last addition is due to LPa). Other possible ingredients for Renaissance(s) are economic prosperity, as well as a dynamic society and possibly also religious changes.

STEP 5. Why should we use the label and concept “Renaissance”?
I personally think that our use of this term and concept should not be part of a hegemonic discourse, but rather meant as a tool to ask new questions.
RK for instance suggested looking at the function of these and similar terms (“awakening” in the so-called Bengali Renaissance, for instance) in the settings in which they were used.

What do readers think? Shall we speak of “Renaissances” in the plural? And what does this entail?

The public included many children and their parents. It goes without saying, I guess, that the institutes focusing on natural sciences were way more successful in gaining the attention of young visitors. In the photograph, you can see two 13 ys old boys operating a fake brain.

What about the presentations focusing on humanities?

Some had the great idea of combining children activities with things which could have been more interesting for their parents. For instance, while children were busy looking for fragments of manuscripts in the Playmobile reconstruction of an ancient city and then had to put the pieces of the puzzle together, the parents could read posters or discuss with experts in the same area. Another very cool idea was to give children lego-building blocks to reconstruct archeological models. In another location, children could learn to write in foreign writing systems with ancient writing tools. Their parents could meanwhile use a lens and try to detect the same signs in the reproduction of an ancient scroll

This hands-on approach is, I believe, very promising. If we just offer more to read to the public, there will be no point in coming to such events (since there is enough stuff to read on internet). Rather, we should be able to make people interested by showing, e.g., what it means to work on a manuscript and try to decipher it.

I, for one, noticed that many people would have liked to learn more about blockprint in Tibet —perhaps one could bring a couple of small models and let visitors try them?

One thing which is really a must, is a geographic map. It really helps locating ideas and understanding contacts and influences. In the case of India, current political maps might be misleading, so that one might prefer a geographical one (or a children-friendly one, like the one below, which I found on Pinterest).

Have you ever been to similar events? What works with you as part of the audience? What could one offer?

Do we need God to make sense of the world’s reality? Michael Dummett, who was surely not known for his religious fanatism came to this conclusion. God is, for this well-known philosopher, the objective perspective from which the world is intelligible as it is. In this sense, God could also be said to be needed in order to avoid the idea of a world as noúmenon, i.e., real but never grasped as it really is.

Against that, one might object that there is no intrinsic reason whence the world needs be intelligible. Yes, it would be hard to imagine that the world is unintelligible for us. But being “hard to believe” is not enough to rule out a view, unless you have a fundamental premiss saying that you prefer what looks reasonable (i.e. harmonises with your background belief). The “reasonability” premiss would rule out all gnostic or Matrix-like world-views, but there is no intrinsic reason to choose it over them.

In other words: Dummett’s thesis is based on the premiss that it is unintelligible to conceive the universe as never having been observed. Dummett sees this premiss as needed in order to safeguard subject-independent direct realism.

However, as it has been argued by Alex Watson, this premiss is not necessarily shared by Indian realists. Some of them, like most Mīmāṃsakas and the author(s) of the Vaiśeṣikasūtra, and even theists among them like Praśastapāda and Udayana do not mention God in relation to the thesis that all existents are knowable. So, even after God has been introduced into Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika, He does not play the role of rescuer of the external world. In other words, in spite of claiming that the world is intelligible, Indian realists did not see this as committing them to idealism (the world is not just contained in God’s thoughts) and even less do they see God as the rescuer of the external world.

My contribution, by contrast, focussed on another problem connected with the idea of God as support for the world’s reality, namely the conception of God it requires.

NOTE: The post has been updated thanks to Alex Watson’s thoughtful comments. All shortcomings remain mine only.

The first two parts of my marginal notes on the workshop on Omniscience, Realism and God/no-God have been published here and here.