A summary of likes and dislikes of my readers and colleagues can be read here (don’t forget to add your own favs).

• is the example of the presence of horns as leading to “non-horse” an instance of the way apoha works (as with Yoshimizu, which supports in this way his analysis of Dignāga’s procedure as entailing a compositional analysis) or just an example about an inference, which works in a way similar as the apoha, i.e., does not need to exclude elements one by one (as with Kataoka, who thus supports his claim that Dignāga does not need any positive postulation).

More details on each reconstruction can be found below:

Pramāṇasamuccaya and svavṛtti 5.43 (Pind’s reconstruction)

yac coktam <ādyapratyayo> nāstīti, iṣṭisiddhir anāditvāt. [43a]

[…]. yasya tu […] na ca śakyaṃ jātimad vyāptum, na ca […]. yad apy uktaṃ pratyayavṛttir eva nāsti, tad apy ayuktam.

sāmānyena nirākṛteḥ. [43b]

na hi so ’nyāṃ jātiṃ pratidravyam apohate, kiṃ tarhi vyavacchedyavivakṣayaikena sāmānyadharmeṇa. uktaṃ cātra vijātīye ’darśanamātreṇānumānam. tavaiva tv eṣa doṣaḥ. yadi svajātīyavyāptyā <varteta, vyāpyasyānantyaṃ syāt>. tasmād yathā <viṣāṇitvād anaśva ity vacane ’śve viṣāṇitvādarśanena tadvyavacchedānumānam>, na tu <karkādīn> pratyekam apohate, <nāpy ekaikeṣu gavādiṣu vartate. tavāpi vyāvṛttyanuvṛttibuddhimatam>. tathā <cā>tra nyāyaḥ.

Kataoka

tavaiva tv eṣa doṣaḥ. yadi svajātīyavyāptyā <varteta, vyāpyasyānantyaṃ syāt>. tasmād yathā <viṣāṇitvād anaśva ity vacane ’śve viṣāṇitvādarśanena tad- vyavacchedānumānam>, na tu <karkādīn> pratyekam apohate, <nāpy ekaikeṣu gavādiṣu vartate. tavāpi vyāvṛttyanuvṛttibuddhimatam>. tathā <cā>tra nyāyaḥ.

NB: yathā connected with tathā: like it works in the case of inference, so here. Thus, yathā only introduces a diverging example, namely one about inference. atra means “like in the case of inference, so in our case (of apoha)”.

Yoshimizu

tavaiva [Mādhava] tv eṣa doṣaḥ. yadi svajātīyavyāptyā <varteta, vyāpyasyā- nantyaṃ syāt>. tasmād yathā <viṣāṇitvād anaśva ity vacane ’śve viṣāṇitvā- darśanena tadvyavacchedānumānam>, na tu <karkādīn> pratyekam apohate, <nāpy ekaikeṣu gavādiṣu vartate. tavāpi vyāvṛttyanuvṛttibuddhimatam>.

tathā <cā>tra nyāyaḥ.

NB: yathā connected with what precedes, since it is part of a larger quotation of Dignāga’s previous text. tathā out of the quote and disconnected.

The quote is found in Muni Jambuvijaya’s edition of the Jain Dvādaśāra Nayacakra:

yathāha dvādaśaśatikāyām: yad apy uktam aprasaktasya kimartham pratiṣedhaḥ iti naivaitat pratiṣedhamātram ucyate, kintu tasya vastunaḥ kaścid bhāgo ‘rthāntaranivṛttyā loke gamyate yathā viṣaṇitvād anaśva iti.

atra would thus mean, according to Yoshimizu, “here, in this treatise [like in the Dvādaśaśatikā, whence the quote come from]”. This would also explain why in the PS Dignāga did not need to dwell at length on componential analysis, because he could rely on what he had said already in the Dvādaśaśatikā.

What do you think? The yathā-tathā sequence seems appealing, all the more because a tasmāt separates the previous sentence from yathā, unlike in the reused text, but the reused text seems to point to a stricter relation between the yathā-clause and what precedes it.

These are only my reconstructions of Pind’s, Yoshimizu’s and Kataoka’s thought as represented in, respectively, Pind’s PhD thesis, Yoshimizu’s paper discussed here and Kataoka’s papers presented at the last IABS and IDhK conferences. All mistakes are mine. For the first part of my reconstruction, see here.

Kei Kataoka, Ole Holten Pind and Kiyotaka Yoshimizu have disagreed on how to reconstruct the sequence of opponents and siddhantin in PS 5. In the following, I will deal with 5.41–42 and I will only add some furhter questions to the ones they have listed already, in the vague hope that clear questions contribute more than dogmatic answers to the advancement of a discipline.

Let me start with PS 5.41ab. Here Dignaga has:

sāsnādidarśanād gopratyayaḥ.

Who is speaking here? To whom should this view be attributed?
Jinendrabuddhi starts his commentary with:

tatra hi vaibhā{g}ikenoktam (see below for the uncertainties concerning this reading)

Pind and Yoshimizu consequently attribute PS 5.41ab to a certain “Vaibhāgika”, whereas Kataoka attributes it to the Sāṅkhya Mādhava, who would there be rephrasing Dignāga’s view.
In favour of his view, Kataoka can point to the fact that the Tibetan translation of Jinendrabuddhi’s commentary does not have tatra hi vaibhāgikenoktam but rather translates *vaināśikena, which could refer to Mādhava’s fame of “destroyer” of the Sāṃkhya system. Furthermore, vaibhāgika would be an absolute hapax. Last, Kataoka kindly informed me (and the audience at the IDhK conference in Heidelberg) that the manuscript of the Sanskrit version of Jinendrabuddhi, which would be the only evidence in favour of vaibhāgikena, does not clearly confirm it.

Jinendrabuddhi then adds:

atra sāṅkhyena pratividhānam āha

This is a univocal reference to a Sāṅkhya author, possibly Mādhava. If Kataoka is right, both passages are then attributed to Mādhava, but the first one is a rephrasal of Dignāga by Mādhava, whereas the second is Mādhava’s critique to Dignāga.

Last should come Dignāga’s reply. But where does it exactly start?

PS 5.41–42 read as follow in Pind’s reconstruction:

sāsnādidarśanād gopratyayaḥ yo ‘yam udāhṛtaḥ |
so viruddho bhavanmatyā bhinnāpohyas tu te mithaḥ || 41 ||
so ‘napekṣa ity etat tu svavikalpavirmitam |
nirapoham […] || 42 ||

Kataoka:
sāsnādidarśanād gopratyayaḥ: Mādhava
yo ‘yam udāhṛtaḥ so viruddho, bhavan[=Sāṅkhya]matyā, bhinnāpohyas tu te mithaḥ: Dignāga. bhavanmatyā is not connected to viruddhaḥ and it means that the example has been only provisionally introduced from the point of view of Sāṅkhya. 41d is Dignāga’s authentic siddhānta, which follows in v.42.

Yoshimizu:
sāsnādidarśanād gopratyayaḥ: Vaibhāgika
so ‘yam udāhṛtaḥ so viruddho, bhavan[=Dignāga’s]matyā: Mādhava’s criticism of Dignāga
bhinnāpohyas tu te mithaḥ: Mādhava
Yoshimizu thus stresses the importance of the tu as indicating a change of speaker.
v. 42: Dignāga. Again, the tu is stressed as the key element to understand that a new discussant is now speaking.

If Kataoka is right, Dignāga only provisionally accepted that one grasps a cow by means of dew-lap etc., whereas in fact he never moved from the absolute exclusive/negative nature of the apoha theory, which does not admit any positive entity, be it a cow or a dew-lap.

If Yoshimizu (or Pind, since if I am not wrong their views tend to be quite close) is right, Dignaga does indeed accept that one grasps a cow by means of a dewlap, etc. (Yoshimizu suggested in his 2011 article discussed here that this implies a componential analysis and not the real existence of dew-lap, etc.).

These are only my reconstructions of Pind’s, Yoshimizu’s and Kataoka’s thought as represented in, respectively, Pind’s PhD thesis, Yoshimizu’s paper discussed here and Kataoka’s papers presented at the last IABS and IDhK conferences. All mistakes are mine.

K. Yoshimizu shows passages of the Mahābhāṣya showing that the denotation of gauḥ is described as involving various elements, such as dewlap, horns, hooves, humpback. According to Yoshimizu, Dignāga maintains that in actual usage language users acknowledge the presence of this elements in order to recognise what is a cow (and their absence in order to recognise what is a non-cow). Yoshimizu says that is process is akin to what contemporary linguists call “componential analysis”. He quotes passages from Dignāga’s PS which apply it even to proper names (since also “Ḍitta” describes a set of qualities, such as being adulterine, having one-eye only, etc.).

Componential analysis cannot work, by contrast, for the “founder” of Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā, Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (who knew Dignāga and criticised his work), since he maintains that the universal “cowness” is directly perceivable and that this is what allows us to recognise a cow before we recognise its dewlap, etc. In this sense, the meaning of a word denotes, for Kumārila, a universal, and can only secondarily be analysed in its sense-components.

This leads Yoshimizu to a further question, namely, how can one perform an injunction, if this referes to a universal? One would never be able to bring either the universal cowness, nor all its instantiations (i.e., all cows) once one has been enjoined to “Bring the cow!”. Fortunately enough, the word “cow” in such a command refers to all individual cows, but one by one (so Kumārila in the TV). How is this possible? Because Kumārila distinguishes two elements in each prescription (what is uddeśyamāna and what is upādīyamāna*), which Yoshimizu equates to what contemporary linguists call “topic” and “comment”. The “comment” adds new information, whereas the “topic” is what we know already about. This part is only needed in order to understand what the comment is about. For instance: “cow” is “comment” and then “topic” in the next two sentences (the example is mine, no responsibility of Yoshimizu in any mistake it may contain):

“That one is my cow” (topic: “That one” (you already know about it since a gesture indicates it); comment: “my cow” (you did not know before the speaker had a cow))

“Bring the cow” (topic: “the cow” (you already know that the speaker has a cow, and which one it is); comment: “Bring [it]!”)

Once the “cow” is made into a “topic”, one knows already its number (in this case, singular) and can identify it easily. Thus, one does no longer need to bring all possible cows sharing the universal “cowness”.

Yoshimizu’s conclusion is that Kumārila leans towards pragmatics (for instance, he implements a topic-comment distinction which takes into account the pragmatic presuppositions implied in a certain linguistic act), whereas Dignāga implicitly presupposes some type of componential analysis.

A dewlap is not always sufficient as a probans to infer a cow

What do you think of the application of contemporary theories to classical Indian philosophy? Do they help or bewilder you?

More on Kataoka’s view of apoha can be read here If you are in Vienna and you want to discuss these topics with Yoshimizu, consider attending this workshop.

*On “topic” and “comment” applied to Mīmāṃsā linguistics one can also read Yoshimizu 2006, where the “comment” is equated to the vidheya

Kei Kataoka presented his view of how apoha works in Dignāga. He first discussed the interpretation of it by several scholars (Hattori, Akamatsu, Yoshimizu) and then the criticism of this view by Tanizawa, a criticism which Kataoka himself endorses and which he sees foreshadowed by a Sāṅkhya opponent embedded in the Pramāṇasamuccaya, namely Mādhava. According to the first group, Kataoka maintains, we perceive some characteristics such as dewlap, and on this basis we can identify what cows are. Tanizawa and Mādhava, instead, observe that this procedure would contradict the negative nature of the apoha theory, since it would presuppose the existence of a recognisable universal, namely dewlap-ness, etc.

I will need to go back to Yoshimizu’s 2011 article, but I am not completely sure that the componential semantics he proposes (e.g., the componential analysis of ‘cow’ would have ‘bovine’ ‘adult’ and ‘female’ as its elements) needs to presuppose the existence of the corresponding universals. To me, it seemed that one could just more or less understand what a dewlap is and proceed on the basis of this preliminary understanding. In this case, one would avoid the petitio principii (anyonyāśraya) that is Kumārila’s main charge against Dignāga, namely: You cannot exclude non-cows unless you already know what a cow is. However, Kataoka —if I understood his answer correctly— suggests that Dignāga was not concerned with answering this possible charge, possibly because the absences were for him graspable and he did not feel the need to justify one’s grasping them.

(Let me repeat that this is just my impression of a part of Kataoka’s paper, which was surely much better than my short summary of it)

The ŚV vākya chapter deals with the PMS [Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra] 1.1.24, which focuses on the signification of sentences. The chapter is thus prompted by the initial objection that although the innate meaning of words has been secured (in PMS 1.1.5–23), this still does not entail the validity of the Vedas, since these are made of sentences and sentences are human compositions (ŚV vākya 1). Just like the Jayanta’s Nyāyamañjarī (henceforth NM) 5, section on sentence meaning, the section then opens with a short summary of the possible theories concerning sentence and sentence meaning and then examines them in more detail (ŚV vākya 2–3). It is noteworthy, however, that the positions listed in NM 5, section on vākya, do not correspond to the ones highlighted by Kumārila. The reasons for this differences could be of key importance in order to understand how the debate about the sentence-meaning had shifted in the time between Kumārila and Jayanta. Kumārila mentions:

1. The words communicate the sentence meaning one by one
2. The words communicate the sentence meaning taken together
3. There is a distinct linguistic element apart from the words (i.e., the sphoṭa)
4. The word meanings communicate the sentence meaning one by one
5. The word meanings communicate the sentence meaning taken together
6. The instruments of knowledge [for the word meaning?] communicate the sentence meaning
7. The memories [of the word meanings?] communicate the sentence meaning one by one
8. The memories [of the word meanings?] communicate the sentence meaning collectively
9. The notions of a relation [among word meanings] communicate the sentence meaning one by one
10. The notions of a relation [among word meanings] communicate the sentence meaning collectively

Jayanta, instead, listed:

1. ‘ The sentence-meaning is constituted by cognition, since no external sentence meaning is possible (attributed to kecit)
2. ‘ The sentence meaning is an external state of affairs, constituted by the coordinated connection (saṃsarga) of word-meanings which correspond to external entities (attributed to anye)
3. ‘ The sentence meaning is the exclusion of anything else (attributed to apare)
4. ‘ The sentence meaning is an action, with the action factors subordinated to it, since no coordinated connection is possible (attributed to apare)
5. ‘ The sentence meaning is the arthabhāvanā and, in the case of exhortative verbal endings, the śabdabhāvanā is also added as a sentence meaning (attributed to anye)
6. ‘ Since it is cumbersome to postulate two different things to be denoted by the exhortative verbal endings, only the prescription is denoted by exhortative verbal endings (attributed to apare) —two sub theories are discussed
7. ‘ The sentence meaning is the effort

Why are Jayanta’s and Kumārila’s list so different? Kumārila focuses on which elements convey the sentence meaning, whereas Jayanta’s is a semantic analysis, focusing on the nature of the sentence meaning. Once this is established, it is interesting to see that the two lists still have little overlappings:

1. Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā (=K 5, J 5)
2. Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā (=K 2, J 6)
3. Vijñānavāda (=K 10, J 1)

Why so? Had the linguistic fashion changed between Kumārila and Jayanta? Or do they just focus on different things?

For another post on Jayanta and his sources in NM 5, see here.