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.

Interestingly, although the school accepted the authority of the Vedas, Sāṅkhya authors did not insist on their being necessarily consistent and instead highlighted that the prohibition to perform violence should not be overturned, not even in case of sacrificial violence. Accordingly, they understand the sequence:

• 1. One should not perform violence on any living being
• 2. If one desires to harm one’s enemy, they should sacrifice bewitching with the śyena

as implying that 1. invalidates 2. Interestingly, Sāṅkhya authors are ready to go as far as stating that this applies also to the following sequence:

• 1. One should not perform violence on any living being
• 3. One should sacrifice an animal within the agnīṣomīya sacrifice

Whereas all Mīmāṃsā authors agree that 2. should not be fulfilled (but out of different reasons than the one put forward by Sāṅkhya authors), no one among them would agree in extending this position to 3.

Sāṅkhya authors are therefore presupposing that Vedic commands do not necessarily form a consistent whole and, more importantly, that prohibitions are \emph{unrestricted in their application} (see TMK 5.78). This is connected to a point we will see developed by Maṇḍana, namely the incommensurability of the bad. Transgressing a prohibition involves accumulating pāpa, i.e., bad karman, and this bad output cannot be compensated by any good result one might gather. Prescriptions contrasting with prohibitions are automatically suspended, since prohibitions are unrestricted and always prevail. Only prescriptions not contrasting with prohibitions are valid.

To my knowledge, Veṅkaṭanātha’s Seśvaramīmāṃsā (henceforth SM) has been commented upon only once in Sanskrit, namely in the 20th c. by Abhinava Deśika Vīrarāghavācārya.
Vīrarāghavācārya continues Veṅkaṭanātha’s agenda in reinterpreting Mīmāṃsā tenets in a Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta way.

On the meaning of dharma and on the polemics between a sādhya and siddha interpretation of the Veda, he writes:

Deities need to be pleased (ārādhya), what needs to be realised is the result.

(ārādhyā devatāḥ, sādhyaṃ phalam, ad SM ad PMS 1.1.1, 1971 edition of the SM, p.10)

Similarly, within the commentary on SM ad PMS 1.1.2, Vīrarāghavācārya interprets a quote by Parāśara Bhaṭṭa according to Maṇḍana’s distinction among various deontic concepts and then adds a further level:

The instruction which has necessarily to be performed is the command. The permission is the instruction which presupposes a desire for the experience of a result which is not forbidden. It has as content something desirable. An instruction having as content a forbidden purpose (as in the case of the Śyena) is a permission which has occurred automatically [but will be later subdued] (āpātānujñā).

The added level is labelled āpātānujñā. This is, as far as I know, a neologism. It indicates the fact that prescriptions about malefic sacrifices are not the Veda’s final words on the topic. They look like prescriptions, but in fact:

1. like all other textual passages presupposing human desires, they are only instructions about how to reach something, they do not state that one should desire it.
2. on top of that will then be sublated insofar as they presuppose a purpose which is prohibited in another part of the Veda.

Point 1 is a standard Mīmāṃsā devise to justify Vedic passages about malefic sacrifices. Vīrarāghavācārya adds point 2 to the landscape, thus highlighting that the textual passages about malefic sacrifices are ultimately sublated insofar as the purpose they presuppose is prohibited.

Vīrarāghavācārya probably formed the term āpātānujñā on the basis of āpātadhī. This is a term introduced by Rāmānuja and discussed at length by Veṅkaṭanātha. It means `automatic understanding’ of the Veda, the one one gathers while learning the Veda by heart without caring for investigating into its meaning. Such an automatic understanding will be later revised while one investigates the meaning of the Veda. Vīrarāghavācārya implicitly suggests that it can even be completely reversed.

Have readers ever encountered the term āpātānujñā?

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)

“For Mīmāṃsā, it is not the case that violence in itself is the cause for pāpa (evil karman), only prohibited violence is. The killing of the sacrificial animal performed within the Jyotiṣṭoma is [just] effecting that the sacrifice is complete with all its elements.
Out of the result of the Śyena sacrifice anartha is produced. Out of this result, which consists in the killing of one’s enemy, there is anartha in the form o reaching suffering, i.e., hell. [For] the killing of one’s enemy, which is the result of the Śyena sacrifice, is not known through a prescription. However, If the enemy is already ready to kill (ātatāyin), then his killing is prescribed. Since in that case violence is prescribed, the Śyena sacrifice does not produce anartha. Therefore, it is established that the Śyena sacrifice does not in itself lead to anartha as result.”
(p. 25 of Rāmaśaṅkara Bhaṭṭācārya’s commentary (called Jyotiṣmatī) on Sāṃkhyatattvakaumudī)

The author of this work, Dr. Ram Shankar Bhattacharya (1927-1996), was a scholar of international repute, well-known for his ground-breaking works in the field of Indological scholarship in general and Sanskrit in particular. He was a pupil of Hariharānanda Āraṇya and then of his successor, Dharmamegha Āraṇya. He has at least 30 works and hundreds of articles in various languages (English, Bengali, Hindi and Sanskrit) dealing with Purāṇas, Sānkhya and Yoga philosophies, Sanskrit grammar, Indian History, etc. to his credit. He co-edited (along with Prof. Gerald James Larson) the volumes on Sānkhya and Yoga philosophies of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Philosophies series, published under the general editorship of Karl H. Potter, by M/S Motilal Banarsidass. He also served as the scholar-in-residence (sabhāpaṇḍita) of His Royal Highness, the King of Benaras, and the editor of the bi-annual multi-language journal, Purāṇam, published by the All-India Kashiraj Trust, for years, which contains innumerable research articles from his pen. Besides, he also edited four Purāṇas (Agni, Vāmana, Kūrma and Garuḍa) for the same institution.

What remains to be researched, is what it means for an enemy to be ātatāyin (lit. `with one’s bow stretched’, i.e., ready to shoot). Should the enemy be literally about to kill one? If so, there would be no time to perform a Śyena sacrifice. So, either Rāmaśaṅkara Bhaṭṭācārya thinks of preventive actions against people who are known to be about to kill someone or his is just a theoretical discussion.

In order to partly solve this problem, we checked the definition of ātatāyin in the Śabdakalpadruma (a famous Skt-Skt dictionary). This states `ready to kill’ and then quotes a verse from the commentary of Śrīdhara on the BhG discussing six types of such villains: people who are about to set something on fire, poisoners, people with a sword or a knife (śastra) in their hands, robbers, people taking away one’s wife or fields (perhaps: the products of one’s fields?). Śrīdhara then concludes: “There is no flaw in killing an ātatāyin”.

The Vācaspatyam (Skt-Skt) dictionary has a much longer entry. I am still not sure whether someone can be defined an ātatāyin for just plotting a killing —something which would allow one to prepare and perform the Śyena sacrifice.
Sudipta thinks that plotting should be included, since otherwise it might be too late to take action against the ātatāyin and the prescription about killing an ātatāyin found in Dharmaśāstra would be futile. Sudipta accordingly thinks that the Śyena is not prohibited in the case of preventing, e.g., a terrorist attack and that it is only prohibited if performed for one’s own sake, as an offensive action.

(This post has been jointly discussed by EF and Sudipta Munsi, who kindly showed me the quote mentioned above.)

One of the leitmotifs of Andrew Ollett’s review (for which, let me repeat it, I am deeply grateful) is that he suggests locating the work of Rāmānujācārya historically, perhaps by comparing his sources and methodology with what was happening in Benares in the 16h and 17th centuries (and about which one might want to read the studies by Anand Venkatkrishnan). Again, as for context, Ollett suggests identifying the abhiyukta ‘experts’ mentioned in the following quote with lexicographers (against my hypothesis of identifying them with Viśiṣṭādvaitins on the basis of the context and of the occurrences of abhiyukta in the Tantrarahasya):

devatoddeśena dravyatyāgo yāga ity abhiyuktopadeśaś ceti. (TR IV, 9.4.4)

And it is instructed by learned people that the sacrifice is the relinquishing of the substances in the name of the deity

On a different note, Ollett notes that some of the parallels with Western philosophers (which he, overall, praises), for instance “von Wright’s formalization of Thomistic deontics (pp. 124–127) do not immediately help us to understand the positions that Rāmānujācārya represents” (p. 635). This is a problem most of us have to come to terms with, since comparisons often risk to require much energy before they can at all lead somewhere. In fact, they often need a double expertise in order to be effective. Nonetheless, I still think that we comparisons are just unavoidable. I hope that my more recent works on deontic logic (together with A. Ciabattoni, B. Lellmann and F. Genco, see for instance here) could spread more light on the parallel with von Wright and on its usefulness in understanding conundrums such as the Śyena one.

Similarly, Ollett on the one hand thinks that my charts and schemes are “necessary”, while on the other he notes that I “rarely explain precisely what relations the arrows signify”, which is true, I must admit. I will do better in the future, now that I know that not everyone shares my intuitions regarding arrows.

In the second paragraph of p. 635, Ollett discusses my analysis of the arthabhāvanā as being the object which is caused to be by the svargabhāvanā. Apart from indirectly noting a typo (a missed -m in yāgakaraṇā svargabhāvanā), Ollett notes that “śābdī– and ārthībhāvanā are joined incoherently […], since it is the Vedas, and not the person addressed by the injunction, that bring-into-being the bringing-into-being of heaven on the part of the person addressed by the injunction”. Now, although Ollett is right that the śabdabhāvanā (I prefer this terminology, since śābdībhāvanā is later and is not found in Rāmānujācārya) pertains to language and causes to be the initiation of the activity by the person, svargakāmo yajeta imposes an obligation on the svargakāma. It is him, not the Vedas, who is addressed by the injunction as the one upon which the duty to bring about a sacrificial activity rests. In this sense, and taking into account Ollett’s objections, svargakāmo yajeta can perhaps be paraphrased as yāgakaraṇāṃ svargaphalabhāvanām bhāvayet ‘he should undertake an activity leading to heaven and having the sacrifice as its instrument’. An alternative (and easier) way out could be to stop at yagakāraṇena svargam bhāvayet. Or, if one wants to make the śabdabhāvanā explicit and take the risk of hiding its imperative character, yāgakaraṇāṃ svargaphalabhāvanāṃ bhāvayitum (vedaiḥ) prerito’sti.

A second point mentioned by Ollett regards a sentence found at p. 88, where I show how the verbal root expresses both content and instrument. Ollett would have probably liked both elements to be signalled in the Sanskrit paraphrasis, like they are in the scheme before the paraphrasis.

The review makes further subtle points, aiming at understanding better terms which I translated in a “less specific” way. I am surprised (but I should not, knowing Ollett as a sarvajña-to-be) by Ollett’s easyness in understanding the intricacies of the text (something I spent years on). I welcome, in this sense, Ollett’s glosses of aidamarthya (“a condition of standing in a teleological relationship that must be ‘fulfilled’ in the construal of all prescriptions”) and of codaka (“a rule of transference of elements from the archetype into the ectype”). By contrast, I thought that saying that a prescription “promotes” the performance of a sacrifice could have been understood easily enough to mean that the prescription causes the sacrificer to perform the sacrifice (whereas Ollett laments that I have used this term “without explaining what it would mean for a prescription to ‘promote’ the performance of a sacrifice”). Once again, my lack of command of English may have deluded me.

Ollett does not suggest any emendation in the Sanskrit text, although he notes that the Telegu manuscript collated was probably the same one used by the original editor and that the variants are all due to conjectures or typos (note that the Tantrarahasya has been edited twice and that the Telegu manuscript I collated was known to the second editor, who believed it was an additional manuscript to the one used in the first edition). This brings me back to the problem of whether one should collate all manuscripts available or not. In the case of my book, the first reason for reproducing the text of the Tantrarahasya was the apparatus with parallel texts and sources (the variant readings of the Telegu manuscript alone would not have prompted me to prepare a new edition). On the other hand, one could always suggest (see Petra’s comments to the post linked to above), that the more evidence the better and that collating additional manuscripts gives at least more reasons to accept or reject the text as it had been previously edited.

Let me close with one of Ollett’s flattering remarks:

Although less comprehensive, it [=the book] does for Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā what Edgerton’s version of the Mīmāṃsānyāyaprakāśa and Benson’s recent (2010) version of the Mīmāṃsānyāyasaṃgraha have done for Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā, namely to make these valuable overviews of their respective systems available to a wider audience.

Last, let me note that ironically, one of the “examples of the value added by Freschi’s commentary” was the topic of a paper I submitted to a WSC. It was rejected, something which makes me once again aware of how many among my best results (the papers on deontic logic, the books on textual reuse, the paper on Jayanta’s linguistics) originate out of previous rejections (but perhaps there is no causal relation other than the fact that I received many rejections).

(A.) Whoever desires to achieve something should sacrifice

It is easy for an objector to go on and argue as follows:

A Śūdra (i.e., a member of the lowest class) desires to achieve something
A Śūdra should sacrifice (PMS 6.1.25)

Mīmāṃsā authors, however, reply:

No, because sacrifice presupposes knowledge of the Vedic prescriptions enjoining it, such as (A.), and a Śūdra is not entitled to hear the Veda. In fact, there is the following prohibition:

(B.) A Śūdra should not engage with the Veda

(Śābarabhāṣya ad PMS 6.1.37)

Now, why is the prohibition (B.) stronger than the prescription (A.)? I can think of two or three possibilities:

1. Because (B.) is more specific than (A.). That specific rules overrule more generic ones is known as the upasaṃhāranyāya.
2. Because prohibitions have a bigger deontic value than prescriptions.
3. (Because of sociological reasons: Śūdra could not be allowed to sacrifice because there was a social consensus about the fact that they were not allowed to perform sacrifices)

The last explanation is easy, but I am afraid it might be too easy. Mīmāṃsakas were not directly involved with worldly matters and could engage in brave thought experiments, such as asking whether animals are entitled to sacrifice. No. 1 is fine and probably applies here, although one needs to be aware that multiple rules may act simultaneously, so that, e.g., in the case of the Śyena sacrifice the same rule is not enough to overrule the generic prohibition to perform violence in case of the malefic sacrifice Śyena.

For more on the Śyena, see this post. For more on Mīmāṃsā deontics in general, see these ones.

The latter is interpreted as a paryudāsa-negation (i.e., one which enjoins something, through negating a specific aspect of it, like in the case of “Bring a non-Brahmaṇa, which entails that one has to bring some other human being), whereas the former is interpreted as a prasajya-negation (i.e., a sheer prohibition, which does not enjoin anything positive, like “Do not go out!”). This difference entails also a different relation with possible results, insofar as the prohibition to look at the rising sun, since it is interpreted as a prescription, entails a result, whereas the prohibition to eat kalañja is a sheer prohibition and as such cannot entail any result at all.

The more general problem regards the mental aspect of actions, and it is dealt with in Kumārila’s Tantravārttika ad 6.2.19–20:

Pūrvapakṣin: The negation involved in na kalañjaṃ bhakṣayet is a paryudāsa-type of negation. Thus, it means that one should not eat kalañja, but one should eat [something else].

Uttarapakṣin No. It is  a prasajya-type of negation. What is enjoined is the prohibition to eat, specified by kalañja (nothing positive is enjoined).

Pūrvapakṣin: No, this non-eating specified by kalañja should be performed by whoever wishes to achieve a result. (thus, something positive is in fact enjoined).

Uttarapakṣin: How can one perform “non-eating”?

Pūrvapakṣin: The non-eating is the mental (mānasa) activity consisting in the non-eating,  In fact, when one does something, one needs first to decide (saṅkalpa) to undertake it. Also in the case of non-activities. one first decides and then avoids [doing something].
Moreover, the mental activities are more internal (antaraṅga) [to the action], and thus they are the first thing to be enjoined (I identify this principle regarding antaraṅgatva as a separate nyāya).
It is like in the case of “One should not look at the rising sun”, the only difference being that in the case of the sun a condition is mentioned (one should not look at the rising sun, but one is allowed to look at the sun in any other case), whereas in the case of the kalañja the prohibition is permanent.

Siddhāntin: The case of “One should not look at the rising sun” is different, since in that case what is at stake is a distinct vow (the Prajāpati-vow), the observance of which is positively enjoined.

Pūrvapakṣin: How could one distinguish the two cases?

Siddhānta: The case of “One should not look at the rising sun” is a vow, and vows obviously involve the mental decision (to keep them), so that something positive is enjoined in that case.

The kalañja-prohibition, by contrast, is not introduced as a vow, thus the negation is directly connected with the fact of being to be done.

Long story short, keep on avoiding to eat onion (or drink wine, or eat pork…), since this is prohibited in the Sacred Texts, but you will not get any reward through that.

On the Mīmāṃsā way of structuring arguments, see here. On the hermeneutic principles in Mīmāṃsā, see here On the problem of the Śyena and of violence in the Veda, see here.

[Obj.:] Because [the prohibition of violence] is unrestricted, because [violence] is prohibited, violence which is repeated as the result [of a ritual, and not as its instrument] is a sin.
[R.: No, because] the prescription about a subsidiary (aṅga) blocks the general [prohibition of violence]. Also the inference is in this case wrong because it is invalidated, etc. |
Those who belong to Sāṅkhya say that there is a small flaw easy to be avoided if one favours this rite (the Agnīṣomīya). It is said in the Śārīraka that it is not so, because of the mention of what is beneficial for the animal || 78 ||

With the words Because it is unrestricted the [author of the verses (who happens to be the same as the author of the commentary, i.e., Veṅkaṭanātha)] said that the Śyena and the Agnīṣomīya are different, through the purification of the [violent] activity by means of the prescriptions and the prohibitions [regarding it], since it is established that the adṛṣṭa is reached at only through the Āgamas. The meaning is: Both in the Śyena and in the killing of the animal victim within the Agnīṣomīya one sees violence. An activity which has as result the detachment from the vital breaths is denoted with the word “violence” and this is common to both cases.

However, in the Śyena the violence is not prescribed, but rather obtained out of one’s desire. In fact in its case the sequence of prescriptions is “If one would inflict violence, he shall do it through the Śyena”, and not just “One should inflict violence”. And in the same way in the case of the [Śyena] the violence is obtained out of desire, therefore the prohibition “One should not perform any violence” is in its regard unrestricted. Therefore, the violence which has been repeated as the result [of the Śyena] is prohibited in this case, not the Śyena [itself], because [the Śyena] has been said to be something different, with [Kumārila’s] words “The Śyena is different [than violence], like a sword [is not the same as a slaughter]” (ŚV codanā 205cd) and because it has been prescribed. That he said with By contrast, violence is a sin. This means that this violence which is obtained because of one’s desire is an evil, because it is prohibited by the Sacred Texts. By contrast in case of the killing of the animal victim in the Agnīṣomīya, although there is violence, since [the killing] has the form of an activity resulting in separating [the animal’s self] from the vital breaths, the general rule “One should not perform any violence” is blocked throughout he specific prescription “One should kill [the animal victim]”. Since, when there is a specific prescription, the general prohibition is weaker, as it has its scope of application only when it regards something obtained through desire only.

Therefore (athāpi), the inference “The violence in the case of the Agnīṣomīya is not dharmic, because it is violence, like the violence inflicted on a Brahmin” is wrong, because it is invalidated by the Sacred Texts (āgama) and because it has limiting conditions (upādhi), this he said with the words The inference.

In this regard the Sāṅkhyas think so: “The prescription about the killing of the animal victim in the Agnīṣomīya says that the killing is a subsidiary to the ritual. But the sentence ‘One should not perform any violence’ encompasses also the violence within the Agnīṣomīya because the word ‘violence’ works without any restriction. And in this way  this violence is the cause of something evil but this is easy to be atoned (parihṛ-), since it is Vedic”. In this regard the confutation has  been said in the Śārīrakaśāstra: “Although the killing of the animal victim within the Agnīṣomīya causes a major sufferance, it cannot be said to be ‘violence’. In fact, there is [also] not violence when a physician, etc., cut or cauterise, etc., for the sake of heal a tumour, etc. Nor is the  scolding of one’s child or pupil by the parents, [teachers], etc. a form of violence. Only a violent act not conformable to the Śāstras and performed by someone causing much sufferance is violence. In this regard, by contrast, although there is separation from the vital breaths, there is no violence, because of the compliance to the Śāstra. Instead, there is protection (rakṣā), because through the interruption of the body of the animal victim, which results in evil, [the sacrifice] causes for that very animal the attainment of a a special body which is conform to the enjoyment of upmost pleasure”. Having in mind this all he said Because of the mention of what is beneficial for the animal. With the mention of the mantra ”You do not indeed die, nor are you injured, you go in the divine with easy paths” (na vā u etan mriyase na riṣyasi devāṃ ideṣi pathibhis sugebhis, ṚV 1.162.21, found also in Rāmānuja’s Gītābhāṣya).  it is said that the animal obtains a specific place.
This is here the different [view]: Some say that once one has accepted that the slaughter of the animal in the Agnīṣomīya is violence, the prescription “One should slaughter [the sacrificial animal]” blocks the prohibition “One should not perform any violence. Others, by contrast, do not accept that there is violence out of the Sacred Texts or the Recollected ones, because it is not violence, given that [the slaughter] is the cause of the fact that through a little sufferance a bigger happiness is obtained and given that it is said in the Sacred Texts that “You do not die, nor are you injured…”.

(Tattvamuktākalāpa, 5.78, my (preliminary) translation)
Thus, there are basically two options:

• the Śyena is prohibited, because violence in it is not prescribed and it is performed only because of one’s desire (whereas no one desires to kill a sacrificial animal, it is slaughtered only because of a prescription to do it)
• all violence is prohibited. This prohibition is superseded in the case of the Agnīṣomīya by a more precise prescription to the contrary.

The first solution seems to me suitable to be applied more in general to the universal problem of violence in religious texts (Don’t do it if you can detect self-interest in it).