The Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta is a philosophical and theological school active chiefly in South India, from the last centuries of the first millennium until today and holding that the Ultimate is a personal God who is the only existing entity and of whom everything else (from matter to human and other living beings) is a characteristic.
Category Archives: Mīmāṃsā
Hugo David’s review of Duty, language and exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā
This post is part of a series dedicated to a discussion of the reviews of my book Duty, language and exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā. For more details on the series, see here. For the first post (on Andrew Ollett’s review) of the series, see here. For the second post (dedicated to Taisei Shida’s review), see here. As already hinted at, I welcome comments and criticism.
Hugo David’s review is (to my knowledge) the only one in French. It is encouraging that great work is still done in languages other than English, but I will allow myself some longer summaries of it, for the sake of readers who may not know French. (I beg the reader’s pardon for my translations, which do not convey the elegance of David’s original French).
Taisei Shida’s review of Duty, language and exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā
This post is part of a series dedicated to a discussion of the reviews of my book Duty, language and exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā. For more details on the series, see here. For the first post of the series, see here. As already hinted at, I welcome comments and criticism.
Among the various reviews, Taisei Shida’s one is surely the most precise. He
Kumārila on sentence-meaning: Mahābhāṣya opponents?
At the beginning of his chapter on sentence meaning, Kumārila sets the problem of what is the meaning-bearer in the case of a sentence (see this post). Later in the chapter, he will discuss sphoṭa, apoha and then present his abhihitānvayavāda, but first he discusses in general the possibility of a sentence-meaning. There can be no sentence-meaning out of the sum of the word-meanings, since those are instantaneous and cannot connect (kā 6–8). The same applies to their cognitions (kā 9). Further, neither words (pada) nor the concepts evoked by them (tadbuddhi) can really connect, so that a sentence-meaning is stricto sensu impossible.
Andrew Ollett’s Review of Duty, Language and Exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā
Reviews on Duty, Language and Exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā: Many thanks and some notes —UPDATED
Most of my long-term readers have had enough of my discussions of Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā, of its late exponent Rāmānujācārya, and of its theories about deontic logic, philosophy of language and hermeneutics. They may also know already about my book dedicated to these topics. More recent readers can read about it here.
You can also read reviews of my book by the following scholars:
- by Taisei Shida on Vol. 31 of Nagoya Studies in Indian Culture and Buddhism. Saṃbhāṣā (2014), pp. 84-87.
- by Andrew Ollett on Vol. 65.2 of Philosophy East and West (2015), pp. 632–636 (see here)
- by Gavin Flood on Vol. 8.3 of Journal of Hindu Studies (2015), pp. 326–328, (the beginning is accessible here)
- by Hugo David on the vol. 99 of BEFEO (2012-13), pp. 395-408 (you can read the beginning here)
I am extremely grateful to the reviewers (I could not have hoped for better ones!) for their careful and stimulating analyses and for their praising my attempts to make the text as understandable as possible and to locate sources and parallels in the apparatus. In fact, as a small token of gratitude for the time they spent on my book, I will dedicate a post to each one of their reviews, where I discuss their corrections and suggestions. The first one in this series will appear next Friday.
Do we need phonemes to be permanent? —UPDATED
Did Mīmāṃsakas really need to claim that phonemes are permanent (nitya)? Erich Frauwallner argued that the chapter on this topic in the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra (PMS 1.1.6–1.1.23) had been interpolated and most contemporary scholars*** agree that the Mīmāṃsā argumentation only needs the relation between signifier and signified to be fixed (nitya), not also the signifiers.
A possible narrative on the history of linguistics in India
In classical Indian philosophy, linguistics and philosophy of language are of central importance and inform further fields, such as epistemology and poetics. Thus, looking at the debates on linguistics and philosophy of language offers one a snapshot on the lively philosophical arena of classical India.
arthāpatti in Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika, vv. 1–9
arthāpatti is recognised as a separate instrument of knowledge (pramāṇa) almost only by Mīmāṃsakas. Śabara’s discussion of it is interesting, but short, so that Kumārila’s one is really the reference point for all future authors accepting or criticising arthāpatti as a pramāṇa.
What happened at the beginnings of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta?—Part 2
Several distinct component are constitutive of what we now know to be Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and are not present at the time of Rāmānuja:
- 1. The inclusion of the Āḻvār’s theology in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
- 2. The Pāñcarātra orientation of both subschools of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
- 3. The two sub-schools
- 4. The Vedāntisation of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
- 5. The impact of other schools