On the Indian lack of distinction between linguistic and external reality and other posts

In his contribution to a recent symposium (Does Asia think differently? –Symposium zu Ehre Ernst Steinkellners), as well as in many other publications of him (e.g., Langage et Réalité: sur un épisode de la pensée indienne, 1999), Johannes Bronkhorst answered that yes, there is a substantial difference between “our” thought and the Indian one, in so far as the latter does not distinguish between purely linguistic problems and genuine ones. You can read the rest at my new blog, here.

Are you allowed to perform a malefic sacrifice? If you are, then it seems like the Veda contradicts itself, since elsewhere it prohibits violence. If you are not, why not, given that such sacrifices are prescribed in the Veda? Please read the rest at my new blog, here.

For my impressions of the talks at the IABS conference in Vienna, please check here.

Who studied Mīmāṃsā deontics?

Since Mīmāṃsā (both in its Bhāṭṭa and in its Prābhākara subschools) focused primarily on the exegesis of the prescriptive portion of the Vedic Sacred Texts, the Mīmāṃsā texts offer richly developed discussions of deontic issues, both from a linguistic and from a logic point of view. Unfortunately, the lack of philosophically accessible translations has made most of such discussions remain confined to Sanskritists. Please read the rest at my new blog, here.

वेदा अकर्तृकाः — प्रतिमन्वन्तरं तु पुनरुच्चरिताः (!)

किं वेदाः सकर्तृकाः उत न ? न, कर्त्रस्मरणात्
शेषस्तु, कृपया, इह पठितव्यः ।

Yoshimizu, apūrva and a new reading of the Mīmāṃsā schools

There are various differences among the Bhāṭṭa and the Prābhākara schools of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, respectively founded by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara Miśra, who possibly lived around the 7th c. AD, but one of the most striking and telling ones is that regarding the concept of apūrva.
Read the rest at my new blog, here.

More than one cause at once: Veṅkaṭanātha on sacrifices and other causes

What if one offers a Citrā sacrifices, but does not obtain the promised cattle? And what if one after the sacrifice does obtain some cattle, but only because one has received it as a gift? 

You can read the rest at my new blog, here.

Plurality of subjects in Mīmāṃsā: Kiyotaka Yoshimizu 2007

Is the plurality of subjects compatible with the idea of a Vedāntic kind of liberation (in which there seems to be no distinction among different souls)? And can there be an absolute brahman if there are still distinct subjects?

I just read Kiyotaka Yoshimizu's Kumārila's Reevaluation of the Sacrifice and the Veda from a Vedānta Perspective (in Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, edited by Bronkhorst and Preisendanz, 2007). The paper elaborates on thematics close to the ones dealt with by Roque Mesquita (Die Idee der Erlösung bei Kumārilabhaṭṭa, WZKS 1994) and John Taber (Kumārila the Vedāntin?, in the same Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta) and adds to the debate Yoshimizu's close knowledge of Kumārila in general and of his less studied works in particular. The article focuses in fact on the Ṭupṭīkā, Kumārila's commentary on the last part of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā sūtra, and compares it with the fragments of the Bṛhaṭṭīkā and with the Tantravārttika.
Kumārila is the chief exponent of the Bhāṭṭa school of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and the Mīmāṃsā is mainly a school of Vedic exegesis. The Vedic sacrifices necessarily require someone responsible for their performance and responsibility is explicitly said to be individual. In other words, the Vedic injunctions enjoin specific individuals and not human beings in general. Thus, they require a plurality of subjects.
However, Yoshimizu shows how Kumārila accepts the notion of a paramātman 'supreme Self' in different passages of his works. paramātman can be used as a synonym of God, Īśvara, but is mostly used as a synonym of the all-encompassing brahman. The latter would contradict the plurality of subjects which is required by Mīmāṃsā.
Thus, we need to imagine that Kumārila's paramātman does not entail monism. What else could it mean, then, to say that liberation is the "attainment of the supreme Self" (paramātmaprāpti, TV, quoted in fn. 6). Given that the paramātman seems to be in all authors who mention it a single entity, the TV claim seems to entail that everyone achieves the dignity of the single paramātman. How can this not contradict pluralism?
One might suggest that pluralism only exists in the saṃsāra, but could a pluralistic ontology be compatible with its monistic evolution, given that the paramātman is said to exist also along the saṃsāra? Would it make sense to think of living beings as leaving the proscenio of their plural world one after the other, in order to dissolve into the paramātman?
Alternatively, one should think of Kumārila's claim as entailing an ontology akin to the one later known as Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, i.e., only God exists independently, but human beings are his features (viśeṣa) and are, hence, not identical with him.

Can you think of other ways out?

P.S. Yoshimizu kindly informed me that he might elaborate further on the topic of the paramātman a new paper for the next World Sanskrit Conference in Bangkok.

Difficult Apologetics: How to justify evil prescriptions in the Sacred Texts

Philosophers or "free thinkers" may abruptly dismiss whatever they don't understand or believe to be false in a Sacred Text —or even decide not to open one at all. But theologians and authors of apologetics have a much tougher task: they must make sense of everything within a Sacred Text —even what seems to be immoral or unjust.

The most well-known example in Indian apologetics is that of the Śyena-sacrifice. This is a malevolent ritual which is prescribed in the Veda with the words: "The one who wants to harm his enemy should sacrifice with the malevolent ritual Śyena''. Opposers easily used it as an evidence of the flaws in the Veda, whereas Mīmāṃsakas had to reconcile it with the ideal of non-violence, also believed to be of Vedic origin. One of the solutions is that of stressing the adhikārins, i.e., the people who are responsible for performing the sacrifice. The sacrifice is not, it is explained, prescribed to everyone, but only to the ones who "want to harm their enemies". This is  something one should never desire to do, thus, they are already committing something prohibited and in this sense the Vedic prescription about the Śyena is a way to bring these evil ones under the control of the Veda (śaṭhacittaśāstravaśatopāyo 'bhicāraśrutiḥ, Parāśara Bhaṭṭa).

Today it came to my mind that this is the same way Jesus Christ used to "rescue" the Mosaic permission to repudiate one's wife. Consider Matthew 19.3–9, where some Pharisees come, as it is often the case in the Gospel narrations, to Jesus in order to test him with a conundrum he would not be able to solve, namely, the seeming contradiction between the cruelty of repudiating one's wife and the fact that this practice is sanctioned by Moses (De 24:1-4):

"Why then," they [=the Pharisees] asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard […]." (International Version 2011)

Do you see it? Jesus is using the same device as the Mīmāṃsakas, i.e., saying that the passage in the Sacred Text which seems unjust is in fact the best possible solution for the (cruel) people it addresses and that the prescription is in fact not a general order, but an ad hoc permission, focusing on the ones who would not have been able to follow the best way.

Do you know of other instances of this apologetic move? Do you think the parallel holds?

On the Śyena conundrum you can read also this post.

Aikaśāstrya: what does it mean?

I am still puzzled by the details of the problem of  एेकशास्त्र्य (aikaśāstrya). It literally means 'unity of the teaching', but what does 'teaching' (śāstra) refer to? And how close is the unity spoken of?

Rāmānuja mentions the unity of Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā, but then seems to care more for the unity of the Veda, which would mean the unity of Upaniṣad and Brāhmaṇa parts. And the unity of the Veda seems to be his chief argument in favour of the unity of Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā. Veṅkaṭanātha stresses much more the unity of Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā for their own sake, with the addition of the Saṅkarṣa Khaṇḍa, four supplementary chapters of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra about which I do not know whether they were considered as distinct from the Mīmāṃsāsūtra also by Veṅkaṭanātha's predecessors (the Vṛttikāra speaks of the 16 chapters of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra, thus including in it the Saṅkarṣa Khaṇḍa).

Further, should aikaśāstrya be a single "school of thought" (darśana) or a single text? In other words, do Rāmānuja and Veṅkaṭanātha aim at the unity of Jaimini's Mīmāṃsāsūtra and Bādarāyaṇa's Vedāntasūtra or at the unity of Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, or both? Veṅkaṭanātha's works contain indications for both theses, since they mention the examples of single texts (e.g., the Kāśikā Vṛtti on the Aṣṭādhyāyī in Śatadūṣaṇī 3), but also of systems (Vyākaraṇa, again in ŚD 3).


Do you know of other instances of aikaśāstrya, referring to a text or to a system?


For further posts on Veṅkaṭanātha see this one (and its links).

Nārāyaṇārya, Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and Mīmāṃsā —UPDATED

Nārāyaṇārya was a Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedāntin author whose only (as far as I know) extant work is the Nītimālā. Already this work shows some of his basic tenets:

1. 1. the focus on Pūrva Mīmāṃsā (the Nītimālā has a long section on Vedic prescriptions*).
2. 2. the attempt to reinterpret Pūrva Mīmāṃsā according to the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta tenets (Vedic prescriptions are read as orders of God*).

In this sense, Nārāyaṇārya is among the ones who paved the way to Veṅkaṭanātha (aka Vedānta Deśika) and it is no surprise that Veṅkaṭanātha often refers to him while justifying his attempt to interpret Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta as a single śāstra. However, Veṅkaṭanātha's use of Nārāyaṇārya includes a possible problem, i.e., the fact that Nārayaṇārya allegedly authored a text in which he dealt with only 500 of the adhikaraṇas of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra. Since Veṅkaṭanātha wants to say that all adhikaraṇas are to be accepted, he needs to justify Nārāyaṇārya's move as a sign of his being an advanced scholar. In this connection, he quotes the following verse, seemingly from Nārāyaṇārya:

adhyasya vyākriyādoṣaṃ ye sūtram api tatyajuḥ |
prāyaḥ sphaṭikam apy ete jahyur eva japābhramāt ||

Which seems to mean:

The ones who, after having themselves superimposed (adhyasya) a fault (doṣa) in [the sūtra's] analysis (vyākriyā) abandoned even a sūtra,
these would in general, abandon even a crystal [although the faults are not in the crystal, but have only been superimposed on it], because of a fault in the China rose (behind it).

Now, the simile can be understood as follows: the errors are not in the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtra themselves, but in their later commentators (beginning with Śabara) and one only superimposes them on the PMS, just like the faults one seems to see in a crystal are only the faults of something else, behind it.

On Vedānta Deśika, see this post (and its links).

*about which, see the excellent thesis by Himal Trikha.

Does one study out of desire? Aristotle and Veṅkaṭanātha

A brahman must learn by heart the Veda and study its auxiliaries (metrics, astrology —to know when to perform a certain ritual—, etc.). But does he have to also dwell in it and investigate further beyond its sheer phonic form? And, if there is no duty to do it, why do people nonetheless start studying Mīmāṃsā (defined as the study of the meaning of the Veda)? Veṅkaṭanātha's answer, in his Seśvaramīmāṃsā (ad MS 1.1.1) and in the Śatadūṣaṇī is clear: out of desire (rāga). He thus replies to opponents who claim that the duty to learn the Veda extends beyond its phonic form and includes the Mīmāṃsā. Thus, Aristotle's approach ("Human beings naturally love to know") triumphs and the stereotype of an Indian adversion to desire is —once again— to be at least rediscussed:

To begin with, the study of the whole Veda, together with its auxiliaries and with the Brahmasūtra is established, be it promoted by the injunction to study (as claimed by the Bhāṭṭas) or by the one to teach (as claimed by the Prābhākaras). Also the investigation about its meaning regards the whole [Veda], be it promoted by an injunction (as claimed by the Bhāṭṭas) or by one's desire (as explained in the Seśvaramīmāṃsā), since there is nothing hindering the one or the other (injunction or desire).

[Objection:] There might well be no hindrance to the promotion [of the study of the meaning of the Veda] by a prescription, but there is certainly a hindrance to the promotion by [one's] desire [to know the meaning of the Veda], because it is incongruous that one undertakes an activity as long as there is desire.

[Reply:] It is not so, because both the [following] options (vikalpa) are not possible: Is [desire to know it] an hindrance in the investigation about the brahman, or is it [an hindrance in the investigation] about ritual action (karman)? Not the first one, because a human being desires all four human aims (i.e., pleasure, success, dharma and liberation) [and not just the first three], and because there is no contradiction if, in [their] sequence, one [also] enjoys [them]. […]
(Śatadūṣaṇī 3)

Thus, desire is legitimate and legitimated, even within Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta… 

For further posts on Veṅkaṭanātha see this one (and its links).

Why starting with ritual and not directly with Vedānta? Veṅkaṭanātha's answer

Should a Vaiṣṇava really first start with the study of the ritual action (i.e., with the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā) and only later on reach what really matters, i.e., the study of Vedānta? —This seemed to have been a popular question at Veṅkaṭanātha's time, as testified most of all in his Mīmāṃsāpādukā:

It is possible to investigate on ritual action (karman) also immediately after the investigation on brahman. Therefore, the brahmakhaṇḍa [of the Veda, i.e., the Upaniṣads] should precede, and this (investigation on karman) should come after (and not the other way round, as the sequence of Pūrva- and Uttara-Mīmāṃsāsūtra would suggest). If it is so, the announcement of an investigation in the form of "Now, the desire to know the brahman" (i.e., Brahmasūtra 1.1.1) would regard the whole Veda, and the announcement in the form "Now, the desire to know the dharma" (i.e., Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.1) would regard only what is explicitly heard [in it] (i.e., the dharma=karman). Therefore, given that there is nothing which makes one decide between the alternatives, there is no unity of the śāstra (i.e., of Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsā). […] If you say that in the brahmakhaṇḍa one investigates on Sāmaveda verses, and that these are included in the karmakhaṇḍa, which thus needs to be done first, then [remember] that also the investigation on the brahman should be done before that on the karman, since Viṣṇu is the object of voiceless sacrifices and thus the cognition of various sacrifices […] depends on the cognition of him.

(Satpathasaṃcāra commentary on the Mīmāṃsāpādukā 1.1.15)

The following is (most probably;-)) Veṅkaṭanātha's answer:

Without a specific cognition of the ritual actions, one cannot perform the Udgīthas and the other [Vedic offerings and recitations]. Even without a specific cognition of the All-pervader one can perform a ritual action. The immaculate cognition which has the All-pervader as its content does not come first because it is independent.

(Satpathasaṃcāra commentary on the Mīmāṃsāpādukā 1.1.15)

 
In other words, it is out of the sequence and thus does not need to come first. Thus, the sequence is ruled by other principles, such as the fact that the ritual actions need to be investigated in order to be performed.

What led a Viśiṣṭādvaitin to the wish and need to inglobate Mīmāṃsā in his philosophy?

For further posts on Veṅkaṭanātha, check here. For his struggles with Mīmāṃsā see here ("retrospect").

Does God have Free Will? Veṅkaṭanātha's answer

Can God have free will? If He has free will, then He is above everything, including the cosmic dharma, and the Vedas, which he might have chosen to be different than they are, and this patently contradicts the Mīmāṃsā standpoint. If not, than He is not a personal God, but rather the incarnation of Order (dharma), and this patently contradicts the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta standpoint. How can Veṅkaṭanātha, the eminent Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedāntin who wrote also Mīmāṃsā works, find a way out of this impasse?

Larry McCrea will hold a lecture on this fascinating topic in June in Vienna:

Larry McCrea
Does God Have Free Will?
Hermeneutics and Theology in the work of Vedāntadeśika

When:	Fr., 14. Juni, 15 Uhr
Where:	Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde (ISTB), Universität Wien
	Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2, Eingang 2.7, 1090 Wien
Organisation:	Elisa Freschi, Marion Rastelli, Marcus Schmücker (IKGA)
Cooperation:	ISTB, Universiät Wien

An abstract of the lecture can be read here.

Larry McCrea is Associate Professor of Sanskrit Studies at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. in South Asian Languages & Civilizations in 1998 from the University of Chicago, and his BA in 1989 from Cornell University and he is among the world's major experts of the Indian scriptural hermeneutics (Mīmāṃsā), especially of its hermeneutical approach. Among his most recent book projects, The Teleology of Poetics in Medieval Kashmir, Harvard Oriental Series (Spring 2009), deals with the conceptual revolution in Sanskrit poetic theory brought about by the work of the ninth century Kashmiri Ānandavardhana. McCrea argues that the most crucial innovation Ānandavardhana introduced in the field of poetics was his application to literary analysis of a teleological approach to text interpretation imported from the discipline of Mīmāṃsā.

What do you think? Can God have free will?

For further posts on Vedānta Deśika's Seśvaramīmāṃsā, see this one and this one (in Sanskrit).

 

āpātadhī in Vedānta Deśika and Rāmānuja

Reading Vedānta Deśika (aka Veṅkaṭanātha) often means having to do with syntetic expressions which can be understood only if one knows their background. One of such cases is āpātadhī or āpātapratīti, which recurs in the Seśvaramīmāṃsā, the Mīmāṃsāpādukā and in other texts by Vedānta Deśika (I owe this last notation to Marcus Schmücker).

An āpātadhī/āpātapratīti is, literally, a 'dropped down notion'. But what does it mean for a notion to be fallen down? I was first stimulated to read its antecedents in Rāmānuja's Śrī Bhāṣya by Halina Marlewicz' The question of the unity of Karmakāṇḍa and Jñānakāṇḍa according to Rāmānuja (available here). There, she translated this expression as follows:

[…] due to an instantly apparent (āpāta) and clear ascertainment of a durable and eternal effect, which is immortality, [which ascertainment is obtained from] the Upaniṣadic statements, occurring in the same part of the Veda of one's own Vedic tradition acquired by learning, one becomes qualified to study Uttara Mīmāṃsā […]
(adhyayanagṛhītasvādhyāyaikadeśipaniṣadvākyeṣu cāmṛtatvarūpānantasthiraphalāpātapratītes tan […] śarīrakamīmāṃsāyām adhikaroti). 

However, I am not completely convinced by the idea of equating āpātadhī with a sort of instantaneous enlightenment, as if it were due to a śaktinipāta.
Consider, by contrast, the following statement in a previous page of the Śrī Bhāṣya:

āpātataḥ pratītir vidyata eva, tathāpi […] āpātapratīto 'py arthaḥ saṃśayaviparyayau nātivartate.

The context is that of VS 1.1.1, discussing whether one needs to undertake a further study of the Vedānta, although one has already studied the phonic form of the Veda. The propounder says:

There is indeed a notion [of the content of the Veda] which derives out of descending down [automatically, from one's study of the phonic form of the Veda], nonetheless the meaning [of the Veda which one has acquired through] a descended cognition […] is still liable to doubt and contradictions.

If I am right, then, the āpātadhī is the cognition of the Veda's meaning one obtains automatically, as a consequence of one's study of the phonetic form of the Veda. This is still not stable enough and could be assailed by doubts, thus one needs to study the meaning of the Veda systematically, through the (Pūrva and) Uttara Mīmāṃsā.

For further posts on Vedānta Deśika's Seśvaramīmāṃsā, see this one and this one (in Sanskrit).

Postulating a fruit for a Vedic injunction

According to Mīmāṃsā hermeneutics, a prescription must include a fruit to be realised. This is not an optional element, but an unavoidable building block of its structure, just like the bhāvanā (the action prescribed). Thus, what to do in case no result is mentioned in a Vedic prescription? The Mīmāṃsā answer is the viśvajinnyāya 'the rule about the Viśvajit' sacrifice, so called because it has been elaborated in connection with the case of the Viśvajit sacrifice, which is in fact prescribed without any fruit to be realised through its performance. According to the viśvajinnyāya, whenever no result is mentioned, svarga, i.e., enduring happiness must be postulated as the result. Why exactly svarga? Because it is desired by everyone (unlike particular results, such as sons, cattle, rain, etc.).

A same problem applies in the case of the prescription to study the Veda (svādhyāyo 'dhyetavyaḥ), which also lacks the mention of a result. Vedānta Deśika discusses it in his commentary on Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.1. There he says that one needs to postulate a result which should be desired  by everyone (sarvakāmya), analogically extended (atideśa-āgata) from other sacrificial prescriptions which mention it, obtained through commendatory statements, etc., which name it, and instrumental for the satisfaction of ancestors and gods. The relavant passage reads:

svādhyāyo 'dhyetavya iti vidhes svavākye phalādarśanāt, […] vidhyānarthakyaprasaṅgād viśvajinnyāyena svargaṃ vā bhāvyaṃ parikalpya […] adhyayanacodanāliṅgakātideśāgatajapādhyayanārthavādoktapitṛdevatṛptidvārakaṃ sārvakāmyaṃ phalam upādāya […]

Since one does not see the result (phala) of the prescription ''One has to study one's portion of the Veda'' in the sentence where it is itself [prescribed] (svavākya)[…] since there would be the undesired consequence that the prescription would be meaningless, we have alternatively (vā) postulated a heaven to be realised according to the Viśvajit-rule (and attributed it to the prescription to study). […]
Thus, we have accepted a fruit which is desirable to all, through which gods and ancestors (pitṛ) gain their satisfaction, expressed in commendatory statements (arthavāda), recitation and murmuring, and obtained (āgata) through an analogical extension whose mark is the injunction (codanā) to study.

Why does one's studying of the Veda satisfy gods and ancestors? Because one's study of the Veda is described in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (9.5.6.3--8, but I am copying from Kane) as a Brahmayajña: "4--7 compare ṛk, yajus, sāman and Atharvāṅgiras texts respectively to offerings to gods of milk, ghee, soma and fat and it is stated that the gods being delighted and satisfied with these, bestow on the man who performs brahmayajña affluence and security, life-breath, seed, his whole self and all auspicious blessings and streams of ghee and honey flow for his departed pitṛs" (Kane, vol. 2.1 p. 701).

For further posts on Vedānta Deśika's Seśvaramīmāṃsā, see this one and this one (in Sanskrit).

Final Balance on my 2012 projects: tantra and prasaṅga

tantra and prasaṅga in Śrautasūtra, Mīmāṃsā and Grammar

Participants: E. Freschi and Tiziana Pontillo

The project aims at throwing light on a shared prehistory of Śrautasūtra, Mīmāṃsā and Grammar, by means of a special focus on their structural approach to their topics (ritual or language). It shows how, notwithstanding their different objects, all schools share the idea of describing them through the opposition between general and specific rules, with the latter overruling the former. Furthermore, the project shows how, among the more technical devices used for this purpose, tantra and prasaṅga share some similarities ---insofar as they can make an element apply to a context where it is actually absent--- but at the same time represent two opposite models. tantra applies within the precinct of a certain context (i.e., a certain grammatical rule or a certain sacrifice), whereas through prasaṅga an element is applied outside its original context. Last, the project shows that the frame of reference of the authors of Śrautasūtra, Mīmāṃsā and Grammar is spatial. Accordingly, the usual way of referring to devices such as lopa as 'disappearance [of a phoneme]', is plainly wrong, because they imply a temporal perspective which is altogether absent. Instead, the project suggests to describe such devices as instances of substitution, with no diachronic implication.

Retrospect of 2012 (September-December): On the basis of a first article on this topic published before Summer 2012, E. Freschi and T. Pontillo wrote a book entitled ''Rule-extension strategies in Ancient India: Ritual, exegetical and linguistic considerations on the tantra- and prasaṅga-principles''. E. Freschi has presented part of the project during a conference in Cambridge, October 2012.

Preview of 2013: Drafts will be corrected, indexes created and the book finalised for publication before Summer 2013 at Fritz Lang, Frankfurt a.M.

Any suggestion concerning further directions of research in this field are welcome.
  
On tantra and prasaṅga, see this post. For an application of tantra and prasaṅga outside their usual precincts, see this post. For my final balance on other projects, see this post.

Introduction to the CBC on the re-use of texts in Sanskrit philosophy

The following is a draft of my introduction as I will pronounce it on Friday morning at this conference.

"Thank you to all of you for coming today and most of all for taking part to this project since its beginning. No part of it would have been possible without your participation.
Apart from welcoming and thanking you, I would like to make only two small points:

• —Especially for all among you who have never been to a Coffee Break Conference before: this whole meeting is supposed to occur in a pleasant and informal atmosphere. Our purpose is not to show how much we know, but to question what we have accepted without being aware of it. Thus, the speakers are invited to emphasise problems and not to be afraid of open questions. Participants are invited to ask, object and discuss, just like during a Coffee Break, in a constructive and participative atmosphere.
• —As for the specific topic of this meeting, some among us have been working on a joint project about the re-use of texts in Sanskrit Śāstra already since several years. This meeting is thus a way to focus on some of the questions which emerged during this work, such as:

1. 1. Can we, finally, agree on the criteria which matter in the study of quotations (i.e., acknowledgement vs. non-acknowledgement; literality vs. non-literality; form vs. content; positive or negative evaluation, naming the source vs. not naming it…), and on a shared terminology?
2. 2. Is it still possible to adopt the terminology proposed by Ernst Steinkellner (Ce, Cee, Re, Pv, etc.)? Should it be ampliated? Or does it only work within the framework of pramāṇavāda texts?
3. 3. Are there major differences between the type of re-use in philosophical and in non-philosophical (here we will discuss in particular Vedic, religious and juridic) texts?
4. 4. Are there school-specificities in the field of re-use? And what are their causes? For instance, can we say that Mīmāṃsā author emphasise the content over the form, whereas Buddhist Pramāṇavādins put more emphasis on exact quotations, perhaps because of the opposition between the doctrine of apauruṣeyatva and the charismatic figure of the Buddha as an author of the Canon? Or because of sociological reasons, such as the habit of learning by heart since a very early age?

Last, a practical piece of information: everyone will have between 50 and 55 minutes at disposal. You can use as much as you want of it for your speech, but the last 25 minutes MUST be reserved for discussion. I will be merciless in cutting your speech once you have reached this limit. But this does not mean that you have to speak for 25--30 minutes. 5 minutes are enough, or even less, if you prefer.

Most important: once again, have fun!"

Olivelle vs. Böhtlingk: Should we add words to a Sanskrit text if it is not understandable?

Is one allowed to add a word if the sentence just lacks sense, although no manuscript supports the proposed reading? My provisional answer, whenever I am tempted to change the text is: NO. It is much more likely that I am not understanding the text, rather than that the text is flawed.
However, we all know how unreliable manuscript traditions might be, and how extremely unreliable editions might be, especially if they are based on just a (few) manuscript(s).
An interesting example is the polemics about the first Indologists and their excessive audacy in emending texts, to which Patrick Olivelle dedicated vehement attacks in his Introduction to his edition of the Upaniṣads and in a 1998 article on the Journal of Indian Philosophy ("Unfaithful Transmitters", see here). Olivelle focusses especially on a passage of Chāndogya Upaniṣad (8.15.1), where Böhtlingk and, following him, Senart dared to add several words, because they could not make sense of the text. The text is in fact odd:

ācāryakulād vedam adhītya yathāvidhānaṃ guroḥ karmātiśeṣeṇa abhisamāvṛtya kuṭumbe śucau deśe svādhyāyam adhīyāno dhārmikān vidadhat |

The text apart from guroḥ karmātiśeṣeṇa means, at first sight:

After having studied the Veda according to the prescriptions, having returned from the teacher's home, reciting his own portion of the Veda in [one's] family, in a pure place, he should have virtuous sons.

But what could guroḥ karmātiśeṣeṇa mean? Böhtlingk in his Dictionary and in his edition of several Upaniṣads (1889a, 1889b, 1890a) postulated guroḥ karma kṛtvāviśeṣeṇa "after having performed an action for the teacher, in the undifferentiated [time]" (my translation, based on B's text). Senart followed him and even added sthitvā after kuṭumbe. Olivelle is quite against this "hubris" (his wording) in going against tradition. As partial apology of Böhtlingk, however, one might note that his first addition of kṛtvā is based on Śaṅkara's commentary (and hence, not only on his hubris):

guroḥ karma yatkartavyaṃ tatkṛtvā karmaśūnyo yo 'tiśiṣṭaḥ kālastena kālena vedamadhītyetyarthaḥ […] kuṭumbe sthitvā […]

Furthermore, I could finally understand the ChUp's wording through a later article of Böhtlingk (1897a Bemerkungen zu einigen Upanishaden BKSGW, available on Archives.org, see here), where he goes back to the traditional reading and refers to Gautama Dharmasūtra 3.6: guroḥ karmaśeṣena japet. This Dharmasūtra does not add any further word and, therefore, it makes clear that guroḥ karmaśeṣa (and possibly karmātiśeṣa) had a fixed conventional meaning, possibly "the [time] remaing out of having performed one's duties towards one's teacher". It is also noteworthy that karmaśeṣa is a sāpekṣasamāsa, which needs to be connected with guroḥ.

What is your policy? When did you end up emending a text?

On my general policy, favouring the text over me as a reader, see No. 6 in this post.

Fellowships on Ancient India

Are you working or willing to work on ascetics and kings in Vedic, Pāli Buddhism and Jaina sources? Or on anthropological and/or artistic sources on the same topic?

Then, consider advertising for the following fellowships.

Some practical information:
—Your constant presence on the island is not required.
—The fellowship will enable you to work in a great environment (I have already praised Tiziana Pontillo, the project's coordinator, here and the other post doc are interesting and charming people).
—You are not expected to know Italian. The working language will be English and you are expected to are fluent in it. (If you need assistence with the Italian application, please consider asking me or Dr. Tiziana Pontillo).
—You will need either a PhD or at least 2 years of research after the attainment of your MA degree.

For further detail on the project, see this post.

 
The competition for three annual Research Fellowships on the so-called "Vrātya
project" have just been officially announced on the Website of the University of Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy).

The deadline for submitting candidatures is November, the 15th, 2012.


For the relevant pieces of information, please refer to

1) http://unica2.unica.it/concorsi/index.php?page=assegni&bando=320
TRACES OF A HETERODOX CONCEPTION OF KINGSHIP IN ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN INDIA: VEDIC SOURCES
S.S.D. L-OR/18 INDOLOGIA E TIBETOLOGIA
SETTORE CONCORSUALE: 10/N3 - CULTURE DELL’ASIA CENTRALE E ORIENTALE


2) http://unica2.unica.it/concorsi/index.php?page=assegni&bando=318
TRACES OF A HETERODOX CONCEPTION OF KINGSHIP IN ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN INDIA: ICONOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTS
S.S.D. L-OR/16 Archeologia e storia dell'arte dell'India e dell’Asia
centrale
SETTORE CONCORSUALE: 10/N3 - CULTURE DELL’ASIA CENTRALE E ORIENTALE


3) http://unica2.unica.it/concorsi/index.php?page=assegni&bando=319
TRACES OF A HETERODOX CONCEPTION OF KINGSHIP IN ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL AND MODERN INDIA: ETHNOGRAPHIC AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS
S.S.D. M-DEA/01 DISCIPLINE DEMOETNOANTROPOLOGICHE
SETTORE CONCORSUALE: 11/A5 – SCIENZE DEMOETNOANTROPOLOGICHE

Further two five-months fellowships will be advertised in a close future.

“Traces of an Heterodox Concept of Kingship in Ancient, Medieval and Modern India: Conference Call

At the University of Cagliari, a three-years project on “Traces of an Heterodox Concept of Kingship in Ancient, Medieval and Modern India ” is now starting. The coordinator of the project is Tiziana Pontillo, who is not only an excellent scholar of Indian Grammar, Rhetorics and of the early India history, as mirrored in texts, but also an intelligent and open-minded scholar, always keen to learn, curious and well-disposed towards the others. She has organized two conferences to which I participated and both were a scientific success and also a very pleasant experience.

The University is planning to organize a short Seminar on this topic on March the 26th and 27th, 2013 and welcomes contribution on the main topics of the project (see immediately below an adaptation of T. Pontillo's presentation of it, with emphasis added by me). I can only add that Cagliari is a wonderful town and worth a visit anyway.

PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT
This project mainly aims at singling out the possible traces of a “total social fact of an
agonistic type” (Mauss 1923-24) both in literary and iconographic sources and in the social
patterns and ritual practices of contemporary India, which are assumed to date back to the age preceding the well-known classic hierarchic system. Moreover, a crucial parallel target is to try to reconstruct the assumed ascetic and gnostic non-brahmanic pattern which might have been merely marginalized in Vedic and late Vedic Literature, by stigmatizing it with the name of vrātya.
The following are the main starting operational targets that this project aims at:

1. VEDIC AND LATE VEDIC SOURCES
We intend to widen the available collection of Vedic and Late Vedic occurrences which testify the existence of a system, whose model has already been adopted by Heesterman from 1962 onward (in particular through the new details and insights added by Falk from 1986 onward), in order to depict the “pre-classic” bloody sacrifices which were supposedly connected with conflictual and reciprocal relations. Special attention should also be paid to the alternative hypothesis according to which the supposed reform was the outcome of a clash between two distinct branches of the immigrant Indo-Āryan population (supposed on the basis of the two-wave theory by Parpola 1983), reconsidered in the light of the late-Vedic fresco recently painted by Bronkhorst 2007 and of the relevant criticisms especially arising from his innovative relative and absolute chronologies (see, e.g., Witzel 2009).
Furthermore we aim at inquiring into the origin of the late Vedic “contestation between brahmins with each other” highlighted, e.g., by Bailey 2011, verifying if it is connected with the opposition between the so-called śrotriyas, who, by the way, refuse any gift (see, e.g., Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa XIII.4.3.14 and Śāṇkāyana-Śrauta-Sūtra XVI. 28-29) and the officiants who were used to accept and even solicit for donations.

2. PĀLI AND JAINA SOURCES
It also seems compulsory to extend an available preliminary collection of Pāli and Jaina occurrences into the context of this same project, testifying the existence of a kind of asceticism which partially matches with that emerging from the Atharvaveda-source on the Vrātya or with some Upaniṣadic passages. For instance, such formulas as “to become Brahman”, “to become god among gods” and “to have brought the Brahmacārya path to an end”, which are included both in Vedic Sources (Yajurveda Saṃhitās, Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads) and in the Bhāgavadgītā and in the Pāli Canon, might have hinted at a remote shared religious (and, as a consequence, social) scope of life and of meditation, before than the legitimation of being a brāhmaṇa switched from individual abilities, such as poetical and ritual prowess, to the lineage of birth (Falk 2001, p. 133).

3. EPIC, KĀVYA AND PURĀṆIC SOURCES
Furthermore, we have evaluated till now a small collection of Epic and Purāṇic occurrences, already at our disposal because of some previous inquiries, as possible pieces of evidence for an ephemeral compromise between the gṛhastha-path (as an output of the ancient cyclical sacrificial pattern) and the feared tapas-way, before the rising of the winning and lasting Brahmanical inclusivistic Varṇāśrama-system. In this context, for instance, particularly intriguing seems to be the case-study of the conversion ceremonies which Vaiṣṇava sources seem to hint at, if we assume that they can descend from ritual practices which preceded the so-called “Brahmanic reform” as a more recent
rearrangement. Furthermore we are eager to inquire into the figure of Kṛṣṇa as a very peculiar worshipped god, who, at the same time, plays the role of an important kingly warrior who might have been the leader of a vrāta (i.e., a sort of Männerbund), considered to be the embodiment of a god by his followers. The so-called Brahmanic Reform might have transformed these relevant Cults, so that they result as inherently conforming to the orthodox Brahmanic religion, almost tuning the “low” tradition to the official one. In this context we think that it will be crucial to distinguish the peculiarities of the Early Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava Tamil bhakti 6th-12th c. CE, which is often confronted with Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism in the Tamil tradition itself. In fact, this South-Indian Literature could be assumed as a possible repository for unorthodox speculative and religious features which seem to have been lost in the Indo-Āryan sources, as happened with regard to, e.g., some
Southern traditions of otherwise lost Vedic Schools (cf. Parpola 1984).
Furthermore, we propose to read some specific Kāvya-passages as the consequence of the well-known self-consciousness, so typical of the long and complex Indian tradition, which has interpreted and re-interpreted itself many times. In fact some authors such as Aśvaghoṣa might have tried to remind their listeners that their ancestors’ course of life and religious credo were closer, e.g., to the Buddha’s way, than they were aware of, while it was extremely distant from the contemporary Brāhmaṇa-oriented reform, in order to encourage a fresh relation between Buddhist- and Brāhmaṇic-dharma, based on a supposed shared past.

4. ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ARTISTIC SOURCES
It is self-evident that any archaeological or artistic piece of evidence which can contribute to revealing the unorthodox kingly tradition and the marginalized non-Vedic asceticism is really intriguing for our purpose. Additionally a research program expressly devoted to creating a catalogue of all the features of the ‘feminine principle’ involved in the legitimation of kingly power seems to be likewise promising, especially in order to compare the Vedic data regarding the ritual context with the votive artistic production, such as the case study of Karṇāṭaka temples dating back to the IX-XIII c. CE (chalukya-hoysala style).

5. ETHNOGRAPHIC SOURCES AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL PATTERNS OF
RESEARCH
Since the first appearance of Frazer’s The Golden Bough, in 1890, which brought the case study of the Rex Nemorensis to the fore, this type of ascetic agonistic sovereignty became the leading theme for a cluster of researchers, such as J. Harrison, G. Murray and F. Cornford who made a particular effort to highlight a fierce ritual contest behind the framework of ancient Tragedy and Comedy. Later on, special attention was given, e.g., to the figure of Pelops, moving from Lidia to Greece, as the alleged prototype of the king-warrior, magician and god incarnate, tellingly coming from the “barbarian” Aswia. Consistently the notion of orientalism inaugurated by Said (1978) has recently been advocated, while linking the mystical tyrannical sovereignty model to the latter one (Munn 2006). In this field of research where the vrātya king has already been associated with the Teutonic Wotan-band (Heesterman 1957, 1985), papers on the sacred marriage, on the devadāsī institution, on the recurring marginalization of human beings declaring themselves “divine” in ancient Greece and Rome, and on the classical figures of pharmakeis such as Socrates would be of great help.
Shifting from issues of comparative purport to a strictly speaking Indian social reality, the inquiry into the extant jajmānī relationships will naturally play a crucial part in allowing the exploration of the possibility that they can be accounted for as a relic of a ‘non-reformed’ reality, i.e., a sacrificial system based on the symmetrical type of gift giving. Along with the figure of the funeral priest (mahābrāhman) accepting gifts in contexts of sacrificial violence (Parry 1980, 1994), unorthodox marriage alliances should be specifically focused on, by supposing that they mirror an apprehensive strong cultural autonomy with respect to the hindu asymmetrical gift of the virgin” (kānyādān), whose ideological (brahmanical) hallmark, as is well-known, is the institution of hypergamy, stressing inequality between wife-givers and wife-takers. Moreover, with regard to contemporary India, although the research is thus mainly oriented to investigating power relations which function within a kind of social cooperation imbued with a religious semantic which strongly defies all the
alleged socio-economic transformations that occurred during the colonial period and were strengthened by the green revolution, the seminar is not intended as an intellectual place where contributions attuned with the Marxist-Béteille line of investigation are to be dismissed. In this respect, a useful canvas for a seldom practiced dialogue might be provided by MacDougal’s article of 1980, where precisely the interaction between the dominant-caste and the reach-peasant models is precisely taken into account, by wondering whether they really are inspiring tools for everyday practice or are rather merely for theory-construction and comparative research.


PRACTICAL INFOS
Speakers will be assured local hospitality and, within the limits of the available funds, financial assistance will be provided to support their travel expenses.
The Proceedings  will be published.
For further information and for applying for the Seminar, please send an email to Dr. Tiziana Pontillo.

On Jainism and its connections with the prehistory of ascetics, see this post and this one (be sure to read the interesting comments). On Āgamas and antagonistic strands, see this post.

When it becomes rational to believe in God

Let us continue with the mental experiment: suppose you are a pure rationalist (e.g., a Mīmāṃsaka) and are thus well-aware of the fact that the introduction of a god in your ontology creates many problems, perhaps even more than problems than it can actually solve. Why would you then be a theist? Let us leave personal reasons (such as your parents' belief) out of the picture. Pure rationalists like the Mīmāṃsakas would also mistrust direct experience of God, which is another good candidate for one's belief. In fact, they would argue that many people believe they have seen supernatural things (phantoms, Santa Claus, witches, scary beasts in the dark…) and the almost totality of them was wrong. Thus, why should one's own perception of a supernatural entity be more trustworthy? It is more likely that it is just one's projection or the like.

What remains? If ontology, i.e. the realm of what there is, is excluded, what remains is the realm of what ought to be, i.e., ethics and deontics. Some contemporary thinkers have tried to prove that the latter can be explained away through the former (e.g., that morality is just a result of evolution), but:
1. the same theory (e.g., evolution) can explain contradictory behaviours, i.e., it is not a proper explanation. One can for instance claim that cheating is morally wrong, because non-cheating leads to strengthen one's relation with a partner, with consequent advantages for one's children. Conversely, cheating could be said to be morally right, because it leads to more children.
2. Whatever the origin of ethics, it is hardly the case that this origin can explain away the actual difference between a state of affairs and a deontic prescription. In other words, "a man is dying" is not tantamount to "Thou shall not kill", even if one could somehow prove that the former led to the latter.

In this realm, perception is of no use. Nor is inference which, according to the Indian schools, ultimately elaborates on data which are of perceptual origin. Nor can one just say that one does not care. Paradoxically enough, what we ought to do makes the essential part of our life, the one which is really our own and which differentiates us from robots or (perhaps) insects. Thus, one needs another independent access to the realm of what one ought to do. This cannot be one's intuition (unreliable, see above). Only a suitable Linguistic Communication is, hence, left. At this point, our rationalist needs to sort out among Sacred Texts and teachers the one she thinks to be the more reliable. It can be a rational process, if one tries to evaluate evidences in a critical way. One can end up thinking that believing in a certain theistic text is the most rational solution.

To put it short: perception is not enough to understand realms different than ontology, since it only regards what exists. One needs linguistic communication to know about morality. It is not irrational to rely on a linguistic communication, if one has examined it. On the contrary, one could argue that it is irrational to believe that perception is enough. One could end up believing in god, if this is what is indicated in the instance of Linguistic Communication one is following.

This post is a continuation of this one.