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Thinking about Johannes Bronkhorst (UPDATED)

On May 15, Harry Falk announced on the Indology mailing list that Johannes Bronkhorst had “left this world”. In the following weeks the mailing list (and, I am sure, other online forums) has been virtually monopolised by people remembering the man and his endless contributions to Sanskrit studies and connected fields. In fact, Johannes has been extremely prolific (Greater Magadha was written in just one semester!) and his contributions have been impactful with almost no comparison.

He had studied first mathematics and physics and then moved to studying Sanskrit in India, Pune. In a recent interview with Vincent Eltschinger (on April 21 2025) he commented the choice to travel to India as due to his desire not to serve as a soldier —a choice which was deeply important to him. But, whatever the initial motivation, his years-long stay in India was meaningful and influential for his life and he never grew out of his fascination for Indian thought.

The fact that he started studying Sanskrit while in India is key to understand the role of Vyākaraṇa in his first many decades of work, given that Vyākaraṇa (or Sanskrit linguistics) is still studied and lively engaged with in contemporary India in general and in Pune in particular. Vyākaraṇa demands deep and almost complete dedication because of its technical character. One needs to know by heart or at least to be able to navigate all the 4000 aphorisms of Pāṇini’s seminal work for the school, together with their punctual glosses by Kātyāyana and the commentary by Patañjali, and this before even being able to open one’s mouth in a symposium of Vaiyākaraṇas. Bronkhorst has been able to contribute to this very technical field, especially to its perhaps most original thinker, Bhartṛhari, but without being swallowed up by the labyrinth of Vyākaraṇa. In contrast, he learnt from its method and contents, but retained his untameable intellectual curiosity.

For scholars of Bhartṛhari, Bronkhorst’s articles are indispensable. But even the ones among of us who never specialised on Bhartṛhari have probably been influenced by Bronkhorst and by his unique blend of thought-provoking ideas and thorough knowledge of the sources. In fact, Bronkhorst was an avid and fast reader, who read hundreds of pages of both Sanskrit scholarship and contemporary, mainly scientific, papers. His ideas looked at first sight almost too thought-provoking, almost like balons d’essay (trial balloons). However, when one tried to refute them, one was forced to see that Bronkhorst knew the Sanskrit sources of the relevant period thoroughly and that his bold ideas were in fact also well-grounded. (Apologies for not discussing here whether they were also ultimately right and completely so. I want to focus more on what we can learn from him than on correcting the occasional typos or on disagreeing with specific points.)

For instance, in May 2021 Dominik Wujastyk organised a (virtual) conference on the topic of Johannes Bronkhorst’s Greater Magadha (2007), which possibly remains his most influential book. Bronkhorst himself had been invited as a respondent for talks which all engaged with his hypothesis. I was only in the audience, but was astonished to see how, almost twenty years after the book’s composition, Bronkhorst was still able to discuss each of its aspects and to respond (again, I will let to others to assess whether successfully) to each criticism raised by the speakers, through precise references to the epics and/or to Vedic texts.

Let me know enter into some details about a few of Johannes Bronkhorst’s contributions. Again, let me emphasise that there are too many to discuss even a significant percentage of them and that therefore the choice will be partly whimsical. I will focus on

  • a) The sceptical Johannes Bronkhorst looking at the development of Sanskrit philosophy: The Greater Magadha hypothesis, the “discovery of dialogue” and its significance for the history of Sanskrit philosophy
  • b) The sceptical Johannes Bronkhorst looking at the role of authors in Sanskrit philosophy: his hypothesis about a unitary Yogaśāstra and dis-unitary Mīmāṃsāsūtra and its importance for how we assess Sanskrit aphoristic texts
  • c) His hypothesis about a radical difference between Sanskrit thought and European thought
  • d) His general sceptical-scientific methodology
  • a) Greater Magadha is one of those books about which we remember a moment before and a moment after. Before the book, scholars and lay people alike took it for granted that there was a single line of development within Indian though and that since the Buddha and his thought postdated early Vedic texts by centuries, these needed to contain the seeds which would have later led to the development of Buddhist thought. The texts which were conceptually closer to ancient Buddhism, namely the Upaniṣads were therefore dated to before the Buddha.

    The Greater Magadha takes the opposite point of view and looks at the evidence available with fresh eyes and notices that they are less uniform than we might think. They thus point to a different line of development, one in which there were different roots for Indian culture, which developed in parallel and not just a single line. On the West, the brāhmaṇic culture produced the Vedic texts. On the East of the Indian subcontinent, around Magadha, the culture he provisionally called “śramaṇic” produced Jainism and Buddhism, as well as key ideas that were later absorbed in the Brahmanic fold, such as karman and rebirth. By the way, the presence of an Eastern border for the Brahmanical culture is also attested by Patañjali’s definition of Āryavarta, which has an Eastern boundary (unlike Manu’s description of the same, only a few centuries later).

    The Greater Magadha can explain why karman and rebirth make a sudden entry in the Upaniṣads although they are virtually absent from the preceding Vedic texts. They enter the Brahmanical culture so well-developed and all at once because they had been elaborated for centuries outside of the Brahmanical culture. If Bronkhorst is right, one can stop looking for faint traces of possible forerunners of karman and rebirth in the Vedic Saṃhitās and start focusing on how the theory was already developed in Buddhist texts and then imported into the Upaniṣads. One can also invert the chronology of the Upaniṣads, which post-date the encounter with śramaṇic culture (this does not mean that they need to postdate the life of Siddhartha Gautama, since he was only one exponent of that culture, as is clear through the parallel of Jainism). The same applies to the claim that “Yoga” was practiced by the Buddha. In contrast, the similarities between the PYŚ and the Buddha’s teachings should be. according to Bronkhorst, interpreted as an influence of Buddhism into Yoga.

    Although I am here mainly focusing on philosophical issues, let me emphasise again that Bronkhorst’s reconstruction is extremely detailed and covers also aspects like the different funerary practices (round stūpas in the East vs. quadrilateral moulds in the West), the approach to medicine and the conception of a cyclical time, as well as the opposition between a urban (Magadha) and rural (brahmanical) culture. Last, it has the advantage of providing a methodology to identify what is original in the teaching of the Buddha and to explain why asceticism is both endorsed in the Pāli canon and criticised by the Buddha (it was part of his cultural milieu).

  • a2) Distinguishing communities and not looking for historical links when they are virtually absent was at the basis of another of Bronkhorst’s contributions, namely the idea that the roots of Indian dialectics should be placed in the Buddhist communities in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent (which might have been influenced by the Greek tradition of public debate in the Indo-Bactrian kingdoms) and that it was useless to consider Upaniṣadic dialogues as the forerunners of the dialectical engagements which became standard in Sanskrit philosophy. Upaniṣadic dialogues are just something different (closer to the instruction by a wise person).
  • b) Bronkhorst was (to my knowledge, as always) the first one to propose the idea of a unitary composition for what is known as the Yogasūtra and the Yogabhāṣya He spoke accordingly of a unitary Yogaśāstra. Like in the previous case, the idea is mind-blowing. Up to that point, many scholars had tried to reconstruct the worldview of the Yogasūtra as divided from the Yogabhāṣya and the Sāṅkhya intervention of the latter. If Bronkhorst’s hypothesis is correct, by contrast, the division into sūtra ‘aphorism’ and bhāṣya ‘commentary’ is only a polarity within a single text. This explains what could have otherwise been considered an anomaly, like the complete absence of an autonomous transmission of the Yogasūtra. Like in the Greater Magadha case, one could find alternative explanations, but Bronkhorst’s hypothesis has the advantage of showing a possibility for streamlining explanations and avoiding unnecessary additional steps (in Sanskrit, one would call that kalpanāgaurava). I should add in this connection that Bronkhorst’s hypothesis was presented in just an article (1985), but has thereafter been embraced by Philipp Maas (see especially Maas 2006 and Maas 2013) who found many evidences corroborating it, from manuscripts to the syntax of the sūtra-bhāṣya connecting links.
  • b2) A similar case is that of the relation between the so-called Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtra, also known as Mīmāṃsā Sūtra and Brahma Sūtra. Authors before Bronkhorst had discussed their relation and chronology, Bronkhorst (2007) suggested that the latter imitates the style of the former, though not emerging from the same exegetical milieu.
  • c) In the occasion of Ernst Steinkellner’s retirement, a symposium on the topic “Denkt Asien anders?” (Does Asia think differently?) was organised. Bronkhorst’s intervention led to a later book chapter and finally a book on the topic of what is different in Sanskrit thought. Bronkhorst proposed, as usual, a thought-provoking thesis, namely that there is indeed a radical difference, namely the reliance on language by Sanskrit philosophers.
    He explained how the various causation theories within Sanskrit philosophy (from Vaiśeṣika to Vedānta etc.) and the puzzled they involved (such as how could it be possible to bring into existence something that previously did not exist) are all due to thinking about the problem in linguistic terms. Their answers, in other words, were oriented by the Sanskrit form of basic sentences such as “the potter makes a pot”. In fact, how can the pot figure as the object of a sentence, given that it does not exist yet? Bronkhorst thought that this was a linguistic problem, namely one occasioned by the structure of language and not an ontological one. Westerners, according to Bronkhorst, would have immediately labeled the pot as non-existing until it is realised by the potter and would not have paused on its ontological status, whereas Indians never distinguished between linguistic and external reality.

    This is an interesting insight, and in fact there are several elements suggesting (as Karl Potter maintained) that the “linguistic turn” occurred in India much earlier than in Europe (note that I am saying the same thing Bronkhorst said, but looking at it from a more favourable perspective), such as the insistence on the analysis of linguistic data in order to solve epistemological or ontological issues (cf. the insistence on the linguistic use śabdaṃ kṛ- within the debate about the ontological status of śabda).
  • d) Bronkhorst was a convinced asserter of the scientific approach. This does not mean that he was an a-priori believer in natural sciences. Rather, he thought that the scientific method is based on a healthy form of scepticism and thus can never lead to fanatical beliefs nor to any form of “scientific traditionalism” (if correctly applied). For this very reason, he also thought that the scientific method was not “Western”, it had proven to work because of its ability to ask questions and thus to be universal. He took seriously Yoga and meditation techniques and thought that they could be analysed with the scientific method and possibly lead to new discoveries.
  • d2) Similarly, Bronkhorst clearly looked down on blind believers and thus praised Sanskrit philosophers for their ability to distinguish myths from arguments. In “What did Indian philosophers believe?” (2010) he noted that Sanskrit philosophers did not attack each other based on myths (although, one may add, some Buddhist philosophers did have fun at criticising some passages of the Veda and Kumārila made fun of the walls-speaking argument), but rather their arguments (“These philosophers, while criticising each others’ views, never attacked each others’ myths. Yet these myths would have been easy targets, if they had been seriously believed in”). In short, the reliance on the scientific method meant a radical openness to defeasibility of one’s beliefs and to a data-based approach.

Let me add a few words about Johannes Bronkhorst as a human being. The Indology list was full of “Bronkhorst stories” and therefore I will not need to take too much of your time with them (you can read them on the Indology archives). Let me just point out how Bronkhorst was generous and supportive with younger scholars and even students, but in a very unique way. I still remember our first meeting. I was an undergraduate student and he immediately asked me which were my key interests (I was unable to give a specific answer, at that point I was just busy learning Sanskrit and reading as much as possible of any text my professors read). I read or hear similar stories from others, all pointing to how Bronkhorst took people seriously, even young people. He was supportive, but not patronising. He was interested in one’s opinion, but would not refrain from saying that it was wrong if he thought so, according to the scientific method discussed above. He would not mince words to attack a view, but not so when coming to the person holding it, and I have seen him greeting warmly people with whom he had had violent disagreements on specific issues.

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On sacrificial violence

One cannot solve the Agnīṣomīya problem (the clash between the prohibition to perform any violence and the prescription to slaughter an animal as an offer to Agni and Soma) via an appeal to suspension (bādha) of the prohibition to perform violence.

Using suspension would be based on the fact that the prescription to perform the Agnīṣomīya is more specific than the prohibition. However, if this were a viable move, then it would apply also to the case of the Śyena (a sacrifice to be performed in order to achieve the death of one’s enemy). But all Mīmāṃsā authors agree that the śyena should not be performed.

Thus the Agnīṣomīya case cannot be solved through suspension, as this would have been applicable also to the Śyena scenario and this would be an unwanted output.

How else can the Agnīṣomīya riddle be solved? By explaining that the prohibition against violence was only about violence-as-part-of-the-result and not about violence-as-part-of-the-instrument. Thus, sacrificial violence, which is only part of the sacrifice qua instrument, was never forbidden, whereas violence as part of a sacrifice’s result is forbidden.

Now, you may suggest that this reasoning leads to the unwanted consequence that violence which is instrumental to a different result would also not be prohibited. Does this mean that beating someone in order to take their wallet would not be prohibited, because it is instrumental? No, because here violence would be part of the result (you want the person to be made harmless/unable to react).

This is, by the way, consistent with my previous studies on deontic conflicts, according to which suspension can only be applied to prescriptions, and not to prohibitions.

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In memoria, Raniero Gnoli (1930-2025)

I met Raniero Gnoli for the first time at the beginning of my university career, when I started attending his class on Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the Paratriṃśikā. I had only had one year of Sanskrit and I spent each class taking as many notes as possible, which I then re-read in the following days, trying to reconstruct the translation of a text that was way beyond my competence.

Raniero Gnoli had published his translation of Abhinavagupta’s commentary in 1985, but had decided to get back to it and while reading it with us (he did most of the reading) he partly revised his previous understanding. I was impressed by how learned he was, by how he seemed to understand Sanskrit without any difficulty (for instance, if he ever hesitated about a word, he would mentally check its usages in other Sanskrit texts he seemed to know almost by heart and thus understand it better), but also by his willingness to revise his previous understanding and to let us look at how he engaged with his past self and with Abhinavagupta himself.

The following year he read with us a Sanskrit text together with its Tibetan translation (he knew Tibetan, but refused to use the contemporary Tibetan pronunciation and would just pronounce “rgyu” and the like as if they were Sanskrit words, namely as र्ग्यु). During my first 1–2 years he was also the director of the Department of Oriental Studies (the name might have been different at that point, I am no longer sure) and I asked him his advice about what to specialise on. I told him that I was also thinking about Indian art and archaeology. His answer was clear-cut, namely that Chineses excelled in art, Indians not so much. There was thus no point in specialising in it. (I don’t know whether he said it as a test or a form of upāyakauśalya, but it did the trick.)

For many years to follow, Raniero Gnoli had stopped teaching at the University, but would still welcome us in his castle to read Sanskrit together. “We” means the students of Sanskrit at that point, a group of undergraduates who were still struggling with even simple Sanskrit. It took us years to get better, but he welcomed us at all stages. He read with us whatever we asked him to read, from the Nyāyabhāṣya (which was understandable for us, hence it made us overconfident) to Prajñākaragupta’s commentary on Dharmakīrti (too difficult for us!).

Although he was among the most productive scholars imaginable, always studying new things (often unheard for, such as how to execute the “punto Milano” embroidery), he appeared to always have time for reading Sanskrit with us. For the first months, he just read himself, then at a certain point he must have understood (how? Out of our pupils’ movements?) that we had become good enough and just asked us to translate (I was shocked, but it worked) and then corrected us. We could come for weeks in a row with the same text or just show up with a new text, he was open to everything.

He had strong opinions about Sanskrit philosophy and seemed to be guided by a crystal clear intellect. This must have been the reason he could recognise the philosophical genius of Abhinavagupta at a time virtually no one had even noticed him. For instance, he is the origin of the translation “aesthetic experience” for rasa, thus understanding what was at stake with Abhinavagupta’s insistence on it, at a time when other translators still spoke of “juice” or the like. Similarly, Gnoli would have definite opinions about how to put together a critical edition (which needs to be “critical” and not a mere collation) and about priorities for the discipline. Once, for instance, we asked him what prompted him to prepare the critical edition of the Pramāṇavārttika+svavṛtti. He said that it was needed.

After reading, he would chat with us for a while. We got to know about his journeys through India, often looking for stones (like a certain lumachella) or manuscripts, or about his Greek literature exams during his university studies, or about Tucci’s eating restrictions. He was the kind of superior being who does not need to show their superiority, since it is apparent, and he was therefore humble, often wearing old and worn trousers and even making fun of himself. For instance, when he turned 70 Raffaele Torella put together two volumes in his honour (“Le parole e i marmi”) and organised a small ceremony for him once the volumes were published. Gnoli started his speech saying that it was nice to feel younger (since the volumes ended up being published two years after his 70th birthday) and later commented with us that the whole ceremony had been a “preview” of his funeral —little did he know that he would have lived and worked for further 23 years.

Personally, my debt towards him is inextinguishable. I learnt most of what I know about Sanskrit philosophy from illustrious teachers, and Raffaele Torella and Raniero Gnoli were not only the first ones, but two absolute models of scholarship. I can’t fathom how much good karman I must have accumulated in the past to have been worthy of reading with them, learning from their pāṇḍitya, which was so deep it looked spontaneous, and even listening to their fearless way of expressing ideas —very different from what many describe as “typical Academia”.

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Unrequested advice for students translating (Sanskrit) texts (will be updated)

This list will be updated and I will add here links to other posts where I discuss parentheses, brackets, footnotes and so on.

1) On parentheses and brackets: https://elisafreschi.com/announcements/how-to-use-parentheses-and-brackets-in-your-translation-my-tips/#more-3372

2) On transcribing Sanskrit passages: https://elisafreschi.com/2018/05/28/dividing-words-in-transcription/

3) I am very much in favour of being more explicit in highlighting objections and replies, e.g.:

[Objection:]…

PARAGRAPH BREAK

[Reply:]…

PARAGRAPH BREAK

Just saying “you may object” is not enough, because it does not identify the end of the objection and often leaves the beginning of the reply unmarked. Moreover, adding specific markers forces us to be clear in identifying objections and replies, whereas just translating Sanskrit markers like “nanu” might leave ourselves and the readers in the dark about who is talking (“nanu” usually introduces an objector, but not necessarily so!).

4) How to cite Sanskrit words: https://elisafreschi.com/2020/01/20/how-to-deal-with-sanskrit-words-in-an-english-article/

5) Refer to specific sūtras, not just to page numbers (e.g. “TV ad 1.1.2”, not “TV 1929, p. 101”). In case of longer passages, adding the page number might be necessary, in which case using the most authoritative edition is the thing to do. For Kumārila’s TV and ṬṬ it has become customary to refer to Subbāśāstrī’s 1929 edition. For NM, Mysore edition (whenever there is not a critical edition available, such as Harikai or Graheli respectively).

6) Scholastic Sanskrit is primarily about nominal sentences, not so English. Hence, break up nominal sentences into verbs+nouns ones. Don’t say “because of the absence of the possibility of X” but “because X is impossible” (for X-upapatti-abhāvāt). Repeating the nominal structure of the Sanskrit in an English sentence is not “being faithful to the Sanskrit”, since the Sanskrit sentence did not sound awkward to its readers/listeners, whereas the allegedly faithful English translation that preserved its nominal style is unbearably cumbersome.

7) I disagree with experts completely prohibiting the use of passive sentences in English. Nonetheless, the use of the passive is not marked in Sanskrit (meaning: it is considered as absolutely normal by readers/listeners), whereas it is often marked in English. These cases of undesirably marked passive need to be rendered into active in English. For instance: “Who is reading the book?” rather than “By whom is the book being read?”. This also has the advantage of forcing us to reflect on the agent (is it the siddhāntin saying it? The pūrvapakṣin?). By contrast, unmarked passive can be rendered as passive.

8) As a rule of thumb, Sanskrit philosophers were smart guys. If your translation attributes them an inconsistent thought, you must rethink it.

Btw, unrequested advice on bibliography: https://elisafreschi.com/2025/04/15/unrequested-advice-on-bibliography/

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Second Kumārila conference (2025)—updated program

The first Kumārila conference took place at the University of Toronto in 2024. You can read more about why we need to read and write more about this key Sanskrit philosopher here: https://elisafreschi.com/2025/02/28/kumarila-conference-2025/

The second Kumārila conference will take place again at University of Toronto, this time at the St George campus. You can read more about the event’s announcement here: https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/kumarila-conference-2/

This conference has the form of a workshop and its purpose is to make progress towards the publication of a “Kumārila Reader”. This will include translations of (large-enough) passages by Kumārila and introductions highlighting their context and philosophical relevance. Most participants have already presented their translations last year and this year they will be able to fine-tune them. Participants will have 1—2 hours time to discuss their draft translations.

If you have a 2-hours slot, we encourage you to quickly remind the other participants about the topic, then discuss selected passages within it. You may want to first present and then have a 30 minutes discussion, but you may also want to integrate the discussion within your presentation.
If you have a 1-hour slot, we encourage you to present your topic and/or discuss selected passages in 30–45 minutes, then have some time dedicated to Q and A.

Please read the updated program below:

Monday May 5th
Chair: Nilanjan Das
8.30 onwards: Breakfast
9–11 John Nemec ŚV, Saṃbandhākṣepaparihāra 42cd-114ab
11–11:15 Tea break
11:15-12:15pm Alex Watson, ŚV ātmavāda
12.15–1.15 Long Yin Sin ŚV Pratyakṣapariccheda 171-185
1:15–2:15 Lunch break
2:15–3:15pm Alessandro Ganassi, ŚV on ākṛti
3.15–3.30: Tea break
Chair: Ajay Rao
3.30–5.30 Hugo David, ŚV vākyādhikaraṇa

Tue May 6th
Chair: Srilata Raman
8.30 onwards: Breakfast
9–11 Tarinee Awasthi, mantrādhikaraṇa (TV 1.2.4)
11–11:15 Tea break
Chair: Elisa Freschi
11:15-1:15pm Jonathan Peterson, virodhādhikaraṇa and śiṣṭākopādhikaraṇa (TV 1.3.3)
1:15–2:15 Lunch break
Chair: Nirali Patel
2:15-4:15pm Andrew Ollett, anuṣaṅgādhikaraṇa (TV 2.1.16)
4.15–4.30: Tea break
4.30–5.30: Sarju Patel, Tantravārttika 1.3.7

Wed May 7th
Chair: Vincent Lee
8.30 onwards: Breakfast
9–10 Kei Kataoka, bhāvārthādhikaraṇa (TV 2.1.1)
10–10:15 Tea break
10.15–12.15: Alessandro Graheli, vyākaraṇādhikaraṇa (TV 1.3.adh. 9)
12:15–1 Lunch break
Chair: Taisei Shida
1–3pm Malcolm Keating, tatsiddhipeṭikā (TV 1.4.23)
3–5: (Philosophy Department’s party, everyone is invited to join)

Thu May 8th
Chair: Munena Moiz
8.30 onwards: Breakfast
9–10 Kiyotaka Yoshimizu, deities (ṬṬ 9.1.6–10 and 10.4.23)
10-10:15: Tea break
10:15–12:15: Monika Nowakowska, similarity (TV ad 1.4.adh. 4, sū 5)+ŚV upamāna
12:15-1:15pm Lunch break
Chair: Jesse Pruitt
1:15-3:15pm Larry McCrea, vājapeyādhikaraṇa (TV 1.4.adh.5)
3.15–3.30: Tea break
3.30–5.30: Akane Saito, viniyogādhikaraṇa (TV 3.1.2)

Fri May 9
Chair: Shashank Rao
8.30 onwards: Breakfast
9–10: Kei Kataoka (part 2)
10–11: Alex Watson (part 2)
11–12: Final thoughts and next steps towards publication
12:15: lunch together (RSVP)

Venue: JHB 100 (Mon-Wed); JHB 318 (Thu); JHB 418 (Fri)

All breakfasts and lunches will take place at the same location as the conference, apart from the final lunch (at the Clay Restaurant)

Let me know if you want to join!

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Unrequested advice on bibliography

A bibliography is key to verify one’s claims. It is needed to move from vague claims to an epistemically justified assessment. It is fair to acknowledge our sources, but we cite them also because testimony is a source of knowledge only insofar as it is based on reliable authors.
Since my students keep on doing the same mistakes in their bibliography, I thought that it might be helpful to have a single place to point them to. This will be that place.
1) A bibliography needs to be complete (author, date, title, journal, number, pages OR author, date, title, publisher, book’s editor(s), pages or chapter number).
2) A bibliography needs to be consistent (choose the model you like, be it Chicago or MLA etc.), but stick to it.
3) A bibliography needs to list authors in alphabetical order. If there are more than one title by the same author, list them chronologically.
4) An editor ≠ an author ≠ a translator. You need to list them all, but separately. You don’t attribute Plato’s Republic to “Plato and G. Smith” as if G. Smith had been co-authoring with Plato. Same with book editors, who are not the authors of the individual chapters.
5) DOIs may be added, but are not enough on their own (a study by Nature showed that only 68% are actual identifiers of uniquely located articles and chapters).
6) “Accessed on…” is only needed for webpages. No need to say that you accessed Plato’s Laws on March 15 2025. It surely did not change in the last thousand years.
7) Similarly, web-addresses are only needed for webpages. No need to say that you accessed Plato’s Symposium through your local library. It is a physical book and it does not change from library to library.
8) Similarly, there is no nee to add the web-address of the random depository where you found a certain article. R. Swinburne’s articles, for instance, are published somewhere and it is irrelevant that you found them on JSTOR or the like.

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How to write a good Sanskrit philosophy article?

A student asked me how to do a good Sanskrit philosophy article.

—Let us take for granted the rules for a good (generic) philosophy article, e.g. don’t start with ‘Since the beginning of time, humans doubted about x, and I just found a solution for it’.

—Some people use Sanskrit resources to solve a question being debated in contemporary debates (e.g., Kumārila in favour of epistemological externalism). (I tend to disagree with this approach, but it might have some limited use in making Analytic-philosophers interested).

—Others use Sanskrit texts to understand a debate that is relevant for Sanskrit authors only and do no additional effort to present it. (I tend to disagree, because it kills the general interest, but see the last point below).

—Still others use Sanskrit texts to understand a Sanskrit philosophical debate and (try to) show to the contemporary public that is rigorous and (possibly) exciting, perhaps exactly because no one in Euro-American philosophy ever thought about it (e.g., how to make sense of rebirth as a plant).

—Does this mean that there is no good use of Euro-American philosophical categories? Sure there is! We often are blind to possible hypotheses because they are not within our conceptual space. Thus, forcing ourselves to think about IIT or Spinoza is extremely valuable, as it may open our eyes with regard to unseen ways to understand Maṇḍana etc.

—A separate point: In the case of contemporary Euro-American philosophy, I would discourage writing articles that only describe an issue. I am less convinced that this should not be done in the case of history of philosophy, where it might make sense to present materials unknown to the public, even if one is not completely able to analyse them in full (a limit case is that of presenting a translation of a key text, though not analysing all its implications).

Thoughts welcome!

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Kumārila conference 2025

To be held in Toronto, St George campus, May 5 to 8.

Kumārila ranks among the key Sanskrit thinkers, and his massive influence has forever changed the course of Sanskrit philosophy, from Buddhist epistemology to Nyāya ontology. This conference, held at the Department of Philosophy on the St. George campus, is the second time international experts on Kumārila’s philosophy can come together to discuss his masterpieces. These experts will workshop their translations of some of Kumārila’s works in two-hour reading sessions. Sessions will see us both reading and commenting on selected passages on a given topic (e.g., adhikāra in Ṭupṭīkā 6.1) and hearing a talk on the topic itself (e.g., mapping the intersection of adhikāra and sāmarthya). A discussion session will follow. Additionally, scholars and advanced students will have the opportunity to present their Kumārila-related research in shorter, 60-minute sessions.
The conference is coordinated by Elisa Freschi and Nilanjan Das and will see the participation of other experts in Sanskrit philosophy and philology.
Confirmed participants: Tarinee Awasthi, Hugo David, Alessandro Ganassi, Alessandro Graheli, Kei Kataoka, Malcolm Keating, Lawrence McCrea, John Nemec, Monika Nowakowska, Andrew Ollett, Sarju Patel, Parimal Patil, Jonathan Peterson, Akane Saito, Taisei Shida, Long Yin Sin, Elliot Stern, Alex Watson, and Kiyotaka Yoshimizu.
This will be an in-person only event, since we believe in the power of collective intelligence and collaboration, which are challenging to replicate when some participants speak on Zoom while others are in the room.
The organizers gratefully acknowledge support for the conference from the Departments of Philosophy at UTSG and UTM, as well as the Office of the Vice-Principal, Research, and the Decanal Fund at UTM.

Preliminary program!

Mon May 5th
9–11 Alex Watson, ŚV ātmavāda
11–11:15 Tea break
11:15-12:15pm Long Yin Sin ŚV Pratyakṣapariccheda 171-185
12.15–1.15 Alessandro Ganassi ŚV on ākṛti
1:15–2:15 Lunch break
2:15–4:15pm John Nemec ŚV, Saṃbandhākṣepaparihāra 42cd-114ab
4.15–4.30: Tea break
4.30–6.30 Hugo David, ŚV vākyādhikaraṇa

Tue May 6th
9–11 Tarinee Awasthi, mantrādhikaraṇa (TV 1.2.4)
11–11:15 Tea break
11:15-1:15pm Jonathan Peterson, virodhādhikaraṇa and śiṣṭākopādhikaraṇa (TV 1.3.3)
1:15–2:15 Lunch break
2:15-4:15pm Andrew Ollett, anuṣaṅgādhikaraṇa (TV 2.1.16)
4.15–4.30: Tea break
4.30–5.30: Sarju Patel, Tantravārttika 1.3.7

Wed May 7th
9–11 Alessandro Graheli, vyākaraṇādhikaraṇa (TV 1.3.adh. 9)
11–11:15 Tea break
11:15-12:15pm Elliot Stern, (ṬṬ 6.3.2)
12:15–12:45 Lunch break
12:45-2:45pm Malcolm Keating, tatsiddhipeṭikā (TV 1.4.23) + 1.3.10, on ākṛti as the primary meaning, (and maybe 3.2.1, the short section that also discusses mukhya/lakṣaṇā, etc.)
2.45–5: Break (Philosophy Department’s party)
5–7: Monika Nowakowska, similarity (TV ad 1.4.adh. 4, sū 5)+ŚV upamāna

Thu May 8th
9–11 Kei Kataoka, śeṣapratijñādhikaraṇa (TV 3.1.1); bhāvanādhikaraṇa (TV ad 2.1.1–4)
11–11:15 Tea break
11:15-12:15pm Kiyotaka Yoshimizu, deities (ṬṬ 9.1.6–10 and 10.4.23)
12:15–1:15 Lunch break
1:15-3:15pm Larry McCrea, vājapeyādhikaraṇa (TV 1.4.adh.5)
3.15–3.30: Tea break
3.30–5.30: Akane Saito, viniyogādhikaraṇa (TV 3.1.2)

Location: JHB 100 (5–7 May); JHB 401 (8 May).

Updated program here: https://elisafreschi.com/2025/04/18/second-kumarila-conference-2025/

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Veṅkaṭanātha on free will to surrender

Veṅkaṭanātha has to adapt the Mīmāṃsā approach to free will to his Vaiṣṇava commitment to the role of God’s grace.
He thus concludes that humans are free in their intentions, although they need God’s consent to convert them into action. Interestingly enough, here he reuses again a Mīmāṃsā technical term, namely anumati ‘permission’ to indicate God’s allowing humans to act according to their wishes. This limited range of freedom is still enough for humans to surrender, since surrender (prapatti) is primarily an act of will.
The situation becomes slightly more complicated insofar as in order to surrender one needs to be in the correct state of mind, which includes one’s desperation about one’s ability to ever be able to perform any activity in a correct manner, including making progress in the ritual and the salvific knowledge paths. Thus, one is free to surrender, but genuine surrender can only happen once one is deeply desperate about one’s abilities, so that it seems that the freedom to surrender appears as to one as their last freedom available, their last resort.
This divide between one’s phenomenological state (and one’s conviction to be utterly unable to undertake anything) and the undeniable reality of one’s freedom to surrender is captured in Veṅkaṭanātha’s commentary on Rāmānuja’s Śaraṇāgatigadya. There, Veṅkaṭanātha has to defend the author’s first turning to Lakṣmī before surrendering to God directly.

[Obj:] But in this way the Revered one alone, who is the giver of all results, is the one to whom one must take refuge, even in order for surrender in Him to succeed. What is the purpose at this point (in the text) of surrendering to Lakṣmī?

[R:] It is not so. If one ascertained that it is possible to surrender now (i.e., before surrendering to Lakṣmī) to the Revered one, then one would be using (upādā-) that (surrender) in order to [reach] liberation (mokṣa), but this should not be employed in order to achieve that (liberation). If, by contrast, one were not able to ascertain that it is possible [to directly surrender to Nārāyaṇa], then [it would be] even less likely for one to do so.

nanv evaṃ sakalaphalaprado bhagavān eva tatprapattisiddhyartam apy āśrīyatām, kim iha lakṣmīprapadanena? maivam. yadi bhagavatprapadanam idānīṃ śakyam iti niścinuyāt, tadā mokṣārtham eva tad upādadīta. na punas tadarthaṃ tat prayuñjīta. aniścite tu śakyatve natarām. (Intro to v. 1, Aṇṇaṅgarācārya 1940–1: 98).

In other words, in order to surrender, one must be desperate, up to the point of despairing about their possibility to successfully surrender. If one said “I surrender”, while still thinking to be in control one one’s situation, one would not in fact be really surrendering, since surrendering involves giving up the responsibility for one’s salvation (this is technically called bharanyāsa ‘giving up the burden’). Thus, surrendering in order to reach salvation would be an internal contradiction. Still, one’s ability to independently surrender shows that one was indeed free to surrender.

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CBC Workshop on translation of Sanskrit texts (Dec 2024, Rome)

This year, the CBC group will convene for an intense workshop on the translation of selected Sanskrit texts. The purpose is to finalise work-in-progress translations through a final round of discussion.

Trans-ducere: reflections and practices of translations of Sanskrit texts

Rome, December 22 2024

9–11: Alessandro Graheli, Mukula’s Abhidhāvṛttamātṛkā

11.10–1.10: Daniele Cuneo, Maṇika’s Abhinavarāghavānandanāṭaka (1)

1.10–2.10: lunch break

2.10–4.10: Camillo Formigatti, Maṇika’s Abhinavarāghavānandanāṭaka (2)

4.20–6.20: Marco Ferrante, Vākyapadīya, section on sphoṭa

December 23, 2024:

9–11: Federico Squarcini (tbd)
11.10–1.10: Elisa Freschi, Rāmānuja’s Śaraṇāgatigadya

Live updates here.