Category Archives: Philosophy

Posted on

Maṇḍana’s revolution: From deontic to descriptive interpretation of injunctions

Maṇḍana’s Vidhiviveka `Discernment about injunctions’ deals with chiefly two topics at length:

  1. What is the nature of a prescription? After many discussions, examining the positions of Prabhākara and Bhartṛhari, the answer is that a Vedic prescription is just the statement that the action prescribed is the instrument to get a desired output.
  2. If the above is true, how can one distinguish between fixed and elective rituals?

Let me now elaborate on both topics.

First, a sacrifice is considered by Maṇḍana to be an iṣṭasādhana, i.e., an instrument to something desired. A sacrificial injunction is therefore just the communication that the sacrifice is such (i.e., an instrument to something desired). Thus,

O(x/desire for y)

means

x is an instrument for y

This would work also for negative obligations, e.g.,

O (not eating (x)/desire for y)

means

forming the intention not to eat x is an instrument for y

Please notice that this could also cover cases of negative obligations which apply to everyone (in this case, according to the Viśvajit-metarule, one postulates heaven, i.e., happiness, as result):

O (not doing x/T)

is re-read as:

O (not doing x/desire for heaven)

This, in turn, means:

forming the intention to refrain from doing x is an instrument for heaven

This means that omitting the enjoined action (that is, not forming the intention to refrain from x) only leads to the non-obtainment of heaven. The situation would have been different had the same action x been forbidden, as will be explained immediately below.

What about prohibitions? They communicate one that the action prohibited is an instrument to something undesired, i.e., suffering (duḥkha).
Thus,

F (x/T)

means

x is an instrument for something absolutely undesirable

For instance, the prohibition to perform violence on any living beings (na hiṃsyāt sarvā bhūtāni) has the structure:

F (violence/T)

and not

*O (not violence/T)

because, if respected, it does not lead to any positive result (unlike an obligation), whereas, if transgressed, it leads to a negative output.

This means that prohibitions and prescriptions have a similar structure (both state that a given action is an instrument for something, respectively desirable or undesirable). Prescriptions are, however, in general effective only on people who desire that outcome, whereas prohibitions are effective on everyone, since the forbidden action would lead to outcomes which are absolutely undesirable (pāpa, which will interfere with all of one’s future undertakings).

The main advantage of this structure, as I can see it, is that one avoids the main problems of having a deontic logic, by translating deontic statements into descriptive ones.

What about the śyena, which prescribes one to perform a sacrifice leading to violence? śyena is anartha, i.e., in Maṇḍana’s understanding, it is also an instrument for something undesired, that is suffering (duḥkha). Thus, it should not be performed because it has this structure:

Śyena–»violence

and given:

F(violence/T)

we know that:

violence–»something undesired

Thus,

śyena–»something undesired

Thus, the choice to perform a śyena would be based on a misjudgement of what is at stake, since the positive output (the death of one’s enemy) is anyway less positive than the negative sanction that will follow.
NB: The target reader of Maṇḍana appears to be a rational agent who is completely able to judge the outcomes of their actions (unlike in the case of Prabhākara).

This leads to a problem, however, because if all sacrifices are considered to be just instruments to something desired, how can one account for the difference between elective and fixed results? It would indeed seem that all sacrifices are just recommended if one wants to achieve a given result, no more than that. Why would one perform some every day and some others only on given occasions? If the performance depended on the desire, an opponent suggests, then there would be no fixed sacrifices, since as soon as one gets what one desired, one would stop performing the sacrifice.

Maṇḍana examines various scenarios, including one that says that if one omits the performance of fixed sacrifices, one obtains pāpa (demerit), which will then block any further enterprise. Thus, fixed sacrifice would have as a positive result only the reduction of pāpa, whereas the their omission has a negative result, i.e., accumulation of further pāpa.

But what about the auxiliaries of fixed and elective sacrifices? According to all Mīmāṃsā authors, the former have to be performed as much as one can, the latter exactly as prescribed. Why this difference, if both sacrifices are just the same thing, namely instruments to something desired? Maṇḍana explains that the Vedic prescriptions enjoining fixed sacrifices prescribe them “as long as one lives”. This means that in their case the fixedness does not depend on the nature of the desire (i.e., they are not fixed just because one fixedly desires their output) but rather on the Vedic prescriptions prescribing them.
Thus, due to the metarule that says that the Veda cannot prescribe meaningless things and due to the metarule that only possible things can be prescribed, the “as long as one lives” clause cannot mean to perform auxiliaries exactly as prescribed. Thus, auxiliaries of fixed sacrifices are to be performed only as much as one can.

One might wonder: What about elective sacrifices to be done in order to obtain heaven? Given that heaven is happiness and every one desires happiness all the time, such sacrifices are potentially also to be performed all the time. Should one perform also their auxiliaries as much as possible?

The answer is no, because each elective sacrifice is incumbent on one every day anew and as such one is responsible to perform it (adhikārin) only if one has all relevant sacrificial ingredients. If one lacks them, one is not the adhikārin and therefore does not have to perform the sacrifice. Thus, there is no need to perform a sacrifice as much as one can.

By contrast, in the case of fixed sacrifices, one needs to perform them every day, since they are fixed, one is therefore always the adhikārin of them simply by being alive. Therefore, if one lacks, e.g., a relevant ingredient, one just performs the sacrifice as much as one can.

Seeing absences through metacognitive feelings or dispositions

Anna Farennikova had claimed that absence must be perceptually known especially because the phenomenology of it shows that we know it immediately, not via a secondary reflection. This is basically Udayana’s point about absence being known via perception because of its being sākṣātkāra ‘making present (its object, namely absence)’. (I thank Jack Beaulieu for having discussed the topic with me).

Beside this main argument, two additional points again the idea that absence is obtained through a secondary reflection (what she calls the cognitive view) by AF are the following:

  • 2. the “phenomenology of absence exhibits resilience to change of belief”. Suppose we find out that the keys are not missing from the table where they should be, it’s just a skilfully devised mirror illusion that makes us think that this is the case (example adapted from Martin and Dokic 2013). We would still perceive their absence. Hence, absence is not a judgement.
  • 3. perceiving absence gives one an adaptive advantage (e.g., in the case of perceiving the absence of predators) and for this purpose it must happen quickly and without intermediation.

3. is, unless I am misunderstanding it, weak. For instance, some people claim they can feel when people are looking at them from behind. Others think that the first ones are not really perceiving other people’s looks, but rather inferring them out of the fact that the person behind them has not been moving for a while, etc. Having such a perceptual capacity would surely be an adaptive advantage, but would we want to claim that it is therefore perceptual?

1+2 are, by contrast, quite strong and any epistemology of absences will need to be able to account for them. (Are they, by the way, also strong arguments against Dharmakīrti’s theory of absences being only inferred? Not really, since Dharmakīrti wants to account for *knowledge*, not for illusory cognitions, like the ones hinted at in 2.)

Anna Farennikova’s work on absence as being perceptually known prompted an answer by Jean-Rémy Martin and Jerôme Dokic. Martin and Dokic agree with Farennikova against the “cognitive view” of the grasping of absences. But, they think that they can counter Farennikova’s claims 1+2 through what they call the “metacognitive view”. They start by saying that the grasping of absence is accompanied by a feeling of surprise, just like every time something unexpected occurs (including an unpredicted element in a sequence, not just its absence). Metacognitive feelings “reflect a specific kind of affective experience caused by subpersonal monitoring of (perceptual) processes” (p. 118).

The idea is really interesting, if only one accepts the existence of metacognitive feelings. Vaidya, Bilimoria and Shaw (2016) introduce further elements in the debate, namely:

  • a. there can be experience of absence even without surprise. Suppose (the example is mine), I tell you “Come to see how my flat looks like now that I sold my grand piano. You come to my flat and grasp the absence of the grand piano, even if you are not surprised by it.
  • b. the absence can be explained through the assumption of dispositions for the cognition of X.

“Seeing absence”

I am reading “Seeing absence” by Anna Farennikova (2013) on the epistemological experience of knowing that something is absent. The article (kindly suggested to me by Jack Beaulieu) deals with exactly the topic dealt with by Mīmāṃsā and Nyāya authors speaking of abhāva (absence) and seemingly in the same terms! (more…)

Francis X. Clooney on comparative theology

At the beginning of Hindu God, Christian God, Francis X. Clooney explains why he wrote that book:

I […] wanted to find a way to say why it is good—and compelling—for beleiving theologians to persist in thinking at that edge where faiths encounter one another. […]
Improbably at first, I decided that thinking—logic, reasoning, and argument—offers us a sturdy bridge for making our way forward in our encounters with faiths and religious ways other than our own. The mind may sometimes hold us back, but quite often it travels ahead of us.

Maṇḍana on how fixed sacrifices need to be performed with less care than elective ones

Maṇḍana reforms Mīmāṃsā philosophy of action and deontic by saying that one undertakes actions only because one believes them to be the means to a desired output. (more…)

The theology of Vaikuṇṭha: Why should you want to be in heaven?

We all know so many clever jokes about how hell should be preferred “because of the good company” and about how boring should heaven be. Let me take the chance to focus on the Śrīvaiṣṇava heaven, i.e., Vaikuṇṭha, and see whether they apply also to it.

First, some history of the concept (move to next paragraph if not interested):
The name Vaikuṇṭha is used for both a particular form of Viṣṇu (with four faces) and for the Vaiṣṇava heaven. Please notice that we are not talking of one among many heavens, but the only and upmost one, where God’s bhaktas can live with Him. The first usage seemingly predates the other (since it is attested in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa and in the KauśUp for Indra and in MBh and Harivaṃśa for Viṣṇu). Vaikuṇṭha for the place is attested in the Bhāgavata and in the works of the Āḻvārs.
Did the two usages influenced each other? Possibly, but I could not yet reconstruct the missing links (any help is appreciated).

Vaikuṇṭha is mentioned just once in the early three Tiruvantātis of the Divyaprabandha (or Tivyappirapantam), namely by the Āḻvār called Pēyāḻvār. The text is translated as follows by Eva Wilden (with Marcus Schmücker):

“As in all earlier times Vēṅkaṭam, the milk ocean [and] Vaikuntam were the temples for him who took [them and] dwelled there, [so now is] Kaṭikai, with lush flowers in long groves where a wealth of bees rises, the heavenly city for the young prince.”

In Tamil (separation among words and breaking of some sandhis mine, based on the book’s transcription):

பண்டெல்லாம் வேங்கடம் பாற் கடல் வைகுந்தங்
கொண்டங்கு உறைவார்க்குக் கோயில் போல் —வண்டு
வளங் கிளரும் நீள் சோலை வண் பூங் கடிகை
யிளங் குமரன் தன் விண் நகர். (2342)

Conceptually it is interesting to notice that Vaikuṇṭha is mentioned as the place in which Viṣṇu resided, like the milk-ocean and Vēṅkaṭam. Now, unless I am wrong, there is no (Skt or Tamil) mention of the devotees of God being able to reside in Vēṅkaṭam or in the milk ocean, so this first mention of Vaikuṇṭha seems to list only places of Viṣṇu, with no hint of the fact that one of them will become also the heavenly abode of His devotees.

A possible alternative reading is suggested by Eva Wilden herself, who, based on a linguistic problem, writes in a footnote:

“Slightly disconcerting in this verse is that we have one designation for the lord in line 2 which makes use of the honorific form (uṟaivārkku), while line 4 refers to him as a prince in masculine singular (kumaraṉ). We might consider reading uṟaivārkku instead as a slightly elliptical reference to his devotees who take (perceive; koṇṭu) Vēṅkaṭam, the milk ocean and Vaikuntam as his abodes and dwell there to do worship, but that, while working nicely for Vēṅkaṭam, is somewhat more difficult to imagine for the latter two places.”

I am not completely sure I can follow Wilden’s argument here, since I would imagine that the ideal place for the devotees to dwell and do worship were Vaikuṇṭam, but anyway, the suggestion is interesting, since it points to the possibility of reading the first part of the verse as describing the places in which the devotees visualise Viṣṇu.

Later on, the Āḻvārs discuss of Vaikuṇṭha as if it were the only place one might want to reach –no mention of liberation, either as an alternative (and possibly lower) goal or as identical with Vaikuṇṭha.

Why exactly is Vaikuṇṭha such a great place? As pointed out already, for the Āḻvārs the main reason seems to be that one is in the same world with one’s beloved One. Veṅkaṭanātha adds some more theology to it, speaking of the fact that one does not only share sālokya ‘being in the same world [with God]’, but also paramasāmya ‘supreme identity [with God]’. This last state seems to violate exactly the residual dualism necessary in order to allow for love and service to God, and it is possible that Veṅkaṭanātha only included it because of the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad passage about it (nirañjanaḥ paramam sāmyam upaiti, 3.1.3). Therefore, Veṅkaṭanātha explains that this paramasāmya is not tādātmya (as for the Advaitins), but rather sādharmya ‘having the same characteristics’. Still, the person having attained sādharmya is not equal to God in every respect. For instance, they cannot create the world. So, the sādharmya regards other aspects, most notably bhogasāmya ‘equality of enjoyment’. In other words, one enjoys all the blessing experiences of God in Vaikuṇṭha, although one does not have the same level of independent agency (but still a lot of freedom, according to Tattvamuktākalāpa 2.63).

The idea of equal enjoyment with God raises the problem of embodiment, since it seems difficult to imagine enjoyment without a body. Veṅkaṭanātha in the TMK says that in fact the soul can at their own will get a body, which is not determined by karman and is therefore not a vehicle of bondage.

Within the sādharmya there is also the attainment of omniscience, which in fact was the natural condition of the soul but was temporarily blocked by karman. (So, in Vaikuṇṭha you will finally be able to understand perfectly Tamil and Sanskrit and solve any philosophical puzzle you wondered about!)

Why should it not get boring at a certain point? Veṅkaṭanātha does not directly address this question, but his Rahasyatrayasāra seems to point to the idea that one would be busy with a continuous flow of beautiful experiences, all connected with the fact that one is with nice people (the other liberated ones) and especially with the object of one’s love, Viṣṇu.

Does it sound convincing? Or would one still eventually get bored?
Eternity is long… Yes, but one might also speculate that during cosmic dissolutions everything is reabsorbed in Viṣṇu, so that eternity is long but always interrupted. I will get back to this in future posts.

—————————
The book I mentioned above on the Tivyappirapantam is available here.

I was prompted to write this post by a remark of Helen De Cruz.

(cross-posted on the Indian Philosophy Blog)

Posted on

Inert and alive substances: Alternative classifications in Veṅkaṭanātha

In the Nyāyasiddhāñjana and the Nyāyapariśuddhi, Veṅkaṭanātha discusses some fundamental ontological topics in order to distinguish his positions from the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika position.

The Nyāyasūtra proposes a fundamental division of realities into dravya ‘substances’, guṇa ‘qualities’, and karman ‘actions’,1 with the former as the substrate of the latter two. This leads to two difficulties for Veṅkaṭanātha’s agenda. On the one hand, the radical distinction between substance and attribute means that Nyāya authors imagine liberation to be the end of the connection of the ātman ‘self’ to all attributes, from sufferance to consciousness. By contrast, Veṅkaṭanātha, would never accept consciousness to be separated from the individual soul and even less from God. The other difficulty regards the theology of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. Since the beginnings of Pañcarātra, one of its chief doctrines has been that of the manifestations (vibhūti) of Viṣṇu, which are dependent on Him but co-eternal with Him and in this sense are unexplainable according to the division of substances into eternal and transient.

To that, Veṅkaṭanātha opposes more than one classification, so that it is clear that Veṅkaṭanātha’s main point is addressing the above-mentioned problems with the Nyāya ontology, rather than establishing in full detail a distinct ontology. For an instance of alternative classifications see, e.g., Nyāyasiddhāñjana, jaḍadravyapariccheda:

dvedhā jaḍājaḍatayā pratyak taditaratayāpi vā dravyam | ṣoḍhā triguṇānehojīveśvarabhogabhūtimatibhedāt || dhīkālabhogabhūtīravivakṣitvā guṇādirūpatvāt | jīvātmeśabhidārthaṃ tredhā tattvaṃ viviñcate kecit || (Nyayasiddhanjana 1966, p. 33).

“Substance is of two types, [according to this classification:] inert or alive, or [according to this other classification:] innerly [luminous] or what is its opposite. [Furthermore,] it is of six types, according to the division in [natura naturans having] three qualities, time (anehas) individual souls, God, the ground for [God’s] enjoyment (bhogabhūti) and [His] cognition. Some distinguish reality as of three types, in order to distinguish the Lord, the individual soul, and the self (as the material cause of the universe) because they do not want to include (lit. express) cognition, time and the ground for [God’s] enjoyment, since these have the nature of qualities”.

Bhogabhūti must mean, out of context, the same as vibhūti. My interpretation of ātman in jīvātmeśabhidartham is also based on context. Alternative suggestions are, as usual, welcome!

  1. There are in fact further categories, namely sāmānya ‘universal’, viśeṣa ‘individual’, and samavāya ‘inherence’. See for the fact that these latter categories have been added at a later stage of the evolution of the school. The Navya Nyāya school adds also abhāva to the categories. (see Eli Franco and Karin Preisendanz, “Nyāya-Vaiśeịṣika”, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy)↩︎

Posted on

Could Upaniṣadic sentences be interpreted as prescriptions? A debate within Maṇḍana’s Vidhiviveka

Within the Vidhiviveka, a Prābhākara-inclined Mīmāṃsaka debates with a Vedāntin about the meaning of Upaniṣadic sentences on the self.

The Prābhākara insists that all sentences should be injunctive in character, and that Upaniṣadic sentences should also be interpreted in this way. But what exactly could they prescribe? They could enjoin one to know their content, they suggest. But this option is not viable, since there is no difference between “s is p” and “you ought to know that s is p” insofar as one knows that s is p through the first sentence, too.

A further option would be that the Upaniṣadic sentences enjoin one to know their meaning in a definite way (niścaya), but this option is also ruled out. For, if the niścaya were obtained through language alone, then it would occur automatically, without the need to enjoin it. If it were not obtained through language alone, then it would occur because of something other than language, but then the Upaniṣads would no longer be the instrument for knowing about the ātman, which runs against other fundaments of the school.

At this point, the Prābhākara-like objector suggests a further possibility, namely that Upaniṣadic sentences prescribe arthaparatā, i.e., the ‘intentness on the meaning’. This also does not go, because prescriptions need to have preferably a visible purpose, like ritual prescriptions. And understanding sentences as aiming primarily at their meaning would put at a disadvantage exactly prescriptive sentences, which aim not only at conveying their meaning, but also at urging someone to perform a given activity. Moreover, a prescription should aim at a certain goal and knowledge cannot be a goal separated from the content to be known (as explained above with regard to the case of whether the understanding itself could be enjoined): ज्ञानस्य ज्ञेयाभिव्याप्तिफलत्वात् फलान्तरानभ्युपगमात्।

Posted on

Reparations, expiations and prāyaścittas in Mīmāṃsā

Mīmāṃsā authors distinguish broadly between prescriptions (vidhi) and prohibitions (niṣedha). The first ones are linked with a result, so that if one has fulfilled them, they get a reward. The latter, if respected, don’t lead to any result, whereas they lead to sanctions if transgressed.

Prescriptions are further divided into three groups (fixed, occasional and elective). The first two groups are configured as strong obligations (leading to rewards if fulfilled, but omitted only at the risk of sanctions), whereas the latter are configured as recommendations. As for prohibitions, they are divided into prohibitions applying to the person throughout their lives and prohibitions applying only to a specific context.

Next comes the somehow controversial case of reparations or expiations (prāyaścitta). These are in fact contrary-to-duty prescriptions. Such prescriptions have as their addressee someone who did some- thing wrong during the performance of a sacrifice; therefore, they can be taken to be contrary-to- duty (ctd) prescriptions.

Expiations can be used to eliminate the negative consequences of a transgressed prohibition. That is, after having performed the corresponding expiation, a transgressed kratvartha prohibition does no longer lead to a negative output on the sacrifice, and a transgressed puruṣārtha prohibition does no longer lead to a sanction. In Dharmaśāstra (jurisprudence) texts, for instance, authors discuss expiations to be performed after having transgressed the duty to live in Āryāvarta (the part of South Asia where nobles people live and where liberation can be achieved).

There seems, however, to be a basic difference between the first and the second type of expiations, since the first ones seem to be routinely performed in case of contextual errors. By contrast, the second type of expiations seems to be an undesired alternative. In other words, more research is needed, but it is possible that puruṣārtha expiations are of this form:

F (p) → ¬ p ∨ p ∧ Expiation

By contrast, puruṣārtha expiations seem to have this form:

F (p) → ¬ p ∨ p ∧ Sanction ∨ Expiation ∧ Lesser Sanction

What do readers think? Does my understanding match your knowledge of Mīmāṃsā and/or Dharmaśāstra?