Expression of a connected meaning

Words alone do not have a meaning (as already noted even within Western Philosophy, see the preface of Gottlob Frege's Grundlagen der Arithmetik). But to assume that sentences have a meaning independent of the words composing them, leads to further unwanted assumptions (for instance: why do you understand this sentence, although you never encountered it before?).

A possible way out is the Prābhākara theory of the "expression of a connected meaning" (anvitābhidhāna), according to which words convey a meaning which is related to that of the other words in the sentence. In this way, for instance, in "Bring the cow with a stick!" the meaning of the word "Bring!" would be expressed only once connected with the word "cow" and the word "stick". It is in this way that we can account for the different meaning of "stick" in this sentence and in "Please check fluid level by using the DIP stick which is located in the back of VMI monitors".

However, an opponent may ask:

Does the expression of a connected [sentence-meaning] (anvitābhidhāna) occur [for each word] through [a meaning] expressed (abhihita) by another word (pada) or not expressed? (TR III, 5.2.2.1)

If in "Bring the cow with a stick" the word "cow" would depend on the meaning expressed by "bring" to express its meaning, the the opposite would hold too. Hence, no one of them would be able to start expressing its meaning!

On the other hand, if every single word would express its meaning as already connected to the others, then through "cow" alone, we should understand "cow/connected with the action of bringing/and connected with a stick". Hence, a single word would be enough!

How can one defeat this two rejoinders? Perhaps in the first case by upholding a simultaneous expression of the meaning through all words?

Language learning

How does one learn a language?
Western readers like me might remember Augustinus's recollection about how his parents pointed to various objects and told him "This is called X" and "This is called Y". But this process would take years and years and cannot account for the fact that we usually learn "sentences" before "words". With "sentences" I do not mean to say that a baby says "I would like my mother to come here!", but that his/her "MOM" means exactly that. More in general, the same acquainted I referred to already told me how the actual trend in applied linguistics is that a language can be learned through listening to its natural usage.

Indian authors generally neglected Augustinus' ostensive method and emphasised the importance of the normal usage of senior speakers (vṛddhavyavahāra). In Rāmānujācārya's Tantrarahasya, the process of language learning is described as follows:

To elaborate; exactly so in common usage (loka) does proficient linguistic learning (vyutpatti) occur for the first time. The elder senior employs (prayuj-) the sentence “Devadatta, bring the cow!”. Thereafter, the middle senior undertakes the [corresponding] activity (pravṛt-). Then, one who is not concerned with this activity (taṭastha) and who desires to learn the language (vyutpitsu), thinks: “His activity (pravṛtti) presupposes (pūrvikā) a cognition, because it is an acitivity, like my activities too. And this cognition was born from a sentence, since it came immediately after it”.

The clue of the syllogism is the invariable connection between language and action. Had the younger girl just thought that her older brother brought the cow because the sun was shining/the horses were neighing/the father had not come back yet*…, she would have needed
years to establish the suitable connection between words and meanings. But she understands from the very beginning that actions are the result of a cognition and that cognitions might be conveyed by language. Is it because she is, after all, not that young? Or is it a human characteristic which can be generally observed (or intuitively grasped)?
A further hint: the cognition the girl refers to is the cognition that something must be done (else, no activity would have followed it). And such cognitions can hardly be imagined to follow from perceptual acts.

*I am grateful to J. Benson for making me aware of the problem.

What is the purpose of what we teach?

An acquaintance of mine, who took a degree in Pedagogy and is now an elementary teacher (and a mother) discussed Saturday with me about her pedagogical priorities:

1. 1. Make children aware of other people's feelings
2. 2. Help children know themselves.

No. 1, she maintains, is the only way we can hope to solve today's problems. We do not care about the North Pole's pack which is melting, she explained, because we do not identify with polar bears. Should we be able to identify with their suffrances, we would be able to undertake concrete steps to avoid them. The example of the polar bears is so extreme that I do not think I have to add more normal ones, such as identifiying with one neighbour before complaining about minor points and starting a fight.
No. 2 is, according to my acquaintance, the only way to achieve happiness.
I completely agree on No. 2 and No. 1 is (I am sorry to intrude with elements of my personal life) my resolution for 2011. Still, their "reversed" order surprised me. In Indian philosophy, concern with oneself always seems to be the primus movens of one's intellectual (and possibly also spiritual) journey. One considers one's misery and desires to escape it —even within Mahāyāna Buddhism, where one will ultimately realise that there is no "I" who suffers, nor suffrance, nor need to escape it. Theistic traditions seem to put service to God first, but not service to others. Moreover, even in these traditions, service to God is equated to one's supreme happiness. In short, one might ask: How can one make room for the Others once one's investigation is from its beginning determined by a self-concern? On the other hand, how could one care to identify with others, unless this made one happier (because helping other people makes one happy/being liked makes one happy/etc.)?

On a related, pedagogical topic:
I have already discussed my view about why should Sanskrit be learnt and taught here.

"As I said, A is non-A…"

A tricky point about negation is to understand what exactly is negated. Sanskrit Grammars distinguishes between prasajya and paryudāsa kind of negations (pratiṣedha), with the latter corresponding to an eliminative negation and the former to an "adjustive" kind of negation. Typically, the prasajya is exemplified with na brahmāṇam ānaya, i.e., "Do not bring a Brahmin!", whereas the former with abrahmaṇam ānaya, i.e., "Bring someone who is not really a Brahmin", interpreted as referring to someone who is nearly a Brahmin, and falls short from the target (i.e., because he is a Brahmin by birth, but does not always act like a Brahmin should).

Among the comments on a previous post on these topics, the Vajracchedikāprajñāpāramitā (henceforth VPP) has often been referred to. This is a very ancient Mahāyāna text, possibly even predating the Aṣṭasāhasrikā (which was the main focus of the same post). I had a look at the electronical text of the VPP and found out many seemingly contradictory statements, having more or less this form:

What is called by the Bodhisattva to be X, that the Bodhisattva calls non-X. Hence it is said to be X.

This formula also applies to the perfection of knowledge (prajñāpāramitā) itself:

yaiva […] prajñāpāramitā tathāgatena bhāṣitā, saiva apāramitā tathāgatena bhāṣitā. tenocyate prajñāpāramitā

That very thing which is called perfection of knowledge by the Bodhisattva, that is called "non-perfection" by the Bodhisattva. Hence, it is said "perfection of knowledge".

Could this mean that it can only be a perfection of knowledge in the ultimate sense, if it were not one in the conventional sense? Hence:

That thing which is called perfection of knowledge by the Bodhisattva, that is called by the Bodhisattva "non [conventional] perfection. For this reason it is said to be a perfection of knowledge.

I.e., only insofar as it is distant from any conventional so-called perfections, can it be said to be one by the Bodhisattva, from the point of view of ultimate reality.

Once again, I am extremely grateful to the readers who richly commented on my previous post on Mahāyāna texts expressing paradoxes. You might also be interested in its "sequel".

How do Bodhisattvas think?

How is it, to be awaken and yet part of the normal world? How can one at the same time know that everything is illusory (or only conventionally true) and yet undertake actions within this conventional frame?

Jayarava rightly pointed out (see here) that Bodhisattvas must be able to conceive thoughts, since else no interactions would be possible between them and the 'normal' people, be it through language or through actions. Hence, the paradoxical statement of the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā saying that

[bodhisattvaḥ] tenāpi bodhicittena na manyeta

cannot mean:

even through his bodhicitta, he should not conceive thoughts (man-).

What else could it mean? The following lines explain:

What is the reason of that? His mind (citta) is a non-mind (acitta), [since] its nature is translucent.

Hence, the key to understand what the Bodhisattva should not do through his mind lies in the understanding of what his mind actually is. He can use it withouth doing the act designated by the root man- beacuse his is a translucent "non-mind". In fact, the following paragraphs keep on discussing the nature of such a non-mind. At a certain point, one can read:

avikārā […] avikalpā acittatā

That is:

The condition of non-mind is formless and conceptionless.

The vikāras are "derived forms" of the actual reality, whereas the vikalpas are assumptions one resorts to in order to make sense of something. They are conceptual in nature and hence (mostly) not ultimately true. Hence, the statement seems to mean that a non-mind is a mind which can think without needing assumed supports (that is, conventional forms). The Bodhisattva's mind thinks directly, without needing extra explanatory devices. Can this mean that it sees without thinking, with "thinking" in the sense of "constructing thoughts"?

I am extremely grateful to the readers who richly commented on my previous post on Mahāyāna texts expressing paradoxes. Read Patrick's comment if you want to compare a different understanding of the term I translated with "translucent" (prabhāsvarā).

Do contradictions make sense? On mindless minds

Suppose you read in a text that "A is non-A" (and suppose you know for sure it is not a typo). What strategies do you adopt, before throwing the text away? And which counter-evidence do you use to check if your understanding is right, in case the text apparently violates even 1st order logic?

Readers know that I am not familiar with Buddhism. The little I know is about Pramāṇavāda. And the little I know beside Pramāṇavāda I learnt through interesting people who raised my curiosity and made me have a look at this or that text. Yesterday I had one such experiences, spending 4 hours discussing with Greg Seton (scroll down here to read about his research) on Ratnākaraśānti, Haribhadra and Ārya Vimuktisena. We read some paragraphs of a Prajñāpāramitāsūtra, the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā. This is a Mahāyānasūtra and it seems to summarize some chief characteristics of Mahāyāha Buddhism. I do not mean by that to say that it summarises its tenets. In fact, the text might even be said to be hardly understandable, as I hope to show.
After the first lines, the Sūtra goes on as a (Pāli) Sutta would, namely as a dialogue framed into what seem to be formulaic repetitions. But soon one is struck with something unexpected: there is no Prajñāpāramitā teaching, nor there is a Bodhisattva who might be instructed in it. Yet, if one were not afraid in hearing this (sad, allegedly, or at least scary) news, s/he would be the Bodhisattva, and this would be the teaching.
My usual chategories have been further challenged by the statement immediately following:

The Bodhisattva should be so instructed in the Prajñāpāramitā, that he does not conceive thoughts (na manyate), not even through the Awakening-Mind (bodhicitta). What's the reason for that? His/her mind is a non-mind (taccittam acittam).

What shall the interpreter do with this cittam a-cittam (literally: "the mind [is] no-mind")?

1. 1. Imagine that the Sūtra does not make sense.
2. 2. Assume that it is a narrative text and has no propositional logic to follow. Hence, a different attitude towards the text should be developed (for instance, one could suggest that Śariputra –the narrator– is telling us the story of the journey of one's experience from the state of citta to that of acitta.)
3. 3. Try some logical explanation (for instance, adding a temporal dimension to the statement, so that what is cittam at point t1 is no longer one at point t2, or reframing the seemingly contradictory terms).

I tend to avoid in any case option 1., because it is a bad exegetical rule to give up (too soon). Personally, I also think that it is part of a philosophical enterprise to engage with a text and try to deepen one's own understanding through it. This is what has happened in many religions, when acute theologians have been confronted with folkloric relics and have interpreted them in a theologically stimulating way.
I oscillate, instead, between 2 and 3. I guess that 2 is of crucial importance within a religious path. The Mahāyāna Sūtras were part of a path, they were recited and copied again and again. The narrative dimension had, hence, a religious value, and was possibly thought as entailing also a transformative character.
Something similar is often narrated in Zen as the need for the disciple to listen again and again to a paradox until his conventional mind is "pierced" by it. In order to avoid such an extreme (in an Indian context) interpretation, I would partly emend view 2 through view 3. For instance, the two "citta" might have a different shade of meaning. Hence:

The Bodhisattva should be so instructed in the Prajñāpāramitā, that he does not conceive thoughts (na manyate), not even through the Awakening-Mind (bodhicitta). What's the reason for that? His/her mind is [in fact] not a [conventional] mind (taccittam acittam).

Immediately thereafter a possible reason is stated:

[Because] the nature of [his/her] mind is translucent.

Hence, if my interpretation is correct, the Bodhisattva's mind is a not-mind insofar as it does not function like a normal one. For instance, it does not conceive thoughts. It is luminous, but like a crystal is, which can receive and reflect light, without being in itself a source of light.


Of course, if there is anything correct or thought-provoking in this post, the credit goes to Greg, who has, however, probably failed to adjust all my erroneous conceptions about the Prajñāpāramitā literature.

The quest for the Indo-Europeans

How do you feel about the Indo-European controversy? Are you emphatic with the scholars (within the academic world and outside it) who get overexcited about laryngals and the Indo-European homeland?

After Ilya Yakubovich mentioned it to me, I started reading a special issue of the Indo-European Journal (The Indo-European Language Family: Questions about its Status, edited by A. Marcantonio, 2009). As the title suggests, the book questions the status of the Indo-European (IE) theory, from different points of view and in various degrees. Marcantonio suggests that the similarities among IE languages might be due to borrowings of wholesale paradigms, to chance resemblances and to the fact that scholars want to see them (and, hence, select positive evidence and ignore any counter evidence). One of the points discussed in the volume is whether the IE/Proto-IE has ever been a language actually spoken and if there has ever been a corresponding population. The common assumption closely resembles the Big Bang theory: the IE/Proto-IE must have existed somewhere, in a certain small place and then have spread throughout Eurasia. I tried to explain elsewhere that the need for a single beginning (a creation e nihilo) is deeply part of our Western culture (and, due to the Westernization of the world, is now common also in the Indian academia). It is a possible explanation, but it has no intrinsic additional value.
Let us look at its cosmological brother: the Big Bang theory satisfies our Western minds because it is a nicely economical explanation (and possibly because it closely resembles God's creation;-)): at time 1 there is a small, highly condensed mass, at time 2 it starts expanding, etc. etc.
Similarly, languages should have originated in a single place and have spread.
I do not believe in this view for various reasons (among which: because I cannot think of humanity without language. I cannot imagine that language has been invented in place X and then exported in the rest of the world). But would it work in the case of the IE?

We have no textual evidence of a IE unity. All the texts composed in IE languages we know about tell us about distinct IE communities, who did not feel related to each other because they felt they shared a similar background. Persians did not seem to have felt closer to Greeks than to the Semitic populations inhabiting their Empire, for instance. Hence, the alleged single IE/Proto IE community should have lived before any attestation.
Well, it may well have. Or not. Personally, I am inclined to think that populations speaking IE languages have been inhabiting Eurasia well before the first texts we know of. They have been travelling, sharing ideas and paradigms for millennia before the first Vedic hymn has been composed. I do not think that the one-single-cradle theory is anything but a nice view, soothening because it resembles a fairy tale in its having an enclosed beginning. Why should the past have looked so much different than the present? Why should languages have ever been "pure"?

But whatever the case why should we care about something which is a mere hypothesis (and has possibly no impact on the historical people we know about)? Why shoud we care about where such a extra-historical community would have lived?

Now, I see that one might object that such proto-IE community DID leave traces. For instance, (some claim) the Harappean cities. Well, personally I doubt it (for the reasons stated above).

(More in general, I noticed that I am probably not moved by the whole question because the first voices which have survived until us tell us of many, distinct groups of speakers of IE-languages. And to me texts are far more important than archaeology. I enjoy integrating the views I get though texts through archaeological data, but I cannot do without texts.)