Are you allowed to perform a malefic sacrifice? If you are, then it seems like the Veda contradicts itself, since elsewhere it prohibits violence. If you are not, why not, given that such sacrifices are prescribed in the Veda?
Category Archives: Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
Workshop with Lawrence McCrea
Workshop
Veṅkaṭanātha on malefic sacrifices and dharma
| Date: | Mon, 18 August, 10am – 5pm, Tue, 19 August, 1pm – 5 pm |
| Venue: | Institut für Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte Asiens, Seminarraum 1 |
| Apostelgasse 23, 1030 Wien | |
| Organisation: | Elisa Freschi (IKGA) |
The workshop will be conducted by Larry McCrea.
Topic
The workshop will focus on Veṅkaṭanātha’s (1269–1370) approach to Mīmāṃsā through the works he dedicated to this school, i.e., Seśvaramīmāṃsā, Mīmāṃsāpādukā and, secondarily, Śatadūṣaṇī and Tattvamuktākalāpa.
Veṅkaṭanātha was the foremost systematizer of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and immensely contributed to its positioning within the Indian philosophical landscape, while still presenting his contribution as doing nothing more than explicating his predecessors’ position. In particular, he chose to introduce the Mīmāṃsā within the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, notwithstanding the fact that the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta is essentially a Vaiṣṇava school, whereas the Mīmāṃsā is usually regarded as atheistic. Veṅkaṭanātha further needed to take into account his predecessors’ (chiefly Yāmuna and Rāmānuja) sceptical standpoint on Mīmāṃsā.
Parallel passages dealing with selected topics in the three texts will be read in the original Sanskrit and analysed, with a particular focus on Veṅkaṭanātha’s innovations in his interpretation of Mīmāṃsā and on his solutions to the problems hinted at above.
Topics to be dealt with
- artha and anartha within the Veda: The conundrum of malefic sacrifices:Seśvaramīmāṃsā ad Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra 1.1.2.
- Is the Veda the instrument to know dharma? Seśvaramīmāṃsā ad 1.1.2.
Texts to be read and editions used
- For the Seśvaramīmāṃsā and the Mīmāṃsāpādukā: 1971 edition, Ubhaya Vedānta Granthamālā.
NB: Scans of the relevant texts can be received from Elisa Freschi. Hard copies will be distributed at the beginning of the workshop.
One God, one Śāstra — A panel for the WSC 2015
One God, one śāstra: philosophical developments towards and within Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta between Nāthamuni and Veṅkaṭanātha
In the case of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta school, one has the advantage of having some basic historical elements to judge about the development of the theological and philosophical thought of the school. We have, in fact, at least some historical data about the time, place and personality of key figures such as Yāmuna, Rāmānuja and Veṅkaṭanātha and a good amount of works from them has survived and can be accessed. Some attempts have been made (e.g., by Oberhammer, Neevel, Mesquita) to offer a general interpretation of this early development, but many problems have remained open, and not only because of the lack of materials (regarding, e.g., Śrīvatsaṅka Miśra, Nāthamuni, important parts of Yāmuna’s work, etc.).
This panels aims at joining scholars working on the early Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, and making them discuss the development of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta from its forerunners to a full-fledged philosophical and theological phenomenon. Possible leit-motivs in the analysis of this development can be topics such as (the list does not aim to be exhaustive):
- the increasing importance of the topic of aikaśāstrya, possibly paralleling the emphasis on the existence of just one God
- the adaptation of other schools to one’s theistic approach (from Nyāya and Yoga in the case of Nāthamuni to Uttara Mīmāṃsā in the case of Rāmānuja, to Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and again Nyāya for Veṅkaṭanātha)
Organisers: Elisa Freschi, Marcus Schmücker
Participants at July the 1st 2014: Francis X. Clooney, Elisa Freschi, Robert Leach, Halina Marlewicz, Erin McCann, Lawrence McCrea, Srilata Raman, Marion Rastelli, Marcus Schmücker
If you are interested in participating, or in knowing further details, please drop a comment here or send a line at my email address (my name dot my surname at gmail dot com).
The 16th World Sanskrit Conference will take place from the 28th of June to the 2nd of July in Bangkok. Further infos can be found here.
Are Bādarāyaṇa and Vyāsa the same person?
As part of his aikaśāstrya agenda, Vedānta Deśika wanted to prove that Jaimini (the author of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra) was a pupil of Bādarāyaṇa (the author of the Uttara Mīmāṃsā, aka Vedānta, Sūtra). In order to prove that, he can use a verse from the Mahābhārata referring to Vyāsa:
The Lord, the best, the benefactor, taught the Vedas, of which the Mahābhārata is the fifth, to Sumantu, Jaimini, Bailva and Śuka, his own son and to Vaiśampāyana.
They (the students) recited separately [parts] of the Mahābhārata, which had been put together [by Vyāsa] (vedān adhyāpayām āsa mahābhāratapañcamān | sumantuṁ jaiminiṁ pailaṁ śukaṁ caiva svam ātmajam || prabhur variṣṭho varado vaiśaṁpāyanam eva ca | saṁhitās taiḥ pr̥thaktvena bhāratasya prakāśitāḥ || MBh 10.57.74–5)
What remains to be done, at this point, is to establish the identity of Vyāsa and Bādarāyaṇa. This is also a wide-spread idea, but Vedānta Deśika wants to establish through a motivation of this double name:
In the island mixed with (i.e., endowed with) Badarika (jujube) tress, out of Parāśara, Satyavatī (the mother of Vyāsa) begot a child, a destroyer of foes (parantapa), Bādarāyana, the imperishable.
dvīpe badarikāmiśre bādarāyaṇam acyutam |
parāśarāt satyavatī putraṃ lebhe parantapam ||
Unfortunately, however, I could not locate the source of the latter verse. Do you know it?
I am surprised to notice that I never discussed aikaśāstrya on this blog. You can, however, read about it in my forthcoming article on the volume I will edit with Philipp Maas, a preliminary version of which can be read here.
When does one name one’s sources?
I am inclined to think that classical (non-Buddhist) Indian philosophers did not name or identify their sources if:
- They were part of their own tradition
- One agreed with them
My collective projects for 2015
Even if we are friends or pen friends or acquaintances, I will not be able to reach you with all my next Call for Papers. Please do not feel offended. I hold a blog exactly in order to reach out to the small community of people working philosophically on South Asian texts.
Hayagrīva in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta texts —UPDATED
In post-Vedānta Deśika (traditional dates 1269-1370) Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta texts Hayagrīva seems to have assumed the function Gaṇeśa has in all other texts, namely he is invoked at the beginning as the God of learning, protecting the intellectual enterprise one is about to undertake.
(Musée Guimet, Cambodia)
Veṅkaṭanātha’s Buddhist quotes
Veṅkaṭanātha (also known as Vedānta Deśika) quotes relatively often from Buddhist texts, especially from Pramāṇavāda ones (as was possibly customary within Indian philosophical circles. Does it mean that he could still directly access Pramāṇavāda texts? Or does he depend on second-hand quotations?
What is unreal?
The term tuccha means in Classical Sanksrit “worthless”, “insignificant”. In Vedānta, however, it gets a more specific technical meaning, to denote the absolute unreality of chimeral entities, such as the khapuṣpa (flower in the air), which will not and cannot ever exist.
Veṅkaṭanātha’s contribution to Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
Veṅkaṭanātha (traditional dates 1269–1370 (see Neevel 1977 for a convincing explanation of these too long life spans) is a complex figure who can be interpreted in different ways according to the facet one is focusing on. What is sure is that what we refer to as Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta has been largely influenced by the shape he gave to it. For instance, the traditional lineage of teachers of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta groups together teachers who bear some vague family resemblance among each other, but who are all directly linkable to Veṅkaṭanātha’s view of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta.
The main philosophical outlines of Veṅkaṭanātha’s Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta are:
- the Vedāntic viewpoint
- the emphasis on Pūrva Mīmāṃsā
- the incorporation of Pāñcarātra
- the incorporation of the Āḻvārs’ theology
The development of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta as a vedāntic school is clear as one looks back at Veṅkaṭanātha’s predecessors, but it is important to notice that what seems a posteriori like a clear Vedāntic school would not probably have appeared as such to its contemporaries. In fact, Yāmuna’s relation to Vedānta is complex. He quotes from the Upaniṣads in the Ātmasiddhi, and he starts it listing the Vedānta teachers he wants to refute (including Bhartṛhari and Śaṅkara), so that one might think that he is keener to “purify” Vedānta than he cares about “purifying” Nyāya. At the same time, at least in the Ātmasiddhi (see Mesquita 1971, pp. 4–13) Yāmuna accepts an anti-Vedāntic proof for the existence of God, namely the inference (whereas Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā agree that God can only be known through the Sacred Texts) and the Āgamaprāmāṇya seems to have a completely different focus. Rāmānuja is more straightforwardly part of a Vedāntic approach (this is, in my opinion, also the reason why he has been often considered the “founder” of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta —a term which he and Yāmuna still ignore). As for Nāthamuni, his relation to Vedānta can only be presupposed out of what we know of him through his successors, given that his works have been lost. Their titles focus, however, on Nyāya and Yoga (and not on Vedānta).
As for No. 2, we know nothing about Nāthamuni’s relation to Mīmāṃsā, but we know that at least one trend within Vedānta (as testified by Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Brahmasūtra) claimed that the study of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā was not necessary. Yāmuna’s relation to Pūrva Mīmāṃsā is double-faced, but Pūrva Mīmāṃsā authors seem to be his targeted objectors in the sense that he wants to convince them of the legitimacy of the Pāñcarātra transmission (although often recurring to their same arguments) and he by and large adopts Nyāya strategies (such as the reference to God as the authoritative source of the epistemologic validity of the Pāñcarātra, or the use of inference to establish God’s existence). The situation changes, perhaps during Yāmuna’s own life, certainly with Rāmānuja, who steers in direction Vedānta and, thus, comes closer to the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. So close that he programmatically states at the beginning of his commentary on the Brahmasūtra that not only the Brāhmaṇa part of the Veda needs to be studied, but that its study is part of the same teaching with the Vedānta. Veṅkaṭanātha takes advantage of this (perhaps causal) remark and understands its deep implications: he can thus state that the whole of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and the whole of Uttara Mīmāṃsā constitute a single teaching (ekaśāstra).
No. 3 and 4: Furthermore, Veṅkaṭanātha used the same model, I think, to incorporate into the system further elements. He reaches back to the Pāñcarātra, which had been defended by Yāmuna but rather neglected by Rāmānuja and, more strikingly, to the hymns of the Āḻvārs. It is in this sense more than telling that Veṅkaṭanātha (as first among the first teachers of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta) decided to write also in Tamil and to write theology also in poetical form, as the Āḻvārs had done.
Did you ever try to reconstruct what had happened in a single school within some generations of teachers and pupils? What did you find out?
On Yāmuna’s role in what came to be known as Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, check this post, on Pāñcarātra and Vedānta, see this post. For more on Veṅkaṭanātha, check this tag.