Category Archives: Mīmāṃsā

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Quick summary of Maṇḍana’s Vidhiviveka, uttarabhāga (siddhānta view), on nitya vs kāmya sacrifices

We concluded today a great workshop on Maṇḍana’s Vidhiviveka and these are my first comments on what we could establish. My deepest gratitude goes to all participants (Akane Saito, Andrew Ollett, Elliot Stern, Kei Kataoka, Lawrence McCrea, Nilanjan Das, Parimal Patil, Patrick Cummins, Wintor Scott and others). (For more on the workshop, read here: https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/workshop-maṇḍana-on-ritual-duties/)

Structure:
vv. 2.1–2.6: Maṇḍana’s siddhānta on iṣṭābhyupāyatā (chapter 11 in Elliot Stern’s forthcoming edition)

v. 2.7: summary of chapter 11, opening the new topic (chapter 12)

v. 2.8: yathāśakti provision applies to nitya sacrifices, sarvāṅgopasaṃhāra in kāmya ones (chapter 13)

v. 2.9: time needs to be the distinguishing factor between nitya/namimittika and kāmya rituals. For the former, kāla is included in nimitta, that ensures avaśyakartavyatā (chapter 14)

Summary of Chapters 13–14:
Chapter 13 tries to find a suitable candidate as phala for nitya sacrifices. The Prābhākara opponent insists on akaraṇe pratyavāya, whereas the siddhāntin (or quasi-siddhāntin) prefers pāpakṣaya. A first proposal in this sense, however, is refuted, because it would lead to just vāstava nityatva, and this would not guarantee the application of the yathāśakti provision. This can only be guaranteed by the ought-implies-can metarule and thus by a śābda nityatva, prescribed as such by the Veda. Hence, Maṇḍana wants both levels.

The akaraṇe-pratyavāya alternative is discussed at length. A preliminary possibility saying that akaraṇe there is pratyavāya, and that the sacrifice, being duḥkha, leads in an ānuṣaṅgika way to the production of pāpakṣaya.
This is finally refuted because there is no Vedic text justifying this view (it would be just inflicting whimsical pain to oneself).

At this point, the discussion becomes more technical. The acceptance of the yathāśakti provision implies that one contracts (saṅkoca) the meaning of either the mention of the adhikāra (so that only a samartha adhikārin is meant) or of the various aṅgavidhis. Which one is better? The constant risk to be avoided is that the same view could be applied to nitya and kāmya rituals, thus ending up in their being non-different.

The opponent suggests the application of Kāmsyabhojinyāya and of bādha based on bhūyastva in order to get to the result that the single adhikāraśruti should be contracted and not the many aṅgavidhis. By contrast, Maṇḍana (atha matam, p, 671 in ES’ edition, 17.5.2023) thinks that the aṅgavidhis are restricted, bc otherwise two unwanted consequences would follow (vaicitrya-risk in the prayoga) and because a single śruti is not evidence, since words are used in context (naitat sāram, p. 672).

Thus, this solution is putting much wait on yāvajjīvam-śruti, whereas chapter 14 will put in the context of naimittika sacrifices.

In this chapter, the new risk is adhikārātikrānti and the additional hurdle are naimittika sacrifices, which are not performed every day, but are otherwise identical to the nitya ones. To the atha matam and naitat sāram positions mentioned above something else is added, namely the definition of nimitta as not being a viśeṣaṇa of the adhikārin (this is what the Prābhākara opponent argues for), but just a nimitta. Time (kāla) also belongs to the nimitta in the case of nitya and naimittika sacrifices, although it is an aṅga for kāmya ones and can hence be a distinguishing factor (v. 2.9).

One point we did not have the time to discuss: Vācaspati (on 13.5) discusses a tantra vs prasaṅga approach and concludes that the first one should be preferred. What two things are centrally performed via tantra? Vācaspati clearly says that one is a kāmya and the other one is a nitya ritual (e.g. “ubhayor api kāmyanityayoḥ karmaṇoḥ […] tantram anuṣṭhānam” or “tasmān na kāmye ‘nuṣṭhīyamāne prāsaṅgikatvaṃ nityasya”, p. 660), but what are these referring to? A suggestion: There is a nitya sacrifice corresponding to the śābda nityatva, and a kāmya sacrifice corresponding to the vāstava nityatva and the two are performed at the same time.

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Maṇḍana on sacrificial duties

Maṇḍana’s theory of commands centers around his attempt to reduce them to statements of instrumentality. Commanding to X to do Y would amount to say that Y is the instrument to realise a goal of X. Maṇḍana establishes (in his eyes) this point in the first part of the siddhānta within one of his masterpieces, the Vidhiviveka ‘Discrimination about Commands’. This consists in some verses and a very extended autocommentary thereon. The first part of the Vidhiviveka covers objectors, the second one (the siddhānta) opens with six verses and commentary explaining this view.

However, Maṇḍana then has to harmonize this point with the pre-existing Mīmāṃsā account of duties distinguishing between three sets of sacrifices, namely:

  1. —nitya karman ‘fixed sacrifice’, to be performed regularly (typically each day), no matter what, but where a performance yathāśakti ‘as much as one can’ is acceptable.
  2. —naimittika karman ‘occasional sacrifice’, to be performed whenever the occasion arises (e.g., an eclypse or the birth of a son). As in the above case, yathāśakti performance is acceptable.
  3. -kāmya karman ‘elective sacrifice’, to be performed only if one wants their results and which needs to be performed exactly as prescribed (yathāvidhi or yathānyāya), no relaxing of the norms allowed.

Once a sacrifice has been undertaken, even if it is kāmya, its completion becomes compulsory and the way of such completion remains yathāvidhi in the case of kāmya sacrifices.
How can this difference be kept if all commands are nothing but statements about instrumentality? Would not a statement about instrumentality correspond only to the kāmya category?

Maṇḍana dedicates to this problem the next verses and commentary of his Vidhiviveka, where he examines several possibilities. The main constraints, are, again, keeping the distinction between nitya/naimittika sacrifices on the one hand and kāmya sacrifices on the other hand, as well as the distinction between yathāśakti and yathāvidhi modes of performance. He therefore explores multiple possible understanding of śakti ‘ability’, phala ‘result’ and adhikāra ‘eligibility, especially in conversation with Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā interlocutors insisting on how all sacrifices are compulsory and how the mentions of result found in conjunction with kāmya rituals is only a way to identify the adhikārin ‘eligible person’ for their performance. For instance, which kind of result could make it possible for a command about a nitya karman to lead one to perform the sacrifice every single day? Are there really results that are always desired? And even if such a result could be found, why would one need to keep a distinction in the yathāśakti and yathānyāya performance? If all sacrifices are instruments to realise a certain result, why would some of them need an accurate performance and other not so? The situation is further complicated by the presence of elective sacrifices prescribed to people ‘who desire heaven’ (svargakāma). In which sense are they different from nitya sacrifices, that also lead to heaven?

Unfortunately, the Vidhiviveka is characterised by a terse style, to say the least. Maṇḍana was probably so much into the topic that at times he seems to take important intermediate passages for granted and just leaves the reader wonder. Fortunately, a more generous commentator, Vācaspati, solves most of the doubt and adds further interesting discussions in his Nyāyakaṇikā.
Last, Sanskritists and philosophers of duty have a duty of gratitude to Elliot Stern, who created the first critical edition of the text, including also its previously unpublished commentaries.

Curious to know more? We will discuss chapters 12–14 of the Vidhiviveka in this workshop: https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/workshop-maṇḍana-on-ritual-duties/

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Solipsism in Sanskrit philosophy: Preliminary thoughts—UPDATED

How do Sanskrit philosophers deal with solipsism?

Some Buddhist epistemologists just accepted it, as a necessary consequence of their idealism. The example of Ratnakīrti’s “Rejection of the existence of other continuous sequences [of causes and effects leading to the illusion of a separate mind]” comes to mind. In my opinion, Ratnakīrti has a specially strong argument in favour of his view, namely: The Buddhist epistemological school denies the ultimate mind-independent existence of external objects. But once one accepts that, and thus accepts idealism, how can one safeguard intersubjectivity? If there is no reality other than our representations, how comes we can understand each other? Would it not be much more economical to imagine that there is only one representation?

Others rejected it based on analogy (basically: I am a mind, i.e., a continuous sequence of causes and effects; other people behaving similarly must be a mind too). The first and main example of this reasoning is Dharmakīrti’s “Establishment of the existence of other continuous sequences” (santānāntarasiddhi).

The Pratyabhijñā and the Advaita Vedānta schools are ultimately forms of solipsism. In the former case, there is only Śiva’s mind, and the appearance of other minds is part of his līlā ‘playful activity’. In the latter (at least after Śaṅkara), there is only brahman, and the appearance of other minds is due to māyā. What is the different explanatory power of līlā vs māyā? That māyā’s ontology is hard to explain, whereas once one has committed to the existence of a personal God, with Their likes and dislikes, then līlā is a perfectly acceptable solution. Thus, AV is light on the Absolute’s ontology, but implies a leap of faith as for māyā, whereas the opposite is the case for the Pratyabhijñā school.

What about the realist schools? Some of them established the existence of the self based on aham-pratyaya, i.e., our own perception of ourselves as an ‘I’ (so the Mīmāṃsā school). Some thinkers within Nyāya (like Jayanta) used inference to establish the existence of the self.

Is this enough to establish the existence of other selves?

Yes, in the case of Mīmāṃsā, because other minds seem prima facie to exist and due to svataḥ prāmāṇya (intrinsic validity) such prima facie view should be held unless and until the opposite is proven.

Yes, according to Jayanta, because other selves can be inferred just like the own self is.

Realistic Vedāntic schools will rely on either the Mīmāṃsā or the Nyāya paradigm. Thus, the question at this point will rather be: What is consciousness like, if one subscribes to this or the other school?

Some schools (like Pratyabhijñā, Yoga…) claim that we can have direct access to other minds, through yogipratyakṣa or intellectual intuition. However, yogipratyakṣa is possible only to some exceptional individuals. Moreover, Pratyabhijñā thinkers like Utpaladeva think that even this is not an evidence of the existence of separate other minds.

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Permissions in Dharmaśāstra

Vijñāneśvara’s Mitākṣarā commentary on Yājñvalkya 3 (on expiations), v. 35, explains that even in case of distress a non-Brāhmaṇa cannot take up the profession of a Brāhmaṇa and a Brāhmaṇa cannot take up that of a Śūdra. The commentary on v. 35 also explains that one will need to undergo an expiation ritual (prāyaścitta) because of having undertaken the occupation of another varṇa, once the difficult times are over (see Kumārila’s similar point in text a about expiable permissions). This suggests that

P(taking up the occupation of a kṣatriya or vaiśya varṇa)/being a Brāhmaṇa in distress (and so on for the further varṇas)

is to be understood as an exception to a previous prohibition:

F(perform the occupation of a kṣatriya, vaiśya and śūdra/Brāhmaṇa)

and not of a negative obligation.
It also seems to mean, as Timothy Lubin suggested (Nov 25), that there is no *F(self-harm)/T, since it may happen that taking up the occupation of a Brāhmaṇa would be the only way to avoid dying by starvation, but this still does not lead to a duty to undertake such an occupation.

Moreover, the picture gets more complicated.
In fact, vv. 37–39 explain that

P(taking up the profession of a vaiśya)/(being a Brāhmaṇa in distress)

has some counter-exceptions, namely prohibitions applying to it, e.g.

F(selling weapons)/being a Brāhmaṇa in distress who has taken up the occupation of a vaiśya

Thus, it is possible to have prohibitions within permissions (that are in turn exceptions of other prohibitions)

♦P(x/y) /\ F(z/x)

Then, there is a counter-counter exception, namely:

F(selling/Brāhmaṇa) /\ P(selling/Brāhmaṇa in distress) /\ F(selling sesame/Brāhmaṇa in distress) /\ P (selling sesame in exchange for grain/Brāhmaṇa who can’t perform rites for want of grain).

The commentary quotes Manu 10.91 explaining that if one were to sell sesame in exchange for something else, one would be harshly sanctioned (one will be born again as dog).
v. 41 and commentary explain that the previous permissions are clearly “better not” and that they come with some cost, whereas accepting gifts in case of distress is alright.
So (like in Kumārila, text a above), there are two levels of permissions:

F(selling/Brāhmaṇa)

P1(selling/Brāhmaṇa in distress) —>O(expiation/end of distress) \/ bad karman

P2(accepting gifts/Brāhmaṇa in distress)—>no bad karman

v. 43 (on stealing) follows at that point.
It reads as follows:

bubhukṣitas tryayaṃ sthitvā dhānyam abrāhmaṇād dharet |

pratigṛhya tad ākhyeyam abhiyuktena dharmataḥ ||

“If one has been hungry for three days, he might take some grains from someone who is not a Brāhmaṇa |

If he takes it and is accused, he must say it, according to duty (dharma) ||”

NB: F(stealing)/T is overrun by P(stealing)/not having eaten for three days, provided one is stealing only from a non-Brāhmaṇa (thus presupposing F(stealing from a Brāhmaṇa)/T). The Mitākṣarā commentary
further explains that one can only take enough for one meal and cannot take additional supplies, thus presupposing P(stealing a minimal amount to avoid starvation)/not having eaten for three days.
Now, if one goes on like that for a long time, one might eventually die of starvation (because one is stealing only enough for one meal and only once every three days). v. 44 suggests the solution (the king should take care of one), but this is not a solution one can count on in every case. Hence, v. 43 does not a rule out a situation in which, in order to avoid violating the prohibitions at stake (F(stealing)/T, weakened by P(stealing from a non-Brāhmaṇa/not having eaten for 3 days) and F(stealing from a Brāhmaṇa)/T)) one ends up actually dying.
This further strengthens the point that there is no O(avoid starvation) as the result of F(harm)/T.

The commentary introducing v. 43 states that P(stealing from a non-Brāhmaṇa/distress) only applies to people who have tried all of the above. I am not sure about how to formalise the temporality factor, perhaps something like:

F(selling/Brāhmaṇa)

P1(selling/Brāhmaṇa in distress) /\ distress—>
P1(stealing/Brāhmaṇa in distress)

NB: Kumārila had distinguished between P1 and P2, but by saying that P1 are “general permissions” and P2 specific ones, that is ones explicitly mentioned in text, whereas here P1 can be specifically mentioned and still involve some bad karman.

Appendix: Kumārila, TV ad 1.3.4, text a

[In one case, that of hardship] one does something even without permission, because there is no other way |

[in the other case, that of supererogatory permissions,] one does something else on the strength of a permission: the difference is major ||

And there is a difference between the specific [permission] and the permission (abhyanujñāna) in general (to adopt looser rules in times of hardship) |

[In fact,] the specific [permitted action] is completely free of flaws, the other action has a little (stoka) flaw ||

ekaṃ vināpy anujñānāt kriyate gatyasambhavāt | kriyate ‘nujñayā tv anyad viśeṣaś ca tayor mahāh ||

sāmānyenābhyanujñānād viśeṣaś ca viśiṣyate | viśeṣo ‘tyantanirdoṣaḥ stokadoṣetarakriyā ||

Is the Mitākṣarā just not following Kumārila when it says that even a specific permission can imply bad karman and the need of an expiation? Is Kumārila trying to systematize a complicated series of cases? Or am I missing something altogether?

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Ought entails Can (and Prohibited entails Can) for Kumārila (and Śabara)

Within TV ad 1.3.4, (Mimamsadarsana 1929-34, pp. 192–193), Kumārila discusses a seeming deontic conflict and solves it by appealing to the different responsibilities (adhikāra) of the various addressees. He explains that the prescription to learn the Vedas for 48 years does not conflict (virodhābhāva) with the duty to get married and have children, because it addresses people who suffer of disabilities and who therefore cannot become householders. This is a further evidence of how O(x/a) implies that a is actually able to perform x. If a is unable to perform x, the obligation is not incumbent upon them (the background, ableist, assumption is that a blind or lame person cannot support a family.

Kumārila also discusses the prescription to learn the Veda by heart in order to get svarga (heaven/happiness) and explains it would clash against the ones prescribing complicated sacrifices for the same result, since no one would engage in them, if learning the Veda by heart were enough. Here, we see several principles at work:

1. No prescription can remain idle.
2. Translative (?) property of duties: If x implies z and O(x), then O(z). In fact, performing sacrifices \emph{presupposes} learning the Veda by heart, so that O(sacrifices)—>O(learning Veda by heart).

Because of 1., it is clear that the former prescription necessarily only applies to people who cannot perform the latter. Thus: If there are two seemingly contradictory obligations (both aiming at the same result), that is:

(i) O(x/in order to reach s) and
(ii) O (x3/in order to reach s),
then one needs to postulate for the former an additional condition that states something like “Unless you can perform (ii).

As for the converse, namely that prohibitions imply possibility, Śabara (ŚBh ad 1.2.18) explains that the seeming prohibition “The Fire is not to be kindled on the earth, nor in the sky, nor in heaven” cannot be taken as a prohibition, because fire cannot be kindled in the sky nor in heaven.

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Mapping the territory: Sanskrit cosmopolis, 1500–today

There is a lot to do in the European intellectual history, with, e.g., major theories that await an improved understanding and connections among scholars that have been overseen or understudied. Using a simile, one might say that a lot of the territory between some important peaks (say, the contributions of Hume, Kant, Hegel or Heidegger) is still to be thoroughly investigated.

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!)

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“dadhi and dadhy are two different words”

The case of combination variants like dadhi and dadhy is used by Nyāya authors as an evidence of the fact that words are produced and modified. Mīmāṃsā authors, who think that language is without beginning, need to respond to that and explain therefore that dadhy is not a modification of dadhi, but an alternative word, and both are used in specific phonetic contexts.

Veṅkaṭanātha in his commentary on PMS 1.1.16 elaborates thereon and explains that they are described as archetype and ectype of each other for pedagogical reasons only (in order not to further multiply the number of words to be learnt). At this point, he faces two very different objections.

The first opponent says that the archetype-ectype relation could be reverted according to a different grammatical analysis. This probably means that dadhy could be considered as the archetype and dadhi as the ectype. Veṅkaṭanātha answers that one should choose the grammatical analysis based on its pedagogical merits, and the one suggested by the opponent is not pedagogically easier.

The other opponent says that the ectype-archetype relation is real and based on the similarity between the two. The “similarity” is not further elaborated upon, but we can guess something more about it through Veṅkaṭanātha’s reply. Veṅkaṭanātha answers that if similarity were the ground for real archetype-ectype connections, then there would be no way not to avoid over- and under-extensions. On the one hand, one could over-extend it to other cases of similarities, like yogurt (dadhi) and jasmine flowers, that are similar insofar as they are both white, although they are not considered to be archetype and ectype of each other. On the other hand, cow-dung and beetles are dissimilar, but are considered one the ectype of the other (beetles are believed to be a transformation of cow-dung).

Now, my problem regards a terminological choice. The first opponent says: vyākaraṇāntareṇa prakṛtivikṛtivaiparītyam. In his answer to the second opponent, Veṅkaṭanātha says na ca sādṛśyāt prakṛtivikṛtibhāvaḥ śaṅkhyaḥ, vaiparītyasyāpi prasaṅgāt. However, vaiparītya in the first case seems to be the opposite of what should be the case (the inversion of dadhi and dadhy as archetype and ectype). By contrast, in the second case vaiparītya seems to indicate just a different set of consequences. Comments welcome!

(Cross-posted on the indianphilosophyblog.com)

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Reconstructing Viśiṣṭādvaitavedānta: Veṅkaṭanātha’s contribution

The book on Veṅkaṭanātha I am working on is an attempt of doing history of philosophy in the Sanskrit context, given that no agreed canon, chronology, list of main figures or main questions has been established for the history of Sanskrit philosophy. Therefore, in the Sanskrit context, doing history of philosophy does not amount to reconstruct some aspects within an established picture, but rather to understand what is the picture altogether. This also means that it is impossible or counter-productive to do history of philosophy in just an antiquarian way in the Sanskrit context.
The book also takes on the challenge of talking about Sanskrit philosophy without reducing it to ahistorical “schools” which are depicted as unchanging through time, so that while talking of Nyāya one can mix 5 c. CE sources with 11 c. ones. In contrast to this approach, the book focuses on the role of individual philosophers within such schools.

Accordingly, the book reconstructs the intellectual figure of Veṅkaṭanātha and his philosophical and theological contribution to what we now call “Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta”. Its main thesis is that Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta as we know it now is mostly a product of Veṅkaṭanātha’s brilliant mind. He connected various texts and theories into a harmonious whole, so that readers and practitioners looking at the time before Veṅkaṭanātha now recognise them as pieces of a puzzle. Once Veṅkaṭanātha’s contribution is in place it is in fact easy to look back at authors before him and recognise them as pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle. However, it is only due to Veṅkaṭanātha that the entire jigsaw puzzle exists and the various texts and ideas could have remained disconnected, or could have led to different developments without him. The book analyses Veṅkaṭanātha’s contribution in shaping the school, a con- tribution that goes so deep that it is hard to imagine Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta through a different lens. Veṅkaṭanātha’s synthesis was not, or not just, the result of a juxtaposition, but itself a philosophical enterprise. Veṅkaṭanātha re-interpreted a large amount of texts and ideas connecting them in a higher-order theory. In this sense, he is a philosopher doing history of philosophy as his primary methodological tool.

The book investigates this synthesis, its range and its theoretical foundations. In this way, it also attempts to reframe the usual understanding of Veṅkaṭanātha’s impact on Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, shifting him from the position of a learned successor of Rāmānuja to that of a builder of a new system, with a different scope (ranging well beyond Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and incorporating much more into it) and possibly with a different basis. Consequently, this book deals with philosophical themes in connection with their intellectual development.

Among the tools used by Veṅkaṭanātha in crafting his synthesis, of particular interest is his emphasis on the unity of the system holding between Vedānta and another school, called Mīmāṃsā. This is a school focusing on the exegesis of the Vedas and therefore on epistemology, deontics, philosophy of language and hermeneutics. Veṅkaṭanātha borrowed from it the tools to reconcile sacred texts seemingly mutually contradictory, as well as a well- developed dynamic ontology and account of subjectivity. However, the Mīmāṃsā school was also atheistic and considered the Vedas to be only enjoying a deontic authority, not an epistemic one. Both claims (especially the first one) contradict basic tenets of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. Therefore, in crafting a single system out of Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta Veṅkaṭanātha needed to find a way not to deny these claims while at the same time transcending them. Last, some readers not too familiar with Sanskrit philosophy might find a lot of topics Veṅkaṭanātha deals with “non-philosophical” or at least “non-philosophical enough”. For instance, why does he spend so much time on the injunction to learn the Vedas by heart? As an interpreter, I might have just used the debate in order to extract from it what is relevant for what is recognised today as “philosophy of action”, e.g.: Can someone be motivated to undertake an action whose results will only take place after years ? Does this even count as an action? What at all counts as motivation with regard to a course of action involving multiple years? Can a cost-benefit analysis still work in such cases? Which concept of subjectivity is needed for complex actions extending over multiple years? Alternatively, I might have just depicted the relevance of the debate in the historical setting in which it took place. In general, I gave hints going in both directions, but I primarily tried to reconstruct the debate in its own terms, because a global approach to philosophy means being open not just to new answers to old questions and to new questions within known fields, but also to altogether new fields of investigation. The unitary Mīmāṃsā system is in this sense a treasure house of ideas leading to a philosophy of exegesis and a philosophy of ritual.

Comments and criticisms, as usual, more than welcome!

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Medhātithi on corporeal punishment

Medhātithi discusses corporeal punishments whenever Manu does, but in two different ways: At times (e.g., in his commentary on MDhŚā 9.248) he just repeats what Manu says, without adding further elaborations and without attempting a general argument about the overall consistency of the punishments suggested. At other times, he allows the jurist and philosopher of law within himself to talk and gives more details about the purpose of the punishments. These are the passages I will focus on in this post.

1. Terminology: One of the things not completely clear in MDhŚā (and consequently in Medhātithi’s commentary thereon) is what kind of corporeal punishment are meant by māraṇa ‘imposing death’, hiṃsā ‘violence’ and vadha ‘killing’. All could just mean ‘death penalty’ (and hiṃsā and māraṇa are used in the commentary on MDh 8.318 as if they were synonyms). However, in other cases other forms of corporeal punishment (śārīra daṇḍa) are mentioned, e.g., aṅkana ‘branding’ (so Medhātithi on 9.236). Could these be included within maraṇa, vadha and hiṃsā as well? It will be evident in the following that Medhātithi takes advantage of each vagueness in MDhŚā in his efforts to make the text consistent.

Medhātithi on 9.249 comments on a passage speaking of vadha, but ex- plicitly broadens the concept, so as to encompass other types of punishment apart from death penalty. It is noteworthy that he mentions two topics that will be highlighted also in section 3.3, namely holding back crimes as a purpose of punishment, and the distinction between visible and invisible purposes:

“This mention [in the MDhŚā] of vadha is for the sake of summarising (upasaṃhṛ-) suppressive [punishments] (nigraha). Therefore, according to the law code (yathāśruti) this vadha can occur through various manners. In this context, given that the mention of vadha [in the MDhŚā] is meant for the sake of perceptible purposes, it does not need to be necessarily a killing. Such being the case, there is no flaw if [the punishment] is realised also through other means, e.g. detention (bandhana).”

(nigrahopasaṃhārārthas tv ayaṃ vadhopadeśaḥ. ato yathāśruti citravadhopāyaiḥ kartavyaḥ. […] tatra dṛṣṭaprayojanatvād upadeśasya na niyato vadhaḥ. evaṃ ca saty upāyāntareṇāpi bandhanādinā ’viniyacchato’ na doṣaḥ.)

2. Multiple purposes for corporeal punishments: In the commentary ad MDh 8.324 Medhātithi discusses the different pun- ishments (ranging from a fine to beating and to death) for stealing, as pro- portioned to the moment in which the stealing has been committed and to the purpose which could have been fulfilled by the stolen item. For instance, stealing war animals during a war encounters a more severe penalty than stealing them at a normal time. Similarly, stealing a rare medicine when it would have been needed by a certain patient encounters a severe punishment, whereas stealing the same medicine when no one needs it receives a smaller punishment. The mention of paying a fine vs death as punishment in the various circumstances in which one could steal a sword strongly suggests that fines are considered the smaller punishment.

3. Corporeal punishment vs. fines: Notwithstanding what has been seen in section 2, the choice between fines and corporeal punishment is not just driven by the severity of the crime.

The passage I will analyse here is the commentary ad MDh 8.318. Looking back at the Mīmāṃsā 6-fold dialectical scheme above, the topic here is corporeal punishment, even though it remains implicit. The doubt is also implicit, but it can be reconstructed as: Does corporeal punishment have an invisible purpose? A further implicit background assumption only became clear to me at the end of my analysis: There are either monetary punishments or corporeal ones.

Thus:

• topic: corporeal punishment [implicit]
• doubt: Does corporeal punishment have an invisible purpose? [implicit]

1st speaker (Medhātithi): punishment in the form of fines is useful to the king (implicit: because he earns money), [hence] corporeal punishment must be useful to the person who undergoes it.

2nd speaker (Obj): No, it is needed for the sake of protecting other people from crimes.

(Medhātithi): Why should protection not be possible without hurting?

(Obj): Without the hurt, the person would repeat the act

(Medhātithi): This could be achieved also by reprimanding them etc.

(Obj): By seeing them punished, others would desist.

(Medhātithi): The suffering could be brought about even by fines.

(Medhātithi): Moreover, even though criminals are punished, thousands of people are found to do the same act again and again!

Conclusion: Corporeal punishment purifies the person who undergoes it by creating an invisible force, so that they can be admitted to heaven like innocent people, as said by Manu. What follows at this point seems a redundant addition, since it seems to come after the conclusion:

  • 1. There are restrictions concerning the cutting off of limbs…
  • 2. Also prescriptions such as the one about the elephant, etc.
  • 3. Therefore, it is established that one is liberated from one’s bad karman only once there is corporeal punishment,
  • 4. And analogously, branding (aṅkana) will be prescribed in the case of major offenders, to whom everything has been confiscated, and who are punished by entering into water, so that people avoid getting in touch with them. The figure below summarises the whole discussion.

4. Unspoken strategies: Medhātithi does not feel the need to spell out strategies and premisses he is mostly reusing from Mīmāṃsā.

The first unspoken premiss of Medhātithi is: Never question the juridical corpus one is commenting upon, just try to make sense of it (as Mīmāṃsā authors do with the Veda). This means that Medhātithi cannot conclude that corporeal punishments should be avoided. He can discuss the why, not the whether. Correspondingly, the juridical corpus can be interpreted, not refuted.

The second unspoken assumption is: Every action needs a purpose (cf. prayojanam anuddiśya na mando’pi pravartate, Kumārila). This leads to the conclusion that punishment needs a purpose.

A third unspoken assumption is that there is a distinction between visible and invisible purposes (dṛṣṭa and adṛṣṭa in Mīmāṃsā terminology).

This is accompanied by the forth unspoken assumption, namely, the preference for visible purposes whenever possible, and by the fifth one, namely that only one purpose is possible (ekārthatā), both of which borrowed from Mīmāṃsā. Therefore, Medhātithi only concludes that corporeal punishment has an invisible purpose once he has ruled out possible visible ones.

A sixth unspoken assumption is that ceteris paribus, we should not harm any living being, because of the Vedic prohibition “One should not harm any living being” (na hiṃsyāt sarvā bhūtāni), largely discussed in Mīmāṃsā.

5. Corporeal punishment and adultery: As seen above, corporeal punishments are not a deterrent to crime (although they can have other purposes). However, Medhātithi ad 8.359 seems to admit of corporeal punishments as deterrent, while discussing punishments for adultery. The passage reads as follows:

“If by [minor things] like talking together there were only a minor penalty, then people would keep acting. Then, inflamed by the deity of love, overpowered by another conversation with another man’s wife, and attracted by the arrows of love, they would consider the king’s correction as negligible and disregard [even] their bodies’ sustenance.

By contrast, if by the first undertaking they were caught, it would be possible to drive them away, given that their desire has been interrupted (aprabandhavṛtti). Hence, it is correct to have major penalties even for people just whispering to other people’s wives.”

Is this passage in sheer contradiction with the previous one? Should not fines be enough? This question brings us back to the kind of Mīmāṃsā Medhātithi is following, which is possibly a Maṇḍana-flavoured Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā in which the addressee of a command can evaluate costs and benefits (for instance, of fines and theft). However, in the case of love and lust, people are unable to calculate costs and benefits. Hence, the only way to protect women is by eliminating their potential seducers. Thus, corporeal punishment in those cases might just aim at making adultery impossible by removing the potential seducer.

6. Conclusions: Punishments are prescribed by Manu on different bases. Medhātithi partly tries to systematise Manu’s lore and in several cases discusses a multifaceted structure of punishments. For instance, in the commentary on MDhŚā 8.334 Medhātithi specifies that Manu’s reference to the cutting of a limb as a punishment for theft only regards “one who is repeatedly addicted to stealing” (transl. by G. Jhā) after they have been repeatedly fined. This is relevant as a harmonising comment, because the previous verses of Manu had mentioned fines.

According to Medhātithi, punishments can be nuanced based on multiple factors. The first and main factor is the purpose to be achieved by the punishment: discouraging crimes (e.g., stealing weapons during war is severely punished in the commentary on MDhŚā 8.324), making crimes literally impossible (as in the case of adultery in the commentary on 8.359) allowing the king to increase their financial resources (commentary on 8.318), warning other people that they are dealing with a convicted criminal (commentary on 9.236), purifying the criminal (commentary on 8.318). This means that although fines are in principle a smaller punishment than corporeal punishments, they can be the preferred option depending on the purpose to be achieved with the punishment.

For some random crimes, such as stealing in normal circumstances, Medhātithi does not aim at eradicating them completely, hence fines are the best strategy (they discourage crimes while increasing the king’s finances). Other crimes (such as adultery, stealing medicines from sick people or stealing a weapon from a person who is directly confronted by an armed enemy) are seen as more threatening and therefore need to be actively discouraged or literally made impossible with extreme measures.

The broadest systematising effort by Medhātithi with regard to punishments seems to occur in his commentary on 8.318, where he lists all punish- ments as being either for the benefit of the punisher (fines, benefitting the king) or for the benefit of the punished (corporeal punishments, purifying the criminal).

Does the reconstruction above convince you? Do you notice other strategies?

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Prescriptions in Kumārila, Uṃveka, Maṇḍana

Maṇḍana’s thesis of iṣṭasādhanatā is an answer to the problem of how to identify the core of a prescription. What makes people undertake actions? Kumārila’s śabdabhāvanā (‘linguistic urge’) theory and Prabhākara’s kāryavāda (‘theory about duty [being the motivator]’) had already offered their answers.

Kumārila’s theory had two pillars:

  • 1. a theory of rational behaviour being always goal-oriented,
  • 2. a strong hermeneutic basis linked to the analysis of prescriptive language.

In the 2. analysis, exhortative verbal endings are analysed as entailing a verbal part (tiṅ) and an exhortative part (liṅ). The former express the action (bhāvanā), the latter express the injunction (vidhi/śabdabhāvanā). And any action needs three components, namely something to be brought about by the action (bhāvya), an instrument to bring it about (karaṇa) and a procedure (itikartavyatā), which is equated to the instrument’s instrument. bhāvanā, vidhi, bhāvya, karaṇa and itikartavyatā are all conveyed by the Vedic prescriptive sentence, but are they conveyed *qua* bhāvanā etc.? The answer is clearly affirmative for bhāvanā and vidhi, which are directly conveyed by tiṅ and liṅ respectively. By contrast, bhāvya, karaṇa and itikartavyatā might need the application of some further investigation on the part of the knower, who will need to apply hermeneutical rules (nyāya) to correctly interpret the sentence and link the bhāvya to the word mentioning the eligible person and the karaṇa to the meaning of the verbal root.

The first pillar (1) is taken up by Maṇḍana.
In fact, Maṇḍana expands on Kumārila’s intuition about human behaviour being always goal-oriented by offering a radical reductionist hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, being a motivator is nothing but communicating that the action to be undertaken is an instrument to some desired result. In this sense, prescribing X to people desiring Y is *nothing but* explaining that X is the means to achieve Y. The “nothing but” part of the definition is key to distinguish Maṇḍana’s position from Kumārila’s. Also for Kumārila a prescription presupposes that one understands that the prescribed action will lead to something independently desired.

Now, I am grateful to Sudipta Munsi, who recently made me read Uṃveka’s commentary on ŚV codanā 214, where Uṃveka rejects a view that seems a proto-version of Kumārila’s one, since it speaks of bhāvanā, of a desired bhāvya and of the meaning of the verbal root, but without mentioning the fact that this conveys the karaṇa. In this proto-Kumārila view, the prescriptive sentence impels (pravṛt-), but since one might doubt this impulsion, it implies (ākṣip-) a bhāvya in the form of something desirable and therefore orients the listener’s understanding to move past the meaning of the verbal root towards the identification of something really desirable. Uṃveka does not use the verb abhidhā- ‘directly denote’, but says that the prescriptive sentences conveys (avagam-) this meaning. The doubt (āśaṅkā) about the impulsion seems to be the reason for the implication (ākṣepa). Uṃveka does not frame this as a case of śrutārthāpatti (postulation of a linguistic element based on cogent evidence), because ākṣepa performs almost the same role (but without the postulation of an explicit linguistic unit, which remains implied).
Uṃveka contrasts to this view his own (vayaṃ tu brūmaḥ), according to which a prescriptive sentence first conveys an impulsion (preraṇā) and then (uttarakālam) conveys (pratī-) a desired goal. Here, there are important points that appear to be influenced by Maṇḍana (please remember that Uṃveka commented on Maṇḍana’s Bhāvanāviveka):

  • The mention of the destruction of accumulated bad karman as the desired result for fixed sacrifices
  • The connection between impulsion and the fact that the action impelled leads to a desirable goal

However, unlike in Maṇḍana, Uṃveka distinguishes impulsion (preraṇā) from the fact of being the instrument to a desired goal, whereas Maṇḍana’s main claim is that the two are completely identical. Uṃveka is possibly the first person mentioning the temporal sequence linking impulsion and the understanding (pratī-) of something as a desirable goal. Like in the discussion of the proto-Kumārila view, Uṃveka does not use the word abhidhā, but he says that the prescriptive content is conveyed (avagam-).

Pārthasārathi (another commentator of Kumārila) de facto embedded Maṇḍana’s view of iṣṭasādhanatā, i.e., the prescribed action is an instrument to a desired result, as part of Kumārila’s śabdabhāvanā theory, more precisely as its procedure (itikartavyatā).

This was just a quick summary. Specifications or corrections are welcome.