Category Archives: Philosophy

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What were the ṛṣis up to while composing the Vedas? UPDATED

While commenting on PMS 1.1.4, Veṅkaṭanātha makes a long digression aimed at refuting every kind of intellectual intuition, especially as a source for knowing dharma. Dharma, he explains, can only be known through the Veda.
People who claim to have directly perceived dharma are, by contrast, liars. This seems consistent in most cases, but may be problematic when it comes to the Veda, who are believed (by some) to have been composed by some ancient sages of the past, the ṛṣis. Veṅkaṭanātha explains that it is not the case that out of their austerities they gained the ability to directly perceive dharma, also because this would lead to a vicious circle, insofar as efficacious austerities would need to be based on the Veda. Thus, ṛṣis are not an exception to the rule.
This means that the ṛṣis did not compose the Vedas. How comes that they could teach them? Their teaching was based on the Vedas themselves (a Mīmāṃsaka would add: because time is beginningless).

Their (the ṛṣis’) teaching, by contrast, is of human origin, although it may come from the Veda (āgama). Therefore, the listeners [of such teaching] need to reflect on its root and once one eliminates that this teaching is based on a [supersensuous] perception originated out of the dharma’s energy, one needs to look for another pramāṇa for this dharma. And this is nothing but the Veda (itself) (śāstra).

tadupadeśasya tu āgamāyamānasyāpi pauruṣeyatayā śrotṝṇāṃ mūlaparāmarśasāpekṣatvena dharmavīryaprasūtapratyakṣamūlatvapariśeṣe tasmin dharme pramāṇāntaram anveṣaṇīyam. tac ca nānyat śāstrāt.

I am grateful to Meera Sridhara’s comment for having forced me to rethink my interpretation of śrotṛ (see below for her comment).
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The role of the prescription to teach the Veda according to Prabhākara

If you are a Prābhākara, you think that students don’t have to learn the Veda and that they actually do it because of the teachers’ duty to teach it. This certainly solves the problem of having a young boy (younger than 8) deciding to study the Veda based on an analysis of the benefits he will get out of this study. Does this also solve the problem of whether one should study also Mīmāṃsā?

In other words, assuming that one learns the Veda due to the prescription to teach it, does this prescription include the duty to teach the meaning? No, says Veṅkaṭanātha in his refutation of the Prābhākara position. Just like the knowledge of the meaning of the Veda is no included in the prescription to learn it by heart, so it is not included in the prescription to teach it. Both stop their function at the Vedic phonemes.

So far so good, but then Veṅkaṭanātha adds an additional reason why the prescription to teach does not reach until the meaning of the Veda, namely:

अबाधितप्रत्ययोत्पत्तावनपेक्षत्वलक्षणप्रामाण्यस्य वक्ष्यमाणत्वाच्च

And because in the case of the coming into being of a cognition which has not been invalidated, we will say that its validity (prāmāṇya) consists in its being independent. (SM ad 1.1.1, 1971 p. 27)

The reference is clearly to PMS 1.1.5, where the Veda is said to be a pramāṇa because it is independent from any other source. That is, once a cognition has indeed come into being and is not sublated, the only thing which could make one doubt about it is its having the wrong source, but if it is independent on any source, no such worry can arise. Why is this said here? Perhaps because a cognition of the meaning does indeed take place upon learning the Veda by heart and unless one can prove that it is wrong, one needs to consider it valid. Hence, the need to study Mīmāṃsā cannot be justified on the basis of the need to understand the meaning of the Veda.

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The role of the prescription to learn the Veda

Why should one study Mīmāṃsā? In order to understand the meaning of the Veda, say Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā authors. But why should one learn the Veda? According to Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā, because a Vedic prescription itself tells you to do so. The prescription at stake is svādhyāyo ‘dhyetavyaḥ “One should study one’s portion of the Veda”, called adhyayanavidhi. This, however, leads to several problems.

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Intrinsic and extrinsic validity of cognitions

A discussion in Seśvaramīmāṃsā ad 1.1.5

Vedānta Deśika (13th c. South India) stages a discussion between thinkers of the Mīmāṃsā and Nyāya schools on the topic of the validity of cognitions. The first school thinks that validity is intrinsic, the latter thinks it is extrinsic. The Naiyāyika starts by stating “Valid cognitions are produced by the cause producing cognitions plus an additional element (producing their validity), because, while being an effect, they are specified by such an additional element, like invalid cognition are specified by an additional element distinguishing them from valid ones” (vigitā pramā samyaṅmithyāvabodhasādhāraṇakāraṇāt atiriktasahitāj jāyate, kāryatve sati tadviśeṣatvāt apramāvat).
But this does not hold in the case of the Lord’s cognition, which is permanent and uncaused (the Lord has no new cognitions, but perpetually knows everything).

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Contradictions among śruti and smṛti

Uttamur T. Vīrarāghavācārya on the topic

Within his commentary on PMS 1.1.5, Veṅkaṭanātha discusses conflicts among different sources of linguistic communication, e.g., the Vedas and the Buddhist canon, or the Vedas and the Dharmaśāstras.

The second way is much trickier, because since the time of Kumārila every Mīmāṃsaka agrees that recollected texts such as Dharmaśāstras are also based on the Veda. Hence, how is contradiction at all possible? And, if there is any, how to deal with it?

The subcommentary by Uttamur T. Vīrarāghavācārya is worth quoting extensively:

Recollected texts and directly heard sacred text are either about something to be done or about a state of affairs (tattva). In the first case,
one experiences here and there an option among actions due to a specific sacred text and a specific recollected text [prescribing two different courses of actions].
Then, there is indeed option [between the contradictory commands], because one postulates (sambhū-) also a sacred text being the root for the recollected text which points to actions contradicting the available sacred text (so that the contradiction is no longer between an available sacred text and a recollected one, but between two sacred texts).

smṛtyāgamayor […] kāryaviṣayakatvaṃ vā, tattvaviṣayakatvaṃ vā. ādye, kriyāvikalpasya śrutibhedena smṛ[ti]bhedena ca tatra tatra darśanāt pratyakṣaśrutiviruddhakriyāparasmṛtimūlabhūtaśruter api sambhāvitatvāt vikalpa eva.

I should add that only the first case (ādya) is addressed, because so does the main text (the Seśvaramīmāṃsā). Anyway, the concluding line is more complicated:

But, since on an optional matter one handles as one wishes, they prefer only the sacred text which is presently available —this [approach] is different than that.

paraṃ vikalpitasthale yathāruci anuṣṭhānāt pratyakṣaśrutam eva rocayanta ity anyad etat.

Now, a couple of things puzzle me here. First, what is the causal connection between the first clause and the second one? Why is it that if one handles as one wishes, one prefers the directly available sacred text? Second, what it meant by anyad etat?

Do readers have any suggestion?

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What do Lokāyatas think about dharma?

Uttamur T. Vīrarāghavācārya on PMS 1.1.3

Uttamur T. Vīrarāghavācārya discusses the reasons for having to deal with epistemology while trying to understand dharma in the context of PMS 1.1.3: We need to deal with epistemology because there are too many disagreements about what dharma is and how to know it. Here he summarises the Lokāyata position:

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Wrestling with the angel: Fight all night

Further thoughts on intercultural philosophy

I hope that readers will bear with me while I keep on exploiting the metaphor of wrestling with the angel. There are a few more indications, in fact, we can take out of it. First, Jacob fights. He does not just encounter the angel, he fights with him. Similarly, in order for the encounter with another philosopher to be really transformative, one should not just engage with a restatement of one’s ideas, and rather look for points of difference and not just of harmony. One is not transformed with the encounter of the n-th philosopher who agrees with oneself.

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From unfinished starting points to new balances

The common background of all Mīmāṃsā authors is based mainly on Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsā Sūtra (henceforth PMS) and Śabara’s Bhāṣya `commentary’ thereon (henceforth ŚBh). I refer to this phase in the history of Mīmāṃsā as ”common Mīmāṃsā”, since the authority of these texts was accepted by all later Mīmāṃsā authors.

Various later Mīmāṃsā authors rethought this inherited background, in particular, on two connected issues:

  1. How later Mīmāṃsā authors reconsidered the classification of obligations implemented in the early Mīmāṃsā
  2. What later Mīmāṃsā authors considered to be the real trigger for obligations

They will implement in both cases reductionistic strategies which, however, were based on very different presuppositions. They introduced to the background Mīmāṃsā new assumptions, although these were —according to the ancient Indian étiquette— concealed as (re)interpretations of the ancient lore.

As for No. 1, the Mīmāṃsā school operates presupposing that prescriptions could enjoin:

  • nitya-karman `fixed sacrifices’, to be performed throughout one’s life, such as the Agnihotra, which one needs to perform each single day
  • naimittika-karman `occasional sacrifices’, to be performed only on given occasions, e.g., on the birth of a son
  • kāmya-karman `elective sacrifices’, to be performed if one wishes to obtain their result, e.g., the citrā sacrifice if one desires cattle

Here one can see already how the scheme offers the chance for different interpretations, precisely according to one’s interpretation of No. 2, namely of the understanding of what is the real motivator of one’s action, as below:

elective specific desire
occasional occasion, generic desire
fixed generic occasion (being alive), generic desire
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“Wrestling with the angel”

Intercultural philosophy is based on a dialogue, i.e., not just on a sheer juxtaposition of monologues, since such a juxtaposition would not lead to any new result and both partners would not be able to gain anything out of it. In order to achieve this result, one needs to be able to engage in a real dialogue. This is a less trivial issue than it may look like at first sight and in fact thousands of pages, from Plato to H.-G. Gadamer, have been dedicated only to the topic of how can dialogues and especially philosophical dialogues take place. The situation becomes even more difficult when in addition to the normal boundaries between people one needs to cross the additional bridge of cultures and of time. How can such a dialogue look like?

A.L. Leloir from render.fineartamerica.com