Sense perception cannot grasp dharma

satsamprayoge puruṣasyendriyāṇāṃ buddhijanma tat pratyakṣaṃ animittaṃ vidyamānopalambhanatvāt.
Once there is a connection with an existing thing of a person's sense-faculties, the arousal of a notion is sense-perception. It is not a condition [for knowing dharma] because it seizes [only] present things

MS (Mīmāṃsāsūtra) 1.1.4 is not an epistemological sūtra dealing primarily with the definition of sense perception. Rather, it aims at excluding sense-perception as a possible instrument to know dharma.

According to Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, who is probably the most influential author of the Classical Mīmāṃsā and who founded the so-called Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā, MS 1.1.4 aims at excluding also direct (and non sensory) perception, i.e. yogipratyakṣa (on this sūtra in Kumārila's interpretation, see John Taber, Kumārila on perception, 2005). This is a sort of direct apprehension of an object, non-mediated by inference, etc., nor by the sense-faculties, and which could hence compared to Kant's intellectual intuition. It occupies only a marginal position in pre-Classical Indian philosophy, where it is attributed only to marginal categories (such as yogins and ṛṣis), whereas Classical authors tend to stress its role as an alternative to Sacred Texts as instruments of knowledge or as an integration of them.

In fact, if intellectual intuition is possible, direct perception is no longer limited to sense faculties and can also grasp super sensuous objects like dharma. If this is the case, one can justify, e.g., the Buddha's grasp of the four noble truths and one no longer depends on Sacred Texts as one's only source about dharma.

Can one admit intellectual intuition among the sources of dharma, without endangering the uniqueness of the Veda?

I dedicated several posts to yogipratyakṣa, see for instance here (on its object), here (on its risks), here (on the opposition Veda-sensory perception or yogipratyakṣa-sensory perception) and here (on Vedānta Deśika about it).

Unifying Hinduism: when did it start?

Very recently (winter 2010), Unifying Hinduism: philosophy and identity in Indian intellectual history, a book by Andrew Nicholson raised interesting discussions on the “birth” of Hinduism. Nicholson locates it with interesting arguments in the Vijayanagara empire, but the results of any historical enterprise, may always be reframed within an earlier frame of references.
Jayanta Bhaṭṭa's attempt to admit the Atharvaveda among the Vedas and other Sacred Texts different than the Veda among the Texts enjoying an epistemological value (in the Āgamaprāmāṇya section of the Nyāyamañjarī) can be viewed as exactly part of the process which lead to the diffusion of a pan-Indian acceptance of similar texts and values.

Which enterprises would you classify as paving the way to "Hinduism"?

On Nicholson's book see also this post and this other blog (interview to Nicholson about his book, with comments). To Jayanta I dedicated many posts, see for instance here.

What happened between Śālikanātha and Rāmānujācārya?

As discussed in two previous posts (here and here) Śālikanātha Miśra (IX c.?) dedicates several pages to the ontology of the ātman. These pages appear neither innovative nor particularly original, yet Śālikanātha must have deemed the topic important enough to include it in his Prakaraṇapañcikā. By contrast, Rāmānujācārya (after the XIII c.) hardly if ever uses the term ātman and does not discuss at all any ontological argument about it. That the topic of the subject interests him is, however, proved by the many pages about its hermeneutical and epistemological phenomenology.

Why does Śālikanātha feel the need to add ontological arguments, probably borrowed from the Nyāya school? And why does not Rāmānujācārya feel the same need? What happened between the two?

The following answer is more than tentative and it is based mostly on the method of investigating into the history of ideas (Ideengeschichte). It is easy to see that one of Śālikanātha's principal opponents, namely the Buddhist Pramāṇavādin, is altogether absent in Rāmānujācārya's work. In fact, Rāmānujācārya was active in South India and at a time (after the XIII c.) when Buddhism was no longer a philosophical concurrent. Consequently, Śālikanātha might have felt the need to defend the ātman also from an ontological point of view, in order to resist to the Buddhist anātmavāda, whereas Rāmānujācārya was active at a time in which the existence of an ātman was common sense among philosophers. Consequently, he could rather focus on its epistemological and hermeneutic phenomenology.

Vincent Eltschinger has attempted (in his book Penser l'Autorité des Ecritures) a similar solution of the different approaches to the Buddha's word in Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Do you deem it legitimate to use extra-philosophical arguments to interpret a philosopher's thought?

On Śālikanātha on the ātman, see here and here. I dedicated several posts to V. Eltschinger's book. See for instance, here (first post on the book), here (discussing why we need Sacred Texts) and here (discussing an expert's different fields of expertise).

Ontology and phenomenology of the ātman

A bright colleague of mine (Daniele Cuneo) pointed out that Śālikanātha's passage in yesterday's post might as well be interpreted as purely ontological. The point could be that the subject is fix and that it only seems manyfold in its epistemological role.
In fact, the emphasis on the subject as knower might be interpreted as just instrumental to the ontological foundation of the ātman. That this is not the case is at least suggested by the history of the Mīmāṃsā reflection on this subject, which originates from Vedic hermeneutic concerns and not from ontological ones. Historically, it is more probably the case that ontological arguments have been added in order to firmly ground the subject's phenomenological role in epistemology and ritual hermeneutics.
How comes, then, that the ontological approach is added to the phenomenological one? Hypothetically, one might propose that Śālikanātha adds to the standard Prābhākara argumentation, based on the Veda and, therefore, on the phenomenology of the subject and on its role in epistemology, a further line of argumentation, based on ontology and inspired by the arguments of its opposers, mainly Naiyāyika authors. Consider the following sequence of arguments (with no interruption in between) and note the shift to the usage of ātman in the ontological section:

(Vedic-based argument:) In regard to someone who [performs] no action, agency and experience would be [merely] hypothetical. [But] an agent and an experiencer, presupposed by the [Vedic] sentence about the one having the sacrifice's weapons [which refers to the ātman as the sacrificer and as the one who will enjoy heavenly bliss],¹ must be determined, hence the mention of recognition has been put forth.

(Nyāya-influenced argument:) And when this self has been recognised, then the self [endowed with] consciousness is its characteristic. Nor does it arise at a certain point from it (self) alone. For an effect whose [single] cause is always proximate would not arise [only] from time to time. […] Therefore this self, which is the inherent cause [of consciousness], requires a [further] cause, one that is inherent to it.²

1 “This sacrificer who has the sacrifice's weapons (the sacrifice's substances and tools), will go to the heavenly world quickly” (sa eṣa yajñāyudhī yajamāno 'ñjasā svargaṃ lokaṃ yāti). The sentence is discussed by Śabara, ŚBh ad MS 1.1.5. I could not locate a Vedic source for it.

2 According to the Nyāya school, there are three sorts of causes: 1. the samavāyikāraṇa 'inherent cause', such as the two halves of a pot, which inhere in the effect (the pot); 2. the asamavāyikāraṇa 'cause which does not inhere [in the effect, but rather inheres in the inherent cause], such as the colour of the two halves, which inheres in them, but not directly in the pot; 3. the nimittakāraṇa 'necessary condition', such as the potter.

Why does Śālikanātha feel the need to add ontological arguments? (My tentative answer will follow shortly, but I would be glad to read your opinion about it).

On more insights about the subject (this time in the Mānavadharmaśāstra) by Daniele Cuneo, see here.

Ontological or epistemological arguments for the subject?

Rāmānujācārya definitely favours a non-ontological approach to the problem of the subject. For him, the subject is what one becomes due to hearing and obeying to Vedic prescriptions.
What about his more systematic predecessor, Śālikanātha?

Since its very beginning, the chapter he dedicates to this topic (the Tattvāloka within his Prakaraṇapañcikā) seems to look for a balance between the two opposite tendencies. In its second verse, the first two padas are rather ontologically oriented, whereas the last two stress the role of the subject as the agent of cognitions we can experience in every day life:

The self, distinguished from intellect, sense faculties and from the body, is an all-pervasive substance |

different according to each field (of experience) [i.e., according to each empirical individual] , it shines forth in the act of understanding of the objects ||

(buddhīndriyaśarīrebhyo bhinna ātmā vibhur dhruvaḥ | nānābhūtaḥ pratikṣetram arthavittiṣu bhāsate || 2 ||)

Moreover, the subject is repeatedly identified as the knower (jñātṛ) and its necessity is demonstrated through epistemological arguments (such as the need for a reunification of different sense-cognitions and the possibility of memory).

How can the two approaches coexist?

On Rāmānujācārya's approach, see here. For further post on the topic of subjectivity, check the label "subject".

Where is the subject during errors?

The Prābhākara view distinguishes three elements within a cognition: the act of cognition, the object cognised and its cogniser. It also claims that they are inseparably known through every single cognitive act, insofar as no cognition of an object is possible without a cognising subject and without a cognitive act itself. Nor is one only aware of the sheer cognised object, without any frame. One knows a known object. This also means that, in the Prābhākara view, a cognition is a piece of knowledge only insofar as it is self-aware. It is not, as in Sāṅkhya and Nyāya, a mechanical act to which the conscious subject adds awareness. In order to be a knowledge, it must be intrinsically conscious.

What about acts of cognition which are not self-aware? A cognitive act which were not self-aware could not be a case of knowledge, because it would necessarily lack the important component of presentness. But are such cases conceptually possible? An interesting example is discussed by Rāmānujācārya in the epistemological chapter of TR (TR I). Rāmānujācārya mentions the case of the memory of silver which arises in one's mind while seeing a piece of mother-of-pearl on the beach. One sees mother-of-pearl and automatically remembers silver. This is said to be only an incomplete cognition and cannot be a piece of knowledge. Now, one could ask, who is the agent in the case of such cognitions? And how comes that s/he seems not to be included in such cognitive acts, since s/he is said to be necessarily included in acts of knowledge? Do they just arise due to saṃskāras and, hence, automatically or is a knower nonetheless present?

In fact, in the case of a conscious recollection of silver, one would simultaneously be aware of oneself and of the act of recollection. By contrast, the recollection of silver evoked by a lustrous piece of mother-of-pearl seems to be necessarily unconscious, since if it were conscious, one would be able to distinguish it as a separate piece of cognition and one would not conflate the remembered silver with the apprehended lustrous thing. Does not its “incompleteness” exactly refer to the fact that it lacks the element of a knower and of an act of cognition?

If this interpretation is correct, such cognitions would arise independently of a subject, which would else necessarily be included in the knowledge act. They arise due to saṃskāras and are, hence, not acts of knowledge performed by an agent, but only results of the saṃskāras' function. Hence, they can occur independently of an agent.

Do readers have a different understanding of the way saṃskāras function? And of the Nyāya or Sāṅkhya epistemologies?

On mother-of-pearl mistaken as silver, see also this post.

Religious experiences and the need for boundaries

What is essential to a religious experience? Within a theistic perspective, one's encounter with God. If this happens, everything else is unessential and becomes ipso facto superfluous. If one has experienced an encounter with God, one will probably see how fasting, cutting one's hair, refraining from drinking wine, etc., are all as far from the experience one has had, as their opposites.
Why then do we need churches and religious institutions? Why "religions"? I can see at least two kinds of reasons:

• 1. encountering God is not something you can foresee. It might depend also on you, but must depend primarily on Her/Him. While waiting for that to happen, you might try to get prepared through a certain discipline. The discipline will forge you and make the encounter possible. It creates, so to say, the empty space within yourself where the epiphany might take place.
• 2. you might think you did encounter God just because you had an intense experience. For instance, I am inclined to think that this happens to many people who fall in love with TV personalities, no matter whether rock stars or "reverends". Religious institutions should guard you from the risk of confounding God with what is just emotionally intense. They should deny all your claims, unless they fit into their narrow path of well-established ways of encountering God. If your encounter is sincere, they explicitly claim, it will fit within it. Maybe, many of their authorities also secretly think that if you really had a genuine experience of God and this did not fit into the standards, you will receive from Her/Him enough strength to explain to the Church/to your spiritual master that it has to change its/his/her standards. These have to exist, hence, to test the genuinity of your faith.

I might be wrong, but I understand Mīmāṃsā as fulfilling these two tasks. Paradoxically, the Mīmāṃsā school is engaged with Sacred Texts, but seems to have no sympathy at all for religious experiences. Why so? If the above is correct, because of 2.
And what would be the purpose of executing difficult rituals in an exact way —imagining that you no longer believe in Vedic Deities, but in a personal God? 1.

How do readers conceive the role of religious institutions in India? I am not speaking about their political role, but only of the theological rationale of their existence.