Category Archives: logic

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Workshop on Medhātithi

On March 21 2026 the University of Toronto will host a workshop on “Medhātithi across Sanskrit jurisprudence and philosophy of action” (guest speaker: Alessandro Giudice).

Medhātithi (9th c.) is a key figure in Sanskrit jurisprudence, who applied reasoning methods from the Mīmāṃsā school of philosophy to the understanding of the most well-known and influential jurisprudential text, Manu’s Treatise on the Norm (Mānavadharmaśāstra). This one-day long workshop will see students of UofT engaging with his philosophy of action and of law and exploring several issues, from his discussion of why lying is compulsory if a person’s life is at risk to the purpose of fighting once all hopes of victory are gone and up to whether sex might ever be a duty.

The keynote address will be delivered by Alessandro Giudice, who is a postdoctoral researcher within the Cluster of Excellence “Cross-Cultural Philology” at the Institute for Indology and Tibetology, Munich University, and the author of a recent monograph on Medhātithi, available OA here: https://www.edizioniets.com/priv_file_libro/5546.pdf.

The title of the keynote will be: “Medhātithi, a Wide-Ranging Ninth-Century Scholar: From Law to Grammar, from Rhetoric to Philosophy.” (12pm, Toronto time)

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Fixed duties vs imperfect duties (updated)

Mīmāṃsā authors distinguish between fixed/conditional duties on the one hand, and elective duties on the other. Even Maṇḍana wants to keep them distinct, though insisting that in both cases the commands can be reduced to descriptions of states of affairs. The main difference is about the “ought-entails-can” principle, that triggers the “as-much-as-one-can” provision only in the case of fixed and conditional duties.

Fixed/conditional duties, like “imperfect duties” (in Analytic philosophy) have some tolerance for imperfect performances. They also, like imperfect duties, run over one’s lifetime and are made of “individual, momentary actions that, considered individually, do not make a difference to the realization of the end” (Nefsky-Tenenbaum 2026). In fact, assuming one’s daily performance of the Agnihotra as a paradigm example of a fixed duty, each individual performance is not going to be difference-making and could have been skipped without changing the final goal if one, for instance, had died before that day. Elective duties, like perfect duties, are instead about punctual performances. However, the similarities do not extend further. Imperfect duties typically include the possibility of complying with the duty beyond what is typically expected (in fact, a typical feature of imperfect duties is that there is no specific limit set about what is expected). By contrast, Mīmāṃsā authors unanimously agree that one needs to follow the duties as they are prescribed (either exactly as prescribed or to the best of one’s abilities). Offering more clarified butter than prescribed is not better, because it creates a new duty, different than the one prescribed (just like one cannot offer butter mixed with honey if the command requires one to offer butter). Why this fundamental distinction? Because the concept of fixed duties is not grounded in any universal ethical law (so that “the more the better” could apply), but rather in a specific deontic source.

Thus, it appears that the distinction between fixed/conditional and elective duties and in general the possibility to discuss deontics independently of ethics is one that has not been discussed in contemporary ethics and deontics in Euro-American philosophy and one on which cross-cultural discussions might be beneficial for Euro-American philosophers for pointing out a possible blind spot in their analysis of duties. Conversely, the study of Sanskrit philosophy could benefit of more scholars working on it, both in traditional and new ways —philosophy is dance, not ballet (citing Peter Adamson) and Sanskrit philosophy desperately needs more dancers.

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dharma and adharma are not “virtue” and “vice” (in Medhātithi)

G. Jhā was an amazing scholar and translator, but he produced so much that he could not revise in detail his translation choices and some infelicities are kept in the published versions of his translations.

One such cases is “sinful” or “vicious” for adharma and “moral” or “virtuous” for dharma in the translation of Medhātithi’s commentary. I am sure that there are cases in which such a translation could make sense, but not in Medhātithi.

Medhātithi follows the Mīmāṃsā approach and defines dharma as what is prescribed by the Veda or is in line with the duties prescribed by the Veda and adharma as its opposite. Translations such as “sinful” or “virtuous” suggest that actions have an intrinsic moral value logically prior to the commands applied to them. By contrast, this is not the case. Violence is not adharma because it is intrinsically “sinful” or “vicious” and in fact Medhātithi explains that the Jyotiṣṭoma violence is not adharma at all.

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Punishing? Yes, but not through violent means (acc. to Medhātithi)

The reasoning by Medhātithi on 8.316 (on punishment and why it does not violate the prohibition to perform any violence) is quite complex and multiple opponents discuss. I will list them below attributing a number to each one of them.

1. A first opinion being discussed is that, since punishment is enjoined (presumably: as part of the duty to protect people) and prohibited (by the prohibition to inflict any violence), it is optional. “Option” (or “free picking”, vikalpa) is in general to be avoided and Mīmāṃsā authors would accept it only for details bearing no great significance. Hence, the opinion is dismissed.

2. Next, a second speaker observes that no vikalpa applies, because violent punishment is clearly forbidden by the prohibition to perform any violence.

3. Rebuttal: It is not forbidden because it is performed as part of fulfilling one’s duty.

2a. Second speaker again: in order for the prohibition to perform violence not to apply, the act of (violent) punishment should be enjoined, as it happens in the case of the Agnīṣomīya (a sacrifice which involves violence, and which is not blocked by the prohibition to inflict violence).

3a. Violent punishment is enjoined through worldly experience, hence no prohibition affects it.

2b.The second speaker then expands on the above point and observes that there is no specific prescription about violent punishment, since punishment is only derived from the duty to protect people, but this duty could be fulfilled also through other means (e.g., reprimanding people). Hence, inflicting violent punishment is not enjoined as a duty and it is just a worldly act (and, as such, liable to be blocked by the prohibition). Similarly, if one were to perform a sacrifice leading to a violent result because one desires it, as it happens in the case of the Śyena, that sacrifice would be blocked by the prohibition to perform violence.

2c. The second speaker also belabours on the difference between instrumental and resultative violence, saying that in the case of the śyena violence is prompted by desire, whereas in the case of the Agnīṣomīya, it is merely subsidiary.

2d. If violent punishment were specifically prescribed, then we would have to resort to vikalpa (as discussed above).

Thus, the conclusion appears to be that violent punishment should not be resorted to as a consequence of the duty to protect, although (as discussed in my article on corporal punishment) it can be resorted to in order to purify the culprit.

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On sacrificial violence

One cannot solve the Agnīṣomīya problem (the clash between the prohibition to perform any violence and the prescription to slaughter an animal as an offer to Agni and Soma) via an appeal to suspension (bādha) of the prohibition to perform violence.

Using suspension would be based on the fact that the prescription to perform the Agnīṣomīya is more specific than the prohibition. However, if this were a viable move, then it would apply also to the case of the Śyena (a sacrifice to be performed in order to achieve the death of one’s enemy). But all Mīmāṃsā authors agree that the śyena should not be performed.

Thus the Agnīṣomīya case cannot be solved through suspension, as this would have been applicable also to the Śyena scenario and this would be an unwanted output.

How else can the Agnīṣomīya riddle be solved? By explaining that the prohibition against violence was only about violence-as-part-of-the-result and not about violence-as-part-of-the-instrument. Thus, sacrificial violence, which is only part of the sacrifice qua instrument, was never forbidden, whereas violence as part of a sacrifice’s result is forbidden.

Now, you may suggest that this reasoning leads to the unwanted consequence that violence which is instrumental to a different result would also not be prohibited. Does this mean that beating someone in order to take their wallet would not be prohibited, because it is instrumental? No, because here violence would be part of the result (you want the person to be made harmless/unable to react).

This is, by the way, consistent with my previous studies on deontic conflicts, according to which suspension can only be applied to prescriptions, and not to prohibitions.

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Debates on adhikāra (again)

Within the Śābarabhāṣya commentary on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra (the foundational text of the Mīmāṃsā school), chapter 1 of book 6 is dedicated to adhikāra. The chapter deals with several cases in a manner which might surprise some readers, because the text does not distinguish a priori between “good” and “bad” cases and rather applies Mīmāṃsā-based reasoning throughout. For instance, an opponent suggests understanding adhikāra as only or primarily grounded on desire and is therefore willing to accept as a consequence that women, śūdras (members of the lower class) and animals have the same adhikāra as male Brahmans to perform Vedic sacrifices. Even more surprising, perhaps, is that the reply by the upholder of the final opinion is not that animals are impure, women are inferior and śūdras are inherently flawed. Rather, they discuss about the other requirements of adhikāra and show why they exclude some of the above categories from the performance of Vedic sacrifices.

To begin with, animals lack the adhikāra to perform sacrifices not because they lack desire (they do have plans), but because 1. they lack the ability to perform them, insofar as they don’t have hands. Moreover, 2. they lack desires regarding the next life, because these desires depend on our being cultivated into desiring something beyond the present life. Thus, wolves etc. can decide to fast, but only because they want health, and not for purposes relative to a next life, because they don’t know about it.

There is then an interesting discussion about poor people and people having some physical disability. It’s easy to see that the latter lack ability and are therefore excluded from having the adhikāra to perform Vedic sacrifices. However, how can one distinguish the case of disabled people who cannot, for instance, look at the clarified butter (because they are blind) and poor people who cannot look at the clarified butter because they lack the substances to buy it? Śabara speaks therefore of a distinction between śakti and sāmarthya. Both terms can be translated as “ability”, but Śabara seems to make them into technical terms in order to distinguish the two cases. Accordingly, poor people temporarily lack the sāmarthya to perform a sacrifice, but this temporary lack of sāmarthya is remediable, because they could acquire the relevant substances later on in their life, whereas they never lost the śakti to perform sacrifice. I will conventionally call the temporary thing being lost (or sāmarthya) ‘capacity’, whereas the thing that poor people don’t loose (i.e., their śakti) ‘ability’. Śabara distinguishes them insofar as the former is bahirbhūta ‘external’, whereas the latter is ātmavṛtti ‘belonging to one’s soul, intrinsic’.

Unfortunately, Kumārila does not keep this opposition and just generically speaks of sāmarthya.

It is also interesting that the debate about disabled people continued through the centuries. Kumārila (a commentator of Śabara and possibly the main author of the Mīmāṃsā school) explains that disabled people lack the sāmarthya (and hence the adhikāra) to perform Vedic sacrifices, but that this does not mean that they cannot reach the same goal, namely happiness in a future life (a.k.a. ‘heaven’). He clarifies that they have a different path open to them, namely that of remaining a chaste student of the Veda and reciting it. This is considered by him to be an easier option and Kumārila needs therefore to explain that it is only open to the ones who lack the ability to perform the more difficult alternative, whereas those who are able to work, get married and perform Vedic sacrifices should certainly do so. Incidentally, the same device will be used by an even later author, Veṅkaṭanātha, to justify the adoption of an easier soteriological path, namely prapatti, instead of bhakti. This path is only open, he points out, to those who are unable to follow the path of bhakti, hence there is no contradiction between the command about a difficult path and an easier one.

Later Mīmāṃsā texts, possibly after Khaṇḍadeva, go back to the duties of disabled people and offer a slightly different solution. They say that disabled people cannot perform elective rituals, because they lack the relevant ability, but they still retain the adhikāra (insofar as they have learnt the Vedas by heart etc.) to perform fixed rituals. In fact, these rituals can be performed ‘as much as one can’, hence a blind person will just skip the command to look at clarified butter etc.

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Meghanadāri on adhikāra’s prerequisites and further differences from “rights”

Adhikāra presupposes 1. śakti (or sāmarthya), as discussed in previous posts. What else does it presuppose? Adhikāra for sacrifices presupposes a condition (nimitta) and/or the 2. desire for a goal. Both are necessary conditions, as it becomes obvious when animals are said to potentially have the adhikāra to sacrifice, since they are desirous (arthin), but to be excluded from it because of their lacking the relevant ability. The same discussion is found in the commentaries on UMS 1.3.34–38 in relation to śūdras’ adhikāra (e.g., Meghanadāri thereon: arthitvasāmarthyādisadbhāvāt [śūdreṣu] adhikāro ‘stu).

What else? Notice the ādi in Meghanadāri, which is repeated also elsewhere in his commentary (e.g.: atra saṃśayaḥ— kiṃ śūdrasya brahmavidyāsv adhikāro ‘sty uta neti. tadarthaṃ kiṃ tasyārthitvādīni santy uta neti). Meghanadāri lists also the 3. adhikāra for prerequisites, such as the fact of having set the fires (that is, having performed the initial ceremony that starts one’s life as a performer of sacrifices). Śūdras lack the adhikāra for sacrifices, he says, because they lack the adhikāra for the actions sacrificing presuppose (brahmavidyā and agni-setting) (vaidikakarmasu śūdrasya vidyāgnirahitatvenānadhikāraḥ samarthitaḥ).

Thus, adhikāra requires: 1. ability, 2. desire, 3. adhikāra for prerequisites.

Another interesting point is that adhikāra applies to a certain way to achieve a goal, not to the goal itself. You are disabled and cannot perform sacrifices to go to heaven? You can go to heaven through recitation of the Veda. You are a śūdra and cannot read the Upaniṣads? You can still learn about the paramātman (!) through itihāsas and purāṇas. An opponent says that veneration (upāsanā) still needs its auxiliaries (aṅga) and that these are sacrifices, to which the śūdras lack the adhikāra. Hence, due to the rule discussed above, they also cannot have the adhikāra for upāsanā. Meghanadāri replies that this is not the case, because, like in the case of fixed sacrifices, one does not need to perform all auxiliaries.

(Many thanks to Manasicha Akepiyapornchai for sharing the images of Meghanadāri’s commentary)

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Adhikāra and rights

As already observed, there is no straightforward equivalent to “rights” in Mīmāṃsā deontic (and this is normal and good, since the deontic townscape is not a given fact, but a human construct and is therefore differently articulated), but there are certainly functional equivalents covering parts of the semantic field of “rights”.

One of them is adhikāra. Possible differences:

  1. adhikāra is generally a vox media (you have the adhikāra to do X, which does not necessarily mean that X is a good thing), unlike “right” (where generally having the right to do X is a good thing).
  2. adhikāra might imply duty, whereas rights don’t (you may have the right to remain silent, and this does not imply that you ought to remain silent). For instance, for Prabhākara if you have the adhikāra to perform a given sacrifice, you also have the responsibility to carry it out. However, it is not so in Kumārila or Maṇḍana, where the additional obligation to perform fixed rituals descends from their fixedness (nityatva), not from the adhikāra, as proven by the fact that no such obligation follows in the case of elective rituals (kāmya).
  3. adhikāra is connected to ability (sāmarthya), whereas this does not apply to rights, which can instead ground the need of ability being ensured. For instance, if you have the right to go to school but cannot physically move, (in an ideal case) your government will provide you with the devices needed to let you attend school etc. By contrast, adhikāra presuppose ability, in the sense that unless there is ability to do X, there is no adhikāra to do it. Since adhikāra is a vox media, this might be a good thing after all. For instance, if you don’t have the adhikāra to do something difficult to get A, you will be allowed to do something easier instead. Please notice also that Śabara helpfully distinguishes the lack of an external (bahirbhūta) ability (sāmarthya), which is temporary and does not affect the adhikāra (for instance, you don’t lose your adhikāra if you temporarily run out of ghee or are too poor to perform a given sacrifice), and intrinsic (ātmavṛtti) ability (śakti), in the absence of which there is no adhikāra. Much to my disappointment, this distinction is not kept by later authors.
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Reconstructing the Mīmāṃsā townscape

I have been working for years on reconstructing the deontic landscape of Mīmāṃsā, but at this point I realise that “landscape” might be a misleading metaphor.

In fact, Mīmāṃsā authors were not just describing a natural scenario. They engineered a highly sophisticated system, with bridges connecting different actions and sewage systems to get rid of unwanted left-overs.

That’s why even though new Mīmāṃsā authors might change the flag on the top of the hill (as Maṇḍana did) or some particular aspect here and there, they were cautious not to jeopardise such a carefully engineered system.

For instance, when it comes to subordination, the only real options are Kumārila’s viniyoga system and Prabhākara’s upādāna. Other authors substantially follow the one or the other.

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Permissions, rights and adhikāra

As discussed in previous blogposts and articles, it is established that in Mīmāṃsā and Mīmāṃsā-following Dharmaśāstra all commands are dyadic; prescriptions, prohibitions and permissions are not interdefinable; permissions are always exceptions to previous prohibitions or negative obligations, and they are better-not permissions.

Permissions in Medhātithi: Two examples

Case 1:

Manu:

etān dvijātayo deśān saṃśrayeran prayatnataḥ |
śūdras tu yasmiṃs tasmin vā nivased vṛttikarśitaḥ || 2.24 ||

Medhātithi thereon:
śūdrasya dvijātiśuśrūṣāyā vihitatvāt taddeśanivāse sarvadā prāpte tatrājīvato deśāntaranivāso ’bhyanujñāyate.

So, living in another place (deśāntaranivāsaḥ) for a śūdra is permitted, if he cannot get a living where the twice-born ones live, because a śūdra is prescribed (vihita) to obey the twice-born ones. What we see is:

—the permission is a better-not option

—a specific permission is always parasitical on a general (sarvadā prāpte) prohibition or negative obligation (in this case: it is prohibited to live elsewhere, in turn depending on the duty to serve).

Case 2:

Manu:

strīṇāṃ sukhodyam akrūraṃ vispaṣṭārthaṃ manoharam | maṅgalyaṃ dīrghavarṇāntam āśīrvādābhidhānavat || 2.33 ||

Medhātithi:
puṃsa ity adhikṛtatvāt strīṇām aprāptau niyamyate | sukhenodyate sukhodyam | strībālair api yat sukhenoccārayituṃ śakyate tat strīṇāṃ nāma kartavyam | bāhulyena strīṇāṃ strībhir bālaiś ca vyavahāras teṣāṃ ca svakaraṇasauṣṭavāb- hāvān na sarvaṃ saṃskṛtaṃ śabdam uccārayituṃ śaktir asti | ato viśeṣeṇopadiśy- ate | na tu puṃsām asukhodyam abhyanujñāyate |

So, girls lack the śakti to pronounce Sanskrit words, hence they need easy- to-pronounce names. This command is taught explicitly with regard to them because of their inability, but it does not mean that difficult names are permitted for men.

Noteworthy here:

—The opponent is suggesting that F(x/y)—>P(x/¬y) —Medhātithi explains that this is wrong. It is true that P(x/¬y)—>F(x/(y∧¬y)) but the opposite is not true.

Rights and adhikāra


Having permissions just as exceptions means that they cannot be used to ground the notion of right (as in Hansson 2013). What else can correspond to “rights”?

• 1. There does not need to be a corresponding term. The deontic horizon is, like any other partition of the cognitive world, arbitrary.

• 2. There can be functional equivalents, one of which is adhikāra, I think.

adhikāra is connected to ability (sāmarthya and śakti), in the sense that unless there is ability, there is no adhikāra. Differences: adhikāra also implies duty. Contexts in which adhikāra is discussed: poor people having adhikāra, because they still have the śakti, although they momentarily lack the sāmarthya (all in ŚBh ad 6.1.1–3); disabled people lacking adhikāra for sacrifices but having adhikāra for svādhyāya (TV ad 1.3.4).