When one works on the intellectual history of the Sanskrit cosmopolis*, by contrast, one still needs to map the entire territory, whose extension still escapes us. Very few elements of the landscape have been fixated, and might still need to be re-assessed.

What are the mountains, main cities as well as rivers, bridges, routes that we would need to fix on the map? Key authors, key theories, key schools, as well as languages and manners of communication and how they worked (public debates? where? how?).
I mentioned authors before schools because for decades intellectual historians looking at the Sanskrit cosmopolis emphasized, and often overemphasized the role of schools at the expense of the fundamental role of individual thinkers, thus risking to oversee their individual contributions and to flatten historical developments, as if nothing had changed in astronomy or philosophy for centuries. This hermeneutic mistake is due to the fact that while the norm in Europe and North America after Descartes and the Enlightenment has been increasingly to highlight novelty, originality is constantly understated in the Sanskrit cosmopolis. It is not socially acceptable to claim to be novel and original in the Sanskrit world, just like it is not acceptable to be just “continuing a project” in a grant application in Europe or North America.
Still, schools are often the departure point for any investigation, since they give one a first basic understanding of the landscape. How does this exactly work?
For instance, we know that the Vedānta systems were a major player in the intellectual arena, with all other religious and philosophical schools having to face them, in some form of the other. However, it is not at all clear which schools within Vedānta were broadly influential, where within South Asia, and in which languages. Michael Allen, among others, worked extensively on Advaita Vedānta in Hindī sources, but were they read also by Sanskrit authors and did the latter react to them? Were Hindī texts on Vedānta read only in the Gangetic valley or throughout the Indian subcontinent? The same questions should be investigated with regard to the other schools of Vedānta (Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Śaivādvaita…), the other vernacular languages they interacted with (respectively: Tamil and Maṇipravāḷam, Kannaḍa…), and the regions of the Indian subcontinent they originated in. And this is just about Vedānta schools.
Similarly, we still have to understand which other schools entered into a debate with philosophy and among each other and which interdisciplinary debates took place. Scholars of European intellectual history know how Kepler was influenced by Platonism and how Galileo influenced the development of philosophy. What happened in the Sanskrit cosmopolis?
Dagmar Wujastyk recently focused on the intersection of medicine (āyurveda) alchemy (rasaśāstra) and yoga. Which other disciplines were in a constant dialogue? Who read mathematical and astronomical texts, for instance? It is clear, because many texts themselves often repeat it, that Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya and Vyākaraṇa (hermeneutics, logic and grammar) were considered a sort of basic trivium, to be known by every learned person. But the very exclusion of Vedānta from the trivium (it cannot be considered to be included in “Mīmāṃsā” unless in the Viśiṣṭādvaita self-interpretation) shows that the trivium is only the starting point of one’s instruction and is not at all exhaustive. And we have not even started to look at many disciplines, from music to rhetorics.

One might wonder whether it is not enough to look at reports by today’s or yesterday’s Sanskrit intellectuals themselves in order to know what is worth reading and why. However, as discussed above, such reports would not boast about innovations and main breakthroughs. Sanskrit philosophy (and the same probably applies to Sanskrit mathematics etc.) is primarily commentarial. That is, authors presuppose a basic shared background knowledge and innovate while engaging with it rather than imagining to be pioneers in a new world of ideas. In a commentarial philosophy, innovations are concealed and breakthroughs are present, but not emphasised. Hence, one needs a lot of background knowledge to recognise them.

I would like to map the territory to realise who was studying what, where and how. How can this be done? The main obstacle is the amount of unpublished material, literally millions of manuscripts that still remain to be read, edited, translated and studied (I am relying on David Pingree’s estimate). Editing and translating them all requires a multi-generational effort of hundreds of people. However, a quick survey of them, ideally through an enhanced ORC technology, would enable scholars to figure out which languages were used, which theories and topics were debated, which authors were mentioned, and who was replying to whom.

This approach will remind some readers of the distant reading proposed by Franco Moretti. I am personally a trained philologist and a spokesperson for close reading. However, moving back and forth between the two methods seems to be the most productive methodology if the purpose is mapping an unknown territory. Close reading alone will keep one busy for decades and will not enable one to start the hermeneutic circle through which one’s knowledge of the situation of communication helps one better understanding even the content of the text one is closely focusing on. As hinted at above, this is particularly crucial in the case of a commentarial philosophy, where one needs to be able to master a lot of the author’s background in order to evaluate his contribution.

*As discussed several times elsewhere, I use “Sanskrit philosophy” or “Sanskrit intellectual history” as a short term for “philosophy in a cosmopolis in which Sanskrit was the dominant language of culture and everyone had to come to terms with it”, as with the use of “philosophy in the Islamic world”, that includes also thinkers part of the Islamic world but who were not themselves Muslims.

(The above are just quick notes. Any feedback is welcome!)

Consequently, it makes sense to look at Mīmāṃsā epistemology as reusing a terminology coming from the Mīmāṃsā’s hermeneutic commitments. For instance, the impact of words like nitya in Mīmāṃsā epistemology can only be understood against the background of its meaning in the ritual part of the Mīmāṃsā, which forms the biggest part of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra and of early Mīmāṃsā itself. The same applies to the role of various instruments of knowledge, which can often be only understood once one thinks of their ritual rule (e.g., śrutārthāpatti and the addition of words to Vedic sentences; upamāna and ritual substitutes).

Let me now shortly discuss the similar case of bādha. This is well-known in epistemology, especially in Kumārila’s theory of intrinsic validity (svataḥ prāmāṇya), as the defeater through which a cognition is recognised as invalid, or is made invalid, according to the interpretation of Kumārila’s commentators. The exact understanding of bādha is crucial in order to understand the concept of truth at stake in svataḥ prāmāṇya. In fact, if bādha invalidates a previously valid cognition, and is in turn liable to be invalidated, this seems to imply that truth has only a regulative role, but can never be said to be surely attained. Knowledge would therefore work, also at the epistemic level, without the 100% certainty of its truth. By contrast, if bādha indicates the cognition leading one to recognise that a previous one was invalid, then truth can still play a real role.

In this connection, a look at the ritual history of bādha and at the way bādha is used in ritual contexts by Kumārila can be revealing. In a ritual context, bādha indicates the suspension, not invalidation of a Vedic command, in order for another one to step in. Epistemological and hermeneutical cases are moreover discussed together in the balābalādhikaraṇa of Kumārila’s Tantravārttika. 

I am grateful to Malcolm Keating for interesting discussions on this topic.

“If you can find honey on a tree nearby, why going to the mountains?”
arke cen madhu vindeta, kim artham parvataṃ vrajet

Beside their specific commitment to some hermeneutic metarules regarding the linguistic and prescriptive nature of the Vedas, Mīmāṃsā authors also strictly adhere to the principle of parsimony (lāghava). This principle says that one should avoid unnecessary effortsand it applies to different fields. For instance, if a ritual prescription says that one should sacrifice “animals” (in plural), one should sacrifice the lowest number of animals satisfying the requiremenet of the prescription, namely three (two animals would be expressed in Sanskrit with the dual number). Similarly, unnecessary speculations should be avoided, if an easy explanation of a given phenomenon is available, as with Ockham’s Razor.

The principle of lāghava is also differently expressed. In the Śābarabhāṣya ad 1.2.4, this is expressed as in the title of this post, with a further hemistich explaining that there is no point in making further efforts once the result can be easily achieved, but the principle is omnipresent in Mīmāṃsā. For instance, it rules the way Mīmāṃsakas apply the instruments of knowledge to understand what is connected with a given prescription (from śruti onwards, see PMS 3.3.14), with the general idea that unless there is a serious reason, one goes for the easiest solution (e.g., what is directly enjoined overrules what one could understand out of context). Careful readers will have already noted that this is the same approach which is detectable in Kumārila’s most well-known epistemological innovation, namely his theory of the self-validity of cognition (svataḥ prāmāṇya). There, once again, unless and until the opposite is proved, each cognition should be accepted as valid, and there is no requirement to always look for further confirmations.

What is the impact of the principle of parsimony on the overall Mīmāṃsā philosophy? In my opinion, it hints at the fact that what runs the risk of being seen as a direct realism is instead a system based on truth-as-consistence more than on truth-as-correspondence.

I am grateful to Kiyotaka Yoshimizu for having discussed the topic of kalpanālāghava with me (all mistakes in this post are only mine).

On Kumārila’s theory of self-validity, see this post, and this one. On the hermeneutic principles in Mīmāṃsā, see this post.

In the following list I tried to enumerate the cornerstones among the hermeneutic principles.

1. The prescriptive portion of the Veda is never meaningless.
2. A prescriptive sentence is identified through the syntactical expectations among the words forming it and through the single purpose it conveys (PMS 2.1.46).
3. Each prescription must be construed as prescribing a new element. Seeming repetitions must have a deeper, different meaning, e.g., enhancing the value of the sacrifice to be performed.
4. Each prescriptive text, which may entail several prescriptions is construed around a principal action to be done.
5. Each prescription conveys (only) a single piece of deontic information (anyāya ankekārthatva, ŚBh ad PMS 2.1.12; vākyabheda, ŚBh ad 1.1.1).
6. No prescription can be meaningless. If it appears to be meaningless, it is not a prescription (vidhiś cānarthakaḥ kvacit tasmāt stutiḥ pratīyeta, PMS 1.2.23).
7. Each prescription should promote an action (āmnāyasya kriyārthatvād ānarthakyam atadarthānāṃ tasmād anityam ucyate, PMS 1.2.1).
8. The most powerful instrument of knowledge for knowing the meaning of a prescription is what it directly states (śruti), which is most powerful than its implied sense, context, syntactical connection, etc. (niṣādasthapatinyāya PMS 6.1.51–52).
9. A material may achieve a result resting on an already prescribed act, like a king’s officer can achieve a certain result only insofar as he relies on the king’s authority (Vṛttikāra within ŚBh ad PMS 2.2.26).
10. Any prescribed action needs to have a result. If a prescribed action seems to have no result, postulate happiness as the general result (viśvajinnyāya).
11. Only what is intended (vivakṣita) is part of the prescription. For instance, in sentences such as ”Take your bag, we need to go”, the singular number in ”bag” is not intended. What is prescribed is to take one’s bag or bags, and not the fact that one must take one bag only. By contrast, the singular number is intended in ”You must take one pill per day”, meaning that one has to swallow exactly one pill per day. Whether something is intended or not is determined through its link with the sentence’s principal duty.

This post is a follow-up of this one (on logical and hermeneutical principles in Mīmāṃsā).

In order to fulfil the hermeneutical task of Mīmāṃsā, Mīmāṃsā thinkers developed interpretative rules which should guide a reader or listener through a prescriptive text and enable his or her understanding of the text. Such rules have the key purpose to enable the understanding of a text without resorting to the intention of the speaker (either because he or she is distant in time or space or because, as in the case of the Vedas, the text has an autonomous epistemic value). This post will elaborate on these basic principles and on the way they can make a text into an epistemic instrument conveying information concerning what one ought to do.

Little research has been done on the Mīmāṃsā hermeneutical rules. Apart from a paper of mine (a draft of which is available here), there is an alphabetic list, appended to Jhā 1964, of these rules, which does not distinguish between their function and their hierarchical relations.
The present post has been prompted by the attempt to understand and as far as possible re-construe the system of rules (Mīmāṃsā authors speak in this connection of nyayas) which was operating beyond the Mīmāṃsā interpretative strategies. Although it is possible that Mīmāṃsā authors used only an ad hoc approach and thought of specific rules at each problem, the structure of the Śābarabhāṣya (the commentary on the root text of the Mīmāṃsā school, adopted by all currents within it) suggests a different interpretation. In fact, the SBh displays a clear five-fold structure:

1. enunciation of the topic (viṣaya)
2. enunciation of the problem (saṃśaya)
3. prima facie view about the problem
4. antithesis to the prima facie view
5. conclusive view

The steps 3–5 can be repeated several times if the problem is particularly complex and needs a detailed discussion. More important, from our point of view, is that the upholder of the prima facie view, the upholder of the antithesis and the upholder of the conclusive view (who can be identified with Śabara himself) all recur in their discussion to the application of rules. In fact, the discussion is mostly all about which rule should be applied and why or why not.
The first problem for the identification of the basic principles, the ones presupposed by the majority of the other rules, is the intersection of two sets of principles. On the one hand there are the logical principles, which regard the logical structure of the Mīmāṃsā deontic logic, while on the other hand there are the hermeneutic principles needed to recognise the boundaries of a given prescription and the way it is formulated. The two sets of principles overlap only in part.

• The hermeneutic principles are the ones which regard only the Brāhmaṇa texts and whose significance could not be automatically extended outside them, e.g., to a different corpus of texts.
• As for the logical principles, it is highly improbable that Mīmāṃsā authors ever wanted to build a consistent deontic system of logic. Rather, they focused on a given set of texts and developed logical tools in connection with such texts. Nonetheless, some of the principles they formulated are liable to be extended beyond the Brāhmaṇa corpus.

Does this distinction convince you? Do readers familiar with the Grammatical paribhāṣās think it can be applied there?

On the motive for this post, see here. On deontics in general, see here.