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What would you understand out of the following Sanskrit sentences?

2nd UPDATE

I am trying to figure out how to best translate one of my projects into Sanskrit. What would you understand if I were to tell you any of the following?

१ तर्कयुक्तयो वेदमीमांसायां तद्विनियोगश्च ।
२ कार्यविषयान्विक्षिकी वेदमीमांसायां तद्विनियोगश्च ।
३ कार्यविषययुक्तिर्वेदमीमांसायां तद्विनियोगश्च ।

NEW SUGGESTIONS:

४ कार्यविषयकर्ममीमांसोपकारकाः न्यायाः वेदनिर्णयार्थं तद्विनियोगश्च । (adapted from a suggestion by Sudipta Munsi)

५ कार्यार्थविषये युक्तिन्यायाः वेदमीमांसायां तद्विनियोगश्च ।
६ कर्त्तव्यविषयान्विक्षिकी वेदमीमांसायां तद्विनियोगश्च । (adapted from a suggestion by Robert Zydenbos)
३ कर्त्तव्यविषययुक्तिर्वेदमीमांसायां च तद्विनियोग: । (adapted from a suggestion by Robert Zydenbos)

Many thanks for your help!

 

 

 

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The Mīmāṃsā approach to the sentence meaning as something to be done

According to Mīmāṃsā authors, and unlike Nyāya ones, Vedic sentences do not convey the existence of something, but rather that something should be done. This means that the entire Veda is an instrument of knowledge only as regards duties and cannot be falsified through sense-perception, inference, etc. No Mīmāṃsā author, for instance, could ever blame a scientist for reaching a conclusion that clashes with data found in the Veda.

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Reuse and Intertextuality in the Context of Buddhist Texts

The real TOC!

The latest issue of the Buddhist Studies Review (33.1—2, 2016) has been published online. The printed issue will follow soon.

The core of the issue is constituted by a collection of articles on the topic of “Reuse and Intertextuality in the Context of Buddhist Texts” and edited by Elisa Freschi together with Cathy Cantwell and Jowita Kramer. Please scroll down for the table of contents.

I would be happy to receive any feedback on the project of dealing with reuse and intertextuality within the specific subfield of Buddhist texts. The Introduction is available OA on Academia.edu.

P.S. the TOC below replaces the wrong one which was erroneously sent out on Monday the 23rd.

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Intrinsic validity in Veṅkaṭanātha

Intrinsic validity means that each cognition is in itself valid, unless and until the opposite is proven. I do not need to prove that I am typing in order to know that I am. I know that I am typing unless and until something shows me that I am wrong (e.g., I wake up and realise I was only dreaming of typing).

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Modification as an evidence for the fact that mantras have meanings and an application of the Aindrīnyāya

Both Śabara’s and Veṅkaṭanātha’s commentary on the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra insist that mantras are not important only insofar as they are pronounced, but rather that they convey a meaning (technically: they are vivakṣitārtha `they have intended meanings’).
One of the evidences for the meaningfulness of mantras is the fact that mantras are modified (ūh-) in the ectype rituals. If, for instance, the archetype ritual is for Agni and the ectype ritual is offered to Indra, the mantra will be accordingly changed (e.g., from Agnaye juṣṭam to Indrāya juṣṭam). If the mantras had no meaning, there would be no scope for modifying them. If the pronunciation were enough to achieve some unseen potency (apūrva), one would just repeat the mantras in the same form.

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“But is Indian thought really philosophy?”

We can answer the question “What is it?” for a religion or worldview by proceeding either sociologically or doctrinally. […] In philosophy, for example, the question “But is it philosophy?” can be not so much a question about the boundaries of the discipline taken doctrinally as it is a rejection of any approach not already favored by the elite in power, In that case, the genus within which the question “But is it philosophy?” falls is not philosophy but rather politics, or maybe even just bullying. (Eleanore Stump 2013, pp. 46, 48).

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Animal theology

Paolo De Benedetti's death

The news of the death of Paolo De Benedetti reached me while I was reading a short book of him (E l’asina disse…).

Paolo De Benedetti is well-known especially for his studies on Hebraism, but here I would rather like to remember him for his articles and books on animals’ and plants’ theology. This is a problem which is much less evident in South Asian religions, given the general acceptance of a (hierarchical) continuity between animal and human lives. Yet, as already discussed here, the same continuity is not generally accepted in the case of plants.
De Benedetti used Singer’s arguments about suffering as the distinctive character shared by all living beings and keeping them alike. Unlike Singer, however, De Benedetti saw the commonality of animals, human beings and plants in a theological perspective: They are all created, not natural beings and their being alive is what God has donated to them.