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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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Should you upload your articles on Academia.edu, Research Gate, etc.?

Should you upload your articles, presentations and further material online?
Reasons for not doing it:

  • People might criticise you because they read your unfinished stuff (this of course only applies if you are considering to upload unfinished articles).
  • It takes time, and you should rather use your time to write or read.
  • Academia.edu, etc., are for-profit and one should rather not help them (however, they also retain a free version and moreover see No. 3 below).
  • Are there other arguments I forgot?

Reasons for doing it:

  1. You can reach more people.
  2. You can interact with more people, especially scholars you would not meet at your usual conferences.
  3. You can reach people who would not be able to read your articles because they are not affiliated to a university and/or their university does not possess a library and/or their university’s library does not have access to the journals where you published.

I think that especially No. 3 is relevant and cannot but lead one to conclude that the ethically correct choice involves uploading one’s work. What do you think?

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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

(Aadam Aziz tries to pray again after his returnal from Germany to Kashmir, but memories of his friends keep on popping up in his mind:)

‘… You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help…’ –so here he was, despite their presence in his head, attempting to re-unite himself with an earlier self which ignored their influence but knew everything it ought to have known […] And my grandfather, lurching upright, made a resolve. Stood. Rolled cheroot. Stared across the lake. And was knocked forever into that middle place, unable to worship a God in whose existence he could not wholly disbelieve. Permanent alteration: a hole.

Salman Rushdie
Midnight's Children (Picador, 1981), 11--12
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A prescription with two goals is meaningless?

According to the Mīmāṃsā school, especially in its Bhāṭṭa sub-school, each prescription needs to have a goal, which is independently desirable. Without a goal, a prescription is purposeless and meaningless (anarthaka). Does it also mean that it must have only one goal?

Within the discussion on the need to study Mīmaṃsā, Veṅkaṭanātha discusses the prescription which would promote such duty. He discusses at length whether the injunction to learn by heart the Vedas (svādhyāyo ‘dhyetavyaḥ) could be considered responsible also for the duty to study Mīmāṃsā or whether it stops its functioning at the learning by heart of the Vedic phonemes, without the need to undertake a systematic study of its meaning, as it happens within Mīmāṃsā. This leads to further discussions about the purpose of the injunction to learn. Can it really aim only at learning by heart the phonic form of the Veda? How could this be considered to be an independently desirable goal? By contrast, grasping the meaning of the Veda could be a goal in itself, because it enables one to perform useful Vedic sacrifices. In this connection, Veṅkaṭanātha notes that learning by heart the phonemes cannot be a goal and adds a cryptic remark:

svādhyāyārthabodhayos tu bhāvyatve vidhyānarthakyaprasaṅgāt (Seśvaramīmāṃsā ad PMS 1.1.1, 1971 p. 21)

Because, if both the [learning by heart] of one’s portion of the Veda and the understanding of its meaning were the goal to be realised, the prescription would end up being purposeless

What does this mean? Is a prescription meaningless when it has two purposes?

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How much should you explain in an article?

Suppose you spent a long time (weeks, months, perhaps even years) understanding a complicated topic. You then write an article or a book about it. Where should you start from? Should you explain all or just assume to have readers who more or less share your expertise?

The question is certainly relevant for all philosophers, but perhaps even more for people working on niches, such as the history of Mīmāṃsā deontic thought or the early developments of the Maṇipravāḷa soteriology in South India and so on. Sure, it would be nice to speak with people who shared out interest and to whom we did not need to explain all, but these people are very few.

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From the problem of theodicy to the problem of evil

The problem of theodicy is at its basis the problem of evil. How can there be a God who is both benevolent and able to alleviate or avoid our sufferings, given that such sufferings are still there?

How can He exist, given that also infants and animals suffer, i.e., also creatures suffer, who cannot have deserved it? The role of karman cannot really solve the issue. In fact, if God cannot remove karman, than He is not omnipotent and Mīmāṃsā authors might be right in insisting that we should use only karman to explain present sufferings and avoid God altogether. If God could change one’s karman, but usually decides not to do so, then how can He avoid the accusation of being cruel?

Whereas the topic of theodicy is one of the major Leitmotivs running throughout the whole history of modern European and Euro-American theology and philosophy of religion, it is not formulated as a distinct topic in Sanskrit philosophy (for the similar case of free will, see
Freschi, ”Free Will in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta: Rāmānuja, Sudarśana Sūri and Veṅkaṭanātha”, Religion Compass). Why so?

Part of the reason is linked to an accidental fact, namely the genius of Gottfried Leibniz, who wrote a Causa Dei `Trial of God’ and coined the term théodicée. Apart from that, the main reason for the relative absence of the problem of the contradiction between the presence of evil and the existence of God lies most probably in the fact that theism is a late-comer in the history of South Asian philosophy. In fact, in order to put God on trial for the presence of evil in the world, one needs the philosophical concept of an omnipotent and benevolent God, as it is found in Europe within rational theology. This is the kind of concept of God defended by some Nyāya authors, most typically by Udayana, and attacked by Mīmāṃsā authors, typically by Kumārila.

In fact, Kumārila’s attacks are the ones even later theists will have to be able to defeat. Kumārila shows that the idea of a God who is at the same time all-mighty and benevolent is self-contradictory, since if the Lord where really all-might, he would avoid evil, and if he tolerates it, then he is cruel. If one says that evil is due to karman or other causes, Kumārila continues, then this shows that there is no need to add the Lord at all as a further cause and that everything can be explained just on the basis of karman or any other cause.

The discussion on evil in the Ślokavārttika is prompted by a discussion on God’s creation. Kumārila asks why God would create the world:

prāṇināṃ prāyaduḥkhā ca sisṛkṣāsya na yujyate || 49 ||

The desire to create a world which is mostly painful for the living beings does not suit God || 49 ||

To the possible argument that God creates the world out of compassion, Kumārila replies as follows:

abhāvāc cānukampyānāṃ nānukampāsya jāyate |\\
sṛjec ca śubham evaikam anukampāprayojitaḥ || 52 ||

Given the absence of people to have compassion of [prior to creation], He could not have compassion |\\
And, if He were prompted by compassion, He would create only a splendid [world] || 52 ||

The next move of Kumārila’s opponent is found also in some Christian theologians, namely the claim that evil is not completely avoidable:

athāśubhād vinā sṛṣṭiḥ sthitir vā nopapadyate |\\
ātmādhīnābhyupāye hi bhavet kiṃ nāma duṣkaram || 53 ||\\
tathā cāpekṣamāṇasya svātantryaṃ pratihanyate |

[Obj:] Without evil, the world could not be created nor continue to exist |

[R:] Why would this be impossible, given that the instrument [to make it possible] depends on God Himself? || 53 ||
And if you were to say that He also underlies some limitations, than His autonomy would be destroyed |

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What are the most important books in and on South Asian philosophy?

Just imagine you are asked about the three most important texts in South Asian philosophy and take a minute to imagine your answer. You are also allowed to include texts on South Asian philosophy, if you think they are relevant.

Next, you can compare your answers with those of scholars like Jonardon Ganeri, Maria Heim, Chakravarti Ram-Prasad and Evan Thompson. The guest, Phil Treagus, is a bibliophile and already hosted posts on the most important books on several topics in philosophy, including Chinese philosophy. As a praiseworthy addition, he also invited a young PhD student, Jack Beaulieu.

You are also welcome to add your lists in the comments.