Tag Archives: Maṇḍana Miśra

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Jayanta on why knowing one’s good is not enough to act

Today I discussed with Sudipta Munsi how Jayanta (9th c., Kaśmīr) speaks of the motivator of exhortative sentences. Why do we undertake activities upon hearing an exhortative sentence?

Among the possible candidates are one’s desire (rāga) for the output of the activity, and the cognition that the enjoined activity is the means to achieve one’s welfare etc. (śreyassādhanatva).

Jayanta thinks that the latter theory is untenable, since one does not undertake activities, even if conducive to one’s welfare, unless one desires it (as we all know when it comes to brushing our teeth or doing daily workouts). The refutation then becomes more technical, because Jayanta explains that the śreyassādhanatva theory is introduced as part of the bhāvanā theory, but this cannot work.

In fact, according to the latter theory, the nature of an action (bhāvanā) consists of three elements (1. thing to be realised, 2. instrument to realise it and 3. procedure). For the śreyassādhanatva, the two relevant parts are the first two. But an activity delimited by these two parts does not have the form of being the means to one’s welfare (śreyassādhanatva) since it is “incomplete” (aniṣpanna). Why so? Because one can only speak of śreyassādhanatva at the end of the process, once the activity is pariniṣpanna ‘complete’. Thus, śreyassādhanatva comes at the end of the process and cannot be the motivator.

Maṇḍana Miśra, possibly because of similar criticisms, inserts the element of desire within the śreyassādhanatva, which he therefore more frequently calls iṣṭasādhanatva, i.e. the idea that an action is the ‘instrument to realise something desired’.

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Maṇḍana’s revolution: From deontic to descriptive interpretation of injunctions

Maṇḍana’s Vidhiviveka `Discernment about injunctions’ deals with chiefly two topics at length:

  1. What is the nature of a prescription? After many discussions, examining the positions of Prabhākara and Bhartṛhari, the answer is that a Vedic prescription is just the statement that the action prescribed is the instrument to get a desired output.
  2. If the above is true, how can one distinguish between fixed and elective rituals?

Let me now elaborate on both topics.

First, a sacrifice is considered by Maṇḍana to be an iṣṭasādhana, i.e., an instrument to something desired. A sacrificial injunction is therefore just the communication that the sacrifice is such (i.e., an instrument to something desired). Thus,

O(x/desire for y)

means

x is an instrument for y

This would work also for negative obligations, e.g.,

O (not eating (x)/desire for y)

means

forming the intention not to eat x is an instrument for y

Please notice that this could also cover cases of negative obligations which apply to everyone (in this case, according to the Viśvajit-metarule, one postulates heaven, i.e., happiness, as result):

O (not doing x/T)

is re-read as:

O (not doing x/desire for heaven)

This, in turn, means:

forming the intention to refrain from doing x is an instrument for heaven

This means that omitting the enjoined action (that is, not forming the intention to refrain from x) only leads to the non-obtainment of heaven. The situation would have been different had the same action x been forbidden, as will be explained immediately below.

What about prohibitions? They communicate one that the action prohibited is an instrument to something undesired, i.e., suffering (duḥkha).
Thus,

F (x/T)

means

x is an instrument for something absolutely undesirable

For instance, the prohibition to perform violence on any living beings (na hiṃsyāt sarvā bhūtāni) has the structure:

F (violence/T)

and not

*O (not violence/T)

because, if respected, it does not lead to any positive result (unlike an obligation), whereas, if transgressed, it leads to a negative output.

This means that prohibitions and prescriptions have a similar structure (both state that a given action is an instrument for something, respectively desirable or undesirable). Prescriptions are, however, in general effective only on people who desire that outcome, whereas prohibitions are effective on everyone, since the forbidden action would lead to outcomes which are absolutely undesirable (pāpa, which will interfere with all of one’s future undertakings).

The main advantage of this structure, as I can see it, is that one avoids the main problems of having a deontic logic, by translating deontic statements into descriptive ones.

What about the śyena, which prescribes one to perform a sacrifice leading to violence? śyena is anartha, i.e., in Maṇḍana’s understanding, it is also an instrument for something undesired, that is suffering (duḥkha). Thus, it should not be performed because it has this structure:

Śyena–»violence

and given:

F(violence/T)

we know that:

violence–»something undesired

Thus,

śyena–»something undesired

Thus, the choice to perform a śyena would be based on a misjudgement of what is at stake, since the positive output (the death of one’s enemy) is anyway less positive than the negative sanction that will follow.
NB: The target reader of Maṇḍana appears to be a rational agent who is completely able to judge the outcomes of their actions (unlike in the case of Prabhākara).

This leads to a problem, however, because if all sacrifices are considered to be just instruments to something desired, how can one account for the difference between elective and fixed results? It would indeed seem that all sacrifices are just recommended if one wants to achieve a given result, no more than that. Why would one perform some every day and some others only on given occasions? If the performance depended on the desire, an opponent suggests, then there would be no fixed sacrifices, since as soon as one gets what one desired, one would stop performing the sacrifice.

Maṇḍana examines various scenarios, including one that says that if one omits the performance of fixed sacrifices, one obtains pāpa (demerit), which will then block any further enterprise. Thus, fixed sacrifice would have as a positive result only the reduction of pāpa, whereas the their omission has a negative result, i.e., accumulation of further pāpa.

But what about the auxiliaries of fixed and elective sacrifices? According to all Mīmāṃsā authors, the former have to be performed as much as one can, the latter exactly as prescribed. Why this difference, if both sacrifices are just the same thing, namely instruments to something desired? Maṇḍana explains that the Vedic prescriptions enjoining fixed sacrifices prescribe them “as long as one lives”. This means that in their case the fixedness does not depend on the nature of the desire (i.e., they are not fixed just because one fixedly desires their output) but rather on the Vedic prescriptions prescribing them.
Thus, due to the metarule that says that the Veda cannot prescribe meaningless things and due to the metarule that only possible things can be prescribed, the “as long as one lives” clause cannot mean to perform auxiliaries exactly as prescribed. Thus, auxiliaries of fixed sacrifices are to be performed only as much as one can.

One might wonder: What about elective sacrifices to be done in order to obtain heaven? Given that heaven is happiness and every one desires happiness all the time, such sacrifices are potentially also to be performed all the time. Should one perform also their auxiliaries as much as possible?

The answer is no, because each elective sacrifice is incumbent on one every day anew and as such one is responsible to perform it (adhikārin) only if one has all relevant sacrificial ingredients. If one lacks them, one is not the adhikārin and therefore does not have to perform the sacrifice. Thus, there is no need to perform a sacrifice as much as one can.

By contrast, in the case of fixed sacrifices, one needs to perform them every day, since they are fixed, one is therefore always the adhikārin of them simply by being alive. Therefore, if one lacks, e.g., a relevant ingredient, one just performs the sacrifice as much as one can.

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Could Upaniṣadic sentences be interpreted as prescriptions? A debate within Maṇḍana’s Vidhiviveka

Within the Vidhiviveka, a Prābhākara-inclined Mīmāṃsaka debates with a Vedāntin about the meaning of Upaniṣadic sentences on the self.

The Prābhākara insists that all sentences should be injunctive in character, and that Upaniṣadic sentences should also be interpreted in this way. But what exactly could they prescribe? They could enjoin one to know their content, they suggest. But this option is not viable, since there is no difference between “s is p” and “you ought to know that s is p” insofar as one knows that s is p through the first sentence, too.

A further option would be that the Upaniṣadic sentences enjoin one to know their meaning in a definite way (niścaya), but this option is also ruled out. For, if the niścaya were obtained through language alone, then it would occur automatically, without the need to enjoin it. If it were not obtained through language alone, then it would occur because of something other than language, but then the Upaniṣads would no longer be the instrument for knowing about the ātman, which runs against other fundaments of the school.

At this point, the Prābhākara-like objector suggests a further possibility, namely that Upaniṣadic sentences prescribe arthaparatā, i.e., the ‘intentness on the meaning’. This also does not go, because prescriptions need to have preferably a visible purpose, like ritual prescriptions. And understanding sentences as aiming primarily at their meaning would put at a disadvantage exactly prescriptive sentences, which aim not only at conveying their meaning, but also at urging someone to perform a given activity. Moreover, a prescription should aim at a certain goal and knowledge cannot be a goal separated from the content to be known (as explained above with regard to the case of whether the understanding itself could be enjoined): ज्ञानस्य ज्ञेयाभिव्याप्तिफलत्वात् फलान्तरानभ्युपगमात्।

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Maṇḍana on fixed sacrifices

The eight century philosopher Maṇḍana tried to streamline the distinction among various types of sacrifices he inherited from the Mīmāṃsā school. The Mīmāṃsā distinguishes between:

  • fixed sacrifices one has to perform throughout one’s life
  • occasional sacrifices one performs when the occasion arises (e.g., the birth of a son)
  • elective sacrifices one performs in order to obtain a coveted result

It is also noteworthy that the auxiliary acts of fixed and occasional sacrifices can be performed “as much as one can”, whereas auxiliaries of elective sacrifices need to be performed exactly as prescribed.
The motivator of the former two groups seems to be the fact that the Veda prescribes them, whereas the motivator of the latter group seems to be the fact that one desires their result. But this is weird, given that they are enjoined by prescriptions which have a comparable form. Maṇḍana tried to find a way to have the same motivator for all. This is how he develops his argument:

  1. Prima facie view: The motivator can only be the fact that one desires a given result. In the case of fixed sacrifices, the result needs to be something one desires fixedly, like happiness.
  2. This hypothesis does not stand to reason, because the following three aspects of fixed sacrifices remain irreconcilable, namely their being fixed, their having a result and the fact that their auxiliaries needs only to be performed as much as possible. In fact, if they need to have a result, they cannot be fixed, since one would cease performing them as soon as one’s desire for them were appeased.
  3. Hence, the desire for the result can be the motivator for the actively undertaking of sacrifices, whereas the fear for a sanction needs to be the motivator for the not-ceasing to perform them.
  4. Final view: No, the above contradiction can be avoided because the fixedness is not just something one arrives at pragmatically, due to the fact that one happens to desire happiness all the time. Rather, their fixedness is prescribed in the Veda, hence it is surely not the case that it ceases. Consequently, one just needs to correctly identify a desire which never ceases, and this is the desire to eliminate accumulated bad karman. People who are currently suffering will be keen in eliminating bad karman in order to eliminate the cause of their sufferings. And people who want to achieve new goals will also want to eliminate bad karman, since they know that this could hinder them.
  5. Thus, it is true that all sacrifices are motivated by desire. The desire motivating fixed sacrifices never ceases and needs to be identified as the destruction of bad karman, because its fixed nature is itself prescribed by the Veda.

As often the case, the pars destruens is almost more interesting than the pars construens.

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Maṇḍana on the Śyena

We already discussed (here, on November the 30th 2017) Jayanta’s position on the Śyena sacrifice. In this post we will observe that Jayanta was in fact inspired by Maṇḍana and, perhaps, by Maṇḍana’s commentator Vācaspati (it is still unsure whether Vācaspati was inspired by Jayanta or the other way around).

According to Maṇḍana, there are two kinds of Vedic prescriptions, the ones regarding the person (puruṣārtha) and the ones regarding the sacrifice (kratvartha).

In the case of puruṣārtha actions, the Vedic prescriptions do not motivate people to undertake them, since one would undertake them anyway because thery lead to happiness (prīti).
Rather, the Vedic prescriptions motivate people to undertake these actions with a certain set of auxiliaries. Similarly, in the case of the Śyena, the prescription about it does not promote it, since it is in itself puruṣārtha. The Śyena remains an anartha. (Vidhiviveka, p. 279, Goswami edition)

(ef and Sudipta Munsi)

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Commenting on a great scholar of Indian philosophy (M. Biardeau)

Who influenced you more in Indian philosophy? Whose methodology do you follow, perhaps without even being aware of it?

Before you answer, let us try to focus on women before we think at the many other men who might have been influential.
I, for one, cannot stop admiring Madeleine Biardeau‘ s work.

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Dealing with the logic of prescriptions can be hard…

…because it is so difficult to determine whether they have a truth-value. This point is acknowledged in the contemporary debate on deontic logic:

A fundamental issue of deontic logic is Jorgensen’s dilemma, as noted by Jorgensen. On the one hand, there are inferences involving norm sentences such as ‘you should stay‘ or ‘you may leave‘ in our lives; therefore there should be a logic dealing with them. On the other hand, these sentences express orders or permissions and do not have tuth values: therefore, there cannot be such a logic. A dilemma arises. (Ju and Liang 2015, section 1)

Out of probably similar reasons, also within Indian philosophy almost no school focused on the logic of prescriptions. Even within the only one which did, Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, some authors then moved back towards the safer ground of understanding prescriptions as descriptions. Again, in the words of Ju and Liang:

To solve this dilemma, many philosophers have proposed a distinction between two different uses of norm sentences: descriptive and prescriptive uses. In the descriptive way, norm sentences are used to state what agents ought to do; they can be true or false. […] Deontic logic is ‘legalized’ in this way. (Ibid.)

In this sense, trying to “legalize” deontic logic is a way to deal with it and to attribute truth values to it. Kumārila went a little bit in this direction when he stated that prescriptions refer to the future (which is still beyond the precinct of application of truth values, but not as much as the deontic domain, which will never be). Maņḍana went much further and claimed that, e.g.,

O x / you desire y (“You ought to do x if you desire y”)

is tantamount to:

x is a means to realise y

Why so? Because of the dilemma mentioned above, but probably also because Maṇḍana was in part closer to Vedānta than to Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and was in this sense keen to avoid the commitment to sādhyavākyārthavāda, i.e., to the theory according to which all sentences can only convey a prescriptive meaning.

I am grateful to Bama Srinivasan, who sent me a copy of Ju and Liang’s article.

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Linguistic Communication as an Instrument of Knowledge: A panel

I came back last week from Athens, were I had organised together with Malcolm Keating a panel on Linguistic Communication as an instrument of knowledge. I ended up framing the problem according to four basic questions, namely 1) What do we know? , 2) How (through which instrument of knowledge) do we know it?, 3) What is the role of language as a medium?, 4) What is the role of the social context?