First Words, Last Words: New Theories for Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-Century India 9780197583470, 9780197583494, 9780197583500

Table of contents :
cover
Series
First Words, Last Words
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. Newness in Scholastic Traditions: Sequence and Scripture
2. The Origins of the Debate
3. The New Math: Vyāsatīrtha’s Rewriting of Mīmāṃsā’s Case Law
4. The New Hermeneutics: Appayya’s Reinvention of Cognitive Theory
5. The New Attitude: Vijayīndra’s Calling the Game
6. Behind the Veil of the Old: New Directions in the Study of Scholastic Innovation
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

i

First Words, Last Words

ii

RELIGION IN TRANSLATION Series Editor John Nemec, University of Virginia A Publication Series of The American Academy of Religion and Oxford University Press

THE STUDY OF STOLEN LOVE

Translated by David C. Buck and K. Paramasivam

THE DAOIST MONASTIC MANUAL A Translation of the Fengdao Kejie Livia Kohn

SACRED AND PROFANE BEAUTY

The Holy in Art Gerardus van der Leeuw Preface by Mircea Eliade Translated by David E. Green With a New Introduction and Bibliography by Diane Apostolos-​Cappadona

THE HISTORY OF THE BUDDHA’S RELIC SHRINE A Translation of the Sinhala Thūpavamsa Stephen C. Berkwitz

DAMASCIUS’ PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS CONCERNING FIRST PRINCIPLES

Translated and with Introduction and Notes by Sara Ahbel-​Rappe

THE SECRET GARLAND

Āṇṭāḷ's Tiruppāvai and Nācciyār Tirumoḻi Translated and with Introduction and Commentary by Archana Venkatesan

PRELUDE TO THE MODERNIST CRISIS The “Firmin” Articles of Alfred Loisy Edited and with an Introduction by C. J. T. Talar Translated by Christine Thirlway

DEBATING THE DASAM GRANTH Robin Rinehart

THE FADING LIGHT OF ADVAITA Ācārya Three Hagiographies Rebecca J. Manring

THE UBIQUITOUS ŚIVA Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi and His Tantric Interlocutors John Nemec

PLACE AND DIALECTIC

Two Essays by Nishida Kitarō Translated by John W. M. Krummel and Shigenori Nagatomo

THE PRISON NARRATIVES OF JEANNE GUYON

Ronney Mourad and Dianne Guenin-​Lelle

DISORIENTING DHARMA

Ethics and the Aesthetics of Suffering in the Mahābhārata Emily T. Hudson

THE TRANSMISSION OF SIN

Augustine and the Pre-​Augustinian Sources Pier Franco Beatrice Translated by Adam Kamesar

FROM MOTHER TO SON

The Selected Letters of Marie de l’Incarnation to Claude Martin Translated and with Introduction and Notes by Mary Dunn

DRINKING FROM LOVE’S CUP

Surrender and Sacrifice in the Vārs of Bhai Gurdas Bhalla Selections and Translations with Introduction and Commentary by Rahuldeep Singh Gill

THE AMERICAS’ FIRST THEOLOGIES

Early Sources of Post-​Contact Indigenous Religion Edited and Translated by Garry Sparks, with Frauke Sachse and Sergio Romero

GODS, HEROES, AND ANCESTORS

An Interreligious Encounter in Eighteenth-​Century Vietnam Anh Q. Tran

POETRY AS PRAYER IN THE SANSKRIT HYMNS OF KASHMIR Hamsa Stainton

THE UBIQUITOUS ŚIVA, VOLUME II Somānanda’s Śivadṛṣṭi and His Tantric Interlocutors John Nemec

FIRST WORDS, LAST WORDS

New Theories for Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-​ Century India Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea

iii

First Words, Last Words New Theories for Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-​Century India

z

YIGAL BRONNER AND LAWRENCE McCREA

1

iv

1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Bronner, Yigal, author. | McCrea, Lawrence, author. Title: First words, last words : new theories for reading old texts in sixteenth-century India / Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2021. | Series: Aar religion in translation | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021016412 (print) | LCCN 2021016413 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197583470 (hb) | ISBN 9780197583494 (epub) | ISBN 9780197583500 Subjects: LCSH: Sacred books—History and criticism. | Vedas—Hermeneutics—History. | Religions. | Philosophy. | Hermeneutics. | Methodology. | Sanskrit literature—History and criticism—History. Classification: LCC BL71.B 76 2021 (print) | LCC BL71 (ebook) | DDC 208/.2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021016412 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021016413 DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197583470.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

v

In memory of Allison Busch, 1969–​2019 A scholar, friend, and fellow traveler

vi

vi

Contents

Acknowledgments 

ix

Abbreviations 

xi

1. Newness in Scholastic Traditions: Sequence and Scripture  2 . The Origins of the Debate 

1 31

3 . The New Math: Vyāsatīrtha’s Rewriting of Mīmāṃsā’s Case Law 

49

4 . The New Hermeneutics: Appayya’s Reinvention of Cognitive Theory 

82

5 . The New Attitude: Vijayīndra’s Calling the Game 

119

6 . Behind the Veil of the Old: New Directions in the Study of Scholastic Innovation 

144

Bibliography 

171

Index 

181

vi

ix

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following friends and colleagues who have read and commented on earlier drafts of this book or sections thereof and made excellent suggestions, particularly with regard to the comparative sections: Amit Gvaryahu, Hillel Mali and Naphtali Meshel (both of whom welcomed us to their amazing chavruta), Yakir Paz, Guy Stroumsa, and Joseph Witztum (who introduced us to the intricate and fascinating world of naskh). Maya Rosen helped standardize the references to Jewish texts. We presented the first versions of what ended up being ­chapters 3 and 4 at a panel at the 43rd Annual Conference on South Asia held at Madison, Wisconsin, in October 2014. We are grateful to the other participants of the panel—​Elaine Fisher and Ajay Rao—​and to those in the audience for their helpful comments. Yigal Bronner presented some of the main findings of the book to the European Research Council-​sponsored group, the New Ecology of Expressive Modes in Early-​Modern South India, in June 2019, and we are grateful to David Shulman and the members of the group for their comments. We are indebted to both of our anonymous reviewers for their valuable input. We are also deeply in debt to the series editor, John Nemec, for his faith and support and his many useful suggestions and corrections. Our work on this book took inspiration from our participation in the Sanskrit Knowledge System on the Eve of Colonialism project, organized and led by our mentor and guru, Sheldon Pollock. An ongoing source of inspiration and conversation has been the Age of Vedānta project, co-​organized by Ajay Rao and Lawrence McCrea, and we wish to thank all the participants—​ Manasicha Akepiyapornchai, Michael Allen, Arun Brahmabhatt, Patrick Cummins, Elaine Fisher, Elisa Freschi, Anna Golovkova, Christopher Minkowski, Parimal Patil, Jonathan Peterson, Ajay Rao, Valerie Stoker, Gary Tubb, and Anand Venkatkrishnan—​for their insight and support. Yigal Bronner’s work on this book was supported by a generous grant from the Israel Science Foundation, grant number 1485/​12.

x

xi

Abbreviations

B Babylonian Talmud BS Brahmasūtra M Mishnah: Six Orders MBSBh Madhva, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya MD Mīmāṃsādarśana MS Jaimini, Mīmāṃsāsūtra MSBh Śabara, Mīmāṃsāsūtrabhāṣya ŚBSBh Śaṅkara, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya

xi

1

1

Newness in Scholastic Traditions Sequence and Scripture

1.1  The History of Newness in the Study of Traditional India How does innovation come about within a strongly traditionalist intellectual culture such as that of premodern India? The answer many have given to this question is that it simply does not. For a long time, cultural historians drew a sharp distinction between rare contexts that fostered large-​scale innovation and most others that remained mired in a traditionalist reverence to the past. Whereas medieval Europe was believed to have eventually broken away from its uncritical devotion to old paradigms, the stereotypical view of medieval India, whatever we take that term to denote, was that it was incapable of any meaningful innovation. The idea of India as a pristine “child civilization” was prevalent among German Romanticists such as Novalis, Schlegel, and Schelling. Hegel, who was critical of the Romantic approach to India nonetheless viewed the East as “the childhood of history,” and Asia as the beginning of history and Europe as its end.1 This means, notes Gino Signoracci, that “India, like Asia generally, despite still being a geographical place, the home of many human beings, and a living land, is not fully present. It is in the past; its culture may persist but that is all it does: persist—​ static, unchanging, lifeless.”2 While the intellectual achievements of Indian 1. G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover, 1956), p. 105. 2. Gino Signoracci, “Hegel on Indian Philosophy: Spinozism, Romanticism, Eurocentrism,” PhD dissertation, University of New Mexico, 2017, p. 108. As Said and others have shown, this infantilization of India as part of the “depraved” and “childlike” East was a key justification for its colonization. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 40. First Words, Last Words. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197583470.003.0001

2

2

Fir st Words, L ast Words

philosophy were acknowledged, and while they provided deep inspiration for many eighteenth-​and nineteenth-​century European thinkers, emphasis was laid almost entirely on the earliest sources within each knowledge system as the only locus of real value. Almost the entire later tradition was written off as mere mechanical exegesis, working over earlier insights in obsessive detail and descending further and further into minutiae.3 To put it bluntly, innovation in traditional India was dead on arrival. Take, for example, the modern study of Indian poetic theory. Here the contribution of a few writers, most prominently the late first-​millennium Kashmiri thinkers Ānandavardhana and Abhinavagupta and their theory of literary suggestion (dhvani), are presented as the one great moment of creativity, all later writers being dismissed as mere scholiasts. See, for instance, the entirely typical sweeping dismissal from the pen of S. K. De, one of the leading twentieth-​century scholars of this discipline: With regard to matters of general theory and the main problems, the decadent Post-​dhvani writers as a rule thought that there was nothing new to set forth; they consequently fell back on matters of detail which helped satisfy their growing speculative passion for fine distinctions and their scholastic bent for controversy. . . . They repeat more or less the same stock manner and phraseology, and differ from each other only in matters of no great theoretical importance.4

3. For a noteworthy and highly influential example, see Erich Frauwallner’s survey “The Periods of Indian Philosophy,” in History of Indian Philosophy, trans. V. M. Bedekar (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 3–​18. Frauwallner traces the origin of Indian philosophy from the late Vedic period, out of which emerged the early Brahmanical and Buddhist systems. But he sees these early systems of knowledge falling into decline in the mid-​first millennium: “The old systems, as if their life-​force had been exhausted, begin to decay since the middle of the first millennium after Christ and vanish mostly from the picture” (p. 10). The decline of these early systems into stagnation is for him succeeded by a “new revolution” marked by the rise of the Shiva-​and Vishnu-​oriented religious systems. But these, too, he sees as falling into stagnation by the sixteenth century: “A new revolution does not arise anymore. . . . There is a pause and almost a standstill. . . . Only in the last decades a new development begins to usher itself. Under the influence of the European culture, which since the establishment of English rule, has operated on India more and more strongly, Indian circles have got acquainted with European philosophy and have begun to appropriate it and discuss it” (p. 14). So innovation from within has become impossible, and it is only the external stimulus of European thought that can open up a path forward. 4. S. K. De, History of Sanskrit Poetics (Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1960), vol. 2, p. 216.

3



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

3

The bulk of the history of this tradition, almost a thousand years of constant intellectual activity, is thereby dismissed as lacking any value, and the study of this tradition is viewed as “tedious” and “useless.”5 A similar view is often expressed with regard to Sanskrit literature itself, the object of Sanskrit poetics. Here the key moment is typically identified with the fourth-​or fifth-​century ad poet and playwright Kālidāsa. Consider the titles of the pivotal chapters of A. B. Keith’s Classical Sanskrit Literature: “The Predecessors of Kālidāsa,” “Kālidāsa,” and “Post-​Kālidāsan Epic.”6 As Keith and others made clear, what led up to Kālidāsa was primitive in nature, and what followed this brief moment of creativity was immediately and increasingly decadent. Again, De, this time writing with S. N. Dasgupta, provides the clearest version of this pervasive view: As a term of popular criticism, the epithet “decadent” would at first sight appear too vague and facile to be applied to a literature which extends over several centuries and comprises abundance and variety of talent and effort; but when we consider the strange combination of elaborate pains and insufficient accomplishment, of interminable prolixity and endless dreariness . . . the appropriateness of the description will be obvious. . . . There was no ability to rise to a new form of art, no turning point, nor any return to the earlier manner of the great poets. The entire literature was imitative and reproductive. . . . What was once living and organic becomes mechanical and fossilised. All this means not progress, but decided decline, or at least stagnation, in which the shallow streams of poetic fancy move sluggishly within the confines of conventional matter and manner.7 This widespread view is not limited to the related fields of poetry and poetics. Indeed, the decline of both is explicitly presented as mirroring a similar process in Indian philosophy. As Dasgupta and De go on to argue, “the volubility of bad poets is a parallel to the prolixity of scholastic pedants.”8

5. Ibid. 6. Berriedale Keith, A History of Sanskrit Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920). 7. S. N. Dasgupta, and S. K. De, History of Sanskrit Literature: Classical Period (Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, 1947), vol. 1, p. 304. 8. Ibid., p. 312.

4

4

Fir st Words, L ast Words

For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, assessments of Indian philosophy typically presented its history as a moment of early creativity and inspiration followed by a process of long degeneration. Take, for example, Paul Deussen’s casual dismissal of the entire tradition of Indian systematic thought: The only systems of metaphysical importance are the Sāṅkhyam and the Vedānta; but even these are not to be considered as original creations of the philosophical mind, for the common basis of both and with them of Buddhism and Jainism is to be found in the Upanishads; and it is the ideas of the Upanishads which by a kind of degeneration have developed into Buddhism on one side and the Sāṅkhya system on the other. Contrary to both, the later Vedānta of Bādarāyaṇa and Śaṅkara goes back to the Upanishads and founds on them that great system of the Vedānta which we have to consider as the ripest fruit of Indian wisdom.9 For Deussen, the Upanishads, works composed in the first millennium bc, represent the pinnacle and, indeed, the sole moment of genuine philosophical creativity in India. He dismisses almost everything later as “a long process of degeneration.”10 Virtually all later philosophical traditions are brushed aside as misrepresentations of little or no philosophical value. The only system for which Deussen shows any respect, Nondualist Vedānta, is valued precisely because it merely replicates what was originally achieved. In short, whatever departs from the Upanishads is a corruption of their original insight, and whatever remains faithful to them is essentially repetitive. As we detail below, things have changed since the interventions of Deussen, De, and Dasgupta. But it should be noted that the basic presuppositions that they and their colleagues have laid down continued to guide scholarship in the field for many decades. Scholars have tended to focus on the earlier, non-​ commentarial contributions in each discipline, and, when they approached the later exegetical treatises, they typically viewed them as interpretive aids for understanding the root texts rather than as serious intellectual works in their own right. Moreover, the lingering assumption, even if seldom stated

9. Paul Deussen, Outlines of Indian Philosophy with an Appendix on the Philosophy of the Vedānta in Its Relations to Occidental Metaphysics (Berlin: Karl Curtius, 1907), p. 35. 10. Ibid., p. 38.

5



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

5

as in previous generations, was that the great breakthroughs were still limited to the earlier strata of each tradition. Take, for instance, Jean-​Marie Verpoorten’s overview of Mīmāṃsā, a key philosophical system that is at the heart of this book. Verpoorten labels the period from the sixth to seventh century ad as “the golden age of the Mīmāṃsā” and describes the entire later history of this tradition, from the eighth century to the present, as “the age of the subcommentators.”11 In Nondualist Vedānta, another discipline that this book closely explores and which has been one of the dominant strands of thought in the second millennium ad, the lingering approach is that later thinkers, if they were valued at all, were valued for their skill as compilers and systematizers of the insights of earlier geniuses.12 Additional recent examples of this approach can be easily supplied for the fields of literature, poetics, and other philosophical inquiries. One important exception has been the study of navyanyāya, or “new logic.” This was a key movement in Indian epistemology and reasoning of the second millennium ad, which in time came be labeled—​both by its own proponents and by their colleagues from other disciplines—​with the adjective “new.” It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that this branch of Indian thought was recognized as a site of significant innovation, even in a scholarly climate where novelty was rarely acknowledged. Still, the serious study of navyanyāya begins only in the second half of the twentieth century, pioneered by Daniel Ingalls and his student B. K. Matilal. Both of them saw in the daunting formalism of navyanyāya a counterpart to modern Western logic and sought to investigate these parallels. Both also viewed the vast literature of the new logicians as worthy of extensive study in its own right. But even Ingalls often found in the new writers on logic an excessive deference to the older authorities, one that blunted the possibilities of innovation within the field. As Ingalls puts it in the introduction to his important book on the topic: “I do not wish to exaggerate the virtues of Navya-​nyāya. Certainly it has its faults. Much, however, that will seem to the modern logician perverse or foolish in the following pages, is Navya-​nyāya’s inheritance from the Old School, and is accepted by

11. Jean-​Marie Verpoorten, Mīmāṃsā Literature, in A History of Indian Literature, ed. Jan Gonda (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz, 1987), vol. 6, fasc. 5. The relevant sections are found on pp. 22–​37, 38–​53, respectively. 12. Karl Potter, Presuppositions of Indian Philosophies (New Delhi: Prentice-​Hall of India, 1963), p. 181. See also S. N. Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy (reprinted, Cambridge: Cambridge Press, 1952), vol. 2, p. 53. Both passages are discussed in Christopher Minkowski, “Advaita Vedānta in Early Modern History,” South Asian History and Culture 2.2 (2011): 205–​231.

6

6

Fir st Words, L ast Words

only the conservative Navya-​naiyāyikas.”13 In making this observation, of course, Ingalls draws a distinction between “conservatives” (such as Gaṅgeśa) and more “radical” logicians (such as Raghunātha).14 Still, he introduces what is to become an important theme in later studies on early modern Indian intellectual life, namely that, in the absence of a decisive break with the past, innovation is easily susceptible to being stifled. In recent decades, this picture has begun to change, and the existence and specific mechanisms of innovation in medieval and early modern Sanskrit intellectual culture have become a serious focus of scholarly inquiry. Important studies in areas such Tantra, astronomy, medicine, metaphysics, and theology have highlighted the ways in which thinkers working in traditional disciplines knowingly broke with the past and reconstituted their fields during this period.15 And, along with these diverse studies of the specific processes of innovation, there have also been important advances in the theorization of newness in early modern Indian thought. Perhaps the most noteworthy figure in recent discussions of this question is Sheldon Pollock. Beginning in 2001, Pollock initiated a major international research project, Sanskrit Knowledge Systems on the Eve of Colonialism, specifically devoted to the study of early modern Sanskrit disciplines, in which he saw a new flowering of vitality precisely in the centuries before the colonization of India. Pollock’s own seminal statement of his thesis can be found in his 2001 article “New Intellectuals in Seventeenth-​Century India.” Pollock puts forward, clearly and convincingly, the thesis that in early modern South Asia, intellectual life in Sanskrit “witnessed an explosion of scholarly

13. D. H. H. Ingalls, Materials for the Study of Navya-​nyāya Logic, Harvard Oriental Series 40 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), p. 2. 14. Ibid., p. 5. 15. Noteworthy examples include Christian Wedemeyer, Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism: History, Semiology, and Transgression in the Indian Traditions (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013); John Nemec, “Innovation and Social Change in the Vale of Kashmir, circa 900–​1250 c.e.,” in Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions: Essays in Honour of Alexis G. J. S. Sanderson, ed. Dominic Goodall, Shaman Hatley, Harunaga Isaacson, and Srilata Raman, Gonda Indological Studies, no. 22 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 283–​320; Christopher Minkowski, “Astronomers and Their Reasons: Working Paper on Jyotiḥśāstra,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 30.5 (2002): 495–​514; Dominik Wujastyk, “Change and Creativity in Early Modern Indian Medical Thought,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 33 (2005): 95–​118; Andrew Nicholson, Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); and Elaine Fisher, Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017).

7



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

7

production unprecedented for its quality and quantity.”16 This explosion, he shows, embodied a newly emergent historical consciousness, marked by an increasing tendency to periodize the development within each knowledge system and organizing knowledge in terms of “new” and “old” (and various shades thereof ) theoretical positions. Moreover, novelty in modes of writing and genre as well as radical innovation in discursive and argumentative methodologies, as Pollock shows, ruled the day. Yet despite these genuine and widespread innovations, very often explicitly recognized as such, Pollock finds that the impact of these methodological innovations was still blunted by the persistent adherence to earlier sources and their questions: “Radically at odds, however, with the genuine innovations signalled by historicist exposition, discursive style and mode of argument is the traditionalism of the problematics themselves. The universe of thought, it seems, did not expand in a way at all commensurate with the expansion of the instruments and styles of thought.”17 Pollock does concede that there may be “elusive” newness going on underneath the surface but obscured by the “mind-​numbing complexity” of the major works of this period.18 Still, he finds the dominant tone of this period to be one of “epistemic continuity”: “The new historicity and the awareness it seems to imply of the possibility of new truths are clearly in evidence, but remain securely anchored in a very old practice of thought, on an invariant set of questions.”19 Pollock’s explicit counterexample is the radical break with tradition in seventeenth-​and eighteenth-​century European philosophical thought. As he notes, “Among Sanskrit intellectuals we see nothing comparable to the moment in seventeenth-​century England when scholars of natural philosophy decided to look at nature itself rather than read Aristotle and Galen. . . . Nor did anyone seek, as Descartes did, to ‘begin anew, from first principles.’”20 In short, while Pollock recognizes innovation in early modern knowledge systems in India better and in a clearer way than anyone before him, he still finds in this period “a serious tension in a newness that

16. Sheldon Pollock, “New Intellectuals in Seventeenth-​Century India,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 38.1 (2001): 5. 17. Ibid., p. 12. 18. Ibid., p. 13. 19. Ibid., p. 14. 20. Ibid., p. 23.

8

8

Fir st Words, L ast Words

could not achieve innovation: a newness of the intellect constrained by an oldness of the will.”21 A somewhat similar idea of the persistence of the old in Indian thinking is found in the work of Jonardon Ganeri, another member of the Sanskrit Knowledge Systems project (in which we both participated as well). Ganeri has shown considerable interest in the development of Indian logic and epistemology in the early modern period, authoring a major study on the later ramifications of the “new logic” on Indian thinkers of the immediate precolonial period.22 But despite this serious attention to early modern developments, Ganeri has articulated a methodological standpoint that seems to suggest serious constraints on innovation in Indian systematic thought writ large. In his 2008 article “Contextualism in the Study of Indian Intellectual Cultures,” Ganeri offers a specific critique of the contextualist interpretive method of Quentin Skinner and its application to the South Asian case. Skinner stressed the necessity of reading all texts as illocutionary acts made within a specific linguistic and sociohistorical context, and he made the recovery of such contexts central to the work of the intellectual historian. Ganeri argues that this method is specifically problematic in the Indian context because “Skinner’s conception of ‘context’ is both too rich and too poor to do justice to the Indian knowledge systems.”23 He sees Skinner’s context as “too rich” in that the kind of detailed social and biographical information we have on many European figures is simply not available for most of their Indian counterparts, making it difficult if not impossible to recover their social and political contexts (as distinct from linguistic contexts). The relative poverty, on the other hand, stems from the inability of Skinner’s method to deal with śāstras, that is, knowledge systems conceived as durable entities that maintain their integrity over time and thereby transcend the specific context of individual authors. In particular, Ganeri emphasizes what he calls the proleptic illocutionary act of authors writing within the śāstras. Skinner has directed his critique partly against what he calls the “mythology of prolepsis,” namely, the tendency to understand earlier texts in light of the concerns of their later interpreters. 21. Ibid., p. 19. 22. Jonardon Ganeri, The Lost Age of Reason in Early Modern India 1450–​1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 23. Jonardon Ganeri, “Contextualism in the Study of Indian Intellectual Cultures,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 557. The argument is recapitulated in Ganeri, The Lost Age of Reason in Early Modern India.

9



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

9

Skinner sees this as a distortion that involves ascribing to the author concerns and intentions he or she could not in principle have had. Ganeri, by contrast, maintains that if the author actually writes with a future audience in mind, then such a future context can somehow be brought into play in the reading of the original text. Moreover, he believes that the śāstras are special in their stability and, hence, in their ability to be read as anticipating readers’ future concerns: “That is to say, when the intellectual ‘context’ is a Sanskrit knowledge system, an entity conceived of by its participants as possessing enormous longevity, the possibility arises for proleptic speech interventions intentionally directed towards future audiences.”24 Thus Skinner’s insistence on reading works in their immediate historical contexts is “too poor” when it comes to the rich and seemingly transtemporal intellectual context provided by the Indian idea of the śāstra. Indeed, this notion of the śāstra as standing outside time tracks closely with Pollock’s idea of the “transcendent śāstra.” According to this approach, while systematic thought in India is full of innovations, it is governed by an ideology that denies the very possibility of substantial historical change. Pollock sees this model of knowledge as emerging from the Mīmāṃsā reading of the Vedic scripture as an eternal and unchanging authority about ultimate matters and concerns. By Pollock’s account, this transcendent model comes to be generalized to virtually all fields of knowledge:25 From the conception of an apriori śāstra it logically follows—​and Indian intellectual history demonstrates that this conclusion was clearly drawn—​that there can be no conception of progress, of the forward “movement from worse to better” on the basis of innovation in practice. . . . If any sort of amelioration is to occur, this can only be in the form of regress, a backward movement aiming at a closer and more faithful approximation to the divine pattern.26

24. Ganeri, “Contextualism in the Study of Indian Intellectual Cultures,” pp. 555–​556. 25. Sheldon Pollock, “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 105.3 (1985): 499–​519; Sheldon Pollock, “Mīmāṃsā and the Problem of History in Traditional India,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 109.4 (1989): 603–​610. 26. Pollock, “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory,” p. 515.

10

10

Fir st Words, L ast Words

In other words, every movement forward is at the very least presented as a movement backward, thereby constantly collapsing time and placing the śāstras outside history. Again, we want to emphasize that neither Pollock nor Ganeri denies the possibility or the actuality of real innovation in Indian systematic thought. But for both, the ideology of transcendence constrains the ability of authors to either see or present themselves as significantly breaking with their pasts. Indeed, both Pollock and Ganeri share a tacit assumption that the faithfulness to the temporally transcendent body of knowledge, which we do see in the outward presentation of many (but not all) śāstric authors, accurately reflects their real views. But what if writers are innovating knowingly yet covertly and are insincere about their self-​presentation as traditionalists? Should we always take at face value authors’ profession of faithfulness to their tradition (or, for that matter, their boasts of radical departure)? Indeed, one could argue that this question of self-​presentation is what is really at issue in the by now paradigmatic contrast between Descartes and his predecessors in the European case—​not that Descartes is innovative while the medieval scholastics are not, but that the scholastics chose to portray their innovations as mere explications or clarifications of a preexisting body of knowledge, while Descartes adopts the rhetorical strategy of presenting himself as making a complete break with the past. In fact, recent scholarship has shown that there was ample innovation going among pre-​Cartesian thinkers, and that, despite Descartes’s claim to discard the past and start anew, he was in many ways more indebted to his medieval predecessors than he himself or later interpreters tended to acknowledge.27 If we entertain the possibility that the distinction between old and new knowledge is at least sometimes more a matter of presentational strategy than of substance, we have to return to the question of what is really novel about the new knowledge in both Europe and in India. Pollock’s idea of the “oldness of the will” stresses that while there may be novelty and innovation in method and form, the “new intellectuals” in seventeenth-​century India remain constrained by old questions, or “a set of pregiven issues,” and that the unchanging nature of these questions and issues leads primarily to “more precise refinement” but not to new answers.28 We 27. Stephan Menn, Descartes and Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For an example of a medieval European scholar who was covertly innovative, see our discussion of Abelard in section 6.2 below. 28. Sheldon Pollock, The Ends of Men at the End of Premodernity (Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2005), p. 84.

1



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

11

would like to suggest that this, at the very least, is an overstatement. Indeed, in the case we present in this book, we track a set of developments that involves substantive innovation and change, only one that is often masked by a thin guise of traditionalism. Below we will argue that this notion of the “oldness of the will” needs to be further nuanced. We will suggest that Pollock and Ganeri, as well as others working in this area, have neglected the crucial question of sincerity in protestations of traditionalism. Indeed, often the oldness in question only serves to mask new questions and answers, and this mask was rather transparent to contemporaneous onlookers. The case study we examine in this book involves two of the pioneering figures in the new intellectual movement that crystallized toward the end of the sixteenth century. These are the great Dualist theologian Vyāsatīrtha and his Nondualist and freethinking rival, Appayya Dīkṣita. While these two figures cannot necessarily be said to represent the typical intellectual of their period, we have argued elsewhere that they were trendsetting and deeply involved in the inception of the new intellectual consciousness that Pollock set out to explore.29 In fact, the narrative this book will offer begins with an overtly radical departure from the established intellectual consensus on the principles of interpretation, a departure initiated already in the fourteenth century by the founder of the Dualist school, Madhva. This departure was then defended by his follower Vyāsatīrtha, attacked by Appayya Dīkṣita, and again upheld by Vyāsatīrtha’s own follower, Vijayīndratīrtha. And, as we shall show, their controversy was the site for the development of entirely novel theories of reading and cognition that were far removed from the questions, let alone answers, that presided in the field before Madhva’s original intervention. Our story involves a dramatic revaluation of the role of sequence in the cognitive processing of textual information, and especially of scriptural texts.

1.2  Sequence in Scriptural Interpretation To provide a broad background to our specific study of this problem in Indian interpretive theory, it is useful to briefly discuss some parallel problems and solutions in other hermeneutic traditions. After all, the role of sequence has been recognized as a significant issue in many of the world’s scriptural

29. For Vyāsatīrtha, see Lawrence McCrea, “Freed by the Weight of History: Polemic and Doxography in Sixteenth Century Vedānta,” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 87–​ 101; for Appayya Dīkṣita, see Yigal Bronner, “South Meets North: Banaras from the Perspective of Appayya Dīkṣita,” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 10–​31.

12

12

Fir st Words, L ast Words

traditions. To a large extent, the issue is the tension between the perceived atemporality of the sacred text or its source, on the one hand, and the time-​ governed reality of historical human agents who receive and process it, on the other. To begin with, we can ask, and it has been asked in different cultures in different times, whether an eternal voice can ever refer to a specific temporality or to events that are embedded in a certain place and time. Another question, potentially related, is to what extent the sequence of the scripture reflects some kind of historical sequence, or, for that matter, any logical sequence. Then we may ask whether or not the order in which we, as readers, take in and process the scriptural passages should impact our interpretation of them. A good point of comparison is offered by the Abrahamic traditions, whose scriptures present themselves and are seen by their adherents as revelations of a particular divine agent to specific historical recipients (as representatives of their communities) at a particular point in time or in a succession of such moments. We should note right away that this stands in stark contrast to the way the Veda, the foundational scripture of the Brahmanical tradition, came to be understood by all of the interpreters discussed in this book. For its interpreters, the Veda is literally and absolutely eternal and unchanging. It has always existed in exactly the same form and has always been known and transmitted by a community of Brahmins such that there can never have been a moment of revelation. Furthermore, the Veda is not understood, at least according to the schools of Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, as the product of any agent or speaker but is said instead to be “impersonal” (apauruṣeya). We should hasten to say that this widely accepted belief is in no way encoded in the Veda. In fact, the Veda does contain what appear to be narrative accounts of the acts and conversations of named individuals, including the gods. Orthodox interpreters, however, maintain that such apparent references to occurrences in time are just that, apparent; no genuine historical referentiality is possible in a text that is eternal. The Abrahamic traditions have a very different view of the relevance of historicity to scriptural interpretation. But, as we hope to show, despite the radical difference in the way sequence was theorized in these two vast worlds, there are also striking convergences between them, both in the specific problems posed by sequence and in the methodologies devised to deal with them. Take the Torah, for example. This is a text that presents a series of encounters between God and His chosen people that is narrated within a largely historical framework, and that culminates in key moments of

13



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

13

revelation. Most notable is the transmission of a set of laws given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, an event that is recorded in some detail within the scripture itself and is followed by successive moments of instruction from God to His people during their journey through the desert. God continues to speak through His prophets even beyond the five books that comprise the Torah, but from the point of view of the receiving community, the revelations of the Torah’s five books have a higher canonical standing. The authoritative voice here is that of Maimonides, who decreed that true later prophets can in no way preach the negation of the Torah, although they can suspend or curtail its ordinances for limited periods under special circumstances.30 There is also a long line of thinkers who view the Oral Torah, the continued rulings of rabbis from the Tannaim onward that often determine the actual practices of Jews, as stemming directly from God’s revelation to Moses on Mt. Sinai.31 While these issues are of relevance to the general topic at hand, we will limit our brief discussion to questions pertaining to the interpretation of the Torah itself. Because revelation occurs in time, it matters when exactly it happens. By and large, there are two schools of thought within Midrashic interpreters about this question. One school, associated with Rabbi Yohanan, holds that the revelation of the laws came bit by textual bit (torah megillah megillah nittenah), whereas another school, ascribed to Reish Lakish, maintains that revelation was unitary and came all at once (torah hatumah nittenah), on Mt. Sinai.32 A famous Midrashic anecdote that can be said to fit this second approach narrates how Moses, while taking God’s dictation of the entire Torah, had to inscribe the events of his own future death; according to this account he was writing and crying at the same time.33 The dispute between the two schools may be relevant in deciding ritual and legal questions. That is to say, 30. Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, ed. S. Frankel ( Jerusalem: Hotzaat Shabsi Frankel, 2000), Mada, Yesodey ha-​Torah, ix. 31. Rimon Kasher, “The Interpretation of Scripture in Rabbinic Literature,” in The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, vol. 1: Mikra, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988), pp. 550–​552. 32. b. Gittin 60a. Another illustration of this bifurcation may be found in a comment on Song of Songs 7:14. The verse refers to “both new and old” (hadashim gam yeshanim). According to one anonymous scholar quoted in the Talmud, “old” refers here to stricter laws, and “new” to more lenient ones, but this view is then opposed by R. Hisda, who maintains that “the Torah was not given time and again” (pe’amim pe’amim; b. Eruvim 21b). 33. b. Bava Batra 15a. There is another position here, according to which Joshua took down the last eight verses of the Torah. The roots of the Moses tradition may be found in the Book of Jubilees 1:27, where God instructs an angel to dictate the entirety of the scripture to Moses. R. H. Charles, ed. and trans., The Book of Jubilees (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902), p. 8.

14

14

Fir st Words, L ast Words

if, as some believe, rules were given sequentially and incrementally, any potential contradiction between posterior and anterior rules can, in theory, be understood as cases when God was updating, and hence correcting, His earlier proclamations so as to fit new circumstances.34 However, if all the injunctions were given at once, this interpretive strategy has no relevance. Take, for example, the question of whether an animal can be slaughtered and eaten without having been first offered to God at His temple. Leviticus states very clearly that every living animal (that belongs in a herd) has to be first brought to God at His sanctuary, offered there, and only then killed and consumed. By contrast, Deuteronomy says quite explicitly that one can slaughter one’s animals regardless of having sacrificed them. Note that there is no real ritual question here, in the sense that Jews have slaughtered their animals without a standing temple for generations.35 The issue is, rather, how to resolve the seeming contradiction between the practice that conforms to the text of Deuteronomy and the ordinance as found in Leviticus. Rabbi Akiva, a particularly dominant voice in Midrashic literature, denies any contradiction and finds ways of harmonizing the two texts. But another authority, Rabbi Ishmael, follows a different hermeneutic path. For Rabbi Ishmael, the words of Leviticus were given in the desert, when the Israelites were in close proximity to the tent, God’s mobile shrine, whereas the later ruling of Deuteronomy was given in Moab, when they were about to settle disparate parts of the land of Israel where they would have no easy access to the temple. For Rabbi Ishmael, it would seem, the Torah was not the result of a single revelation, and a later divine decree can overrule or at least refine an earlier one in a way that accords with changing historical circumstances.36 He is indeed quoted as saying that general injunctions were given at Mt. Sinai, while specific injunctions were provided later, in the tent (klalot ne’emru besinai, ufratot ne’emru be’ohel mo’ed), the implication being that, at least in this case, a later specific injunction is stronger than an earlier general one. Rabbi Akiva, by contrast, insists on the holistic unity of God’s revelation: although these revelations follow a historical sequence, a subsequent revelatory moment only

34. As shown by Michael Fishbane, the view of progressive revelation was also held by members of the Qumran sect. Michael Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation of Mikra at Qumran,” in The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, vol. 1: Mikra, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988), pp. 365–​366. 35. Compare Leviticus 17:2–​7 and Deuteronomy 12:20–​22. 36. Sifre Deuteronomy, ed. Louis Finkelstein and Saul Horowitz (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993), pp. 139–​140.

15



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

15

confirms an earlier one, and all revelations are identical both generally and specifically (klalot ufratot ne’emru besinai venishnu be’ohel mo’ed venishtalshu be’arvot mo’av).37 Coming back to Rabbi Ishmael, his position in this case may be taken as an indication that he understands the scripture’s two sequential axes—​ the historical and the textual—​as working together in determining ritual questions, and that, at least here, a later specific instruction overrules an earlier and general one. We should note, however, that Rabbi Ishmael never turns this sort of alignment between early and general, on the one hand, and late and specific, on the other, into a coherent hermeneutic theory. Rather, he uses the terminology of generalities (klal) and specifics (prat) frequently, as one prominent interpretive measure (middah) out of the thirteen ascribed to him,38 with no reference to sequence. Indeed, it seems that the Palestine-​ based Ishmael ignored both chronological and textual sequence when attempting to read coherently several reiterations, some general and others specific, of the same rule, and that his main mode of negotiating between such seemingly dissonant attestations was done ad hoc based on logical and commonsensical criteria but not on sequence. Moreover, Babylonian interpreters who followed Ishmael’s main interlocutor, Rabbi Akiva (but really the practices first introduced in the Scholion a century or two later), were the ones to fix sequence as a key factor in the discussion of specific versus general.39 For them, a later reiteration of a law, even one that is found in a later part of the same sentence, determines its meaning. That is to say, if a specific iteration follows a mere general statement, the general is reduced to its specific instances, and if a general injunction follows a specific version of itself, the injunction expands to its more general rendering. There is even a procedure for cases where three such steps appear: general, specific, and again general, and here, too, textual sequence is paramount in determining

37. b. Sotah 37b. 38. The number varies, depending on how one counts the different measures of dealing with specifics and generals (Kasher, “Interpretation of Scripture in Rabbinic Literature,” pp. 585–​586). 39. We find some support for our historical construction here in Kahana’s brilliant essay on this issue, although the question surely calls for further study by more able researchers than ourselves. Menahem Kahana, “The Development of the Hermeneutical Principle of Kelal u-​Ferat in the Tannaitic Period,” in Studies in Talmudic and Midrash Literature in Memory of Tirza Lifshitz, ed. Moshe Bar-​Asher, Joshua Levinson, and Berachyahu Lifshitz ( Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 2005), pp. 173–​216 [Hebrew].

16

16

Fir st Words, L ast Words

the actual ritual conclusion.40 Thus, despite the strange disconnect between Rabbi Ishmael’s different applications of the terminology of klal and prat, it would seem that sequence can help resolve contradictions between general and specific in the Midrashic world, and that what was said later—​either in the text, as in the reading of the Babylonians, or in history, as in the case of Rabbi Ishmael in Palestine—​helps to determine the meaning of what was said earlier. A related, widely accepted general interpretive rule that may mitigate what we have just said is that “there is no early and late in the Torah” (’en muqddam um’uhar batorah). This maxim is taken to imply that there is no necessary correspondence between chronological and textual progression in the scripture: an early event can be narrated later, out of sequence, and vice versa: a late event can be narrated before its subsequent occurrences. However, as Isaac Gottlieb has shown in a seminal article, the situation is far more complex. The very claim that, in some cases, the Torah diverges from the chronological flow implies that in most cases it follows it rather faithfully and that any such divergences have specific logical or even aesthetic purposes. As Gottlieb shows, this was the view of the famous thirteenth-​century commentator Nachmanides.41 Moreover, there is at least one context in which the Talmud deliberately identifies the two axes of sequence: textual and chronological progression. This is done apropos of a rather technical discussion that purports to decide the exact amount of preparation time enjoined before the holiday of Passover. But the real issue, revealed in the course of the discussion, is that of a blatant disruption of chronological sequence in the Torah, involving precise dates. The first chapter of Numbers begins by narrating God’s address on the first day of the second month of the second year after the exodus from Egypt, whereas c­ hapter 9 narrates events that took place a month earlier, in the first month of that very same year. The Talmud explains that this disruption of sequence in meant to teach the reader a lesson, namely that there is no early

40. This position is parallel to that of Vyāsatīrtha (see section 3.1 below): that a later statement always overrules an earlier, whether this involves narrowing a general rule by a more specific one or expanding a specific rule by a more general one. 41. Isaac Gottlieb, “‘There Is No Earlier or Later in the Torah’ in Nahmanides’ Commentary,” Tarbiz 63 (1994): 41–​62 [Hebrew]. For a brilliant discussion on the history and evolving use of the concept in Judaism as well as in Arabic hermeneutics (muqaddam wa-​mu’ahhar) and classical texts (hysteron proteron), see Richard C. Steiner, “Muqdam u-​Meʿuḥar and Muqaddam wa-​Muʿaḫḫar: On the History of Some Hebrew and Arabic Terms for Hysteron Proteron and Anastrophe,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 66.1 ( January 2007): 33–​46.

17



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

17

and late in the Torah. But then an objection is raised: if, indeed, there is no early and late in the Torah, then there is no way for its readers to determine when a later specific rule determines the meaning of an earlier general injunction, precisely because we cannot know which came first. The solution is that within the boundaries of a single passage, textual sequence and historical progression must agree, whereas between passages, as in this case of the different chapters of Numbers, divergence between the two axes can occur.42 But the objection that gave rise to this solution clearly implies that, at least for some, it was impossible to decide between specific and general versions of the same rule without taking their order of appearance into account, and that within the boundaries of a single passage, textual sequence and historical progression must align and figure in the act of interpretation. By way of concluding this admittedly very partial survey of the role of sequence in Jewish interpretations of the Torah, we can say that we find tension between two poles. The first posits the scripture as a holistic and unitary revelation that is not bound by historical or narrative sequence (early and late in both senses), sometimes even with a single moment of revelation. According to this view, each part of the Torah is in harmony with every other part, and together they create a perfectly balanced and simultaneous system. This would seem to agree most easily with a common and ancient belief, according to which the Torah, despite its obvious historical referentiality, existed in a timeless form before God’s creation of the world.43 A reading practice that takes this approach to the extreme can be found in the Kabalistic interpretation of the Torah, wherein disparate textual bits, to the level of independent assorted letters from different parts of the canon, can be read together to produce a hidden message.44 The second view maintains that, at least within the boundaries of a single passage, if not beyond, a later statement can act as a commentary that determines the meaning of an earlier one, sometimes precisely because it belongs to a later moment in time, when God and His people

42. b. Pesahim 6b. See also b. Menahot 55b, where the same principle is ascribed to Rabbi Aptoriki. As we show below, a similar distinction between sequences within and between passages was suggested by the seminal Mīmāṃsaka Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, who held that within a single syntactically unified passage, earlier overrules later, while between independent passages, later overrules earlier (section 2.1 below). 43. See, for example, m. Avot 3:14. For more, see Kasher, “Interpretation of Scripture in Rabbinic Literature,” p. 549. 44. See, for example, the discussion of letters in Parshat Truma in the Zohar: The Zohar, ed. and trans. Daniel C. Matt (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 227–​228.

18

18

Fir st Words, L ast Words

were adapting the rules to new historical circumstances.45 For the purposes of this book, this latter approach means not only that historicity is possible within a scripture of divine origin, but also that in cases of contradiction, statements that come later—​in the text and in time—​should be privileged over those that come earlier precisely because of their posteriority. Basically similar tendencies can be seen in the Christian treatment of early and late in scripture, although with respect to a far more limited set of questions and working from the basis of a very different text. Within the personal accounts that make up the Christian Gospel, chronology or sequence do not seem to play much of a role. But both do play an important role in one notable case, namely the sequential relationship between the preexisting Hebrew scriptures, now labeled the Old Testament, and the New Testament, comprising the writings of Christ’s apostles and followers. There were a few early Christian fathers—​most notably Marcion of Sinope—​who rejected the Hebrew scriptures altogether as the work of an evil demiurge and argued for a scriptural canon composed solely of Christian writings.46 But by far the dominant position was that the Hebrew scriptures should be acknowledged as an authentic part of the Christian scriptural canon. But this position gave rise to several pressing questions regarding the ritual obligations of followers of the Christian movement. Most notably: Should Christians be bound by the specific laws regarding animal sacrifice, circumcision, dietary restrictions, and other practices specifically enjoined by God in the Hebrew scriptures? Fairly early, the leaders of the Christian movement settled on a negative answer to this question: Christian converts, whether of Gentile or Jewish ancestry, need not observe these ritual restrictions.47 But how could this policy be squared with the decision to accept the scriptures enjoining these obligations as valid?

45. We will see how Madhva and his followers similarly believed that a later portion of the passage acts as a commentary on what comes before and thereby determines its meaning, although they, like all South Asian interpreters, totally reject the very possibility of historicity within the eternal Vedic scripture. 46. For Marcion, see Andrew Hayes, Justin against Marcion: Defining the Christian Philosophy (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017) and Judith M. Lieu, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 47. Initially maintaining the Jewish practice was considered optional, but it gradually came to be seen as no longer permissible. See Bruce Chilton and Jacob Neusner, Judaism in the New Testament: Practices and Beliefs (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 98–​104 and J. Carleton Paget, “Jewish Christianity,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3: The Early Roman Period, ed. William Horbury, W. D. Davies, and John Sturdy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 731–​775.

19



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

19

The dominant response to this problem was to accept the laws propounded on Mt. Sinai as authentic but now obsolete, superseded by the “new dispensation” embodied in the New Testament and in the Christian sacraments. Augustine of Hippo, for example, argued that there was no problem in assuming that even an eternally unchanging God could command different practices in different historical eras. As he says in his letter to Marcellinus: Sacrifice was appropriate in primitive times because God had commanded it. Now that is not the case. For God has commanded something else, appropriate for the present period; and he understands far better than the human race what is most suitable to provide for each age, what and when he—​the unchanging Creator, the unchanging governor of the changing world—​should grant something or add something, take it away, remove it, increase it or diminish it.48 Augustine provides here a theory of how an eternal and unchanging God can offer different instructions in different historical eras. The later dispensation therefore displaces the earlier set of practices enjoined in the Old Testament writings without calling into question their authenticity. The rules can and do change over time, and it is incumbent on current worshipers to conform their practices to the more recent scriptural commands where they conflict with or displace what came before. Apart from the sheer historical displacement of old rules by new, however, there is another way in which the New Testament was placed in a position of hierarchical superiority to the earlier Hebrew scriptures: by reading the Hebrew scriptures as allegorical or obscurely prophetic writings, whose real meanings could be fully ascertained only in light of the events and teachings recorded in the New Testament. In this way, the latter came to serve as a kind of commentary on the former, wiping away earlier misunderstandings and revealing its true meanings. This creates what Guy Stroumsa has described as a “two-​tiered” scriptural corpus, in which the later elements always govern the understanding of the earlier: As soon as the status of the New Testament becomes formalised, then, the Christian Scriptures are established upon two layers, clearly defined and differentiated from one another, and which must 48. Translation from E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro, eds., Augustine: Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 32.

20

20

Fir st Words, L ast Words

each be read in light of the other. What should be noted is the fact that the intertextuality is built into the system, which includes a time element: the whole dual scriptures includes both an earlier and a later layer, each either announcing, reflecting or completing the other. These two layers have to be read together, each is the key to the proper understanding of the other. But the way of reading them is essentially different. The New Testament does not only become an integral part of the Christian Scriptures. It is also clearly felt to be higher in status than the Old Testament. The latter was only, as it were, its prefiguration, presenting the typos, or figura, a sacramentum futuri, of what would be more clearly repeated, developed, and fully exposed, in the final and perfect revelation, the New Testament, the Scripture par excellence, which preserved the ipsissima verba of the Saviour. Such a perception further encouraged some devaluation of the Old Testament in Christian religious memory: its deepest significance lay in what happened later on.49 Since the later New Testament scriptures always dictate the interpretation of the earlier Old Testament, they effectively come to predominate over it, absorbing it but rendering it in effect powerless in any case of apparent contradiction. So there came to be two basic ways of understanding the more recent New Testament scriptures as more authoritative than those belonging to the Old Testament. The practices they enjoin may be understood as, at least selectively, abrogating or taking the place of specific ritual commands given to the Jews in the Hebrew scriptures and enjoining new practices to replace others now obsolete. But they may also dominate by taking on the role of a “commentary,” providing clarification to or revealing the hidden true meaning of the Hebrew scriptures—​a meaning often seen as unknown to and even starkly at odds with the understanding of the producers and adherents of the Hebrew scriptures themselves. But, in both cases, just as in that of some of the rabbinical hermeneutics discussed above, the greater power of the later depends on its historical posteriority: the new commandments displace the old rather

49. Guy G. Stroumsa, “The Christian Hermeneutical Revolution and Its Double Helix,” in The Use of Sacred Books in the Ancient World, ed. L. V. Rutgers, P. W. van der Horst, H. W. Havelaar, and L. Teugels (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), p. 19.

21



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

21

than the reverse, and the later scriptures clarify what was formally obscure in the earlier.50 Of the three Abrahamic religions, Islam offers what in some ways is the most voluminous and complex body of divinely inspired canonical writings. In its broadest possible sense, it includes, first, both the Hebrew scriptures of the Jews and the New Testament of the Christians as books of earlier revelation, this in addition to the fact that elements from both texts also appear in the Quran (and the later ḥadīth), although often in different versions that demonstrate, among other things, the influence of additional sources such as the aforementioned Midrashic traditions. Then there is the Quran itself, a long series of revelations given to Muhammad over twenty-​some years and then edited, according to the tradition itself, at times by the Prophet according to God’s own instructions (as in Tabarī’s account of the famous but contested story of the “Satanic verses”) or by his followers.51 And finally there is the enormously vast and potentially open-​ended corpus of the ḥadīth, believed to be sayings or actions of the Prophet that were recorded by his immediate followers and, hence, endowed with near-​scriptural status. It is thus perhaps no coincidence that Islam, the latest of the three religions to emerge in the Abrahamic fold, also has the clearest position on the predominance of late over early. As Wael Hallaq puts it, “The fundamental principle of abrogation is that one text repeals another contradictory text that was revealed prior to it in time.”52 Let us clarify first that this is not the only method of resolving contradictions and ambiguous ritual cases in Islam. Many other criteria may be brought to bear on the status of any authoritative command, such as the frequency of its occurrences, the reliability of its witnesses, the proximity of its source to the Prophet, and so on.53 But there is also a growing consensus

50. Indeed, there were even attempts—​a famous one is found in Goethe’s writings—​to anchor the preference for the later New Testament in a perceived preference for the later within the Hebrew scriptures themselves. For a discussion of this, see Bernard M. Levinson, “Goethe’s Analysis of Exodus 34 and Its Influence on Wellhausen: The Pfropfung of the Documentary Hypothesis,” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 114 (2002): 212–​223. 51. See Shahab Ahmed, Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), pp. 44–​86 for Tabari’s account. 52. Wael B. Hallaq, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 19. 53. The Indian scriptural theorists, as we will see, likewise held sequence as one of several interpretive criteria which needed to be weighed against one another; the criterion of frequency is shared in both traditions (see below, section 2.2).

2

22

Fir st Words, L ast Words

that, in the case of ritual decrees that otherwise stand on equal testimonial grounds, later abrogates earlier. This method, in its widest application, was employed within and between all the aforementioned textual layers, and its source of legitimation is found in the Quran itself. Again, to quote Hallaq: Here abrogation (naskh) was unanimously held as one of the authoritative methods of dealing with contradictory texts. Just as Islam as a whole came to abrogate earlier religions without denying their legitimacy, abrogation among and between revealed Islamic texts was also admitted and in fact practiced, without this entailing the diminution of the status of the repealed texts as divine scripture. This method was specifically approved in Quran 2:106: “Such of Our Revelation as We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring [in place of it] one better or the like thereof.”54 In other words, the principle of abrogation originated, it would seem, within the Quran itself, in the context of the sometimes changing instructions of God to His Prophet, possibly in defense from external criticism, and was then extended to a whole variety of cases. Indeed, it is possible that already in Quran 2:106, Muhammad has a broader scope in mind, since this verse was revealed after a series of verses where Muhammad, among other things, abrogated many aspects of the Jewish Halakha.55 The quote from Hallaq represents the dominant Sunni position, and there were certainly other voices in Islamic jurisdiction. Indeed, Islam, like the Hindu traditions discussed in this book, produced not just a massive scriptural hermeneutics but also a vast library of theory of interpretation, where schools and sub-​schools had different opinions on a variety of questions, including naskh and its numerous varieties and applications. This extensive literature is obviously beyond the scope of our study, but we will provide here a few examples of naskh, some of which are relatively simple and consensual, 54. Wael B. Hallaq, Sharī’a: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 96. 55. John Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), pp. 180–​183, 208. Indeed, according to the textual analysis of Michael Cuypers, Quran 2:106 was not at all referring to other Quranic passages and only to earlier religions, and he shows that several modern Muslim scholars and reformists, especially from South Asia, have noted this original meaning of the quote. See Michael Cuypers, The Composition of the Qur’an: Rhetorical Analysis, trans. Jerry Ryan (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 160–​163.

23



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

23

while others are more complicated or contested, to give a flavor of the issues that arise in the application of this widely used method. Consider, to begin with, the relatively straightforward question of Islam’s take on alcohol consumption. It is widely known that Muslims are not allowed to drink, but the Quran itself actually presents more than one stance on this issue. In one place it says that believers should not pray while drunk (4:34), implying that drinking is permissible in other contexts, while in another, wine and gambling are prohibited categorically (5:90). Here there is wide agreement that the second injunction is chronologically later and hence cancels the earlier one.56 In the language of Islamic jurisprudence, the later verse is the abrogating instance (nāsīkh), and the earlier, the abrogated (mansūkh). Consider now a case that pertains to slaughtering procedures. In two places, the Quran decrees that meat can be consumed only if the name of God was uttered in the process of slaughtering the animal (6:118, 121), which would include meat bought from Jewish butchers but not from Christians; in another, it is specified that Muslims are allowed to consume meat slaughtered by both Jews and Christians (5:5). Here Sunni lawmakers decreed that the more inclusive instruction is later and abrogates the earlier, more restrictive version, whereas Shi’a lawmakers deny altogether the application of naskh to this case. They argue, instead, that Muslims should rely solely on Muslim butchers. This is because, for them, the injunction concerning the mention of the name of God stands valid (that is, is not abrogated), which means that consuming animals slaughtered by Christians remains prohibited, and because Jews and Christians are mentioned as a pair, the prohibition is applied to Jews by association. For Nurit Tsafrir, this is an example for how Muslim jurists had flexibility in deciding on whether or not to apply naskh based primarily on the desired conclusion.57 A more complicated example has to do with the question of short-​ term marriages known as muta’t al-​nisā’, which are permitted by Shi’as but prohibited by Sunnis. A possible scriptural origin for this practice, which allows men to enter sexual relationships with women for agreed-​upon brief periods of time in exchange for money and with no need for a divorce, is Quran 4:24, although Muslims disagree about the verse’s interpretation. 56. Meir Michael Bar-​Asher, “Exegesis of the Quran,” in Islam: History, Religion, Culture, ed. Meir Michael Bar-​Asher and Meir Hatina ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 2017), p. 178. 57. Nurit Tsafrir, “Islamic Shari’a,” In Islam: History, Religion, Culture, ed. Meir Michael Bar-​ Asher and Meir Hatina ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 2017), p. 229.

24

24

Fir st Words, L ast Words

Mainstream Shi’a jurists take this verse as legitimizing the practice, whereas most Sunni thinkers take it to enjoin normative marriages. Moreover, Sunnis believe that since the practice of muta’t al-​nisā’ was common in pre-​Islamic culture ( Jāhilīyah), it is susceptible to abrogation by the Quran, and given that the Quran has specific ordinances pertaining to marriage, these categorically cancel any such prior custom. The Shi’as, by contrast, hold the opposite view: for them, any pre-​Islamic custom is automatically abrogated unless specifically approved by the Quran, which is what they take 4:24 to do in the case of muta’t al-​nisā’. So, on the issue of temporary marriages, Sunnis believe naskh to be operative and Shi’as believe it to be blocked, thereby resulting in opposite legal results.58 There is a large library of discussions on naskh in the various schools of Muslim law, with many subtleties and an elaborate typology of abrogation. For instance, there are cases where the earlier ruling is abrogated but the wording is kept and continues to be recited. There are cases where abrogation results not only in the canceling of earlier injunctions but also in editing them out of the scripture, as in the case of Quranic passages that are said to have been elided and hence no longer extant. Then there are cases in which the wording is ruled out but the injunction is allowed to stay. Finally, on an altogether different level, there are cases of interscriptural abrogation, when the Quran cancels out contradictory rulings of the Torah and the Gospel.59 There is some disagreement as to how pervasive the practice of naskh is or should be. Some have estimated that up to 10% of the Quran’s verses have been abrogated, while others believe the number to be much smaller.60 There is also no unanimity as to whether or not ḥadīth can overrule verses from the Quran. More generally, while the use of naskh is old and dates back to the time of the Prophet and his immediate followers, it was, at least initially, not unanimously upheld. Thus Abū Muslim al-​Iṣfahānī (d. 934) denied altogether the

58. For discussion on the variety of sectarian positions on this question, see Noel J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964), pp. 110–​119; Joseph Witztum, “Q 4:24 Revisited,” Islamic Law and Society 16.1 (2009): 1–​33. For a book-​length study, see Arthur Gribetz, Strange Bedfellows: Mut‘at al-​nisā’ and Mut‘at al-​ḥajj, a Study Based on Sunni and Shi’ī Sources of Tafsīr, Ḥadith, and Fiqh, Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, Bd. 180 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1994). 59. For a good summary for the three basic modes of naskh in the Quran, see Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law, pp. 198–​205. For inter-​scriptural naskh, see pp. 180–​183, 208. 60. For such varying estimates, see Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law, pp. 184–​185.

25



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

25

possibility that naskh is operative in the Quran. Other rationalists belonging to the early Mu’tazilah school tried to minimize the importance of the ḥadīth literature, partly because of the many contradictions in it, and in their thought there was no scope for the use of ḥadīth to overrule the Quran.61 They and others also tried to minimize the use of naskh elsewhere by offering alternative means for harmonizing apparent contradictions. They argued, for example, that in some cases later verses do not necessarily block seemingly contradictory earlier statements but merely serve to narrow them down.62 This alternative criterion of specification (takhṣīṣ) has its parallels in the Talmud, as we have seen, and as shown below, it was also deployed in Vedic hermeneutics. But far more voices spoke in favor of Quranic abrogation and the ability of later scriptural statements, ḥadīth included, to abrogate either earlier scriptures or each other. Eventually, a widespread practice emerged of dating Quran and ḥadīth sources by textual analysis (especially in the case of the Quran) and by analyzing historical and biographical details (primarily in the ḥadīth). Relatively absent from such discussion is the theological problem pertaining to such repeated divine acts of abrogation. As noted by John Burton: Objections to the theory of naskh based on theological considerations such as “the changing of the divine mind” or “the growth of the divine knowledge” when used as counterarguments, since all were agreed that both were absurd, were rare and easily dealt with. God had known before imposing any obligation the precise duration He intended that obligation to have, the precise date on which the intended replacement regulation would be revealed, and the precise duration of its replacement, ad infinitum. As God’s knowledge is eternal, for Him, time is irrelevant. Time affects only men and it is only men who would suppose that when some divine regulation is revealed it is intended to endure.63

61. David S. Powers, Studies in Qur’an and Ḥadīth: The Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 143–​144. 62. Ibid., pp. 153–​156. For a similar distinction between blocking and narrowing down in Mīmāṃsā, see section 3.1. As we show, Vyāsatīrtha attacks this distinction, while Appayya Dīkṣita defends it (section 4.3). 63. Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law, p. 21.

26

26

Fir st Words, L ast Words

In short, the atemporality of God and His scripture was, by and large, not understood to contradict the constantly changing context of human beings, and every change in divine ordinances was seen as preordained.64 Let us conclude this discussion by emphasizing again that, despite differences on the scope of and degrees of enthusiasm regarding the use of naskh, Muslim thinkers were basically in full agreement about the underlying principle that a later revelation may abrogate an earlier one. Moreover, for Muslim thinkers, the principle of abrogation is always based on the forward axis of time. First, there simply are no cases where earlier revelation is said to abrogate a later one. Second, “later” is strictly defined as a function of chronology and never as a result of textual sequence. The Quran is primarily arranged by length, so that the longer sūras tend to appear at the beginning of the text, and shorter ones at the end. Thus the textual arrangement is dictated by a very different logic than the largely chronological framework of the Torah. Indeed, even within a given passage, it is sometimes assumed that the placement of verses or even smaller subunits is the result of editorial reassignment and does not reflect the context of their original revelatory moment.65 On a few rare occasions, the textual placement of a verse is cited in deciding the merits and demerits of applying naskh. But in making such claims, arguments about textual sequence are presented merely as corroborating a certain historical sequence and never as conclusive evidence.66 In short, in Islam later abrogates earlier, and later means chronologically subsequent. To conclude, the Abrahamic traditions offer a surprisingly cohesive answer to the question of sequence’s role in scriptural interpretation. To begin with, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all gave thought to the importance of sequence, although always as one tool for dealing with apparent contradictions

64. The theological question of divine will is mostly discussed under the topic of bada’ in Shi‘i Islam rather than under naskh, although sometimes the two are used as synonyms. For a discussion of the source of the term and its relationship with naskh, see Cemil Hakyemez, “Bada and Its Role in the Debates over Shi’i Doctrine,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 25.1 (2008): 20–​39. 65. For a study of synchronicity with diachronicity in Quranic passages, see Marianna Klar, “Text-​Critical Approaches to Sura Structure: Combining Synchronicity with Diachronicity in Sūrat al-​Baqara. Part One,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 19.1 (2017): 1–​38. 66. See, for instance, the objection Fakh al-​Dīn al-​Rāzī raised to viewing 2: 240 as abrogated by 2: 234, partly because “if it was revealed subsequently, then it is preferable that it should also be read subsequently, because this arrangement is better. As for the abrogating verse being read before the abrogated one, even if this were permissible in general, still, it is considered to be a poor arrangement, and the word of God must be freed from such defects to the extent possible.” Translation from Powers, Studies in Qur’an and Ḥadīth, p. 183.

27



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

27

among several in the hermeneutic toolkit, and although the relative importance of this one tool varies from religion to religion and from interpreter to interpreter. Second, where sequence was deemed relevant, it was always the later that was seen as overruling the earlier—​we were unable to identify even a single counterexample. Third, the relevant axis of sequence is almost always the order in which the text was revealed to human agents rather than the order in which the text was arranged. Basically, all three religions agree that God can update His instructions to His people(s) and that, despite the fact that God and (in most cases) His words exist outside time, the updated version of those words, which reflects the changing circumstances of the human world, supersedes prior teachings. Each of the traditions has its concerns about the scope and actual use of sequence—​which is sometimes rather minimal, as in the case of Judaism, and sometime quite vast, as in the case of Sunni Islam. Indeed, with every new religion there is also the question of applying this principle to its predecessors. Each later tradition wishes to incorporate the older while privileging its own revelation, especially in cases of contradiction. But as we have seen, even in the oldest strata what comes later is sometimes allowed to trump what comes earlier. This emphasis on the historical unfolding of revelation is entirely at odds with the way that scriptures were seen in the South Asian traditions dealt with in this book. As we noted, for all the participants in the debate we are about to chart, scripture is absolutely eternal, and there is no moment of historical revelation for it, in the sense that it is always already known to the community of Brahmins. That said, the sequential arrangement within the eternal text was seen as a relevant factor in interpretation for reasons that have to do with the cognitive processes involved in linguistic understanding. According to one view, the first bits of data received by the hearer of the text establish a pre-​understanding that shapes the hearer’s interpretation of sequentially (again, not historically) later portions of the text. Others hold that elements of the text heard later reshape or revise the hearer’s understanding of what was heard first. Actually, in the earlier stages of Vedic hermeneutics, this was at best a minor question, considered by only one school of interpreters, seen as relevant to only a handful of cases, and not at all regarded as controversial. That is to say, in early Mīmāṃsā, where sequence was first discussed, it was believed that when taken into consideration, sequence prioritizes earlier over later. It is only much later, starting in the fifteenth century, that this issue becomes a significant point of controversy and, indeed, a major site for innovation.

28

28

Fir st Words, L ast Words

1.3  The Basic Story This book sets out to chart the history of a controversy over the role of sequence in scriptural interpretation in South Asia. This debate took shape in the late medieval period with the work of the contrarian theologian Madhva (thirteenth century) but began in earnest only in the work of his defender Vyāsatīrtha (1460?–​1539). Indeed, the intense back and forth of arguments lasted only a couple of generations and more or less died out in the beginning of the seventeenth century. During its apex, however, it was a matter of intense dispute that not only produced a small flurry of polemical monographs but also became an area for major theoretical innovation. This debate, then, took place right at the dawn of Pollock’s age of “New Intellectuals” and hence provides an ideal case study for the examination of innovation in this world. Each of the participants in this debate presented himself as the defender of long-​established traditional doctrines. Yet, we will argue, each actually undermined, quite knowingly, those very doctrines and offered radically new theories of interpretation. In ­chapter 2, we lay out the prehistory of this controversy. We begin by exploring the early treatment of the question of sequence in Mīmāṃsā literature. While the issue of sequence is not even mentioned by the earliest extant Mīmāṃsā author, Jaimini (c. 200 bc), the precedence of earlier over later in cases of contradiction is articulated by his most important commentator, Śabara (fourth/​fifth century ad), and is invoked by him in a couple of interpretive decisions. His most influential commentator, Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (mid-​seventh century), while still treating sequential priority as a relatively minor issue, develops the most important argument for why earlier should be stronger than later, but he also recognizes that this principle may conflict with other hermeneutic guidelines and suggests ways in which such conflicts may be defused. We then examine the view of the sibling school of Vedānta. We show that for the eighth-​century founder of Nondualist Vedānta, Śaṅkara, sequential priority was not at all a factor. In fact, whenever he considers the significance of the beginning and ending portions of a passage for its overall interpretation—​using what become the standard terms “opening” (upakrama) and “closing” (upasaṃhāra)—​his emphasis is not on how one could overrule the other but on how harmony between them is one of several factors that direct the ideal reader toward the correct interpretation of the Veda. Finally, we show how Madhva (thirteenth century), who founded the Dualist school of Vedānta, introduced a sequential priority in which later overcomes earlier, seemingly by misreading or misrepresenting an earlier list of such factors

29



Newness in Scholastic Traditions

29

compiled by one of Śaṅkara’s important followers, Prakāśātman (tenth century?). With this provocative inversion, our debate begins in earnest. In ­chapter 3, we explore the first concentrated effort to theorize and defend Madhva’s inversion against the entire prior history of interpretive theory. The protagonist of this chapter is Vyāsatīrtha (1460?–​1539), the great architect of Dualist Vedānta as a major philosophical, social, and political movement under the auspices of the Vijayanagara Empire in the south of the Indian peninsula. Vyāsatīrtha sought to assemble the most persuasive possible and systematic defense of the power of the closing. As we show, he built his argument almost entirely out of existing Mīmāṃsā case law, gathering an array of acknowledged interpretive decisions in which, he argued, it was really the closing that was the deciding factor, despite the failure of earlier theorists to realize or acknowledge this fact. He also reexamined the cases traditionally thought to illustrate the power of the opening over the closing, demonstrating in each case that some interpretive criterion other than sequence really dictates the agreed-​upon conclusion. Thus, without actually challenging the existing interpretive conclusions of the entire Mīmāṃsā tradition, Vyāsatīrtha developed (or, in his mind, revealed) a “new math” that both upholds Madhva’s theory and explains a variety of old results. Chapter 4 features a direct response to Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments by his main opponent, Appayya Dīkṣita (1520–​1592), one of India’s most influential intellectuals in the sixteenth century. In the first monograph devoted entirely to the question of sequential priority, his Power of the Opening (Upakramaparākrama), Appayya begins by responding to Vyāsatīrtha’s case-​ law argument point by point, showing that each case Vyāsatīrtha presents as decided by the power of the closing is really decided by some other factor and that the traditional cases cited by Mīmāṃsā as showing the power of the opening cannot be similarly explained away. But Appayya then proceeds, as we will argue, to develop a new cognitive model of interpretation that is based on a set of hermeneutic (and sometimes psychological) needs, a model in which the sequential position of information plays hardly any part. Thus, while ostensibly defending the traditional position of Mīmāṃsā, Appayya’s analysis can be seen as undermining it, rendering the whole question of sequence moot. We believe that this is a clear example of his great innovativeness under a thin guise of traditionalism. Appayya is also the first to bring the debate back home to consideration of Vedānta interpretive cases, in addition to Mīmāṃsā ones. In doing so, we argue, he constructs for the first time a general defense of the entire body of existing Vedānta and Mīmāṃsā

30

30

Fir st Words, L ast Words

scholarship, with its numerous fissures and rivalries, leaving only the Dualists out in the cold. In ­chapter 5, we deal with the last major contribution to this debate, by Vijayīndratīrtha (1514–​1595), a contemporary of Appayya’s who wrote a direct rejoinder to his monograph. Vijayīndratīrtha, who was the grand-​pupil of Vyāsatīrtha, composed the Conquest of the Closing (Upasaṃhāravijaya), specifically in order to refute Appayya’s text point by point. But as we will show, he and his nominal nemesis had much more in common than either is prepared to acknowledge. Appayya, in his attack on Vyāsatīrtha, has already pioneered the technique of inverting any sequential interpretive principle that prioritizes the closing by showing that it “cuts both ways” and could just as easily be used to support the power of the opening. Vijayīndratīrtha adopts this technique from Appayya and turns it into his main mode of argumentation, showing that all of Appayya’s arguments can be made to work against him in the same way. In other words, he perhaps effectively defuses Appayya’s positive arguments for the power of the opening, but without decisively confirming his and Vyāsatīrtha’s counterposition. Moreover, using arguments already developed by Appayya, he maintains that any conflict between the opening and the closing can arise only after all parts of the text have been taken in and cognized, thereby rendering any interpretive principle based on textual sequence irrelevant. This method often puts Vijayīndratīrtha in the position of arguing not that he is definitively proven to be right but that he could just as well be right, despite any argument that could be marshaled against him. This leaves him, possibly by design, with a strong debater’s argument against his opponent, but with a weak and possibly insincere defense of his own position. This twist in the mode of argumentation gives Vijayīndratīrtha’s work a distinctly flippant tone, rarely seen in earlier Sanskrit scholastic thought. We begin the concluding chapter by surveying the petering out of the debate in seventeenth-​century India and speculating about the reasons for its decline. From here we return to the broad question of innovation, with which this book began, and put our story in the context of the New Intellectuals in South Asia and that of a few comparative case studies in order to present a broader survey of modes of novelty in scholastic traditions. As we will show, the rhetorical stance of traditionalism that masks substantive innovation which we find in our case study has significant parallels in other intellectual traditions, suggesting a larger pattern that may merit further investigation. The “oldness of the will” discussed above may be only a pretense, after all, and a new one at that.

31

2

The Origins of the Debate

How do we interpret a text? Do we process it bit by bit, starting with the first piece and adding new bits of information as we go, or do we have to wait for some unity to dawn on us all of sudden at some later point? Now, if in the course of reading we encounter an element that seems to conflict with one seen earlier, how do we harmonize them? We could, for example, decide to interpret the new bit so as to fit with what we already think we know. But we could also revise our earlier understanding in the light of the new information. In short, what is more important: the beginning or the end? Our book examines the way this question was approached by scriptural theorists in traditional and early modern India. More specifically, we focus on a particularly intense controversy that arose in the sixteenth century, during the period of great innovation we discussed in ­chapter 1, when representatives of different hermeneutic schools and writers belonging to rival sectarian theological persuasions suddenly came to see this question as a key focal point defining their positions against one another. Although the roots of the controversy, as we will show, extend back a thousand years or more before this period, this question was little discussed and was never a marker of significant scholastic divides until this period. When the topic comes into the spotlight, it becomes not only a stage for intersectarian polemics but also a site for substantive and highly original theoretical work. Old questions, we will see, give rise to fascinating new ways of seeing the world. In premodern South Asia, as in many civilizations, hermeneutics was most fully developed in connection with the interpretation of scripture. In the group of religious traditions that has come to be called Hinduism, the oldest and most respected body of scriptures consists of the Vedas, a highly complex set of texts orally composed and orally transmitted for thousands of years. During this long period, the Vedas were not only transmitted but First Words, Last Words. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197583470.003.0002

32

32

Fir st Words, L ast Words

were also the focus of intense intellectual work. The need to accurately preserve, interpret, and enact what were seen as the dictates of the Vedas was the driving force of classical Indian thought, giving rise, for example, to the most sophisticated linguistic science the world has known, at least up to the modern period (when Western scholars first discovered, adopted, and adapted the insights of the Sanskrit grammarians). The tradition of scriptural hermeneutics in this world developed primarily in two distinct streams, each with its own preferred textual focus and interpretive protocols. These came to be known as Mīmāṃsā (Desire to Think) and Vedānta (End of the Veda). Mīmāṃsā, the older of the two traditions, is concerned mainly with the interpretation of the earlier portions of the Vedic corpus, which are primarily dedicated to describing and prescribing a complex set of rituals, including domestic fire sacrifices and other household rites as well as highly elaborate public rituals that require great effort and expense and are normally performed by kings and other community leaders. It is important to understand that from the very beginning, Mīmāṃsā did not seek to provide a manual for the performance of rituals. This was the domain of a separate body of ritual sutras, and, as far as Mīmāṃsā was concerned, the actual, numerous details of ritual performance were well known and, with very rare exceptions, not in any way controversial. Instead, followers of Mīmāṃsā, or Mīmāṃsakas, sought to provide a theory of interpretation that would justify textually the already known sacrificial procedures. In other words, they tried to develop protocols that reliably show that the ritual in use is the result of the only right way to read the Veda. Vedānta, by contrast, is concerned with the interpretation of the Upanishads, that is, the texts that form the last layer of the Vedas and where there is a marked shift from ritual to the teachings of metaphysical and soteriological doctrines and of the mental exercises designed to internalize them in order to liberate oneself from worldly existence (ritual included). Followers of Vedānta, or Vedāntins, take the Upanishads to be primarily concerned with imparting factual knowledge about the macro-​and microcosmos, which knowledge is seen as a prerequisite for personal liberation. Unlike Mīmāṃsakas, different groups of Vedāntins actually do disagree widely about these facts. What they have in common, however, is a shared set of interpretive tools and principles derived primarily from Mīmāṃsā. Indeed, Vedāntins typically regard themselves as continuing and extending, but also surpassing and perfecting, the Mīmāṃsā system of hermeneutics. Many Vedāntins label their own tradition “Later Mīmāṃsā” (Uttara Mīmāṃsā) and refer to the

3



The Origins of the Debate

33

older sibling as “Earlier Mīmāṃsā” (Pūrva Mīmāṃsā), a label that was never adopted by the Mīmāṃsakas. Vedāntins believe that the Upanishads are the “end of the Veda” both in the sense that they are, sequentially speaking, the last portion of the scriptures and because they are seen as the culmination of the Vedas as a whole, subordinating and ultimately superseding the regime of ritual that encompasses everything from daily rites to public sacrifices and from birth to death. This does not mean, however, that Vedāntins believe that the Upanishads are historically later than the ritual portions of the Veda. In fact, like Mīmāṃsakas, they hold that the entire corpus of Vedic scripture is eternal and uncreated; that is, it is not the work of any historical agent, whether human or divine. In other words, for both these traditions, there never was, and never will be, a time when the Vedas did not already exist in exactly the form they exist now. Thus the dominant interpreters of the Vedas held them to be eternal and unchanging, which would seem to make sequence a nonissue in their reading protocols. The text itself is conceived as lying outside time, as we explained in ­chapter 1, so that notions of “earlier” and “later” between different portions of it, or even between parts of the same passage, should not apply. In this regard the dominant Vedic tradition contrasts with those religions that give their scriptures a historical origin and allow them to respond to and comment on historical events. As we saw in the previous chapter, the Abrahamic traditions have a very different approach to this question, closely bound up with the vision of scripture as revealed and unfolding within historical time and in response to ongoing events. Thus, the three traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, despite their many differences in the realm of interpretation, all allow for the updating or revision (and, in some cases, cancellation) of earlier scriptural commands by those revealed later. For the readers of the Veda, any such interpretive strategy was ruled out by the perceived atemporality of the scripture. Still, it could be argued that even if the Vedas are timeless, there is a temporal dimension to the narratives they contain. For example, throughout the Vedic corpus we hear the story of Indra, King of the Gods, and his victory over his great enemy, the demon Vṛtra, who is hoarding all the water in the universe. Does this mean that the Vedic passages describing this, in the past tense, could have been composed only after the battle ended? It would certainly seem so, although you could argue that this can also be a prediction of an event yet to occur. Alternatively, one could understand it as referring to a regularly recurring episode, which takes place in each world cycle. But the Mīmāṃsakas flatly deny the possibility that the eternal Veda can make

34

34

Fir st Words, L ast Words

reference to time-​bound events. They insist that all apparent narratives, including the account of Indra’s victory, are to be taken figuratively as conveying, in this example, praise of the greatness of Indra, to whom various offerings are dedicated. But even if a scripture somehow exists timelessly and free of sequence, it nevertheless consists of language, and language can be approached only sequentially, at least by ordinary humans who are bound by time. So the Vedas cannot be learned or memorized or recited all at once by any individual, nor can they be mentally processed other than in some sequence. More specifically, a Vedic passage (vākya), the basic expressive unit for both Mīmāṃsakas and Vedāntins, consists of phonemes, morphemes, words, and clauses that occur in a fixed order and that have to be processed as such. So we come back to our opening question, namely, how do we piece together the meaning of a Vedic passage as we go along? Do we allow the first pieces to preconfigure our vision of the meaning of the whole, interpreting later elements so as to fit this nascent understanding, or do wait until all the pieces are there before deciding how best to fit them together? The problems involved in actual interpretation are, however, more complex than this binary scheme seems to imply. This is not only because of the metaphysical problem already referred to, namely, that an eternal text nevertheless depends on the readers’ time axis in order to be intelligible.1 In fact, strictly speaking, there are no “readers” of the Veda, as tradition demands that the text be memorized whole without being committed to writing. Moreover, the traditional procedure of education requires the student to commit to memory the entire Vedic text of his tradition (Vedic instruction being restricted to males) at a very young age, before even beginning to investigate its meaning. This means that whenever one is seeking to make sense of any part of the text, one already knows all of the other parts, so that the beginning and the ending always coexist in one’s mind. A further complication is that the boundaries between Vedic passages are not at all indicated in the text and must be determined as one outcome of the interpretive process itself. Mīmāṃsakas—​here in the broader sense that includes most Vedāntins—​ define a unified passage as “that which is unified because it possesses a single 1. A version of the same problem is found in the influential work of the grammarian-​ philosopher Bhartṛhari (possibly sixth century ad), who famously argued that all language exists as a partless, sequenceless, and timeless unity but can be communicated to ordinary human consciousness only through the sequential manifestation of individual speech sounds. See K. Kunjunni Raja, Indian Theories of Meaning (Madras: Adyar Library and Research Centre, 1963), pp. 124–​129.

35



The Origins of the Debate

35

purpose and that, if divided, would be stand in need,” whether syntactically or semantically.2 But they also hold that individual passages must be grouped into higher-​order textual units and ultimately be construed into a handful of “superstatements” (mahāvākya), again based on their unity of purpose, without regard for their sequence. This is because in such superstatements, discontinuous elements are typically incorporated based on their meaning or function, not on their location in the text. As a consequence of all this, considerations of early and late in the Vedic text were initially of fairly little importance. In fact, the prioritization of one over the other is never discussed in the sutra texts that form the root of either the Mīmāṃsā or Vedānta traditions, and it is only gradually introduced in subsequent commentaries. In Mīmāṃsā, as we shall see, the principle that the beginning of a passage should have relatively greater weight in one’s interpretation is introduced in the earliest available commentary on the root text, but even there, this principle is invoked only on a couple of occasions. And in Vedānta, the question is never really raised, at least in this form, until much later, in the late medieval period. In this chapter we investigate the early roots of what would only later become a heated controversy in both disciplines.

2.1  The Question of Sequence in Early Mīmāṃsā The foundational text of the Mīmāṃsā tradition is the Mīmāṃsāsūtra (c. 200 bc), ascribed to the sage Jaimini. This work is a collection of more than two thousand brief and often cryptic aphorisms, organized, at least by later commentators, into twelve chapters. Each chapter covers, at least in theory, a particular topic in the interpretation of ritual injunctions. Subtopics within each chapter are usually organized as statements of a real or hypothetical opponent of the conclusion to be established, followed by the responses to these, which in turn lead to the establishment of that conclusion. Chapters typically begin with general theoretical points, for example, the predominance of verbs over nouns in interpreting ritual commands, or the overall supremacy of injunctive elements over descriptive or narrative passages. However, the bulk of the discussion in many of the chapters consists of an ad hoc treatment of individual exegetical problems resolved on a case-​by-​case basis.

2. MS 2.1.46. See also Lawrence McCrea, “The Hierarchical Organization of Language in Mīmāṃsā Interpretive Theory,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28 (2000): 433–​437.

36

36

Fir st Words, L ast Words

The basic terms of the debate we will be exploring in this book—​ “opening” (upakrama), that is, the initial portion of a passage, however defined, and “closing” (upasaṃhāra), namely, the final portion—​appear nowhere in the Mīmāṃsāsūtra. The earliest available commentary on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra is the Mīmāṃsāsūtrabhāṣya of Śabara (fourth/​fifth century ad). Śabara is aware of and responds to earlier commentators, but all of these works have been lost, and Śabara’s quickly becomes the undisputed basis for all later work in the field.3 For example, Śabara declares the meanings of numerous obscure terms in the sutras,4 sometimes rather arbitrarily, and virtually all later commentators accept his renderings uncritically. Likewise, Śabara systematically provides the Vedic citations that he takes to be implied by the sutras as the source of the exegetical problem at hand, understanding them to be examples of more general interpretive principles that apply to other cases as well. And here, too, the later tradition accepts without question his chosen citations as those intended by the sutras. It is in Śabara’s authoritative commentary that we first encounter the terms “opening” and “closing.” He is, moreover, the first to articulate the principle that will be discussed throughout the book as the Mīmāṃsā position, namely, that in cases of contradiction, the opening prevails over the closing in determining the import of a given passage. However, this principle is applied in only two interpretive cases out of about a thousand that are discussed in his work.5 Indeed, Śabara recognizes but rejects the wider potential application of this principle to other cases, but he does not articulate a clear criterion governing when this principle comes into play6 or, for that matter, give a rationale for its application: why should the opening be more powerful than the closing? The first Mīmāṃsaka to articulate such a rationale was Kumārila (mid-​ seventh century), who both comments on and (selectively) criticizes Śabara

3. For a discussion on how the Buddhist reaction to Śabara helped enshrine his commentary as the tradition’s foundational work, see Lawrence McCrea, “The Transformation of Mīmāṃsā in the Larger Context of Indian Philosophical Discourse,” in Historiography and Periodization of Indian Philosophy, ed. Eli Franco (Vienna: Publications of the De Nobili Research Library 37, 2013), pp. 127–​132. 4. Both the text as a whole and the individual aphorisms are named sutras in Sanskrit. 5. For cases where the opening determines the meaning of closing, see Śabara MSBh on MS 3.3.1–​8 and 3.4.30–​31, and our later discussion. 6. For a case in which this principle is rejected, see Śabara MSBh on MS 1.4.24.

37



The Origins of the Debate

37

in his Tantravārttika, a work that changed the course of philosophy in India.7 We will describe this rationale, briefly, without getting into a detailed discussion of the particular problems that pertain to the Vedic passages in question. (We will return to these later.) Kumārila sums up his basic reasoning as follows: “The only reason for any word to depart from its own natural meaning is a contradiction. And this contradiction can be recognized only once a second, contradictory element has been apprehended.”8 Here Kumārila implicitly, but very clearly, endorses the “piece-​by-​piece” interpretive strategy we mentioned earlier. When reading, he believes, we process each new bit of information as we go, so that when we come across the opening and cognize it, its “own natural meaning” stands unobstructed in our mind. There is, at this point, no other information that could conflict with this initially evident import. When, however, we continue to read, our interpretive freedom is progressively constrained by the hermeneutic decisions we have made along the way, so that if, when we get to the closing of the passage, we find there something that contradicts what we have already understood, this contradiction must be resolved by making the closing “depart from its own natural meaning” in conformity with the meaning already established by the opening. In addition to providing this basic rationale for Śabara’s unexplained preference for the opening over the closing, Kumārila carefully but briefly considers the universality of this principle. He does so by examining potential counterexamples from elsewhere in the by now established canon of Mīmāṃsā interpretive cases, and by considering competing criteria. One such alternative criterion is the principle that, in cases of contradiction, injunctions bear greater weight than narrative or descriptive elements. This principle is much more commonly invoked in Mīmāṃsā than that of sequence, and in the case that brought about Kumārila’s discussion in the first place, the two are in direct opposition: the opening is a description and the contradictory closing is an injunction. Here, Kumārila nevertheless believes that the opening prevails in determining the meaning of the passage, although without fully explaining

7. The Tantravārttika is a subcommentary on the first three chapters of Śabara’s commentary, except for the opening tarka, or “reasoning” section, which Kumārila commented on separately in his earlier Ślokavārttika. For more on Kumārila and his works, see Jean-​Marie Verpoorten, Mīmāṃsā Literature, in A History of Indian Literature, ed. Jan Gonda, vol. 6, fasc. 5 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz, 1987), pp. 22–​31. 8. Kumārila, Tantravārttika on MS 3.3.2 (MD, vol. 2, p. 806): sarvasyaiva hi śabdasya svārthātilaṅghane virodhaḥ kāraṇam. sa ca pratiyogini dṛṣṭe virodho vijñāyate. See also Lawrence McCrea, “Over When It’s Over: Vyāsatīrtha’s Hermeneutic Inversion,” Journal of Hindu Studies 8 (2015): 98–​99.

38

38

Fir st Words, L ast Words

why. Again, we will address this case later in more detail. Another, clearer criterion comes in the context of a counterexample cited by an imagined objector. The objector refers to another sutra where the explicit decision is that an earlier section of the Vedic text is overruled by a later one, pointing out that that decision contradicts the criterion just spelled out.9 In response, Kumārila explains that the principle of the power of the opening applies only within the boundaries of a passage whose parts are interdependent. However, when dealing with two independent textual units, the opposite is true: This is not so. The principle “later is stronger” is understood to apply only in cases where our cognitions arise independently of one another. After all, when we hear contradictory meanings that belong to different passages and are independent of one another, the “later is stronger” principle must apply because, while the earlier meaning can be fully realized without having to depose the later one, the later one cannot be fully realized without deposing the earlier. But in cases where we hear textual elements that depend on one another by virtue of constituting a single passage, this does not apply. After all, in those cases the unity of the passage is a function of mutual need: when one thing has been understood first from the early part of the passage it needs one of the following—​a later element that fits with it, or one that adds something extra.10 What Kumārila is offering here is a refined and circumscribed version of his already stated cognitive theory of piece-​by-​piece interpretation. Within the boundaries of a single coherent passage, each successive bit of information is processed when it arrives, which means that every new bit must be interpreted so as to fit with what we already know, diminishing our freedom to interpret as we go along. But once we have reached the boundary of such a self-​contained passage—​and obviously much depends on how we know this to be the case—​we start over, with full degrees of freedom. But there is a twist,

9. The reference is to the “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” discussed in section 3.4. 10. Kumārila, Tantravārttika on MS 3.3.2 (MD, vol. 2, p. 806): naitad evam. paurvāpāryabalīyastvaṃ tatra nāma pratīyate | anyonyanirapekṣāṇāṃ yatra janma dhiyāṃ bhavet || ye hi bhinnavākyagatāḥ parasparanirapekṣā virodhino ’rthāḥ śrūyante teṣāṃ pūrvasyottarānupamardenaiva labdhātmakatvād uttarasya pūrvopamardena vinātmalābhānupapatteḥ paurvāpāryabalīyastvanyāyo bhavati. yatra tv ekavākyatayā parasparāpekṣāṇāṃ śravaṇaṃ na tatraitad bhavati. tatra hy ākāṅkṣāvaśenaikavākyatā bhavati. pūrvapratīte cottaraṃ ātmānuguṇam adhikaṃ vākāṅkṣati.

39



The Origins of the Debate

39

in that if the overall meaning of a later coherent passage stands in contradiction with the meaning of an earlier coherent passage, then the latter must topple the earlier so that its own meaning can be fully understood (and in cases of injunctions, ritually enacted). Kumārila does not highlight this point, but bringing into the discussion the notions of independence and dependency of textual units, he introduces a new complication and imposes a new burden on the interpreter. Whenever encountering a new piece of text that does not cohere with what comes before, one must decide whether to interpret it as part of the same passage and adjust its meaning accordingly, or as forming the beginning of a new, independent passage, in which case its meaning does not need to be adjusted and may in fact turn out to form part of a passage that will overrule the earlier passage. To conclude, Kumārila attempts to provide a coherent and potentially broadly applicable rationale for Śabara’s prioritization of the opening over the closing, but he is also well aware that there are competing interpretative principles that have been formulated in connection with other cases, and he tries to establish criteria that govern which rule applies in any given case. In this he broadens the spectrum of relevant cases beyond what we find in Śabara, and it is clear that in his mind, Kumārila has considered all the relevant cases and settled this still relatively minor issue of interpretation. But precisely because of his nuanced mode of argumentation, Kumārila has provided ample ammunition for both sides in the debate that was to come. He does this by providing additional examples where the opening prevails and potential counterexamples where the closing appears to determine the overall sense of the passage. As we will see, both of these will be taken up by later disputants on both sides of the debate. Nonetheless, up until the sixteenth century, authors within the Mīmāṃsā tradition found little to add to Kumārila’s account of the greater power of the opening, and nothing to dispute in it. This includes Prabhākara (late seventh century), Kumārila’s near-​contemporary and main rival.11 The followers of Kumārila and Prabhākara who came to constitute the two major subschools of Mīmāṃsā disagree on many points of interpretive theory, but the priority 11. Prabhākara’s explanation of Śabara’s position on MS 3.3.1–​8 does not explicitly restate Kumārila’s theory but does echo his ideas. For him, “when a word-​meaning is cognized in the opening, all that is required from closing is an awareness that further specifies it, but not any other meaning that contradicts it” (Prabhākara, Bṛhatī on MS 3.3.1–​8, part 4, ed. S. Subrahmanya Sastri [Madras: Madras University Sanskrit Series 25, 1964], pp. 748–​ 749: upakrame yaḥ padārthaḥ parijñāto bhavati, tadviśeṣapratipattir eva kevalam upasaṃhārād apekṣyate; na punas tadvirodhy arthāntaram).

40

40

Fir st Words, L ast Words

of the opening over the closing is not one of them. In fact, as far as we know, no one within the Mīmāṃsā tradition ever argued for the opposite view, namely, that the closing outweighs the opening. For such an opinion we must turn to the sibling discipline of Vedānta.

2.2  The Question of Sequence in Early Vedānta But here, too, it would take a long time for any interest in or controversy concerning sequence to arise, and even then, this seems to happen almost by mistake. Vedānta has its own foundational treatise, the Brahmasūtra (first century ad?), ascribed to Bādarāyaṇa, which also consists of brief aphorisms. As already noted, Vedānta is principally concerned with extracting a coherent meaning from the Upanishads, and the Brahmasūtra, like the Mīmāṃsāsūtra, provides a case-​by-​case interpretation of specific Vedic passages. But rather than seeking clear ritual commands, it looks to find a unified doctrine that has as its focal point brahman: the supreme soul, cause of the world, and ultimate cosmological principle. Opinions among later commentators differ considerably about the nature of brahman. Some hold it to be identical to the universe itself, regarding all apparent division, including that between matter and consciousness, as well as between brahman and individual souls, as ultimately illusory. These came to be known as the Nondualist (Advaita) Vedāntins. A second group holds that the entire created universe, conscious and unconscious alike, constitutes the body of brahman, and that therefore that body is part of, but not identical with, the supreme soul, or God, identified in this case as Vishnu. These were known as Qualified Nondualist (Viśiṣṭādvaitin) Vedāntins. Others believed in a complete ontological dualism between brahman/​God (again, Vishnu) and the world of his creation. These are the Dualist (Dvaita) Vedāntins. The founders of each of these schools composed rival commentaries on the Brahmasūtra as well on other key texts of scriptural status. Unlike the Mīmāṃsāsūtra, the Brahmasūtra does, on rare occasions, employ our key terms of “opening” and “closing,” but never in connection with each other and without any consideration of their relative weight. In fact, each term is used in its sense of textual-​sequential position only once,12 thus indicating that for early Vedāntins as well, sequence, while noticed, was not a major factor in interpretation. The earliest available commentary 12. See BS 1.4.9 for upakrama and 3.4.47 for upasaṃhāra. For cases where these terms are used in different senses, see also BS 4.2.7 (upakrama) and 2.1.24 and 3.3.5 (upasaṃhāra).

41



The Origins of the Debate

41

on the Brahmasūtra is the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya of Śaṅkara (c. 700 ad), founder of the Nondualist school. This commentary, one of the most celebrated works in the history of Indian philosophy, sets the standard for later works in the field and at the same time becomes the main object of hostile rejoinders from the proponents of the rival schools. Śaṅkara does use the terms “opening” and “closing” rather frequently, far more than Kumārila in Mīmāṃsā, for example. But unlike Kumārila, Śaṅkara never acknowledges situations in which the opening and the closing conflict with one another, forcing the reader to decide which is stronger. He sometimes relies on one or the other to determine the sense of the passage but, in fact, he very often takes them to be coordinate indicators and refers to them as a pair.13 That is to say, if the opening and the closing of a passage make the same point, then, according to Śaṅkara, one can confidently assume that this is the point of the entire passage. For Śaṅkara, the harmony between the two is one of several tools that guide readers in their search for coherence within a passage. Śaṅkara’s disinterest in sequence and his tendency to treat the opening and the closing as coordinate, rather than conflicting, indicators is strongly confirmed by his follower Prakāśātman (tenth century?), who was the first to attempt a systematic catalog of Śaṅkara’s basic hermeneutic tools. Prakāśātman comes up with a list of six “indicators of purport” (tātparyaliṅga), the very first of which is “the unity of the opening and closing” (upakramopasaṃhāraikarūpya), or sometimes simply “opening and closing” in the dual (upakramopasaṃhārau). The other five indicators listed are “repetition” (abhyāsa), that is, when a meaning element is repeated several times within a passage, thus indicating that this is its main topic; “newness” (apūrvatā), that is, the special importance of new information not already known from elsewhere in the text to determine its overall sense; “result” (phala), that is, the special importance of text elements that provide beneficial results for their knowers or performers; “declarative portion” (arthavāda), often of a descriptive, eulogistic, or narrative nature, that reinforces the meaning of the main, typically injunctive portion; and finally, “plausibility” (upapatti)—​a meaning that makes good sense is always preferable to one that doesn’t.

13. For examples where the two are mentioned separately, each in support of some reading of a passage, see ŚBSBh 1.4.16 and 1.4.19 (upakrama); ŚBSBh 1.4.22 and 2.3.40 (upasaṃhāra). For cases where the two are paired in a compound, see, for example, ŚBSBh 1.1.31 and 1.3.42.

42

42

Fir st Words, L ast Words

This list of six indicators, in exactly this order, recurs in all three of Prakāśātman’s known works and occurs nowhere earlier.14 It thus seems that this list of factors was his own creation and something he tried to promote. Indeed, after Prakāśātman’s time, the list of six “purport indicators” becomes standard, originally among Nondualist Vedāntins but later among other Vedānta schools as well. In fact the list gets summed up in the following, oft-​ cited verse: Opening and closing, repetition, newness, result, declarative portions, and plausibility—​ in deciding the purport of a passage, these are the indicators.15 The complete verse does not appear in any of Prakāśātman’s three works, but the first three-​quarters of it (containing all six indicators) is found in his Śābdanirṇaya, where the last quarter is different.16 The full verse is found in Akhaṇḍānanda’s (fourteenth century?) subcommentary on Prakāśātman’s Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, where it is cited as a mnemonic “summary verse” (saṅgrahaśloka), encapsulating Prakāśātman’s view.17 Another early citation is in the Brahmasūtra commentary of Śrīkaṇṭha (thirteenth century?), who founded a new Vedānta school that identifies brahman with the god Shiva.18 We do not know who first composed this verse—​whether it was Prakāśātman himself in a work that is no longer extant, or someone who commented on or summarized his work—​but in

14. See Prakāśātman, Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, ed. S. Subrahmanyaśāstri (Varanasi: Shri Dakshinamurti Math, 2009), pp. 572–​574; Prakāśātman, Śābdanirṇaya, ed. T. Ganapati Sastri (Trivandrum: Trivandrum Sanskrit Series 53, 1917), pp. 69–​70; Prakāśātman, “Śārīrakanyāya-​ saṅgraha,” ed. T. R. Chintamani, Journal of Oriental Research Madras 1 (1937): 4–​5. 15. upakramopasaṃhārāv abhyāso ’pūrvatā phalam | arthavādopapattī ca liṅgaṃ tātparyanirṇaye ||. See Akhaṇḍānanda, Tattvadīpana, in Prakāśātman, Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, p. 575; Śrīkaṇṭha, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1908), vol. 1, p. 178. 16. Prakāśātman, Śābdanirṇaya, p. 69: upakramopasaṃhārāv abhyāso ’pūrvatā phalam | arthavādopapattī ca yato jīvas tataḥ paraḥ ||. The last quarter of the verse indicates the ultimate conclusion to be drawn from these six indicators, namely, that the individual soul (jīva) and the supreme (para) soul, i.e., brahman, are identical. 17. Akhaṇḍānanda, Tattvadīpana, p. 575. 18. Śrīkaṇṭha, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, vol. 1, p. 178. For a discussion of Śrīkaṇṭha’s role as the founder of a new school of Vedānta, see Lawrence McCrea, “Appayyadīkṣita’s Invention of Śrīkaṇṭha’s Vedānta,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 81–​94.

43



The Origins of the Debate

43

any case, the verse was definitely in circulation by the time of Śrīkaṇṭha and Akhaṇḍānanda.19 A basically similar understanding of the role of opening and closing can be seen in the Brahmasūtra commentary of Rāmānuja (eleventh century), founder of the Qualified Nondualist tradition. Rāmānuja uses both terms frequently, often taking just one of them to support a particular interpretation, and sometimes also adding “middle” (madhya) as a third sequential term that can be taken into consideration, in addition to “opening” and “closing.”20 As with Śaṅkara, however, his overriding concern is to find harmony between beginning, middle, and end. Thus he often uses “opening” and “closing” in the dual,21 as Śaṅkara does, and they are never seen to be in contradiction; hence there is no reason to consider which of the two is stronger. In two cases, Rāmānuja considers the views of hypothetical opponents who wish to make the opening dictate the reading of the later portions (possibly reflecting an awareness of the Mīmāṃsā position), but in both cases he concludes that this procedure is unnecessary, as the opening and closing are in harmony.22 In another case he points to what appears to be a direct contradiction between opening and closing, but he concludes that there is no conflict, and therefore that neither overrules the other.23 Rāmānuja also uses the term “indicator” (liṅga) in the context of both opening and closing and is clearly aware of some of the other indicators on Prakāśātman’s list, and although the list itself is not reproduced in his commentary, his own commentator, Sudarśanasūri (thirteenth century), refers to the “sixfold indicator of purport” as something already established.24 Finally, at one point, Rāmānuja suggests that when the opening and the closing concur, other indicators have to be interpreted in a way that will comply with them. This is the first time we hear of a hierarchy

19. Much of the history of this verse has been traced by T. R. Chintamani in “The Date of Śrīkaṇṭha and His Brahmamīmāṃsā,” Journal of Oriental Research Madras 1 (1927): 68–​69. 20. For examples of a reference to the “middle” in addition to opening and closing, see Rāmānuja, Śrībhāṣya, ed. Vasudev Shastri Abhyankar (Bombay: Bombay Sanskrit and Prakrit Series 68, 1914) on BS 1.4.17, p. 369, and on BS 1.4.19, p. 372. 21. Cases where Rāmānuja uses the two in the dual include Rāmānuja, Śrībhāṣya, on BS 3.2.3, p. 584, and on BS 3.3.18, p. 629. 22. See Rāmānuja, Śrībhāṣya, on BS 1.1.30, pp. 227–​228, and on BS 3.3.55, pp. 670–​672. 23. Rāmānuja, Śrībhāṣya, on BS 4.1.1, pp. 713–​714. 24. Sudarśanasūri, Śrutaprakāśikā, on Rāmānuja, Śrībhāṣya, on BS 1.1.1, vol. 1, p. 186; 2.3.42, vol. 2, p. 380 (as an established position of the Nondualists); and 3.3.39, vol. 2, p. 509 (here he only refers to several of the indicators).

4

44

Fir st Words, L ast Words

among the “indicators of purport,” and we should note that the place of honor is given to the first item on Prakāśātman’s list, the pair of “opening and closing.”25 To recapitulate, there is a widespread consensus in Vedānta up until around the thirteenth century that reading the Upanishads entails identifying their underlying textual harmony, both within and between passages. Early Vedāntins, in other words, believe that the scripture is coherent, and finding the text’s coherence is the key to determining its message. Sequence, however, does figure in their reading protocols, and there is certainly no acknowledgment of any possible contradiction between the opening and the closing of a given passage. The notion that the opening predominates over the closing is either not considered at all or rejected. Sequential information processing of the kind we saw in Kumārila is nowhere to be seen: there is no notion that the order in which we, as readers, become aware of parts of a text should play any role in shaping our interpretation. Moreover, Prakāśātman’s list of six “indicators of purport” was widely known and uncontested, and nobody, with the possible exception of Rāmānuja, saw any reason to rank them, precisely because of the assumption of overall textual harmony. All this would suddenly change with Madhva (thirteenth century), founder of the Dualist Vedānta school.

2.3  Madhva Opens the Debate and Opts for the “Closing” A Tulu Brahmin from the region of Udipi in the coastal region of the modern state of Karnataka, Madhva was both the leader of a popular religious movement and a scholar of Vedānta. While originally his following was mostly local, over time, and especially in the sixteenth century and after, it spread widely and increased in influence transregionally. Madhva saw himself as an avatar of the wind god Vāyu and a reincarnation of Hanūmān and Bhīma, both of whom are said to have been the sons of this god (and the former, a famous devotee of Vishnu in his form as Rama). As already stated, his Dualist doctrine stressed the complete ontological separation between God and the world: God creates and controls the world and is highly accessible to his devotees, but He is in no way identical with it or them.

25. Rāmānuja, Śrībhāṣya, on BS 1.4.17, p. 369.

45



The Origins of the Debate

45

Madhva was a prolific writer who composed many works of different kinds: several commentaries on the Brahmasūtra; commentaries on the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita; focused monographs on epistemology, ontology, and debate theory; as well as popular devotional poetry, manuals for daily ritual, and so on. In his scholarly works Madhva radically departs from many accepted views and conventional writing practices. The great twentieth-​century historian of Dualist Vedānta B. N. K. Sharma characterized his works as “written in a plain unsophisticated style, without any ornament and flourish,” “characterized by an extreme brevity of expression and a rugged simplicity and directness,” and, indeed, “so terse and elliptical that their meaning could not be fully grasped without a good commentary.”26 One very prominent feature of Madhva’s commentarial works is the great variety of scriptural and other textual sources he marshals as evidence for his views. Many of the works he quotes are unknown from any other source, and many of the citations from known works are not traceable in any extant version. In fact, several scholars, both premodern and modern, have accused him of fabricating many of his quotations.27 One of the problematic citations in Madhva’s corpus bears directly on the topic of this book. It is in fact the very verse summarizing Prakāśātman’s six “indicators of purport” discussed earlier. Madhva quotes this verse verbatim in his Bhāṣya, his most extended prose commentary on the Brahmasūtra. The quotation occurs in his discussion of BS 1.1.4, the very same sutra in connection with which Prakāśātman first promulgated his list. However, he names the source of this by now famous verse as the Bṛhatsamhitā, one of the untraceable works listed by Roque Mesquita in his analysis of Madhva’s unknown literary sources.28 Madhva’s ascription of the verse to this text is unique, as is his understanding of the application of the indicators to the Upanishads: the purport he derives through them is novel and entirely sectarian, namely, that

26. B. N. K. Sharma, A History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and Its Literature (Bombay: Booksellers’ Publishing Company, 1960), vol. 1, pp. 109–​110. 27. Appayya Dīkṣita, Madhvatantramukhamardana, ed. V. G. Apte, Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 113 (Pune: Anandashrama Press, 1940), verses 2–​3 with autocommentary, pp. 5–​12; Mesquita, Madhva’s Unknown Literary Sources: Some Observations (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000); Mesquita, Madhva’s Quotes from the Purāṇas and the Mahābhārata: An Analytical Compilation of Untraceable Source-​Quotations in Madhva’s Works along with Footnotes (Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2008). Sharma himself had earlier discussed this issue, defending the authenticity of Madhva’s quotations (Sharma, History of the Dvaita School, vol. 1, pp. 112–​116). 28. Mesquita, Madhva’s Unknown Literary Sources, pp. 100–​101n179.

46

46

Fir st Words, L ast Words

it is Vishnu and not any other being that these scriptural texts are all about. Still, the list of indicators itself is given no special treatment in this passage.29 It is in Madhva’s verse commentary on the Brahmasūtra, the Anuvyākhyāna, that we first see a significant innovation in his understanding of the indicators themselves. Here he claims for the first time that the list of indicators is given in a specific order of rank: “Out of the group of indicators beginning with ‘opening,’ after all, each later one is stronger.”30 The motivation for arguing for this unprecedented ranking seems to be driven by a concern for only the last step in his hierarchy, namely, that “plausibility” is stronger than any of the other indicators. The context is an argument against the Nondualists’ position of the unity of subject and object, which for Madhva is paradoxical and implausible. Just leading into the earlier quote he says, with his rivals in mind, “One cannot understand the meaning of a passage if it lacks ‘plausibility.’”31 Note that the idea of a hierarchical ranking of such lists of hermeneutic principles is not unprecedented. Mīmāṃsā, for example, has its own list of six indicators of relations between ritual elements, and this list, as explicitly indicated in the Mīmāṃsāsūtra itself, goes in the opposite order, from strongest to weakest. Madhva himself makes mention of this list in this connection and notes the contrasting principles of rank order.32 While Madhva is primarily concerned with “plausibility,” the last and hence strongest of the indicators, he casually imposes a ranking order on the entire list without apparently giving much thought to the implications. Moreover, there is a second and less obvious departure here from the consensus understanding of the list: Madhva refers to “the group of indicators beginning with ‘opening,’” not to “the group beginning with ‘opening and closing.’” As will become clear later, Madhva has split what for all his predecessors was a single indicator, “opening and closing,” into two, “opening” and “closing,” and, in doing so, has implied a hierarchy between them, according to which the latter is stronger than the former. He has thereby created, perhaps inadvertently, a conflict with the established Mīmāṃsā position that “opening” overrules “closing” in cases of contradiction.

29. MBSBh on BS 1.1.4, vol. 2, pp. 2–​4. 30. Madhva, Brahmasūtrānuvyākhyānam, ed. K. T. Pandurangi (Bangalore: n.p., n.d.): upakramādiliṅgānāṃ balīyo hy uttarottaram (1600cd=3.4.181ab, p. 285). 31. Ibid.: upapattivihīnasya vākyasyārtho na gamyate (1600ab=3.4.180cd, p. 285). 32. See ibid.: śrutyādau pūrvapūrvaṃ ca brahmatarkavinirṇayāt (1601ab=3.4.181cd, p. 285); see also MS 3.3.14.

47



The Origins of the Debate

47

Things get even more complicated in Madhva’s monograph on epistemology, the Pramāṇalakṣaṇa. Here, Madhva lists the indicators as follows: “ ‘Opening,’ ‘closing,’ ‘uniformity thereof,’ ‘repetition,’ ‘newness,’ ‘result,’ and ‘declarative portion’ are specific types of ‘plausibility.’ All these, together with ‘plausibility’ more generally, are the indicators.”33 So Madhva has now expanded the original list of six to eight by separating “opening and closing” and subordinating them to their uniformity, which up until now was understood to be the first in a list of six indicators. Of course, the main crux of this statement is to reinforce the supremacy of the final element, “plausibility,” by presenting all the lesser ones as subtypes of this king of indicators. Madhva includes all these indicators under the broader heading of “inference” (anumāna), which may lead us to conclude that this discussion is more about rational arguments concerning the meaning of the text than about the cognitive processes that take place in the reader’s mind. But in yet another commentary on the Brahmasūtra, his brief prose Nyāyavivaraṇa, he grounds his new understanding of “opening” and “closing” in an observation about the reader’s cognition. Madhva explains his position as follows: It is impossible for the “closing” to contradict the “opening.” Precisely in order to ensure that the “opening” is authoritative, one must accept that it conforms to the “closing,” because the commentary has to be later. Even if the “closing” must also be in conformity with the “opening,” it is only through the “closing” that we know what the “opening” means.34 Here Madhva for the first and only time explicitly theorizes the relation of the indicators on the weakest end of the scale. Unlike his fellow Vedāntins, Madhva accepts that the two can give contrary indications, and he insists that harmony between them must be achieved, but always by making the “opening” conform to the “closing” rather than the other way around. The

33. Madhva, Pramāṇalakṣaṇa, in Sarvamūlagrantha, ed. Vyasanakere Prabhanjanacharya, 7 vols. (Bangalore: Sri Vyasamadhwa Seva Pratisthana, 1999): upakramopasamḥāratadaikarūpy-​ ābhyāsāpūrvatāphalārthavādaś copapattiviśeṣāḥ. ta eva sopapattayo liṅgāni (vol. 7, p. 1). 34. Madhva, Nyāyavivaraṇa, ed. Ālūru Vāmanācārya (Bangalore: Dvaitavedāntapratiṣṭhā­ nam, 2001), on BS. 3.1.5: upakramavirodhenopasaṃhārānupapatteḥ. upakramaprāmāṇyārtham evopasaṃhārānusāritvam aṅgīkāryam, vyākhānasya paścāttanatvaniyamāt. upakramānu­ sāritvaniyame ’py upasaṃhārasyopasaṃhāreṇaivopakramārtho jñāyate (p. 160).

48

48

Fir st Words, L ast Words

“closing,” because it comes later, acts as a commentary on the “opening” that tells us what it must have meant. Of course, there are other ways of understanding the relationship between a root text and its commentary, but for Madhva this assertion is unproblematic and needs no further explanation. In explaining things this way, Madhva has set forth a model of information processing that is directly contrary to the one advanced by Kumārila. According to Kumārila, the reader processes new data piece by piece as it arrives, and each new piece must be made to fit with the already assembled ones. But in Madhva’s view, each new piece of information forces a reinterpretation of all that has come before. The closing has the last word. Both Madhva and Kumārila believed that sequence matters in interpretation, but they drew diametrically opposite conclusions about its operation. Despite the fact that Madhva’s position directly inverts Kumārila’s, he himself takes no notice of this fact, nor do any of his early commentators. Moreover, these innovations in interpretive theory drew no attention outside the circle of Madhva’s own followers. It was only in the sixteenth century that this situation would change due to the efforts of the great Dualist intellectual Vyāsatīrtha, who was the first to systematically think through the contradictions between the Dualist position and that of the Mīmāṃsakas and their implications, and who thereby forced rival traditions to pay attention.

49

3

The New Math Vyāsatīrtha’s Rewriting of Mīmāṃsā’s Case Law

Vyāsatīrtha (1460?–​1 539) was the key figure in the sudden rise of the Dualists to political power and intellectual prestige. He was the first representative of Madhva’s sect to play a major role in the court of Vijayanagara, which during his lifetime was the most powerful city-​state in India and one of the biggest and richest cities in the world. Located on the southern banks of the Tungabhadra River in central India, Vijayanagara, at its height, controlled India’s southern peninsula, the Deccan, and both the Orissan and the Maharashtrian coasts. Vyāsatīrtha was active at the Vijayanagara court from 1499 until his death in 1539, under the reign of several different kings, most notably Kṛṣṇadevarāya (r. 1509–​1529), whose rule marked the peak of the kingdom’s territorial extant and cultural efflorescence and who was known for his literary as well as his military exploits.1 Vyāsatīrtha was reported, at least by Madhva’s followers, to have been this king’s personal guru, and his later biographers even claim that he briefly ruled the kingdom for Kṛṣṇadevarāya during an astronomically ominous period.2 1. For a good study of Vijayanagara’s military expansion under Kṛṣṇadevarāya, see Burton Stein, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 1.2: Vijayanagara (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 47–​67. For a recent in-​depth analysis of his main literary work, the Āmuktamālyada, see Ilanit Loewy Shacham, “Kṛṣṇadevarāya’s Āmuktamālyada and the Narration of a Śrīvaiṣṇava Community,” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2015. 2. For Vyāsatīrtha’s ties with Kṛṣṇadevarāya and his possible position as this king’s personal guru, see Valerie Stoker, “Polemics and Patronage in Sixteenth-​Century Vijayanagara: Vyāsatīrtha and the Dynamics of Hindu Sectarian Relations,” History of Religions 51.2 (2011): 132. For the story of his purported period of rule, see Valerie Stoker, Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory: Vyāsatīrtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-​Century Vijayanagara Court (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), pp. 28–​29. First Words, Last Words. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197583470.003.0003

50

50

Fir st Words, L ast Words

Whatever the truth of these sectarian accounts may be, it is clear, and official inscriptional documents confirm this, that the Madhvaite community under his direct leadership was the recipient of abundant patronage from the court under Kṛṣṇadevarāya. This patronage included ample financial support for the Dualists’ monastic institutions, or maṭhas, which were key political, economic, and social, as well as religious and intellectual, institutions in India in this period, and, through them, to various public projects such as irrigation and education initiatives, often led by Vyāsatīrtha himself.3 Moreover, the Dualist maṭhas were given a foothold in the control and operation of major temples, and in particular Tirupati, which during this period began its meteoric ascendency to becoming India’s richest temple, a status it still holds today. It was around this time that the Vijayanagara kings made a dramatic shift, from emphasizing the patronage of Shiva worship to concentrating on that of the followers of Vishnu, and in this context, they, and Kṛṣṇadevarāya in particular, developed a close relationship with Vishnu temples throughout the South and Tirupati most importantly.4 Tirupati was already under the sway of another Vaishnava sect, the Qualified Nondualist Śrīvaiṣṇavas, who also received abundant patronage from Kṛṣṇadevarāya’s court. The Dualists, who had no previous role in the administration of this temple, were now given partial control and were put in charge of managing and distributing a significant portion of the vast resources flowing from the court to this and similar temples. This greatly altered the balance of power between the Madhvaites and the Śrīvaiṣṇavas, making the former a power that had to be reckoned with and forcing the latter to cooperate with it.5 The Dualists were also becoming an intellectual power to be reckoned with, and again, this was largely the result of Vyāsatīrtha’s efforts. He wrote prolifically and on a wide range of topics and in more than one language—​ in addition to his many scholarly works in Sanskrit, he is also credited with devotional poetry in Kannada, the language of his native region6—​always maintaining a consistent identity as a Madhvaite but engaging in detailed 3. See Valerie Stoker, “Darbār, Maṭha, Devasthānam: The Politics of Intellectual Commitment and Religious Organization in Sixteenth-​ Century South India,” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 134–​135; Stoker, “Polemics and Patronage in Sixteenth-​Century Vijayanagara,” pp. 150–​151. 4. For Vijayanagara’s shift to Vaishnavism and the ascendency of Tirupati, see Ajay Rao, “A New Perspective on the Royal Rāma Cult at Vijayanagara,” in South Asian Texts in History: Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock, ed. Yigal Bronner, Whitney Cox, and Lawrence McCrea (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 2011), pp. 30–​31. 5. See Stoker, Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory, pp. 73–​105. 6. Stoker, “Polemics and Patronage in Sixteenth-​Century Vijayanagara,” pp. 148–​149.

51



The New Math

51

and erudite study of logic, linguistics, hermeneutics, and ontology. Put differently, while always writing as a representative of Dualist Vedānta, he was a well-​informed and versatile scholar in most of the classical disciplines. In his exacting critiques of Mīmāṃsā and Nondualist Vedānta, he shows himself to be more deeply versed in these fields than many of their own proponents.7 His Sanskrit works include direct commentaries and subcommentaries on Madhva’s works as well as independent treatises, also devoted to defending the Madhva position. His three most important works are the Moonlight on Intentionality (Tātparyacandrikā), a commentary on Jayatīrtha’s fourteenth-​century commentary on Madhva’s Brahmasūtrabhāṣya; the Nectar of Logic (Nyāyāmṛta), an exhaustive polemic against the Nondualist Vedāntins; and the Apocalyptic Dance of Reason (Tarkatāṇḍava), a treatise exploring in depth issues in logic and hermeneutics relevant to Madhva’s system. In these works he uses his encyclopedic knowledge of all the major disciplines of classical Indian thought to great polemical effect. More specifically, whereas Madhva’s works, as noted, are often highly terse and elliptical and his arguments are not always fully fleshed out, Vyāsatīrtha systematically strives to expand and support Madhva’s assertions by a thorough and often historically nuanced study of all potentially contrary positions in other schools of thought. By engaging in such detail with rival intellectual traditions, as well as by virtue of his prominent political position, Vyāsatīrtha drew serious attention to the challenge posed by Dualist Vedānta, often for the very first time. Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of the question of “opening” and “closing” is a good example of all of these tendencies. In his two main engagements with this issue, his Moonlight on Intentionality on BS 1.1.4 and a chapter of his Apocalyptic Dance of Reason, he provides the careful case-​by-​case analysis of the consequences of Madhva’s inversion that Madhva and his earlier commentators never thought necessary. In doing so, Vyāsatīrtha becomes the first to take notice of Madhva’s new hermeneutic and its opposition to the standard Mīmāṃsā one, and he not only argues for the superiority of Madhva’s position but actually attempts to show that the Mīmāṃsakas’ own conclusions could be best supported if they adopted Madhva’s new hierarchy. In fact, in both treatments he writes primarily as a Mīmāṃsaka or, at the very least, blurs the line between Vedānta and Mīmāṃsā.

7. Lawrence McCrea, “Freed by the Weight of History: Polemic and Doxography in Sixteenth Century Vedānta,” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 89–​97.

52

52

Fir st Words, L ast Words

A crucial feature of Vyāsatīrtha’s argument with the Mīmāṃsakas is that he is not seeking to overturn any of their established conclusions regarding ritual procedure. Like the Mīmāṃsakas themselves, in fact, Vyāsatīrtha presupposes that the currently accepted ritual procedure is correct and authorized by scripture. What he seeks to provide instead is an alternative interpretive theory that justifies the already known conclusions, and he argues that Madhva’s new position is better suited to achieve this justification than the long-​accepted Mīmāṃsā view. In other words, Vyāsatīrtha is trying to substitute a new method of calculation while seeking to arrive at the very same results: he is providing a “new math” that will effectively justify, in his eyes for the first time, the already known outcomes. He is, in effect, claiming to be a better Mīmāṃsaka than the Mīmāṃsakas themselves. It is presumably for this reason that, unlike the treatment of Madhva and his early commentators, Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of this topic quickly draws attention and elicits a detailed response from defenders of the traditional Mīmāṃsā reasoning. One could argue that there is very little new on either side of this debate. After all, both camps are in virtually complete agreement about what the scriptures mean, at least as far as ritual injunctions are concerned. But, as we will attempt to show, this battle over the best way to justify long-​established and uncontested religious practices leads to a deeply innovative rethinking of the nature of reading and the cognitive processes related to it. This could be seen as a version of Pollock’s “newness of the intellect constrained by an oldness of the will,” although as we shall see, especially in the next chapter, the surface oldness can mask a self-​conscious and unmistakable will to innovate.8

3.1  Why Butter Is Better: In Favor of the Closing Vyāsatīrtha’s new math is built around a case-​by-​case reexamination of specific ritual-​interpretive problems already dealt with in Mīmāṃsā. Appreciating his innovation, therefore, requires us to delve deeply into the details of these cases in a way we have so far avoided. Broadly speaking, the cases he discusses fall under two categories. First are those in which a later portion of the passage dictates the interpretive conclusion but which the Mīmāṃsakas explained by resorting to principles other than sequence. Here Vyāsatīrtha will argue that sequence is, in fact, the deciding factor, and hence that the Mīmāṃsakas’ own examples prove the correctness of Madhva’s view. Second are those cases 8. Sheldon Pollock, “New Intellectuals in Seventeenth-​Century India,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 38.1 (2001): 19.

53



The New Math

53

that the Mīmāṃsakas believed were decided by the greater strength of the opening but which Vyāsatīrtha shows should have been settled on principles other than sequence. In this section, we deal with the first category. In the Apocalyptic Dance of Reason, Vyāsatīrtha begins his discussion of sequence by assembling the most important statements on this topic from Madhva’s various works, including most of those we quoted in the previous chapter. He ends this brief survey by repeating Madhva’s terse rationale that “precisely in order to ensure that the opening is authoritative, one must accept that it conforms to the closing, because the commentary has to be later.” He then turns immediately to engage with the traditional Mīmāṃsā view: The Mīmāṃsakas, however, have said that the opening is stronger than the closing. But this is not the case. If it were, they would be faced with the undesirable consequence that many of their own interpretive cases such as the “Section on What Is Wet” would be overturned. This is because in the “Section on What Is Wet,” the opening, “One places wet pebbles,” has to conform with the closing: “Clarified butter indeed is power,” which has the form of a commentary, and likewise the opening “One wraps the cloth” has to conform with the closing “Indeed, that [cloth] which is made of linen, is fit for all the gods.”9 In Mīmāṃsā, the “Section on What Is Wet” (aktādhikaraṇa) refers to the sutra “In doubtful cases [one should determine the meaning] on the basis of the remaining part of the passage.”10 This means that when there is a doubt about some element of the injunctive portion of a passage, one should look for disambiguating information in the surrounding declarative portions (arthavāda). In his commentary on this sutra, Śabara provides what became the standard examples of this principle, two of which Vyāsatīrtha quotes in the passage just quoted. In both cases an ambiguous injunction is followed by a declarative passage that is taken to disambiguate it. In the first, the injunction is to employ wet pebbles, but without specifying what liquid should be used to make them wet. Should one use any liquid of one’s own choice?

9. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, ed. V. Madhvachar, 4 vols. (Mysore: Government Oriental Library, 1932–​1943), vol. 3, pp. 280–​281: mīmāṃsakās tūpasaṃhārād upakramo balīyān ity āhuḥ. tan na. tathātve ’ktādhikaraṇādibahubādhaprasaṅgāt. aktādhikaraṇe “aktāḥ śarkarā upadadhāti” ity upakrameṇa vyakhyānarūpasya “tejo vai ghṛtam” ity upasaṃhārasya “vāsaḥ paridhatta” ity upakrameṇa ca “etad vai sarvadaivatyaṃ yat kṣaumam” ity upasaṃhārasyānusāraṇāt. 10. MS 1.4.24: sandigdheṣu vākyaśeṣāt.

54

54

Fir st Words, L ast Words

No, because the accompanying declarative passage specifically praises clarified butter (ghee), which is taken as an indication that only butter should be applied to the pebbles. In the second example, one is likewise told to wrap cloth around the sacrificial post, but the particular type of cloth is not specified. Again the accompanying declarative passage specifically praises linen, which for Śabara and his followers indicates that linen alone should be used.11 The reason this discussion is important for Vyāsatīrtha is that in both examples the declarative portions appear after the injunctions, and therefore, as he sees it, in both cases the closing dictates our interpretation of the opening. In fact, even Śabara is conscious of the potential relevance of sequence in these cases (although he, of course, subscribes to the opposite hierarchy). Śabara invokes a hypothetical opponent who argues that since the idea of liquid in general arises first in our mind, as it appears in the opening, when we reach the statement about butter in the closing we must bend our understanding of it so as not to contradict our earlier cognition. The opponent therefore proposes that we interpret “butter” figuratively as referring to liquid in general.12 Śabara begins his refutation of this hypothetical objection by framing the issue as that of resolving a doubt about a generic statement that requires specification. Then he counters the opponent with two arguments, the first of which is rather flimsy and inconsistent, as Vyāsatīrtha himself will later observe. Śabara points out that in neither of these examples does the verb appear with an injunctive ending but instead occurs in the present tense (“One places,” “One wraps”). This means that the generic liquid or cloth is technically not enjoined, and therefore using the specific substances—​butter or linen—​causes no contradiction. The second argument is driven by the need to avoid the figurative mode of expression that is required by the objector’s reading: Śabara says that here there is no explicit praise of liquid in general, but there is explicit praise of butter. Thus, if we take the passage as a whole to refer to butter, we would interpret the declarative praise-​portion literally, but if we take the passage as a whole to refer to liquid in general, we would have to take the extra step of interpreting the praise of butter figuratively, as referring to all liquids. In Mīmāṃsā, literal interpretation is always preferred to figurative.13

11. MSBh on MS 1.4.24 in Mīmāṃsādarśana, ed. V. G. Apte, 6 vols., Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 97 (Pune: Anandashrama, 1929–​1934), vol. 1, pp. 365–​368. 12. Ibid., p. 366. 13. Ibid., p. 367.

5



The New Math

55

Kumārila, as usual, greatly extends and clarifies Śabara’s arguments. What we see in his comments on the “Section on What Is Wet” is an excellent example of what could be described as Mīmāṃsā case law, namely, an attempt to formulate a conclusion that will apply to, or at least not contradict, any of the interpretive decisions reached in parallel cases elsewhere in the Mīmāṃsā system. In other words, Kumārila wants to arrive at a principled defense of the established decision in the present case—​that one has to use butter to wet the pebbles—​without calling into question any other case-​specific rulings, but he does not go so far as to formulate a single overarching theory that covers all these cases. Like Śabara, he begins his discussion by referring to the “doubt” mentioned already in the sutra (“In doubtful cases . . .”) and considers and rejects several possible explanations of what this doubt is and how it arises. First, he dismisses the notion that the mere use of the generic term “wet” in the injunction can be a source of doubt, because, as he explains, no injunction can be entirely specific. Even if the word “butter” were used in the injunction, we would still not know whether to use new or old butter, butter made from cow or buffalo milk, and so on. Given this principle of what we may call the “infinite regression of specifiability,” universals like “wet” are not any more doubtful than more specific terms like “butter.” The second notion he rejects is that the doubt has to do with whether the injunction and the declaration under discussion form a single passage or two independent ones. Kumārila acknowledges that, in the scriptures, syntactically unified groups of words that serve a singular ritual purpose can in some cases form distinct sentences (for example, passages that enjoin separate ritual acts that, after we realize their meanings, are understood to teach the primary and subordinate components of a single complex ritual). But this cannot be true for the injunction and declaration in this case. This is because, for Mīmāṃsakas, declarative portions are useful only insofar as they serve to praise, and thereby motivate one to perform, the injunctions with which they are connected. It is therefore impossible even to suspect that the declaration “Clarified butter indeed is power” forms a freestanding passage.14 This leads directly to Kumārila’s own understanding of the doubt in question, a position he encapsulates in the verse that opens his discussion: “Injunction and praise must always act upon the same object. Thus, if there is a doubt about either one, it is resolved by means of the other.”15 The 14. Kumārila, Tantravārttika, on MS 1.4.24, in MD, vol. 1, pp. 365–​366. 15. Ibid., p. 365: vidhistutyoḥ sadā vṛttiḥ samānaviṣayeṣyate | tasmād ekatra sandigdham itareṇāvadhāryate ||.

56

56

Fir st Words, L ast Words

injunction and the praise in the declarative portion are interconnected and interdependent: whatever is praised must also be enjoined and vice versa. Thus, if in doubt about either one, we should look to the other for clarification. But in fact, Kumārila does not think that there is doubt about any one portion of this passage, if considered by itself. Instead, and this his answer to the question with which he began, he asserts that the doubt in this case is the result of a discrepancy (vipratipatti) between the two portions of the passage: the opening, which in this case is the injunction, and the declarative closing. This conclusion occasions another lengthy set of objections and rejoinders we need not cover exhaustively, but for our purpose it is important to note that his well-​informed hypothetical opponent is keenly aware of both competing principles of hierarchy implied by the characterization we discussed earlier: that the injunction overrides the declarative portion and that the opening overrides the closing. And as the objector points out, both of these principles, if applied to this case, point to the same conclusion: that one may use any liquid to wet the pebbles and not just butter. After all, “wet pebbles” are mentioned in the injunction, while the butter comes up only in the declarative portion, and the portion that mentions “wet pebbles” is the opening, while butter appears only in the closing.16 To this, Kumārila’s answer is straightforward. There is no need to apply either hierarchy here, because there is, in fact, no contradiction at all between either injunction and declaration or opening and closing. Kumārila reminds his readers that the sole purpose of declarative portions in the Veda is to praise what is enjoined and thereby encourage the ritual performer. When there is no explicit praise of this kind, the reader must postulate it in order to be properly motivated. In this case the injunction “One places wet pebbles” is accompanied by an overt declaration in praise of butter. If we allowed the injunction to include wet substances other than clarified butter, we would be forced to postulate additional, unstated praise that would motivate us to use these other liquids. In Mīmāṃsā, it is always preferable to rely on actual Vedic statements rather than on postulated ones. By concluding that the butter in the praise portion is the liquid to be used to wet the pebbles in the injunction, we avoid the need to postulate any unstated praise. Furthermore, since the injunction and praise are now understood to work in harmony, there is no contradiction between them, and hence no need to resort to either of the hierarchical principles invoked by the objector, either the one based on

16. Ibid., p. 367.

57



The New Math

57

function (injunction versus praise) or the one based on sequence (opening versus closing).17 By resolving the problem in this way, Kumārila avoids the need to prioritize the two principles or, indeed, to provide a general theory of interpretive hierarchy covering both function and sequence, something that will happen only much later in the debate. One final point worth emphasizing from Kumārila’s discussion is the all-​ important distinction he draws between doubt/​discrepancy pertaining to the sections of a passage, on the one hand, and actual contradiction between them, on the other. For Kumārila, the fact that the information in one portion is not exactly identical to what is said in another creates a doubt that gives the reader pause, although eventually, and perhaps quite quickly, the more specific bit of information resolves this doubt in a way that harmonizes our understanding of both: since clarified butter is actually a liquid, there is, in the final analysis, no contradiction between it and “wet.” Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of the Mīmāṃsā position on this topic in his Apocalyptic Dance of Reason zeroes in precisely on this attempted distinction between the cognitive processes of resolving a doubt about a discrepancy, on the one hand, and the blocking of one portion by another contradictory bit, on the other. As we will see, he ultimately argues that this is a false distinction and that, in this case, the meaning of “wet” is actually overturned in our mind by the more specific “butter,” which is mentioned later. Vyāsatīrtha’s discussion of the “Section on What Is Wet” is a good example of his massively erudite and historically nuanced style. He carefully reviews and rationally reconstructs the arguments of Śabara and Kumārila—​ treating in this way both their own reasoning and that of their hypothetical objectors—​as well as of later commentators. Here we will not attempt a full account of his arguments but will limit ourselves to his main points instead. His treatment of Śabara is brief: he quickly points out the inconsistency in Śabara’s basic argument that no generic wet substance is enjoined in “One places wet pebbles” just because the verb is in the present tense. As Vyāsatīrtha points out, Śabara himself also cites in this section one parallel example in which the verb is injunctive rather than indicative, so, even on his account, the verbal mood cannot determine the interpretive outcome in this case.18

17. Ibid. 18. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, p. 283. For Śabara’s example, see MSBh on MS 1.4.24 in Mīmāṃsādarśana, vol. 1, p. 368: imāṃ spṛṣṭvodgāyed imāṃ hy audumbarīṃ viśvābhūtāny upajīvanti.

58

58

Fir st Words, L ast Words

From here, Vyāsatīrtha immediately turns to Kumārila, his main interlocutor in this section. As we said in ­chapter 2, Kumārila’s own discussion is complex and nuanced and provides many examples and lines of argument that have the potential to support either position. More specifically, as we have just shown, the fact that he avoids weighing in on the relative predominance of function and sequence leaves many of the claims of his own objector unanswered. Vyāsatīrtha takes full advantage of the loose ends of Kumārila’s discussion and is happy to appropriate Kumārila’s own language—​both when Kumārila speaks in his own voice and when he speaks in that of a hypothetical opponent—​in refuting Kumārila’s position. Thus he begins by arguing that Kumārila’s imagined opponent is quite right. The injunction “One places wet pebbles” would have to be interpreted in its natural, literal sense of wetness in general—​unless we adopt the simple principle that the closing is stronger than the opening. In other words, Vyāsatīrtha claims that only his “new math” can successfully uphold what he and the Mīmāṃsakas agree is the correct interpretive conclusion in this case (butter).19 This reveals a crucial shift in the nature of the debate: for Śabara and Kumārila the opponent actually upholds a contrary interpretive conclusion that would result in a real difference in the way the ritual should be performed. Of course, this opponent is purely hypothetical and does not represent a real doubt about actual ritual performance; nevertheless, a need is felt to defend the established procedure against possible alternatives. Vyāsatīrtha’s argument with Śabara and Kumārila, on the other hand, presupposes full agreement with them on all questions of

19. Vyāsatīrtha’s statement of this position echoes the arguments already made by Kumārila’s hypothetical opponent (discussed earlier) but also expands upon them by quoting well-​known Mīmāṃsā interpretive maxims in support of that opponent’s claim: “Indeed, were it not the case that the closing is stronger, then ‘clarified butter’ would either have to be taken figuratively to refer to both clarified butter and liquids other than clarified butter, or it would have to be dedicated to praising the universal [liquids in general] by means of just one particular [liquid]. This is because the injunction, being the most important thing, should not be interpreted in anything other than its literal sense—​on the principle that ‘a word in an injunction should not have a secondary meaning’—​but this is not true for the declarative portion, on the principle that ‘if you are forced to postulate a nonstandard meaning, better to do it in a subordinate portion’ ” (Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, pp. 284–​285: upasaṃhārasyāprābalye hi ‘na vidhau paraḥ śabdārthaḥ’ itinyāyena vidher ananyaparatvāt pradhānatvād arthavādasya tu vaiparītyāt tatsthaghṛtaśabdasya ‘guṇe tv anyāyakalpanā’ itinyāyena ghṛtāghṛtalakṣakatvaṃ vā ghṛtastuter . . . viśeṣadvārā sāmānyastutiparatvaṃ vā syāt). Note that Vyāsatīrtha expands on the original claim of Kumārila’s opponent also by suggesting a second route for understanding how the praise of butter can subserve an injunction to use any liquid: either “clarified butter” can figuratively indicate any liquid, or the praise of a specific liquid can be seen as indirectly praising all liquids. “A word in an injunction . . .” is a paraphrase of MSBh on MS 1.2.29; “If you are forced to postulate . . .” is a quote from MS 9.3.15.

59



The New Math

59

performance; the dispute is only about which set of interpretive principles will get them to the conclusions they all uphold. The thrust of Vyāsatīrtha’s argument throughout this section is that the only way the already agreed-​ upon conclusions can be defended is by using Madhva’s inverted hierarchy and applying it even to cases where the Mīmāṃsakas did not consider sequence to be relevant. Another line of attack on Kumārila involves the question of motivation. As we have seen, the key to Kumārila’s resolution of the doubt in the “Section on What Is Wet” is that the declarative portion must praise what the injunction enjoins so that it can supply its performer with the necessary motivation to act. To undermine this, Vyāsatīrtha points to a parallel case in which motivation plays no role but in which an exactly similar conclusion is reached. This parallel case concerns the injunction “One should sacrifice an animal to Agni and Soma.” This injunction, which has no accompanying declarative portion, does not specify what species of animal should be offered, but the ritual formula (mantra) used in this rite explicitly refers to a goat. The established Mīmāṃsā conclusion, therefore, is that one must sacrifice a goat in this rite and not any other sort of animal. Just as in the case of the wet pebbles and butter, then, a generic term in the injunction is interpreted more narrowly based on a more specific term occurring elsewhere. But here the added specification is found outside the passage, in a syntactically independent mantra; it does not form part of the same passage with the injunction. Kumārila had actually alluded to this case as a possible parallel but dismissed it as irrelevant precisely because the mantra is not part of the same passage as the injunction. But Vyāsatīrtha turns this distinction to his own advantage: if it is true that we reach the same interpretive conclusion whether the specification is found in the adjoining declarative portion or in a disassociated mantra, then the motivation to be provided by the declarative praise cannot be the decisive factor in the “Section on What Is Wet.”20 There is an added complication here, in that the mantra, precisely because it is disassociated from the injunction, is not technically a closing, which means that Madhva’s sequential hierarchy seems equally irrelevant. Vyāsatīrtha, however, sees the mantra as working analogously to a closing, in that both take on “the form of a commentary” (vyākhānarūpa). Presumably this is because it is only after we have understood the injunction that we realize a certain mantra

20. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, p. 285. For Kumārila’s allusion, see Tantravārttika on MS 1.4.24, MD, vol. 1, p. 366. For the classic Mīmāṃsā discussion of the goat case, see MS 6.8.30.

60

60

Fir st Words, L ast Words

is to be used when enacting it. In this sense the mantras are “later” in that the information they offer is taken into account at a later cognitive stage than that provided by the injunction itself. Note that by implying this, Vyāsatīrtha opens up the possibility of an expanded notion of what “sequence” means beyond the simple order in which elements occur in a text. As we shall see, the consideration of cognitive sequence as potentially distinct from mere textual sequence will come to play a more important role as the discussion progresses. Vyāsatīrtha’s most sustained engagement with Kumārila contests his distinction between doubt/​discrepancy and contradiction. He sets this up by a lengthy debate with a hypothetical opponent who argues that the decision to use butter and not other liquids in this case is not the result of an earlier understanding overruled by a later one, but of a generic term whose meaning is narrowed down by a more specific one.21 But Vyāsatīrtha vehemently denies that the distinction between overruling and narrowing is a meaningful one: “You can’t say that this is merely a narrowing down of a generic term and not a blocking of it on the grounds that the universal is fully present in each particular.”22 The opponent’s point is that since clarified butter is included in the universal “wet,” all that the interpreter needs to do is to close in on this one specific wet substance, butter, in order to fulfill literally the terms of both the opening injunction and the closing praise. The choice of a subset from a more general category involves no semantic blocking of the term used to convey the general category in the first place. But Vyāsatīrtha insists that this is not so “since even narrowing down is blocking” (saṅkocasyāpi bādhatvāt).23 “Wet” produces a general understanding of being covered with any liquid substance, while “clarified butter” produces a specific understanding, which replaces the initial one. For him, there is a clear contradiction between these two notions, and such a contradiction can be resolved only by applying some hierarchical principle. Here it is the later, more specific understanding that blocks the earlier, general one, and Vyāsatīrtha argues that the only possible reason for this is simply that the specific information occurs later. The closing overrules the opening. Vyāsatīrtha’s justification of this position comes in two stages. First he shows that even for the Mīmāṃsakas, narrowing down necessarily entails

21. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, pp. 286–​287. 22. Ibid., p. 287: na ca sāmānyaśabdasya saṅkocamātraṃ na tu bādhaḥ sāmānyasya prativyakti samāptatvād iti vācyam. 23. Ibid., p. 288.

61



The New Math

61

blocking. This he does through another well-​known Mīmāṃsā case, regarding the rules for where offerings are to be placed. The general rule is “One offers into the offering fire,” but there is one specific ritual where the injunction is “One offers into the hoof-​print of a cow.” If the latter injunction did not exist, the former would be universal in scope: every single offering would have to be made into the offering fire. Hence the latter rule blocks the application of the former in one specific ritual case and thereby narrows its scope. If the Mīmāṃsakas accept that this case of narrowing down involves blocking, they should certainly accept this in the “Section on What Is Wet” as well: The word “offers” in the sentence “One offers into the offering fire,” ends up referring to a great many other cases, excepting only the single offering into the hoof-​print. This is a tiny narrowing down. The word “wet” ends up referring to just one thing, clarified butter, excluding a great many others. This is a huge narrowing down.24 If the Mīmāṃsakas want to be consistent, they must admit blocking in the “huge narrowing down” of the scope of the term “wet,” just as they do in the “tiny narrowing down” of the scope of the offering-​fire rule. In other words, every narrowing down entails some degree of blocking, although, as Vyāsatīrtha says by way of conclusion, “Even I don’t believe that there is total blocking” (ātyantikabādhas tu mamāpy anabhimataḥ).25 Having established that for the Mīmāṃsakas, all narrowing down entails blocking, Vyāsatīrtha moves to his second step, where he proves that sequence alone determines what blocks what in all such cases. The opponent suggests that the principle involved in narrowing down is that the specific overrules the general. But Vyāsatīrtha, like the followers of Rabbi Akiva discussed in section 1.2, rejects this by demonstrating that in cases where a passage begins with a specific and ends with a universal, it is the universal that ends up winning. Take, for example, the injunction “To put a spell on one’s enemy, one should sacrifice with the hawk.” On first reading, one would assume that this injunction tells you to offer an actual hawk for this purpose. But the closing declarative portion of this passage says that “like a hawk . . . this swoops down

24. Ibid., p. 289: “yad āhavanīye juhoti” itivākyasthajuhoter hy ekaṃ padahomaṃ tyaktvetareṣu bahuṣu paryavasānam iti svalpaḥ saṅkocaḥ. aktāśabdasyetarān bahūn hitvaikasmin ghṛte paryavasānam iti bhūyān saṅkocaḥ. 25. Ibid.

62

62

Fir st Words, L ast Words

and seizes your hateful rival.”26 Once we have read the closing, we understand that “hawk” in the opening injunction refers not to a literal hawk but to something that acts like one (in this case the Mīmāṃsakas understand “Hawk” to be the proper name of a ritual for destroying enemies). For Vyāsatīrtha, this is a case where a specific understanding is blocked by a general one that comes later. Hence, if we want a principle that explains both interpretive outcomes consistently, the strength of the closing—​which, again, he says, “has the form of a commentary”—​is the only viable option. Vyāsatīrtha provides another example, this time from everyday speech, that he takes to illustrate the same principle.27 The implication is that sequence matters equally in all language cognition. Concluding this discussion, Vyāsatīrtha says that “it is only on the basis of the greater strength of the closing that the established conclusion in the ‘Section on What Is Wet’ can be explained.”28 This quote encapsulates his dual strategy throughout this chapter of the Apocalyptic Dance of Reason: on the one hand, he proves that Madhva’s inversion of the standard hierarchy is right by showing that it underlies Mīmāṃsā case law; on the other hand, he shows that the ritual answers that the Mīmāṃsakas have long agreed upon (and that he never disputes) can be arrived at only thanks to his, that is, Madhva’s, new math.

3.2  Say It Loud: The Case against the Opening Having established that certain well-​known Mīmāṃsā cases can be explained only by covertly presupposing Madhva’s principle, Vyāsatīrtha is still faced with the task of explaining those cases that the Mīmāṃsakas themselves cite as proof of the contrary principle, namely, that the opening is stronger. In fact, there are only two sections of the Mīmāṃsāsūtra where this principle is invoked, and Vyāsatīrtha now goes on to consider each of them in turn. The first and most important of these is the “Section on Opening with Veda” (vedopakramādhikaraṇa). Here is a question: In connection with the “Praise of Light” sacrifice (Jyotiṣṭoma), one finds the following injunction: “One 26. Ibid. Cf. Śabara, Mīmāṃsāsūtrabhāṣya, in Mīmāṃsādaraśana, MD, vol. 1, p. 336. 27. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, p. 289. The rather unconvincing example from everyday language is “Vishnusharma should be fed, being a famous Brahmin” (viṣṇuśarmā bhojyatāṃ brāhmaṇaḥ praśastaḥ). The point seems to be that not only this one individual, Vishnusharma, should be fed, but any famous Brahmin. 28. Ibid., p. 290: upasaṃhāraprābalyād evāktādhikaraṇasiddhānto vācyaḥ.

63



The New Math

63

performs loudly with the ṛg, loudly with the sāman, and quietly with the yajur.”29 Contrary to their standard connotations for Western-​trained South Asianists, these three terms—​ṛg, sāman, and yajur—​are understood by the Mīmāṃsakas not as proper names of specific Vedic corpora but as types of mantras: a ṛg is a metrical mantra that is recited but not sung, a sāman is a metrical mantra that is sung with a particular melody, while a yajur is a prose mantra. But in this passage, should one take the terms in their literal sense, as referring to different types of mantras, or figuratively, as referring to materials from the three Vedic corpora known as Ṛgveda, Sāmaveda, and Yajurveda? As is not unusual in Mīmāṃsā, the hypothetical objector begins by promoting the seemingly commonsensical position, in a sutra claiming that these terms ought to refer to kinds of mantras.30 This position is rejected, however, in the following sutra, where it is established that the terms instead refer to the three Vedas, “because that is what is primarily seen” (prāyadarśanāt).31 It is not entirely clear what Jaimini meant by the expression “primarily,” but Śabara takes the word somewhat strainedly to refer to the opening (upakrama) of the passage in question. Like “One places wet pebbles,” the injunction “One performs loudly with the ṛg . . .” occurs in conjunction with a noninjunctive declarative portion. But this time, the declarative portion precedes the injunction, and hence forms the opening of the passage. This opening reads as follows: “Prajāpati, by himself, was this world. He performed tapas, and from him, as he performed tapas, there emerged three deities: Fire, Wind, and the Sun. Then they performed tapas, and from them, as they performed tapas, the three Vedas emerged: The Ṛgveda from Fire, the Yajurveda from Wind, and the Sāmaveda from the Sun.”32 The opening portion of the passage, then, seems to be referring not to types of mantras (which may occur in any of the three Vedic corpora) but to entire Vedic texts: it explicitly speaks of the emergence of the Ṛgveda, the Yajurveda, and the Sāmaveda. There is, then, an apparent contradiction between the opening and closing portions of the same passage. The opening praise portion records a story about the origin of the

29. MD, vol. 2, p. 803: uccair ṛcā kriyate, uccaiḥ sāmnā, upāṃśu yajuṣā. Originally from Maitrāyaṇīsaṃhitā 3.6.5, p. 253. 30. MS 3.3.1: śruter jātādhikāraḥ syāt. 31. MS 3.3.2: vedo vā prāyadarśanāt. 32. Śabara, MSBh on MS 3.3.2 (MD, vol. 2, p. 806): prajāpatir vā idam eka āsīt. sa tapo 'tapyata, tasmāt tapas tepānāt trayo devā asṛjyanta: agnir vāyur ādityaḥ. te tapo 'tapyanta tebhyas tepānebhyas trayo vedā asṛjyanta. agner ṛgvedo vāyor yajurveda ādityāt sāmavedaḥ.

64

64

Fir st Words, L ast Words

Vedas; the closing injunction prescribes different modes of recitation—​loud or quiet—​seemingly for different types of mantras. How should one resolve the apparent contradiction? As we said, Śabara presents what becomes the universally accepted Mīmāṃsā position that the conflict is resolved by sequence: what comes first determines our interpretation of what comes later, and therefore the rule applies to Vedas and not to types of mantras. Śabara simply makes this assertion without giving any guidance as to the conditions under which this preference for the opening over the closing should be applied. Moreover, he does not at all explain why the opening is more powerful than the closing. He does, however, follow Jaimini in providing additional justifications other than sequence for the interpretive decision in this case. For example, he points to another passage in which the word "ṛg," in parallel with Yajurveda and Sāmaveda, is clearly used as referring to the Vedic text rather than to a mantra type. Furthermore, returning to the passage in question, he points out that if the terms "ṛg" etc. referred to mantra types, the second part of the injunction, “loudly with the sāman,” would become redundant. This is because all of the verse mantras that are sung as sāmans also occur as recited ṛg mantras in other ritual contexts. Hence just the portion “One performs loudly with the ṛg,” if referring to mantra types, would prescribe the quality of loudness also to the sāman mantras (since they are all also ṛg mantras), and the additional portion, “loudly with the sāman,” would become superfluous. Any interpretation that renders a part of the Vedic text unnecessary must be rejected, but this problem is avoided if we take the terms to refer to Vedic corpora instead.33 While this forms Mīmāṃsā’s canonical example for the preeminence of the opening over the closing, it is crucial to realize that the word “opening” (upakrama) itself does not occur in the sutras, here or elsewhere, and is only imported into the discussion by Śabara’s strained interpretation of the word “primarily” (prāya). The fact that Śabara bases his argument on a highly unusual gloss on this word, the fact that he gives no clear theoretical rationale for preferring the opening over the closing, and the fact that sequence is only one of several unrelated reasons given for the conclusion arrived at in this case, all create vulnerabilities that Vyāsatīrtha will later exploit. Kumārila, unlike Śabara, does try to formulate a theoretical rationale as to why the opening should be more powerful than the closing, and he does try to

33. Ibid., pp. 807–​808.

65



The New Math

65

formulate criteria as to the application of this interpretive principle. His basic rationale, already briefly referred to in the previous chapter, is based on his understanding of the cognitive processes taking place inside the interpreter’s mind: the interpreter processes the Vedic text as it arrives, shaping his understanding of each new piece in the light of already interpreted portions: The only reason for any word to depart from its own natural meaning is a contradiction. And this contradiction is recognized only once a second, contradictory element has been apprehended. So, in this case, when we hear [in the opening] “the three Vedas emerged: The Ṛgveda from Fire . . .,” the words “ṛg” etc. [in the closing], which refer to classes of mantras, have not been uttered. It is only after perceiving these words [in the closing] that one could take the word “Veda” [in the opening] to refer figuratively to [the mantras that form] its components. Therefore, our mind is first filled by the apprehension of this word [Veda] in nothing but its literal sense. But now, when we realize that the words “ṛg” etc., if taken in their natural senses, would not construe with this [literal understanding of the word “Veda”], we must understand them figuratively.34 At the time we hear the word “Veda” in the opening, there is not yet any reason to interpret it in any other way than in its literal sense; when we reach the words "ṛg" etc. in the closing, however, a contradiction becomes apparent between our already arisen understanding of “Veda” as referring to a text and the literal meaning of these words as referring to types of mantras. To resolve the contradiction, one word or the other has to be interpreted figuratively: either the word “Veda” would have to be taken to refer to the mantras that form a part of it, or the words "ṛg" etc. would have to refer not to mantras themselves but to the corpora to which they belong. According to Kumārila, cognition works on a first-​come, first-​served basis, and therefore we should interpret the second set of terms in order to fit with our preexisting understanding of the first.

34. Kumārila, Tantravārttika on MS 3.3.2 (MD, vol. 2, p. 806): sarvasyaiva hi śabdasya svārthātilaṅghane virodhaḥ kāraṇam. sa ca pratiyogini dṛṣṭe virodho vijñāyate. tad iha yadā “trayo vedā asṛjyanta: agner ṛgvedaḥ” ityādi śrūyate na tadā jātavacanānām ṛgādīnām uccāraṇam asti; yaddarśaneṇa vedaśabdo ’vayavalakṣaṇārtho ’bhavet. atas tena tāvac chrutivṛttenaiva vyāptā buddhiḥ. athedānīm ṛgādiśabdāḥ svārthaparāḥ santo na saṃbadhyanta iti balāl lakṣaṇāṃ pratipadyanta iti.

6

66

Fir st Words, L ast Words

But how is this principle reconciled with other Mīmāṃsā interpretive guidelines? Unlike Śabara, Kumārila calls explicit attention to this question and is very interested in the relationship between the decision arrived at in this case and the conclusion of the “Section on What Is Wet.” He therefore wants to decide the problem at hand in a way that takes into account competing interpretive principles. Accordingly, Kumārila has his hypothetical opponent refer back to the “Section on What Is Wet” and demand, initially, that the question here be resolved in a manner that is entirely consistent with what we saw there. Kumārila, however, points out that if the point of the “Section on Opening with Veda” is entirely identical to that of the “Section on What Is Wet,” this makes one of the two sections redundant. After some back and forth, the opponent finally argues that at least in cases where there is no doubt about the meaning of the injunction (as there is in the “Section on What Is Wet”), the general principle that the injunction is stronger than the descriptive portion should apply, and that therefore the terms "ṛg" etc. in the “Section on Opening with Veda” should refer to mantra types.35 To this Kumārila replies: But as for what you said, namely, that the word “Veda” in the descriptive passage should refer to just a portion of the text [mantra] because the injunctive portion is stronger [than the description]—​to this we say: The relative strength or weakness pertaining to injunctions and descriptive passages is one thing. The relative strength or weakness of cognitions based on whether they occur earlier or later is something altogether different. After all, only those descriptive passages that are heard after the injunction are weak, whereas those that are heard before the injunction are stronger, precisely because they come first.36

35. Ibid., p. 803. 36. Ibid., p. 806: yat tu vidhyuddeśabalīyastvād arthavādapadastho vedaśabda ’vayavaviṣayo bhaviṣyatīti. tatra brūmaḥ: vidhyarthavādasaṃbaddham anyad eva balābalam | mukhyapaścāttanatvena jñānānām anyad eva tat || ye hi vidhyuddeśāt parastād arthavādāḥ śrūyante teṣām asti daurbalyam. ye purastāc chrūyante te mukhyatvād balīyāṃso bhavanti.

67



The New Math

67

Based on Kumārila’s cognitive principle of “first come, first served,” the contents of the opening necessarily determine how we interpret the closing. This statement clearly seems to indicate that the sequential principle outweighs the functional preference for the injunction over the description. But, taken seriously, this argument would in fact result in the obliteration of the functional principle altogether, since the injunction would outweigh the description only if it comes first and would always be weaker if it comes last. Sequence alone is enough. This is a surprising consequence given that, as we have already said, the functional principle that the injunction overrules the description is far more commonly invoked in Mīmāṃsā, and given, as we have also said, that the principle of sequence is never explicitly mentioned in any sutra. But, as we have come to expect, Kumārila does not actually follow this implication, being more concerned with finding a convincing resolution to the case in hand than formulating a single, holistic interpretive theory. We now arrive at Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of the “Section on Opening with Veda.” Remember that his main goal here is to arrive at the same interpretive conclusion as that already reached by the Mīmāṃsakas but without relying on the preeminence of the opening. In doing so he exploits the ambiguities we have already noted in Śabara’s discussion. Recall that Śabara, in addition to the argument based on primacy, interpreted Jaimini’s subsequent sutras as offering several supplementary reasons for taking the words "ṛg," "yajur," and "sāman" to refer to Vedas. For Vyāsatīrtha this very fact shows that the argument based on sequence is not sufficient to establish the desired conclusion. In view of Śabara’s argument that the phrase “loudly with the sāman” would be redundant if the terms "ṛg" and "sāman" referred to mantras, Vyāsatīrtha first boldly argues that, if anything, this example shows that the closing is more powerful than the opening; the phrase “loudly with the sāman” occurs after “loudly with the ṛg,” and it is this phrase that forces the reader to revise his or her interpretation in order to avoid redundancy. Indeed, Vyāsatīrtha takes the fact that the sutra referring to the redundancy argument comes after the one that supposedly shows the preeminence of the opening to indicate that even Jaimini, the author of the sutras, was not satisfied with his earlier argument.37 But at this point Vyāsatīrtha shifts gears: does the earlier sutra actually refer to sequence at all? Here he directly attacks Śabara’s strained gloss of the word “primarily” (prāya) to mean “in the opening.” The natural reading of the term

37. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, pp. 291–​292.

68

68

Fir st Words, L ast Words

is, in fact, “for the most part.” In other words, it normally refers to frequency rather than to sequence. Vyāsatīrtha points out that the occurrences of the word “Veda” outnumber those of the words "ṛg," "yajur," and "sāman" in the opening declarative portion, and it is this repetition of the word “Veda” that should lead us to interpret the nouns "ṛg" etc. as referring to Vedic corpora. This line of argument allows for a more natural reading of “primarily,” and it accords with Madhva’s hierarchy rather than with Śabara’s; as we have seen, for Madhva, closing overrules opening, but repetition (abhyāsa) overrules all consideration of sequence.38 In this way, Vyāsatīrtha undermines the formerly universal consensus on the “Section on Opening with Veda,” typically using Śabara’s own additional examples against him.39 At this point, he raises the stakes by maintaining that it is only his new math that allows the two main branches of post-​ Śabara Mīmāṃsā to escape self-​contradiction. These two branches were established in the seventh century by Kumārila and Prabhākara in a pair of subcommentaries on Śabara’s work. Their rival interpretations of Śabara differ on many key points, and virtually all subsequent Mīmāṃsakas position themselves as followers of one or the other. For several hundred years, both schools attracted a large number of followers, but by Vyāsatīrtha’s time the Prabhākara school had declined considerably, producing very few texts and forgotten by many. But apparently not by Vyāsatīrtha, who finds it important to point out that Mīmāṃsā as a whole, including the now largely forgotten Prabhākara school, presupposes Madhva’s new interpretive hierarchy, even as it tries to argue for the preeminence of the opening. More specifically, Vyāsatīrtha argues that only by adopting Madhva’s alternative principle of repetition (abhyāsa) can both Kumārila and Prabhākara avoid losing the argument with their imagined internal objectors. Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of the Prabhākara position seems to be based not on Prabhākara directly but on the eleventh-​century digest of his follower Bhavanātha, The Analysis of Mīmāṃsā Interpretive Principles (Mīmāṃsānayaviveka).40 In The Analysis, the opponent makes the argument that the word “Veda,” derived from the root "vid" (to know), should refer etymologically to anything that is 38. Ibid., pp. 292–​293. 39. For example, he notes, like Śabara, that there are cases both in the scriptures and in everyday language where the words "ṛg," "yajur," and "sāman" are used to refer to whole Vedic texts, and he takes this to undermine Śabara’s other main point (ibid., p. 293). 40. Note that also in his discussion of the “Section on What Is Wet,” Vyāsatīrtha refers briefly to this work. See ibid., p. 290.

69



The New Math

69

a cause of knowledge. Although it is restricted by usage only to eternal, scriptural texts, there is no reason to suspect that it refers to injunctions alone and not to mantras as well. So the Vedic passage in question begins with the word “Veda,” which could refer to any part of the scripture, injunction or mantra, and ends with the words "ṛg" etc., which literally refer to mantras and mantras alone. Therefore, argues the objector, this is really not a case of contradiction because the opening referent is general and the closing contains a more specific variety thereof. Therefore, we should decide this case not unlike the way we did in the “Section on What Is Wet” (although Bhavanātha’s objector does not explicitly draw this parallel, Vyāsatīrtha does so in his own summation of this discussion), and there would be no need to resort to sequence. Bhavanātha rejects this opponent’s argument by claiming that the word “Veda” should refer literally only to the injunctive portions of the scripture because mantras are not an independent source of knowledge about ritual. It is only because specific injunctions tell us in which ritual to use a particular mantra that we know what the mantra refers to, but it is only injunctions that give us independent ritual information. There is thus a contradiction between the beginning and the end of the passage: the opening “Veda” refers strictly to injunctive passages, while the closing "ṛg" etc. refers strictly to mantras. This contradiction must be resolved, concludes Bhavanātha, and sequence is the key to resolving it.41 But, according to Vyāsatīrtha, this response to the opponent is completely inadequate: mantras do, in fact, serve as an independent source of knowledge. Indeed, as we have already seen, sometimes the Mīmāṃsakas themselves rely on the mantra to tell them what the injunction means, as in the “goat” example discussed earlier. So, Vyāsatīrtha maintains, the opponent really should win the argument, unless an additional interpretive principle is brought into play, and such a principle, namely repetition, is supplied by Madhva’s new hierarchy.42 To summarize, the “Section on Opening with Veda” is the main Mīmāṃsā canonical example supporting the interpretive principle of sequence. Vyāsatīrtha has now, to his own mind, turned this example on its head: not only does it reach the desired conclusion (that the words "ṛg" etc. refer to whole texts and not just to mantras) without relying on the power of the opening, but it also reinforces Madhva’s new ranking, in which repetition is

41. Bhavanātha, Mīmāṃsānayaviveka, ed. S. Subrahmanya Shastri, 4 vols. (New Delhi: Rashtriya Sanskrit Samsthan, 1977–​2005), vol. 2, pp. 200–​203. 42. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, pp. 294–​295.

70

70

Fir st Words, L ast Words

stronger than both opening and closing. In the process, Vyāsatīrtha exploits the weaknesses in Śabara’s and Kumārila’s methods and, perhaps more important, boldly asserts that the entire field of Mīmāṃsā covertly depends on Madhva’s new theory to reach its own desired conclusions.

3.3  Horse Trading: Mīmāṃsā against Itself The only other canonical example for the predominance of the opening over the closing in Mīmāṃsā is in the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual” (aśvapratigraheṣṭi). In brief, the problem is this. In the Black Yajurveda the following rule is stated: “However many horses one receives, one should offer that many Four-​potshard offerings to Varuṇa.”43 All this is part of a larger ritual called “The Puṇḍarīka,” and the horses are supposed to be given by the sponsor of the sacrifice to the officiating priest. But who should perform this offering to Varuṇa, the receiver or the giver of horses? The answer might seem obvious, as the injunction uses the word “receives” (pratigṛhṇīyāt), but Śabara challenges this seemingly commonsensical conclusion, arguing that the giver of the horses is the intended performer of the Four-​potshard offerings. The reason, he explains, has once again to do with the priority of the opening over the closing. The passage opens with a descriptive portion that offers the following narrative: “Prajāpati took a horse to Varuṇa. He gave it to his own deity. Then he contracted dropsy. He saw this Four-​potshard offering for Varuṇa and he offered it to him. Then he was freed from the noose of Varuṇa. Indeed, Varuṇa seizes whoever receives a horse.”44 This is a story in which the giver suffered as a consequence of his gift and was only released from his suffering by a further offering. The narrative, then, implies that it is the giver of the horse who must perform the Four-​potshard rite to avoid a similarly harmful result, whereas the injunction seems to state quite explicitly that this is the receiver’s duty. Śabara resolves this contradiction by using the same principle he employed in the “Section on Beginning with Veda.” The opening, he says, should be taken literally, whereas the closing should be interpreted figuratively so as to conform with it. Hence we must understand the verb “receives”

43. Taittirīyasaṃhitā, ed. Mahādeva Cimaṇājī Āpaṭe, 9 vols., Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 42 (Pune: Anandashrama Press, 1940–​1951), vol. 4, p. 1140, 2.3.12: yāvato 'śvān pratigṛhṇīyāt tāvato vāruṇāṃś catuṣkapālān nirvapet. 44. Ibid.: prajāpatir varuṇāyāśvam ānayat. sa svāṃ devatām ārchat. sa paryadīryata. sa etaṃ vāruṇaṃ catuṣkapālam apaśyat. taṃ niravapat. tato vai sa varuṇapāśād amucyata. varuṇa vā etaṃ gṛhṇāti yo ’śvaṃ pratigṛhṇāti.

71



The New Math

71

to refer not literally to the act of receiving but figuratively to the act of making somebody receive one’s gift, in other words, “giving.” In support of this conclusion, Śabara somewhat opportunistically refers to a later sutra stating that when you have two rules enjoining two ritual acts that stand in optional relationship to one another, the first is to be given priority simply because it was “enjoined first” (pūrvacodanāt). As he later explains when discussing that sutra, when the first injunction is recited, there is nothing to contradict it, and hence it is understood unobstructed. However, when the second is recited or heard, its interpretation is already constrained by that of the first.45 As should be clear by now, Śabara’s reasoning for giving interpretive priority to the earlier portion of the text over the later is basically the same or very similar to what we later find in Kumārila’s more thorough defense of the general principle of sequence. But there is an important difference between the sutra Śabara cites and the question under discussion in the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual.” The quoted sutra refers to a conflict between two injunctions, whereas the horse ritual involves a conflict between successive textual portions that differ in function: the opening, which is descriptive, and the closing, which is an injunction. In other words, structurally speaking this example is an exact twin of that found in the “Section on Beginning with Veda.” It could be said that in both cases where Mīmāṃsā applies the principle of the priority of the opening, an opening descriptive portion overrules a later injunctive portion of the same passage. While the principle Śabara applies to both cases is similar, the argumentation in each case has its own nuances, owing partly to the need to justify every sutra in Jaimini’s core text as serving a slightly different purpose.46 Kumārila, in his commentary on this section, basically agrees with Śabara but introduces several additional considerations that complicate matters somewhat. First, he introduces an interpretive principle that has nothing to do with sequence but that seems to point independently to the same desired conclusion. In the previous section of his commentary on Jaimini, Śabara has already demonstrated that it is only the giving of horses as part of a larger ritual that occasions the offering under discussion; it is not applicable when one gives or receives horses in a nonritual context. So this offering is, as Kumārila now points out, merely a subordinate ritual act (aṅgakarma). And it is a general principle in Mīmāṃsā that the performer of a subordinate rite

45. MS 12.2.23; see MD, vol. 6, p. 2247. 46. MD, vol. 2, pp. 963–​969.

72

72

Fir st Words, L ast Words

must always be the same as the performer of the primary rite. In the larger ritual that occasions the Four-​potshard offering, it is the performer of the sacrifice who gives horses to the priest as a form of payment. Hence, Kumārila argues, it must be the giver of the horses and not the receiver whose duty it is to make this additional offering.47 In addition to this supplemental and independent argument in favor of the desired conclusion, Kumārila introduces a countervailing principle that has the potential of threatening it, namely, the question of function. As noted, here the opening that speaks of Prajāpati’s gift of horses is descriptive, whereas the bit about receiving and offering the Four-​potshard offering is injunctive. And, as the opponent here points out, injunctions should take precedence over descriptions. To this objection, Kumārila responds with the clearest explanation we have seen so far of the relationship between the two interpretive principles of sequence and function: If the injunctive portion concerning the receiver were self-​sufficient, then this investigation would not have been made at all. But it is not self-​sufficient. Why? When descriptions follow, the injunction arises independently. But when the descriptions come first, the injunction is construed in conformity with their precedent.48 When an injunction occurs without anything preceding it, we interpret it on the basis of its own words alone, but when another, noninjunctive text is given first, it will be processed first, pre-​orienting the reader and thereby restricting his or her freedom to interpret the injunction. Kumārila’s first-​come, first-​ served theory of cognition thus means, as we have seen elsewhere, that sequence will always trump function in governing our hermeneutic decisions. The opponent, however, has one last argument to make. There is, in fact, an alternate recension of the scripture prescribing this ritual, in which the opening descriptive portion is absent. Should we not then, on the basis of this text and its unequivocal and unopposed injunction, take the injunction to pertain to the receiver of horses? Kumārila’s response is twofold. First, he 47. Kumārila, Tantravārttika, on MS 3.4.31, in MD, vol. 2, pp. 965–​966. 48. Ibid., p. 966: yadi labdhātmako ’tra pratigrahītṛviṣayo vidhyuddeśo bhavet tato vicāra eva na kriyate, na tv asau labdhātmakaḥ. kutaḥ? parastād arthavādeṣu svatantro jāyate hy asau | purastād arthavādeṣu tatpūrvā vidhikalpanā ||.

73



The New Math

73

points out that the existence of a different text would in no way invalidate the interpretation of the text under discussion. Thus he initially seems to concede the possibility that, if we were following the other recension, it could be the receiver who makes the offering. But then he goes on to reject this possibility even with regard to the alternate version of the text by falling back on his argument of ritual subordination. If the priest, the receiver of the horses, were to perform the Four-​potshard expiatory offering, it could not be a subordinate act of the larger sacrifice in the context of which it is mentioned. This would make it an independent ritual that would have to be performed every time one receives a horse, whether or not it is part of a ritual act. This is an interpretive outcome that no party wishes to endorse, and it would also contradict the conclusion arrived at in the immediately preceding section of the Mīmāṃāsūtra proving that it is only giving horses in ritual contexts that is at issue here.49 As can be seen, although Kumārila tries to harmonize the various interpretive principles involved in defending the accepted conclusion about who is to perform the Four-​potshard offering, tensions between these principles remain visible even in his own discussion. Turning to Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of this same section, we see that he exploits these very tensions in his attack on the accepted Mīmāṃsā analysis of this case. In fact, all that he is interested in is demonstrating that sequence does not determine the ritual conclusion, for which purpose he carefully sifts through centuries of Mīmāṃsā discussions, looking for alternate explanations and understandings of the section under investigation and uses them to undermine the conventional wisdom. For example, he quotes a verse from Someśvara Bhaṭṭa’s lost Tantrasāra (thirteenth century?), a text that builds on Kumārila’s views: “In the Maitrāyaṇī recension, even in the absence of the opening that concerns the giver, we understand that the giver performs the ritual solely by virtue of it being a subordinate act.”50 As Kumārila has already noticed, there is a version of the Veda that lacks the opening, and there, he was willing to concede, as a supplemental argument, that the law of subordinate rituals explains the accepted conclusion. Someśvara Bhaṭṭa seems to go a step further—​although, of course, we do not have access to his full discussion—​and argue that ritual subordination is itself a sufficient reason. Vyāsatīrtha happily capitalizes on this opportunity to

49. Ibid., p. 969. 50. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, p. 297: maitrāyaṇīyaśākḥāyāṃ dātrupakramato ’py ṛte | karmāṅgatvavaśād eva dātur iṣṭiḥ pratīyate ||.

74

74

Fir st Words, L ast Words

argue that, if subordination is sufficient grounds for reaching the conclusion in the recension that lacks the opening, it must also be sufficient to lead us to the same conclusion in the version that has it, thereby rendering sequence redundant in this case.51 Furthermore, as Vyāsatīrtha goes on to point out, several later Mīmāṃsakas belonging to both Kumārila’s and Prabhākara’s schools acknowledged that the actual practices of ritualists are more complicated than the earlier discussions seem to imply. The established conclusion may not, in fact, be the right one, and this is one rare case where it is not just the math that is being debated but also the outcome. Vyāsatīrtha first refers to the comments of another one of Kumārila’s followers, Pārthasārathi Miśra (eleventh century), according to whom some commentators on Jaimini’s sutras concluded that the ritual should be performed by the receiver of the horses, and that this procedure is, indeed, followed in practice by some performers.52 For Vyāsatīrtha, this is a rare proof that even some Mīmāṃsakas accepted the predominance of the closing over the opening. He then points out that the followers of Prabhākara go even further and argue that it is the normal procedure for the receiver of the horse to perform the ritual, and that the entire discussion of the issue found in Śabara is a hypothetical argument that is based on counterfactual premises (kṛtvā cintā).53 Ultimately, Vyāsatīrtha does not care who performs the ritual or what is the best path for justifying one’s performance. All he cares about is showing that this section does not provide an example for the interpretive predominance of the opening over the closing. The seeming messiness of later Mīmāṃsā discussions of this section serves his purpose, which is really different from that of those he quotes. In other words, he is playing the Mīmāṃsakas off against one another, using their complex and sometimes nuanced arguments for purposes other than they themselves intended.54 Thus he opportunistically takes up the Mīmāṃsā game without being committed to its stated

51. Ibid. 52. Pārthasārathi Miśra, Śāstradīpikā, ed. Sri Dharmadatta Suri (Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1915), p. 275. Note that, contrary to the impression Vyāsatīrtha gives (Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, pp. 297–​298), Pārthasārathi Miśra does not, in fact, report a different ritual procedure, and it may even be that the “other commentators” he refers to are hypothetical. 53. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, pp. 297–​298. 54. Vyāsatīrtha adopts the same procedure elsewhere. For example, he pits various Nondualist Vedānta views against one another in order to undermine their tradition by showing its overall incoherence. See McCrea, “Freed by the Weight of History.”

75



The New Math

75

objectives, namely, deciding what the correct ritual procedure is and why. In the process he shows his impressive mastery of this textual tradition.

3.4  Breaking the Chain: Earlier and Later in M īmāṃsā and Vedānta One final case brought up by Vyāsatīrtha is of particular interest to us because it has already been addressed not just in Mīmāṃsā but also in a Vedānta discussion that preceded both Vyāsatīrtha and his guru Madhva. What comes to be known as the “Principle of Breaking the Chain” (apacchedanyāya) is discussed in the Mīmāṃsāsūtra in the following context: at one point in the “Praise of Light” sacrifice (jyotiṣṭoma), several priests who serve different ritual functions are required to proceed in a line, each holding the end of the garment of the priest in front of him. There are specific expiation rites enjoined in case any one of the priests breaks this human chain, and, if two breakings occur simultaneously, then the performer is said to have the option of performing either of the assigned atonements. But if the two occur sequentially, it is not immediately obvious which rite applies: that associated with the first mishap or that associated with the second. Jaimini answers the question straightforwardly: “When there is a sequence, earlier is weaker, as in the case of ritual archetypes.”55 This means that the expiation enjoined for the second breaking overrules that of the first. Jaimini invokes here the analogy of an archetypal ritual (prakṛti) and its modification (vikṛti). Some rituals enjoined in the Veda are explained fully, whereas others are presented as modifications of those already fully enjoined. In such cases, whatever is specifically enjoined for the modified ritual always overrules, in cases of contradiction, practices drawn from the archetype. So, basically, by the logic that the exception is always more powerful than the rule, and the notion that the rule has to preexist for there to be an exception, the second breaking of the chain is seen as stronger because it displaces the conditions created by the first. The reader is right to be somewhat puzzled by this analogy, for it is not entirely clear whether the ritual sequence of the two breakings is really analogous to the seemingly logical sequence between an archetype and its modification. Interestingly, Śabara in his comments on this sutra tries to resolve this tension by casting both sequences in cognitive terms. His imagined opponent actually raises a rationale that is quite similar to the by now familiar

55. MS 6.5.54: paurvāparye pūrvadaubalyaṃ prakṛtivat.

76

76

Fir st Words, L ast Words

first-​come, first-​served hermeneutic principle. He argues that the awareness of the need for atonement created by the first breaking precludes the arising of any later awareness that contradicts it. But Śabara counters this argument by asserting that the second such awareness must arise, conditioned as it is by the second mishap and the atonement enjoined for it, and that it cannot arise without displacing the first. Śabara argues that this same cognitive sequence applies in the case of an archetypal ritual and its modification: the awareness that comes about from the rules for the modified ritual can arise in our mind only by displacing the preexisting general awareness that the procedures of the archetype will apply to all of its modifications.56 But we may wonder, why not adhere here, too, to the established Mīmāṃsā preference for earlier over later cognitions? Śabara seems entirely untroubled by this question, but, as is often the case, Kumārila is well aware of it, and he tries to deal with the problem and its possible implications more subtly. His first task is to map the cognitive sequence involved in the “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” and, as it turns out, there are not two but four cognitive moments here. The first is the prior awareness (pūrvavijñānasya) that one has to perform atonement for the first breaking of the chain, an awareness that is brought about both by the ritual mishap and by the Vedic prescription of a specific expiation for it. The second cognitive moment (uttareṇa vijñānena) is similarly occasioned by the second mishap. A third stage consists of remembering the first cognition alongside the second and realizing their contradiction (smṛtyā pratyavamṛśya virudhyamānasya). In the fourth and final moment, the latter suppresses the former (caturthe kṣaṇe bādho bhavati). As Kumārila explains, the principle involved here is that whatever is not cognitively obstructed stays predominant unless something subsequently arises to obstruct it. The cognition of the first expiation is blocked by the second, but there is nothing to block the second cognition, as it arises only after the first.57 Kumārila’s second task is to situate this specific type of blocking in a large array of scenarios of cognitive blocking. The decision in the “Breaking the Chain” case is similar to a variety of situations, such as archetypal and modified rituals and regular and occasional rites, all of which involve the same principle of a later cognition that stands unobstructed, overruling an earlier one. A second variety of blocking occurs when an initial awareness precludes a 56. Śabara, MSBh on MS 6.5.54 (MD, vol. 4, pp. 1476–​1477). 57. Kumārila, Ṭupṭīkā, on MS 6.5.54 (MD, vol. 4, p. 1477): ata ihotpannasya pūrvavijñānasya vidyamānaśabdasyottareṇa vijñānena smṛtyā pratyavamṛśya virudhyamānasya caturthe kṣaṇe bādho bhavati.

7



The New Math

77

later contradictory awareness from arising in the first place, for example, when an explicit statement of the Veda precludes the arising of any contrary understanding based on implication or other indirect means of knowledge. A third type involves cases where the meaning of the passage interpreted first forces us to interpret a later term figuratively so as to cohere with it. This is the domain in which the principle that the opening overrules the closing, our main topic in this book, applies.58 This discussion is typical of Kumārila’s delicate handling of interpretive principles that appear to dictate contrary outcomes in apparently similar cases.59 Kumārila is keenly aware of these similarities, but he is capable of articulating plausible reasons for treating them differently as part of his case law approach to Mīmāṃsā. In other words, although all of the types of interpretive judgments just discussed involve a cognitive sequence, each is prompted by a different ritual scenario and hence entails a different power balance between earlier and later cognitions. It is easy to see why Vyāsatīrtha would find Kumārila’s discussion of the “Principle of Breaking the Chain” music to his ears. He is quick to agree that later overrules earlier in the ritual case under discussion, and he sees this as yet another illustration of Madhva’s universal dictum that later always overrules earlier.60 In this he again demonstrates his skill in playing Mīmāṃsā against itself. There is, however, a further complication, and Vyāsatīrtha himself refers his readers to a more detailed discussion in his Nectar of Logic (Nyāyāmṛta). Here he deals with various other uses of the “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” this time in Vedānta, and for interpretive purposes that he does not necessarily share. One such earlier use, and the one that draws most of Vyāsatīrtha’s attention, occurs in the work of one of his main Nondualist opponents, Vācaspatimiśra, the tenth-​century polymath and one of the most influential subcommentators on Śaṅkara’s 58. Ibid. 59. In fact, it was precisely to distinguish cases where one seeks to determine the meaning of a word within a single coherent passage (as in the upakrama-​upasaṃhāra debate) from cases like the “Principle of Breaking the Chain” (where the problem is not to determine the meaning of a word within a single passage but to adjudicate between two contradictory independent injunctions, each of whose meanings is clearly understood) that Kumārila earlier, in the “Section on Opening with Veda,” formulated different rules for the weighing of sequence in syntactically interdependent versus independent passages (see section 2.1). 60. In explaining the rationale for this prioritizing of sequence, Vyāsatīrtha offers here the metaphor of bleaching: when you want to dye a black cloth red, you first have to bleach it and then soak it in red dye. In the same way, later shades of meaning can come into play only when earlier shades of meaning that contradict them have been washed away (Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, p. 302).

78

78

Fir st Words, L ast Words

commentary on the Brahmasūtra. In his commentary on the opening section of the text, Vācaspatimiśra discusses the relative power of perception (pratyakṣa) versus the direct statements of the Vedic scripture (āmnāya, śruti). Vācaspatimiśra, following Śaṅkara, argues that when there is a contradiction between the two, the word of the Veda overrules sense perception. For example, we perceive the world as full of dualities, but the Upanishads, at least as Śaṅkara understands them, tell us that no such difference ultimately exists. To support the ability of the Veda to override the evidence of the senses, Vācaspatimiśra somewhat unexpectedly treats this as a question of cognitive sequence. He argues that perception precedes scripture, in the sense that in order to cognize the meaning of the Veda we first have to perceive it. In other words, input from the scripture comes later, and later, he argues, overrules earlier. Here Vācaspatimiśra, in a move that prefigures what Vyāsatīrtha himself will do some centuries later, cites the Mīmāṃsā “Principle of Breaking the Chain” as the general rule that a later cognition must overrule any earlier one in case of contradiction.61 Vyāsatīrtha, by contrast, strongly believes that the perception of the world as dual cannot be overruled by any interpretation of the Veda. This is in agreement with Madhva’s already explained position that “plausibility” (upapatti) trumps all other interpretive principles.62 Thus, Vyāsatīrtha is quick to counter Vācaspatimiśra on the substance of his argument and to argue that sequence is not a relevant criterion adjudicating between perception and scripture. If it were, then by his own reasoning Vyāsatīrtha would have to agree with Vācaspatimiśra that later overthrows earlier. But precisely because the two writers are in agreement about the interpretive implications of sequence, Vyāsatīrtha must argue that the relative predominance of scripture versus perception is not a question of sequence at all but one of a relationship of dependency: scriptural awareness always subsists upon perception, since one can cognize the meaning of the Veda only by hearing it. Thus, if scripture is taken to undermine the authority of perception, it cuts the branch on which

61. Vācaspatimiśra, Bhāmatī, on ŚBSBh 1.1.1, pp. 10–​11. Vācaspatimiśra quotes here MS 6.5.64 and also Kumārila’s verse from Tantravārttika 3.3.2 (translated earlier), where Kumārila explains the different applications of the “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” on the one hand, and of the “Section Beginning with Veda,” on the other. For an earlier discussion of the “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” see Akane Saito, “Mīmāṃsāsūtra 6.5.54 on bādha in Mandanamiśra’s Brahmasiddhi,” Journal of Indian Philosophy, October 3, 2020, https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​ s10781-​020-​09447-​w. 62. See section 2.3. According to this line of thinking, any interpretation of the Veda that contradicts the undeniable evidence of the senses must therefore be wrong.

79



The New Math

79

it is sitting, so to speak.63 So, as we have already seen elsewhere, Vyāsatīrtha is being somewhat opportunistic, in the sense that he is arguing against an opponent who does exactly what he has done, that is, extend the “Principle of Breaking the Chain” to other cases that seemingly involve sequence. In the same manner, Vyāsatīrtha challenges or explains away cases where Nondualists extend the “Principle of Breaking the Chain” in ways he finds illegitimate. One of these is of particular interest to us as it directly brings into the open the question of early and late in the Veda. Vyāsatīrtha refers to an unnamed Nondualist opponent who claimed that passages that speak of Brahman as lacking any qualities (nirguṇa) supersede those that describe Brahman as endowed with qualities (saguṇa) precisely because they occur later in the Veda.64 Vyāsatīrtha, moreover, is particularly alarmed by the way that some “in our camp” seem to have accepted the relevance of sequence to this question and, even worse, to have countered the Nondualist position by appealing to the Mīmāṃsā principle that opening overrules closing: In response to opponents who held that depictions of Brahman as quality-​less are stronger because they come later according to the “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” some in our camp have said that the statements that Brahman has qualities are stronger because they come first, citing the principle elucidated in the “Section on Beginning with Veda” [MS 3.3.2]. This must be understood as either accepting the premise of the opponent for the sake of argument, or as something said with the idea that statements about Brahman as having or lacking qualities do not fall within the scope of the principle that the closing is stronger, since they do not stand in a relation of “opening” and “closing.”65

63. Vyāsatīrtha, Nyāyāmṛta, ed. K. T. Pandurangi, 3 vols. (Bangalore: Dvaita Vedanta Studies and Research Foundation, 1994–​1996), vol. 1, p. 364. The metaphor of the branch is ours. 64. Ibid., p. 365. 65. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, pp. 306–​307: apacchedanayena parair nirguṇavākyānāṃ caramatvāt prābalye śaṅkite vedo veti nayāt prāthamyāt saguṇavākyānāṃ prābalyam ity asmadīyānām uktis tu pararītyāśrayaṇena vā saguṇanirguṇaśāstrayor upakramopasaṃhāra-​ tvābhāvenopasaṃhāraprābalyanyāyāviṣayatvābhiprāyeṇa vā neyā. Vyāsatīrtha’s commentator Rāghavendra Tīrtha identifies those “in our camp” as the author of the Vāgvajra and the author of the Vādaratnāvalī (p. 306). For the passage from Vādaratnāvalī, see Viṣṇudāsa Ācārya, Vādaratnāvalī, ed. Bannanje Govindacharya (Udipi: Sanmana Samithi, 1968), pp. 106–​107. We were unable to locate the relevant passage in the published portion of the Vāgvajra.

80

80

Fir st Words, L ast Words

Vyāsatīrtha is walking on eggshells here. His main purpose in invoking the “Principle of Breaking the Chain” is to show that it proves his argument about the power of the closing. But when forced to acknowledge cases where the interpretation is guided by the opening, he must argue, like his opponents, that these cases are not really about sequence but are decided by some other principle. And when those in his camp seem to embrace sequence in these very cases, he cannot accept that they really mean what they seem to be saying.

3.5  Summary Summing up his argument on the whole question of sequence in the Apocalyptic Dance of Reason, Vyāsatīrtha directly attacks Kumārila’s cognitive principle of “first come, first served.” Remember that Kumārila stated, “When one thing has been understood first from the early part of the passage it needs one of the following—​a later element that fits with it, or one that adds something extra.”66 But Vyāsatīrtha presses Kumārila on what exactly it means for something to be “understood first”: “Does this refer to any first-​blush impression that arises in our mind on the basis of the opening, or only to what we understand from the opening based on further reflection, such that it conforms with the closing?”67 It cannot be the first, Vyāsatīrtha is quick to answer, because we often realize the false nature of our first impressions, as in the case of the “Hawk” sacrifice discussed earlier: what first appears to be a reference to an actual bird ends up being the name of a sacrifice after consideration of the closing of the passage. But it cannot be the second either. Recall that Kumārila tried to draw a distinction between the way we weigh earlier and later information derived from syntactically interdependent parts of a single passage, on the one hand, and derived from syntactically and semantically independent units of the text, on the other. Kumārila argued that in the first scenario, the opening overrules the closing, whereas in the second, the later passage prevails.68 But for Vyāsatīrtha, the only possible reason for allowing the later information to govern our reading of the earlier, even in the second scenario, is precisely the criterion stated by Madhva, namely, that what comes later acts as a commentary on what comes earlier. This, he notes, should apply

66. Quoted in section 2.1. 67. Vyāsatīrtha, Tarkatāṇḍava, vol. 3, p. 301: kim upakramād āpātapratipannaḥ, kiṃ vā parāmṛṣṭa upasaṃhārānuguṇaḥ? 68. See again section 2.1.

81



The New Math

81

just as much to the first scenario. Thus, Vyāsatīrtha concludes, Kumārila’s cognitive theory proves to be indefensible, and it is Madhva’s theory that supplies the only reliable path for reaching the established conclusions of Mīmāṃsā. As we have shown in this chapter, Vyāsatīrtha has no interest in challenging the interpretive or ritual conclusions of Mīmāṃsā, but he attempts to devise a new math that will reach the same old conclusions in a way that is consistent with Madhva’s prioritizing of the closing. For this reason, he plays the game of Mīmāṃsā opportunistically, in the sense that he is less interested in interpreting the Veda and more in using this discourse to prove his master right. Vyāsatīrtha masterfully exploits all of the tensions found in the earlier discussions. The challenge he poses to Kumārila is thus serious, real, and backed by an accumulation of sources by someone who proves himself a formidable student of Mīmāṃsā, even if he is not a true Mīmāṃsaka. But there is also a tension in Vyāsatīrtha’s own method of argumentation, and perhaps in the entire debate over sequence as it has developed by his time. Opportunism is really present on both sides of the debate. When Kumārila’s conclusion is informed by the closing, as in the “Section on What Is Wet,” he labors to show that his decision is based on some criterion other than sequence, but when the interpretation is guided by the opening, as in the “Section on Opening with Veda,” he argues that sequence is the determining factor. Vyāsatīrtha does exactly the same, only in reverse: when the closing wins, it is because of sequence, but when the opening wins, some other principle is sought. This selective application of interpretive principles might lead one to suspect that a one-​size-​fits-​all notion of sequence is insufficient in explaining interpretation. As we shall see in the next chapter, this tension creates an opportunity for an altogether different theory that is not based on sequence at all.

82

4

The New Hermeneutics Appayya’s Reinvention of Cognitive Theory

How important and controversial were questions of sequential priority in Vedic hermeneutics? It depends when you ask. For Śabara it was an incidental topic raised ad hoc in a couple of cases but never an object of serious theorization. Kumārila made some preliminary efforts to formulate a theory of sequence vis-​à-​vis other interpretive principles but still left many questions unanswered. Up until Madhva’s time, nobody in the field of traditional hermeneutics ever challenged the basic claim that opening overrules closing. And while Madhva offhandedly inverted this hierarchy, he never formulated a detailed defense of this inversion and did not seriously consider its implications for either Mīmāṃsā or Vedānta. It is only with Vyāsatīrtha, then, that this issue becomes the object of a sustained and systematic study. It is only in the wake of Vyāsatīrtha’s work, therefore, that the topic of sequential hierarchy and its role in interpretation becomes a matter of serious interdisciplinary and intersectarian debate. That Vyāsatīrtha’s writing generated immediate critical response should not surprise us. The sixteenth century witnessed a sudden wave of intense polemical contestation between rival text traditions, often driven by sectarian affiliations. It was also precisely in this period that Nondualist Vedāntins began to pay serious attention to the Dualists as noteworthy rival interpreters of the Veda.1 One of the leading figures in these early attacks 1. The most notable examples other than Appayya’s Upakramaparākrama are Nṛsiṃhāśrama's Advaitadīpikā (c. 1550) and Madhusūdana Sarasvatī’s Advaitasiddhi (c. 1570). For references to the Dualists in the former work, see Lawrence McCrea, “Freed by the Weight of History: Polemic and Doxography in Sixteenth Century Vedānta,” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 99n3. First Words, Last Words. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197583470.003.0004

83



The New Hermeneutics

83

on the Dualists was Appayya Dīkṣita (1520–​1593; hereafter, Appayya), a prominent voice in nearly all the major controversies of the period. Indeed, Appayya’s critique of the Dualists was by no means limited to the question of sequence. Before composing his Power of the Opening (Upakramaparākrama), his contribution to this debate, he had already written another book-​ length attack on Dualist theology, Pounding the Face of Madhva’s System (Madhvatantramukhamardana), which is a general attack on Madhva’s methodology and many of his arguments, but which does not significantly engage his rival’s reversal of sequential hierarchy.2 Appayya’s Power of the Opening, then, is not an incidental attack but part of a broader response to the new challenge posed by the Dualists, in both intellectual and political terms. It is also highly representative of Appayya’s own intellectual persona as a maverick.

4.1  Appayya Dīkṣita: Master of All Systems, at Home in None Appayya’s idiosyncratic identity is reflected in his social and institutional position as well as in his intellectual work. In an era of tightening sectarian boundaries, Appayya's father was the fruit of a marriage between a Shaiva father and a Vaishnava mother. Appayya’s family identity was of key importance to him, and the only teachers and influences he acknowledges are his father and his grandfathers on both sides. Indeed, Appayya was never affiliated with any institution that we know of, and, while existing within the orbit of the Vijayanagara Empire, he never received direct patronage from the imperial urban center but was supported by a series of smaller local potentates. These patrons, too, were of conflicting sectarian affiliations. Appayya’s first patron, Cinna Timma, was a Vijayanagara general who was deployed to the Trichy region in the 1540s. Cinna Timma was a follower of Vishnu, and he commissioned Appayya to compose an elaborate commentary on the Yādavābhyudaya. This massive poem on the life of Vishnu in his Krishna incarnation is by the great fourteenth-​century Vaishnava teacher, Vedānta Deśika, a formidable critic of the Nondualist Vedānta that Appayya ultimately sought to defend but also a model and idol for Appayya in constructing his own intellectual persona. Under his next and primary patron, Cinna Bomma 2. Appayya does at one point in the Madhvatantramukhamardana briefly allude to Madhva’s prioritization of the closing over the opening (upasaṃhāraprābalya) but does not offer any argument against it or discuss the matter in detail. See Appayya Dīkṣita, Madhvatantramukhamardana, ed. V. G. Apte, Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 113 (Pune: Anandashrama Press, 1940), p. 94.

84

84

Fir st Words, L ast Words

of Vellore (r. c. 1549–​1578), a Shaiva, Appayya revived the long-​forgotten Shaiva school of Vedānta founded by Śrīkaṇṭha, with a series of works, most notably Kindling the Sunstone of Shiva (Śivārkamaṇidīpikā). Late in life, he received support from another Vaishnava, Veṅkaṭa II (who came to power in 1585), heir to the erstwhile empire now relocated further to the south. Under his patronage Appayya wrote at least one more Vaishnava work, Hymn to the King of Boon-​Givers (Varadarājastava). This is a further illustration of his emulation of Vedānta Deśīka, who had earlier written a hymn to the same form of Vishnu in Kanchipuram.3 Thus, unlike Vyāsatīrtha, who had a stable intellectual and institutional home in the heart of the most powerful political formation of South India in his time, Appayya spent his career working on the periphery in more than one sense. Yet despite this seemingly peripheral status, he quickly emerged as one of the most influential and controversial figures throughout the Indian subcontinent in a wide range of disciplines.4 This had partly to do with the unparalleled erudition he displayed in all his works and his great skill and enthusiasm as a polemicist. In addition to his polemics, another factor in his success may have been his historicist approach. In many of his works, he seeks to solve persistent intellectual puzzles through critical analyses of all prior works in a given field.5 Both in his polemical writing and in his role as an intellectual historian, Appayya is able to play the part of a traditionalist while in fact introducing radical innovations. This unique combination of personas is reflected well in his explanation of an ideal of scholarship that he is the first to theorize, namely, of the sarvatantra-​svatantra: the scholar who is a freethinker in all systems of thought. This epithet appears in the colophon of the Yādavābhyudaya as applied to the poet Vedānta Deśika. In commenting on this label Appayya defines it as characterizing a person who is “capable of picking any tenet from any of the disciplines—​Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Prior Mīmāṃsā, Later Mīmāṃsā [Vedānta], 3. Y. Mahalinga Sastri, “Appayya Dīkṣita’s Age,” Journal of Oriental Research (1928): 225–​237; Y. Mahalinga Sastri, “More about the Age and Life of Śrīmad Appayya Dīkṣita,” Journal of Oriental Research (1929): 140–​160; Yigal Bronner, “South Meets North: Banaras from the Perspective of Appayya Dīkṣita,” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 11–​12; Yigal Bronner, “A Renaissance Man in Memory: Appayya Dīkṣita through the Ages,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 12–​17; and Ajay Rao, “The Vaiṣṇava Writings of a Śaiva Intellectual,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 41–​65. 4. Bronner, “South Meets North.” 5. In adopting this historicist method, Appayya may have been influenced by none other than Vyāsatīrtha himself. See McCrea, “Freed by the Weight of History,” p. 99.

85



The New Hermeneutics

85

Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Shaivism, Vaishnavism, and so on—​and either proving or disproving it at will.”6 While this is said apropos of his apparent role model, Vedānta Deśika, we believe it is even more applicable to Appayya himself. This provocative and self-​assertive approach to philosophical systems is clearly evident in Appayya’s own anomalous self-​positioning within the field of Vedānta, his main area of intellectual endeavor. In many of his Vedānta works, Appayya presents himself as a faithful defender of Śaṅkara’s nondualism, but he also devotes a huge portion of his intellectual career to the resurrection and defense of a rival system, the theistic Shaiva Vedānta of Śrīkaṇṭha. What is more, in “defending” each of these systems Appayya in fact introduces important changes. This is done partly to harmonize them, but also in order to incorporate elements of yet an additional rival system, Rāmānuja’s Vaishnava Qualified Nondualism, as will become evident.7 Appayya, in fact, was harshly criticized by rivals within the Nondualist tradition for his deviant and subversive views, specifically for his introduction of Qualified Nondualist elements into his interpretation of Śaṅkara.8 This and the many other controversies generated by his writing show that he was often seen as an outsider and a provocateur. This would seem to fit with his own understanding of the ideal of the sarvatantra-​svatantra: one who can write confidently and authoritatively in any field but who is the master of every tradition rather than its servant. Appayya’s Power of the Opening (Upakramaparākrama), probably written late in life, conforms to this pattern.9 This is a short monograph the size of a

6. Appayya Dīkṣita, in Vedānta Deśika, Yādavābhyudaya, with the commentary of Appayya Dīkṣita, ed. U. T. Viraraghavacharya (Madras: Ubhaya Vedanta Grantha Mala, 1969), 1.100, p. 50: sarveṣu tantreṣu siddhānteṣu nyāyavaiśeṣikapūrvottaramīmāṃsāsāṅkhyayogaśaivavaiṣṇavā-​ diṣu svatantrasya svecchayā kaṃcid arthaṃ sthāpayituṃ dūṣayituṃ vā śaktasya. See Bronner, “A Renaissance Man in Memory,” pp. 13–​14. 7. Lawrence McCrea, “Appayyadīkṣita’s Invention of Śrīkaṇṭha’s Vedānta,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 81–​94; Rao, “The Vaiṣṇava Writings of a Śaiva Intellectual”; Bronner, “A Renaissance Man in Memory.” 8. See especially Christopher Minkowski, “Appayya’s Vedānta and Nīlakaṇṭha’s Vedāntakataka,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 95–​114. 9. As we shall see (section 4.6), Appayya refers in the Power of the Opening to his Jeweled Amulet of Interpretive Reason (Nyāyarakṣāmaṇi), which itself sums up much of his earlier Vedānta works written under Cinna Bomma’s patronage. Moreover, Appayya’s only other major work on Mīmāṃsā, The Elixir for Injunctions (Vidhirasāyana), was, according to one manuscript, sponsored by Veṅkaṭa II, his patron in the last decade of his life (Bronner, “South Meets North,” p. 27n33). It seems likely that this was the period in which he was most directly engaged in this discipline.

86

86

Fir st Words, L ast Words

long scholarly article that is specifically written as a response to Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments discussed earlier. Although Vyāsatīrtha is never mentioned by name, the formulation of the argument and the examples chosen incorporate and respond, point by point, to every piece of his critique.10 The opening verse of this work frames it as a purely traditional defense of established theory in the light of recent attacks: The well-​informed, rejecting the closing, have declared the opening to be the stronger. I hereby inform those who mutter against it of the long line of reason set down in support.11 This opening presents the work as a mere restatement of already established arguments in the face of ill-​informed mutterings. Yet, as we shall see, the mutterings are taken more seriously than this dismissive phrase would suggest and, in fact, serve as the springboard for an unprecedentedly creative rereading of the tradition.

4.2  Appayya’s Novel Method Immediately following this combative opening stanza, Appayya turns to presenting the traditional Mīmāṃsā view. He begins by quoting the basic rationale for the power of the opening as explained by Kumārila: “The only reason for any word to depart from its own natural meaning is a contradiction.” That is to say, information is interpreted piece by piece; the very first piece of information has nothing to contradict it, and it is hence interpreted at face value, with later bits being understood so as to fit.12 In this short introduction, Appayya summarizes briefly only the two classic Mīmāṃsā cases for whose resolution the principle of the power of the opening was invoked: the “Section on Opening with Veda” and the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving

10. For another detailed analysis that shows the extent of Appayya’s engagement with Vyāsatīrtha in the Power of the Opening and elsewhere, see Jonathan Duquette, “On Appayya Dīkṣita’s Engagement with Vyāsatīrtha’s Tarkatāṇḍava,” Journal of Indological Studies 28–​29 (2016–​2017): 1–​24. 11. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, ed. A. Subrahmanyasastri (Varanasi: Banaras Hindu University, 1973), p. 1: upakramasya prabalatvam ūcire yayopasaṃhāravirodhino budhāḥ | pratiṣṭhitāṃ tām iha tarkasaṃtatiṃ prabodhayāmaḥ pratikūlajalpitān ||. 12. See section 2.1.

87



The New Hermeneutics

87

Ritual.” The presentation here is succinct and is really just meant to remind the highly educated intended readers of his treatise of what lies in the background of the controversy raised by Vyāsatīrtha.13 This is followed immediately by a more elaborate restatement of Vyāsatīrtha’s main arguments against the traditional position. However, as we have already noted, Vyāsatīrtha is not mentioned by name, either here or anywhere in the text. Instead, his new position is ascribed to “certain neophytes” (kecid arvācīnāḥ).14 Overall, Appayya’s summary of Vyāsatīrtha’s critique is detailed and faithful. Here Appayya works in his capacity as an honest historian of ideas, giving a basically sympathetic portrayal of his opponent’s arguments without, at this point, attempting to make them look weak or ridiculous. Indeed, in several respects he augments Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments. For one thing, Appayya draws on Vyāsatīrtha’s different works, synthesizing the positions developed in both the Apocalyptic Dance of Reason (Tarkatāṇḍava) and the Moonlight on Intentionality (Tātparyacandrikā).15 In addition, he sometimes even seeks to improve his opponent’s case by fleshing out the theoretical basis for the “closing is stronger” position, supplying additional supporting examples and addressing potential problems that Vyāsatīrtha has overlooked.16 In particular, he opens by highlighting what for both Madhva and Vyāsatīrtha was only casually mentioned in a single phrase, namely, the entire theoretical rationale for their position that the closing is stronger “because it has the form of a commentary.” Here Appayya substantiates his opponents’ claims by citing Patañjali’s famous rule that “a specific understanding comes about from a commentary.”17 Likewise, he ends his précis on a high point that again elucidates the rationale for Vyāsatīrtha’s claim more clearly than he did himself:

13. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 1–​6. 14. Ibid., p. 6. 15. The discussion is mainly based on the Tarkatāṇḍava but occasionally draws examples and related materials from the parallel section of the Tātparyacandrikā. See, for example, the “worldly” illustration of “gām ānaya balīvardam ānaya” (Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 6). This example is taken from Tātparyacandrikā (on BS 1.1.4 in MBSBh, vol. 2, p. 35). 16. For example, Vyāsatīrtha quotes in his discussion of the “Section on Opening with Veda” the principle that “if you are forced to postulate a nonstandard meaning, better to do it in a subordinate portion” (guṇe tv anyāyakalpanā; see section 3.1). Appayya traces this cited principle to its original source, a fragment of Mīmāṃsāsūtra 9.3.15; he quotes the entire sutra and then explains the principle and why it applies here. See Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 13. 17. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 6: vyākhyānato viśeṣapratipattiḥ. See Patañjali, Vyākaraṇamahābhāṣya, ed. Franz Kielhorn, 3 vols. (Bombay: Bombay Central Book Depot, 1880–​1885), vol. 1, p. 6.

8

88

Fir st Words, L ast Words

If you believe that that the opening is stronger, does that mean that one must accept anything at all that is understood in connection with the opening, or only that which is settled on after reflecting on the closing? If the former, then you would have to accept the use of an actual bird, for example, in the sentence concerning the “Hawk”; if the latter, then it winds up being the case that the closing is stronger.18 Speaking as Vyāsatīrtha, Appayya makes his opponent’s case culminate by placing the traditional Mīmāṃsaka on the horns of a dilemma: if the opening is necessarily stronger, it should not matter what follows. Anything that one understands upon hearing the opening should stand unrefuted, regardless of what comes later. However, if one concedes that the initial understanding based on the opening ever needs to be revised on the basis of what comes after, one in effect concedes that the closing is stronger. The closing always has the last word. Despite his seemingly sympathetic summary, Appayya structures his presentation of Vyāsatīrtha’s position in ways that anticipate and facilitate his later refutation of it. In particular, he rearranges the order of the cases in Vyāsatīrtha’s discussion. Vyāsatīrtha, as we saw, begins with an analysis of cases that positively substantiate his claim that the closing is stronger and only then proceeds to explain away potential counterexamples. In other words, he begins with cases that traditional Mīmāṃsakas interpreted using principles other than sequence, but where he argues that sequence is the only possible deciding factor, and only then turns to refute the cases the Mīmāṃsakas themselves cite in support of the strength of the opening. Appayya inverts this order. In his summary of Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments he begins with the official Mīmāṃsā sequence cases, the “Section on Opening with Veda” and the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual,” and only then proceeds to what for Vyāsatīrtha were positive examples. This, as we shall see, is the order in which Appayya himself will address these cases in his response to Vyāsatīrtha. It seems, then, that both Vyāsatīrtha and Appayya are adopting the same principle of ordering: they begin with what they take to be favorable cases and follow those with a case-​by-​case rejection of supposed counterexamples. However, as we shall see, there is more to Appayya’s method than this. It

18. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 17: upakramaprābalyavāde kim upakrame pratītamātrasaya grāhyatvaṃ kiṃ vopasaṃhāraparāmarśena vyavasitasya? ādye śyenādivākye pakṣyāder grāhyatvāpattiḥ. dvitīya upasaṃhārasyaiva prābalyaṃ sidhyet. For the “Hawk,” see section 3.1.

89



The New Hermeneutics

89

turns out that the key positive example for Vyāsatīrtha’s case is also the key to Appayya’s new theory of interpretation. As soon as Appayya is done summarizing Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments he turns to demolish them. He begins by attacking the basic theoretical rationale for the power of the closing that he himself has fleshed out, namely, that the closing works as commentary on the opening and therefore must govern our interpretation of it. Here he poses a question: What does it really mean to call the closing a “commentary”? Is the idea that it explicitly has the form of a commentary in taking each word and explaining it, or do we arrive at the notion of its being a commentary in order to avoid a mutual contradiction? It cannot be the first since there is no evidence for this. But if you take the second alternative, why should you not suppose just the same that what one hears first serves as a commentary on what one hears last?19 Obviously, the latter portion of any Vedic passage is not a commentary in the technical sense of the word: it does not actually parse the opening into words and tell us what each one means. Rather the idea must be that hearing the later portion causes us to rethink the meaning of the earlier part in the light of what follows, commentary-​like. But if all the opponent means by calling the closing a “commentary” is that after we have heard it we may reinterpret the opening so as to avoid a contradiction between them, then there is no a priori reason for this directionality. One could just as easily use the earlier part of the text as a guide for interpreting the later. Of course, Appayya is aware of a possible objection that a commentary can operate only once the thing to be explained has already been presented, and that hence the commentary always comes later. But this possible objection is premised on a certain cognitive sequence that Appayya moves to reject: Immediately after hearing the last part [of the passage], at the moment of actually resolving the contradiction that leads us to treat one part as the commentary on the other, both parts are equally present in the

19. Ibid., pp. 17–​18: kiṃ vyākhyeyapadopādānena spaṣṭaṃ vyākhyānarūpatvam ity āśayaḥ. uta parasparavirodhaparihārāya kalpyam iti. nādyaḥ, asiddheḥ. dvitīye prathamaśrutasyaiva caramaśrutavyākhyānarūpatvaṃ kimiti na kalpyate?

90

90

Fir st Words, L ast Words

mind as the two poles of the contradiction. Thus it is just as possible to take the first part as commenting on what comes later.20 The cognitive scenario that this argument implies is as follows: it is only after we have taken in both parts of a passage that we can recognize the contradiction between them and undertake to resolve it. At this point in time, the sequence in which we received the information is no longer relevant, and hence assigning the role of a commentary to one or the other cannot be predetermined based on sequence in the way that Madhva and Vyāsatīrtha would have it. This argument effectively undercuts the cognitive theory of Appayya’s Dualist opponents. But, disturbingly, it seems that it should equally undercut the traditional Mīmāṃsā position, as presented by Kumārila, namely, that information derived from the earlier portion of a text governs our interpretation of what comes later because it is received and processed first. By insisting that the resolution of contradiction between earlier and later cannot even begin until both parts have been internalized, Appayya seems to have rendered the question of textual sequence altogether irrelevant, totally subverting the ostensible objective of his work. Still, Appayya tries to find a way to defend Kumārila’s account and, in fact, to substantiate it. This he does by providing what is in effect a new theoretical model that explains how sequence works in the interpretation of a Vedic passage. He acknowledges that his own argument cuts both ways but turns to posit a more nuanced flowchart of moments or stages in the cognitive process as well as to highlight the implications of the special features of the Veda as a text. When dealing with a passage whose opening and closing are mutually contradictory, the first cognitive phase involves taking in the opening. At this stage, the contradiction with the closing, even though it already exists, is not apparent to the interpreter and cannot shape his or her interpretation. Then, at a later stage, when one takes in the closing, it becomes apparent that the two cannot be combined into a single coherent sentence meaning as they stand. This awareness, in turn, prevents the interpreter from taking the closing in its literal meaning. But if it is the mere order in which information enters the mind that determines how we process it, what happens if the hearer, due to a lapse of attention, fails to note the opening and processes the closing first? Should, 20. Ibid., p. 18: pāścātyabhāgaśravaṇānantaram anyatarasya vyākhyānarūpatvakalpa-​ kaṃ virodhapratisandhānaṃ yadāvatarati tadā virodhapratiyogitvena bhāgadvayasyāpy upasthitatvāviśeṣeṇa prathamabhāgasyāpi pāścātyabhāgavyākhyānarūpatvakalpanopapatteḥ.

91



The New Hermeneutics

91

then, the closing not govern that hearer’s interpretation? Appayya responds to this objection by stressing that it is not the idiosyncratic cognitive process in the mind of an individual reader that should guide us here, but rather the order in which information is presented in the Vedic text. The Veda, after all, is not an ordinary text, in which a speaker presents information in any desired sequence. It exists eternally in an absolutely fixed sequential form. In interpreting the Veda, then, what matters is not the order in which any individual hears and interprets the text but rather the order in which he or she should process it, namely, by following its fixed order.21 For Appayya, this fact completely undermines the relevance of the “Principle of Breaking the Chain” (apacchedanyāya) that Vyāsatīrtha cited in favor of his argument for the predominance of the closing. Appayya reminds his readers that the sequence in which two priests break the chain in a ritual, in itself an act of inattention, is a matter of happenstance: if it happens at all, it could occur in any sequence whatsoever (aniyata). It thus cannot serve as a model for interpreting a Vedic text whose sequence is forever fixed (niyata). So an understanding of a Vedic passage based on error, inattention, or failure to apply proper hermeneutic principles bears no interpretive weight. This means that Vedic hermeneutics as Appayya understands it postulates an ideal reader, who, for example, is never inattentive.22 But what then of cases where the opening creates a misleading implication not because the hearer is inattentive but because of the information it seems to provide? For example, in the case of the “Hawk” sacrifice, the opening, “To put a spell on one’s enemy, one should sacrifice with the hawk,” gives every indication that an actual hawk should be sacrificed. It is only the closing, “like a hawk . . . ,” that prompts a reinterpretation of the word “hawk” in the opening as the proper name of the sacrifice in question. Appayya now refers to this example and argues, quite boldly, that any such first-​blush understanding involving an actual bird is not supported by proper interpretive principles, so that the imagined ideal reader would never have arrived at it in the first place. At this point, Appayya does not explain how exactly the interpreter should know that no real bird is involved, but his discussion implies that a hermeneutically astute interpreter will somehow know when not to jump to conclusions.23 21. Ibid., p. 19. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., pp. 19–​20.

92

92

Fir st Words, L ast Words

In others words, pace Foucault, the idea is that a commentary, or at least the commentary that one part of the Veda provides on another, does not create an excess of meaning but, quite the contrary, allows the interpreter to eliminate potential superfluity.24 Furthermore, the kind of arguments from error that Vyāsatīrtha has marshaled, argues Appayya, cut both ways, because just as an interpreter can be initially inattentive, it is equally possible that a hearer might lose attention after taking in the opening. On Vyāsatīrtha’s theory, this should mean that for that reader the opening should have greater strength than the closing.25 Note how readily Appayya is willing to propose that the problems that come with one sequence-​based interpretive theory are equally applicable to its alternative. This seems like a dangerous strategy, in that it puts the opponent on equal footing with his own position, an opportunity, we will see, that his later rivals actually exploit. But, as we will also see, Appayya has a reason for adopting this strategy that endangers the very notion of sequential priority. Now, having undermined Vyāsatīrtha’s theoretical rationale for the strength of the closing, and having given his own preliminary account, Appayya turns more specifically to attack his opponent’s critique of the canonical Mīmāṃsā cases in favor of the opening. We will not review in full detail his discussion of the “Section on Opening with Veda” and the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual.” Instead, we will limit ourselves to highlighting a few key points that demonstrate his new methodology. Recall that Vyāsatīrtha’s main strategy for dealing with these cases was to find alternate, non-​sequence-​ based reasons for arriving at the same conclusions as the Mīmāṃsakas. In the “Section on Opening with Veda,” for example, Vyāsatīrtha’s main argument was that the real basis for taking the terms "ṛg" etc. to refer to Vedas and not mantras was not sequence but repetition: in the entire passage under discussion, the occurrences of the term “Veda” outnumber any term that individually refers to mantra.26 Appayya is happy to answer this challenge, first by simply redoing Vyāsatīrtha’s “new math.” He maintains that the math is wrong: the total of words for mantra is bigger than the total for Veda.27 More interesting,

24. Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon, 1973), p. xvi. 25. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 17–​18. 26. See section 3.2. Recall that according to Madhva, repetition is superior to sequence as an interpretive principle. 27. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 22.

93



The New Hermeneutics

93

however, than this numerical one-​upmanship is his methodological one-​ upmanship. Appayya’s discussion is a tour de force of Vedic and Mīmāṃsā scholarship. Where Vyāsatīrtha was content merely to base his arguments on the passages already quoted by Śabara and Kumārila, Appayya dramatically expands the canon of scriptural examples and relevant Mīmāṃsā texts. One example of a newly introduced scriptural citation occurs in the context of refuting Vyāsatīrtha’s claim that the word "ṛg" is actually ambiguous; it can denote either a portion of the Veda or a mantra type. Here Appayya cites a passage from the Upanishads that was never before used in this controversy and that has both the terms "ṛg" (in the sense of mantra) and "Ṛgveda" (referring to the text) employed contrastively.28 Then there is his practice of expanding the discussion by relying on Mīmāṃsā sutras from other contexts, so far not seen as relevant to the question at hand.29 Appayya also quotes a wide range of texts not normally cited in intra-​Mīmāṃsā discussions of this kind, including, for example, early legal texts such as the Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra, brought in to show that his position on the ritual questions having to do with the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual” is supported even outside the scriptures.30 More conspicuously, Appayya cites a wide range of Mīmāṃsā texts that are new to the discussion. In this, he is following the model of Vyāsatīrtha, who, as we have seen, quotes little-​known texts from both major schools of Mīmāṃsā, that of Kumārila and that of Prabhākara. But Appayya outdoes his predecessor in this area and demonstrates his familiarity with rarities such as the Dīpaśikhā, Śālikanātha Miśra’s all but forgotten subcommentary on Prabhākara’s own largely forgotten second commentary on Śabara.31 Here

28. ṛca eva madhukṛtaḥ, ṛgveda eva puṣpam. Chāndogya Upaniṣad 3.1.2; Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 200. Cf. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 22. Other such examples include the citation of Śabara on MS 6.8.26 (dvādaśarātrīr dīkṣitaḥ; p. 25), Taittirīyasaṃhitā 6.1.4.8 (candram asi mama bhogāya; p. 26; Taittirīyasaṃhitā, ed. Mahādeva Cimaṇājī Āpaṭe, 9 vols., Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 42 [Pune: Anandashrama Press, 1940–​1951], vol. 8, p. 2386), both in the context of the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual.” 29. See, for example, the introduction of MS 10.8.23 (Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 21) in the context of discussing the "Section on Beginning with Veda." 30. Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra, ed. A. Chinnnasvāmi Śāstrī, Kāśī Sanskrit Series 104 (Banaras: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1934), 2.3.19 (p. 148), cf. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 26. 31. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 26.

94

94

Fir st Words, L ast Words

and elsewhere in countering Vyāsatīrtha’s objections, Appayya presents himself as upholding the truth of both Prabhākara’s and Kumārila’s subschools of Mīmāṃsā, and he is the only author we know of to have done so, at least up to his time. In arguing for the strength of the opening, he is defending what he takes to be a consensus position of Mīmāṃsakas of all schools. In all of this Appayya is displaying full mastery of the field of Mīmāṃsā as well as of the scriptural canon and tangentially related disciplines. The ability to understand, much less to critique, a discussion of the sort he offers here must have been rare even among scholars of his time. By this display of immense erudition, Appayya is attempting to show that Vyāsatīrtha is, in comparison with himself, a novice, whose deviant arguments cannot be made to fit with “the proper boundaries for Mīmāṃsā scholars” (mīmāṃsakamaryādā).32 But beneath the scholarly virtuosity that Appayya displays, even his initial attack on Vyāsatīrtha is threatened by a contradiction that seems hard to reconcile. On the one hand, he counters his opponent’s account of hermeneutics by paying even more attention to sequence: instead of just opening and closing, he theorizes a succession of multiple moments in the cognition of a text, wherein information keeps being added and absorbed and each new piece of the puzzle further constrains the freedom to interpret pieces that are yet to be absorbed. In this context, it is significant that Appayya sometimes switches from the terminology of “opening” and “closing” to that of “earlier” and “later” (pūrva and para) and refers to what the interpreter can know at a given moment along this chain (tadānīṃtanajñāna).33 On the other hand, his main theoretical attack on Vyāsatīrtha’s position relies on arguments that seem as if they should undermine the whole notion of sequence as altogether irrelevant to interpretation. In particular, as we have seen, he repeatedly resorts to “cuts-​both-​ways” arguments that seem to put the preference for both opening and closing on an equal footing. This suggests that, in fact, the work of resolving interpretive conflict cannot begin until all the pieces of the puzzle are already on the table, thereby rendering the question of sequence moot. As we shall see, Appayya is conscious of this tension and in fact uses it as a springboard for a radically new approach to the question.

32. Ibid., p. 21. 33. See, for examples of both, ibid., p. 19.

95



The New Hermeneutics

95

4.3  A Need for a New Hermeneutics It is when Appayya turns to examine the supposed cases in favor of the power of the closing that his new theory suddenly emerges. As we saw in the previous chapter, Vyāsatīrtha’s main positive example is the “Section on What Is Wet” (aktādhikaraṇa), where the injunction “One places wet pebbles” is elucidated by the closing “Clarified butter indeed is power.” For Vyāsatīrtha this is a case where only Madhva’s interpretive hierarchy with its inverted sequence explains the well-​established ritual outcome of using clarified butter, and not just any liquid, to wet the pebbles. Recall that Kumārila went out of his way to show that this case is not about deciding between opening and closing because it does not involve a contradiction between the two. Vyāsatīrtha, on the other hand, insisted that there is an undeniable contradiction between wetting with any liquid, as implied by the opening injunction, and wetting with butter alone, as the closing indicates. For him, pace Kumārila, this is very much a case where the closing decisively overrules the understanding gained from the opening. Appayya, for his part, does not deny that the closing provides the key piece of information that allows the sacrificer to perform the rite correctly in the “Section on What Is Wet.” Instead he develops a totally new understanding of how such interchanges between related sections of the passage are to be understood and resolved. In fact, he develops two such understandings that seem to be in tension with one another, one based on sequence and the other sequence-​neutral. The key element common to both of these new positions is “need” (ākāṅkṣā). This term has a long and important history in Mīmāṃsā prior to Appayya’s time, but the way he uses it here is entirely unprecedented.34 In his first line of argument, Appayya agrees with Vyāsatīrtha that the “Section on What Is Wet” is decided on the basis of sequence (and in this he strongly departs from Kumārila), but, unlike Vyāsatīrtha, he argues that the way the case is decided shows precisely the greater strength of the opening. In other words, the closing “Clarified butter indeed is power” does not overpower the opening injunction to use wet pebbles. On the contrary, it shows its subservience to the opening by providing it with the information it needs. The injunction “One places wet pebbles” creates a need in the mind of the prospective 34. For a general discussion on ākāṅkṣā in Indian language theories, see K. Kunjunni Raja, Indian Theories of Meaning (Madras: Adyar Library and Research Centre, 1963), pp. 151–​164. For a specific discussion of its role in Mīmāṃsā, see Lawrence McCrea, “The Hierarchical Organization of Language in Mīmāṃsā Interpretive Theory,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28 (2000): 433–​437.

96

96

Fir st Words, L ast Words

performer because anyone who tries to follow it will have to use some specific liquid; it is impossible to wet a substance with “liquid in general.” The need to choose, posed by the opening, would impose itself on the interpreter-​ performer even if the concluding passage about butter were not there, and all that the closing passage does is to fulfill this already generated need: Here the opening is not contradicted by the weaker closing. On the contrary, the latter conforms to it insofar as it supplies it with what it requires. For surely, if a universal is stipulated for performance, it needs to settle on something specific in order to be performed. After all, you simply cannot employ in a ritual either a universal that lacks any specification or all of its specific individual manifestations. Given the need to settle on something more precise, if one fails to find a specific that is explicitly enjoined in some way or another, then one will end up picking a specific of one’s own choice (aniyatam), one that conforms with the universal already indicated and that the human mind can conjure on the basis of other similar rituals. But once a specific that is stipulated is found in the text, one ought to stop right there, because when presented with two specifics, one already designated and the other the result of one’s own design, opting for the already designated option is more parsimonious.35 Hearing the stipulation “One places wet pebbles,” one is immediately aware that one will have to use some particular liquid in order to perform the stipulated ritual action. This means that before one reads any further, one already knows one will have to narrow down the universal “wet” to something specific. One is then put on the lookout for any further textual indication that would guide one’s selection. The ideal reader that Mīmāṃsā presupposes seeks to fill this pragmatic need, created by the opening, by the most direct possible route. This means that if a later part of the same passage provides the 35. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 31: na cātra durbalasyāpy upasaṃhārasyopakrameṇa virodhaḥ; pratyuta tadākāṅkṣitasamarpakatayānuguṇyam eva. avaśyaṃ hy anuṣṭheyatayopasthāpyamānaṃ sāmānyam anuṣṭhānāya kvacid viśeṣe paryavasānam apekṣate; nirviśeṣasāmānyasya sakalaviśeṣāṇāṃ vopādātum aśakyatvāt. tathā ca kvacid viśeṣe paryavasānam ity apekṣāyāṃ sa yady apekṣito viśeṣaḥ kathamapi śruto na labhyate, tadākṣepakasāmānyabalāt tattadanuṣṭhānāt puruṣabuddhyupasthāpitam aniyataṃ viśeṣam āsādya nivṛttaḥ syāt. tallābhe tu tatraiva paryavasānaṃ yuktam. kḷptakalpyopasthitikayor viśeṣayoḥ kḷptopasthitikasyaiva lāghavena grāhyatvāt. Translation revised from Yigal Bronner, “The Power of Primacy and the Domination of the Injunction: Appayya Dīkṣita’s Two Personas in a Debate about Vedic Hermeneutics,” Journal of Hindu Studies 8 (2015): 115.

97



The New Hermeneutics

97

needed information, the reader will seize upon it and use the liquid it indicates rather than having to rely upon his or her own imagination. If we look at this pragmatic-​cognitive scenario from a perspective of power relations, it is easy to see why Appayya believes that the opening is stronger: it is the opening that creates the interpretive need, and it is the closing that complies with it. This is how Appayya undermines Vyāsatīrtha’s claim that the narrowing down of “wet” produced by the closing shows that the latter must be stronger by virtue of blocking the former. For “even if the contraction of the opening amounts to a partial blocking of it, nevertheless this is not driven by the closing, as it is, in fact, needed (ākāṅkṣita) by the opening itself. Therefore, the opening is not blocked by the closing.”36 The opening, then, is in the driver’s seat; it generates the pragmatic need for this narrowing, and the closing acts in conformity with, indeed, in submission to, this need. Maintaining the same vision of power relations between opening and closing, Appayya proposes an alternative explanation for using butter, the agreed upon solution in the “Section on What Is Wet.” There are situations in life where a superior willfully adopts the restrictions of a subordinate with no harm to himself or herself. Appayya now cites the well-​known analogy of eating out of brass utensils. This refers to a situation in which a teacher who is permitted to eat out of any sort of vessel voluntarily chooses to eat only out of the brazen variety in order to aid his student in meeting his own ritual requirements; the student must eat the leftover food from the teacher’s plate, and he is ritually obliged to use only brass utensils. This worldly maxim has been invoked by Jaimini to show that a predominant element in a sacrifice may be adjusted to conform to a restriction that is imposed on a subordinate element, so long as the predominant element is not compromised thereby.37 For Appayya, the same principle would apply to the narrowing of the predominant opening in the “Section on What Is Wet.” Since the use of any liquid will satisfy the terms of the opening, but only the use of butter will render its praise in the subordinate closing purposeful, one should use butter to wet the pebbles. In this way the terms of the closing are satisfied without in any 36. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 33: yady apy upakramasya saṃkoco ’yam ekadeśabādha eva, tathāpy asau tenaivākāṅkṣito nopasaṃhāreṇa kārita iti na tenāsya bādhaḥ. Introducing the distinction between needed and unneeded contractions is meant to refute Vyāsatīrtha’s citation of the well-​known case of a generic injunction being contracted in the light of a more specific one, namely, that the general rule “One offers into the offering fire” is selectively overruled in one case by the more specific injunction “One offers into the hoof-​print of a cow” (see section 3.1). 37. MS 12.2.34: adhikaś ca guṇaḥ sādhāraṇe ’virodhāt kāṃsyabhojivad amukhye ’pi.

98

98

Fir st Words, L ast Words

way compromising those of the opening. In other words, just like in the case of the teacher and the student, the fact that a superior element bends to help an inferior without harm to itself does not show it to be any less superior.38 Having thus made this two-​pronged defense of the strength of the opening in the “Section on What Is Wet,” Appayya introduces a second, dramatically different line of argumentation, which renders sequence irrelevant to the case in hand. He signals this shift by a characteristic code-​switching device, “but really” (vastutas tu):39 “But really, one does not need to say even this much to refute any suspicion that the closing is stronger in the ‘Section on What Is Wet.’ The point here is that a doubtful matter in the injunction is resolved by the declarative portion, not that a doubtful matter in the opening is resolved by means of the closing.”40 This transition suggests not only that Appayya is now postulating an alternative argument, but that the previous line of argument was less sincerely meant than the one he now puts forth. In truth, the question here is not one of sequence at all. Rather, it is a matter of intrasentential coherence, where a doubt about one element, in this case an injunction, is resolved by another, here a declarative portion. In making this point, Appayya reminds his readers that this was Kumārila’s own understanding of the question in the “Section on What Is Wet,” and he quotes from his predecessor the verse that succinctly captures this argument (“Injunction and praise must always act upon the same object . . .”).41 But even though Appayya returns to Kumārila’s original point, it is crucial to understand that this old position now finds place in a new and broad theory of interpretation based on a novel and detailed examination of the “Section on What Is Wet.” Building on Kumārila’s basic insight, then, Appayya uses the case of the wet pebbles as a springboard for a far more elaborate typology of textual doubts and a comprehensive theory as to how they are to be resolved through context. He demonstrates first that doubts can arise in any functional component of the text. It thus need not necessarily be the case that the declarative section resolves doubts about the injunction; it can just as well work the other 38. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 34–​35. 39. On this phrase and its methodological implications, see Gary Tubb and Yigal Bronner, “Vastutas tu: Methodology and the New School of Sanskrit Poetics,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 619–​632. 40. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 35: vastutas tv aktādhikaraṇa upasaṃhāraprābal-​ yaśaṅkānirākaraṇāya naitāvad dūraṃ vaktavyaṃ. vidhau sandigdham arthavādenāvadhāryata iti hi tatra vyutpādanam, na tūpakrame sandigdham upasaṃhāreṇāvadhāryate. 41. See section 3.1.

9



The New Hermeneutics

99

way around. Appayya makes a point of giving such a counterexample, citing here, as he often does, a case that was raised in an entirely different context in Mīmāṃsā.42 Furthermore, Appayya here identifies a variety of different interpretive levels on which a doubt can occur. These pervade a vast semantic-​ pragmatic spectrum: doubts that arise from polysemic stems, ambiguous morphological endings, multivalent lexical items, and syntactic ambiguities; uncertainties that have to do with the scope of an injunction (should, for example, a rite prescribed for the days leading to the full-​moon night be performed monthly or only in certain months?); and finally, ambiguities about elements to be used in a ritual, as in the case of the generic “wet” in the “Section on What Is Wet.” In all these cases, which Appayya discusses and exemplifies in detail, the reader, confronted by a textual ambiguity, resolves it by examining the surrounding parts of the passage. But what is particularly striking here is that Appayya explicitly and unequivocally argues that this is done regardless of whether the disambiguating part appears earlier, in the opening, or later, in the closing: Thus, if a doubt of whatever kind pertains to the injunction, it should be resolved with the help of a declarative portion, regardless of whether this declarative portion is found in the opening or in the closing. This is precisely what the “Section on What Is Wet” sets out to impart, and there is no reason to suspect that it imparts the power of the closing.43 What started out looking like a strong defense of the power of the opening even in the “Section on What Is Wet” suddenly ends by marginalizing the issue of sequence altogether. True, this marginalization applies only to the case under discussion, where Mīmāṃsā never argued sequence to be operative in the first place. But in making this point, Appayya vastly expands the applicability of this case and turns it into a universal theory of doubt. Thus when he argues that sequence is immaterial to the “Section on What Is Wet,” he argues that it is irrelevant to any case of resolving any kind of doubtful Vedic injunction by means of its accompanying descriptive portion or vice versa. He 42. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 35–​36; the case is originally discussed in MS 9.2.30–​31. 43. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 39: evaṃ yat kiṃcid vidhau sandigdhaṃ tat sarvam upakramopasaṃhāragatatvānādareṇārthavādamātrān nirṇeyam iti vyutpādayituṃ pravṛtte ’sminn adhikaraṇe nopasaṃhāraprābalyavyutpādanaśaṅkāvakāśaḥ.

10

100

Fir st Words, L ast Words

also is quite clear that by doing so he portrays his earlier position—​that the opening is stronger than the closing in such cases—​as merely a debater’s point. Appayya concludes this section of the discussion by reiterating precisely these points: So this is the real state of affairs: in the “Section on What Is Wet” it is explained that something doubtful in the injunction is resolved through the descriptive passage, regardless of its location. If one were to disregard this and imagine that the issue depends upon the greater strength of the closing, one could just as well imagine that it depends on the greater strength of the opening. To explain: the generic liquid substance understood from the opening “wet pebbles” is narrowed down to butter because of the mention of butter in the remaining portion, since the injunction and the praise must act upon the same object. Now in the same way, “butter” is narrowed down to pure butter, since it construes as the specific liquid substance that accomplishes the act of wetting as part of the sacrifice; butter that is impure either naturally or by coming into contact with something impure is not fit for sacrifice. And so the narrowing down is the same for the liquid substance in the opening and the butter in the closing. Nevertheless the liquid substance, known from the opening as something to be used in performance, is narrowed down due to its own need for specification so that it can be used in performance. On the other hand, the butter, which is praised in the closing as “power,” is not narrowed down due to its own need; there is no contradiction in praising any sort of butter as “power” due to its radiance and other such attributes. Instead, it is narrowed down in conformity with its construal as a specific ritual substance for use in the act of wetting known from the opening. In this way, one could very easily say that this issue depends on the greater strength of the opening.44 44. Ibid., pp. 40–​41: vastusthitis tāvad iyaṃ yad aktādhikaraṇe vidhau sandigdhasya yatra tatra sthitenārthavādena nirṇayo vyutpādita iti, tadatilaṅghanena tatropasaṃhāraprābalyo-​ pajīvanotprekṣāyāṃ tu tato ’py āñjasyenopakramaprābalyopajīvanam evotprekṣituṃ śakyam. tathā hy aktā śarkarā ity atra vidhistutyor ekaviṣayatayā yathopakramāvagatadravadravya-​ sāmānyasya vākyaśeṣe ghṛtasaṃkīrtanād ghṛtarūpatayāsti saṃkocaḥ. tathā ghṛtasya yajñāntar-​ gatāñjanakriyāsādhakadravadravyaviśeṣatayānvayād aduṣṭaghṛtarūpatayāsti saṃkocaḥ. jātyā saṃsargādinā vā duṣṭasya ghṛtasyāyajñīyatvāt. evaṃ ca yady apy upakramopasaṃharagatayor dravadravyaghṛtayor aviśiṣṭaḥ saṃkocaḥ, tathāpy upakrame ’nuṣṭheyatayāvagatasya dravadravyasāmānyasyānuṣṭhānāya svasyaiva viśeṣākāṅkṣayā saṃkocaḥ, upasaṃhāre tejastvena stutasya ghṛtasya tu na svākāṅkṣayā saṃkocaḥ. ghṛtasāmānyasyāpy aujjvālyādiguṇatas tejastvena

10



The New Hermeneutics

101

Here the argument made earlier, that the “Section on What Is Wet” is decided on the basis of the greater strength of the opening, is clearly marked as hypothetical. The question is not really about sequence at all, but if the opponent insists on treating it as such, the advocate of the opening could produce a sequence-​based argument that is at least as good as, if not better than, that of the advocate of the closing. This is yet another instance of Appayya’s “cuts-​ both-​ways” argument; it does not conclusively establish the strength of the opening, but it effectively prevents the opponent from treating the “Section on What Is Wet” as evidence for the greater strength of the closing. At any rate, Appayya knowingly pulls the rug from under his own advocacy for the role of sequence in such cases. But even though this first position is effectively marginalized as purely hypothetical, its core concept of “need” now emerges as central to his thinking about interpretive scenarios in general, sequence-​ based or not.

4.4  The Typology of Need Having explained the resolution of the “Section on What Is Wet” in terms of a global theory of doubt, Appayya goes back to testing the concept of need, first developed in connection with the sequence-​based reading of the same section, a reading he has just brushed aside as hypothetical. He does this by introducing a new set of potentially contradictory examples. It is crucial to note that at this point, Appayya moves entirely away from arguments drawn from Vyāsatīrtha’s seminal critique. He raises new objections not because they are likely to be presented by a real future adversary but because they allow him to expand and refine what he must have seen as an entirely new model of interpretation. As we have seen, Appayya follows Kumārila in treating the “Section on What Is Wet” as a case of doubt being resolved by further specification from elsewhere rather than as an opening being overruled by a contradictory closing. Now he introduces a hypothetical opponent who accepts this analysis but provides additional examples where the closing overrules the opening, even though, he contends, there is no such doubt to begin with. Because the theory of doubt Appayya carved out of the “Section on What Is Wet” is

stutyavirodhāt. kiṃtūpakramāvagatāñjanakriyāsādhanadravadravyaviśeṣānvayānusareṇaivety evaṃ suvacam upakramaprābalyopajīvanam.

102

102

Fir st Words, L ast Words

presented as universal, all the opponent needs to do in order to undermine it is to find one or two convincing counterexamples. Appayya, speaking in the voice of this opponent, presents two such cases, of which we will discuss only the first. This is the ritual of the Jyotiṣṭoma (the “Praise of Light” sacrifice, mentioned in a different context in section 3.2). The basic injunction, “One should sacrifice with the Jyotiṣṭoma,” occurs in the vicinity of a passage in which many rituals are described: several animal sacrifices, a few preparatory rites, and one offering of the psychoactive plant extract soma. The question, already brought up by Jaimini (although not in connection with the question of sequence), is whether the term “Jyotiṣṭoma” applies to all of these sacrifices or only to a subset thereof.45 As the opponent reminds us, the word “sacrifice” in the injunction should ordinarily apply to all the rituals in the passage. It is only on the basis of the closing descriptive portion, which links the term “Jyotiṣṭoma” specifically to the soma offering, that we conclude that the injunction refers to it alone. This, says the opponent, is a case where the opening is narrowed down despite its meaning never being in doubt in the first place. This can be explained, he adds, only as the result of the greater strength of the closing: Here, after all, there is no doubt arising spontaneously in the opening: there is no uncertainty as to whether the soma offering or the preparatory and other rites should be connected with the result . . . nor is there any need for specifying which sacrifice should be performed for this result since it is possible for all sacrifices mentioned nearby to be connected with the result . . . without any narrowing down.46 The basic injunction “One should sacrifice with the Jyotiṣṭoma” indicates that by performing the act or acts called “Jyotiṣṭoma” the result will be the attainment of heaven in the afterlife. But there is nothing in the injunction itself to indicate which sacrifices fall under this heading, and, the opponent asserts, it is only natural for the reader to assume that it would apply to all the rites the passage mentions. It is important to note that in making his case, the opponent effectively blurs the distinction between the terminologies of doubt and need. If we are in doubt about which sacrifice we should perform 45. MS 4.4.39–​41. 46. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 41–​ 42: atra hy upakrame nāsti svarasataḥ sandehaḥ, dīkṣaṇīyādayaḥ phalasaṃbandhinaḥ somayāgo vā . . . phalārtham anuṣṭhānāya ko yāga upādātavya iti viśeṣākāṅkṣāpi nāsti sannihitasarvayāgānām asaṃkocena . . . phalasaṃ-​ bandhitvopapatteḥ.

103



The New Hermeneutics

103

to reach heaven, then we need to resolve this doubt in order to interpret the Veda correctly. But here there is no doubt, or ambiguity, and hence no need for resolution. Appayya’s response to this self-​constructed objection is that, in principle, it is true that we modify our initial understanding, but that this modification is nevertheless driven by a need generated by the opening, albeit a need of a different kind: To begin with, in the “Section on the Praise of Light Sacrifice,” the fact that the opening conforms to the closing is precisely due to the opening’s own need. The name “Praise of Light,” mentioned in the opening and referring to a sacrifice, needs some sort of semantic grounding (pravṛttinimitta). And if another part of the same passage fulfills this need, it makes no sense to disregard this and postulate a different semantic grounding that allows for the inclusion of the preparatory rites and other surrounding sacrifices . . . based merely on our own judgment. And another part of the same passage does offer a semantic grounding that applies only to the soma offering. . . . This narrowing down is not driven by the greater strength of the closing; rather it is driven by the closing as it conforms to the need of the opening. And it is precisely for this reason that when the opening has no such need, we do not accept any narrowing down of it in conformity with the closing, even when the closing provides more specific information.47 Appayya rejects the opponent’s central claim that, in this case, taking the closing into account answers no need. In fact, the resolution of this section follows closely on what we have seen him argue in the “Section on What Is Wet,” namely, that a general opening is narrowed down on the basis of specific information found in the closing. And here, too, the contraction is not indicative of the greater strength of the closing because it is the opening’s own need that motivates it. But here it is a different kind of need that drives this process. In the “Section on What Is Wet,” it was the performative need of the 47. Ibid., p. 44: jyotiṣṭomādhikaraṇe tāvad upasaṃhārāṇusaraṇam upakramākāṅkṣayaiva. upakramaśrutasya jyotiṣṭomanāmno hi yāge pravartamānasya kiṃcit pravṛttinimittam ākāṅkṣitaṃ. na ca tad ākāṅkṣitaṃ samarpayati vākyaśeṣe tad avadhīrya . . . dīkṣaṇīyādyanuvṛttaṃ kiṃcit puruṣabuddhyā kalpayituṃ yuktam. vākyaśeṣaś ca somayāgagatam eva pravṛttinimittaṃ samarpayati . . . upakramākāṅkṣānusṛtopasaṃhārakāritaḥ saṃkocaḥ, nopasaṃhāraprābalyakāritaḥ. ata eva yatropakramasya nākāṅkṣā tatra saty apy upsaṃhāre viśeṣasaṃkīrtane na tadanusāreṇoprakramasya saṃkoca upeyate.

104

104

Fir st Words, L ast Words

practitioner, who has to select a specific substance for wetting the pebbles, for, after all, one cannot wet them with liquid in general. Here, on the other hand, the need is hermeneutic: in interpreting the injunction it is necessary to understand what act or acts the name “Praise of Light” refers to and why. Sacrificial names should not be purely arbitrary, but rather require some sort of semantic grounding (pravṛttinimitta). The descriptive passage that follows the injunction specifically identifies the “lights” (jyotīṃṣi) in the rite’s name as elements of the soma offering. Hence the term “Praise of Light” should refer only to the soma offering that contains these elements. And since the text specifically provides such a semantic grounding, we should not ignore it and imagine another one ourselves, just as, in the “Section on What Is Wet,” we should not overlook the specific liquid, butter, praised in the text and arbitrarily choose a liquid of our own desire. Note, however, the shift in terminology: in his concluding position in discussing the “Section on What Is Wet,” Appayya spoke in terms of doubt; in fact, he generated an elaborate typology of doubts and their resolution as the main point of that section. Here, however, he goes back to his preferred language of need. The precise structural parallelism in his arguments in both cases tells us that the resolution of doubt and the compliance with need track together. To resolve a doubt is at the same time to fill an interpretive need. In this way, the language of doubt is in effect folded into the language of need. Another way of putting this is to say that doubts of the sort we have seen in the “Section on What Is Wet” constitute a subset of the broader category of need. Indeed, we begin to see here a developing typology of needs, now including what we have called the performative and the hermeneutic. Before we move to discuss a third kind of need, note the importance of the last sentence in the passage just translated. As Appayya explores these different varieties of interpretive needs, the outlines of a larger cognitive theory begin to emerge, and we see that the properly schooled interpreter approaches every text through a kind of mental flowchart. One first encounters the opening portion of the passage and asks oneself if it generates any interpretive need that must be fulfilled. If there is no such need, one accepts the meaning of the opening as it appears and does not seek to modify or narrow it down even if the closing offers more specific information that might seem to invite such contraction. If the opening does possess a need, however, one looks first in the surrounding portions of the passage for information that can fulfill it. If such information is found, it is taken into account, but if not, one will, as a last resort, postulate whatever one must to meet that need.

105



The New Hermeneutics

105

Now that he has established the notion of need as his key analytical tool, Appayya turns to systematically apply it to the other major cases raised by Vyāsatīrtha in support of the greater power of the closing, in the process of which he further expands the typology of need as well as that of the nodes of the mental flowchart. A case in point is the example of the “Hawk” sacrifice, discussed earlier.48 As we noted, Appayya has already briefly addressed this example apropos the question of first mental impressions. There he argued without fully explaining his reasoning that when encountering the opening “To put a spell on one’s enemy, one should sacrifice with the hawk,” we should know that the word “hawk” must refer not to a literal bird of prey but to a particular sacrifice, and that this judgment is not forced on us by the comparison to an actual hawk in the closing. Appayya now comes back to this case noting its striking similarity to his own example of the “Praise of Light” sacrifice just discussed: The argument made for the greater power of the closing in the passage about the “Hawk” sacrifice is also wrong. Because there, too, just as in the case of the name of the “Praise of Light” sacrifice, it is only in conformity with the need for a semantic grounding (pravṛttinimitta), so that the word “hawk” can serve as a sacrificial name, that we accept a figurative interpretation of it, relying on the simile offered in another part of the passage.49 Just as in the case of the “Praise of Light” sacrifice, here too it is our need to understand the semantic grounding of a certain term (“hawk”) that drives the interpretive process. What we need to know from some other part of the passage in this case is not that “hawk” is the name of a sacrifice, as Vyāsatīrtha contends, following earlier Mīmāṃsakas. This much, Appayya now explains, is known from the opening injunction itself: interpreting “hawk” as referring to an actual bird would inevitably result in splitting the sentence (vākyabheda), the cardinal interpretive flaw in Mīmāṃsā. This is because a single sentence cannot coherently enjoin both the performance of a sacrifice for the sake of a result (bewitching an enemy) and the use of a particular substance (a hawk) to accomplish this very

48. See section 3.1. 49. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 49: yat tu śyenavākya upasaṃhāraprābalyam udāhṛtam, tad apy ayuktam. tatrāpi śyenaśabdasya yāganāmatvāya jyotiṣṭomanāmna iva pravṛtti​nimittāpekṣānurodhenaiva vākyaśeṣopadarśitasādṛśyāvalambanena gauṇatvāṅgīkārāt.

106

106

Fir st Words, L ast Words

sacrifice.50 Thus, what the reader really needs to know, having encountered the opening, is the reason the sacrifice is called the “Hawk” in the first place. It is well established among Mīmāṃsakas that sacrificial names are never merely arbitrary; there must be some reason for the use of one name rather than another. Unlike in the “Section on What Is Wet,” however, this need is not performative in the sense that it will have no bearing on the substances to be used in the actual rite. Nor is it the case that satisfying the need for semantic grounding in this case will help determine which subset of rites the injunction covers, as in the “Praise of Light” sacrifice. Filling this need actually has no pragmatic bearing on what ritual is to be performed or how. Hence this is one more kind of need, one that we can call purely philological. So even as the varieties of need proliferate in Appayya’s analysis, the basic principle that need drives all interpretive decisions is reinforced. And, as in his discussion of the “Praise of Light” sacrifice, here too Appayya returns to his flowchart mode of analysis by providing a counterexample, a text that is identical in structure but where the opening generates no interpretive need whatsoever: For just this reason, where the opening has no need, it does not conform to a closing that presents a meaning that contradicts it. For example, the word “reeds” (avakā) in the sentence “One drags the fire with reeds” is not taken figuratively to refer to water in conformity with the other part of the passage that says “Water indeed is peaceful.” This is because in the “Section on Descriptive Passages,” the sutra on figurative language51 explains that we avoid any discrepancy between the injunction and the praise in this case on the theory that the reeds themselves are praised through praise of their [watery] source: “Water indeed is peaceful.”52

50. Ibid., pp. 49–​50; see McCrea, “The Hierarchical Organization of Language,” pp. 440–​444. 51. This refers to MS 1.2.10 (guṇavādas tu). The example regarding the reeds is taken from Śabara’s commentary on this. 52. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 50: ata eva yatropakramasya nākāṅkṣā tatra tad-​ viruddhārthopasthāpakopasaṃhāranusaraṇaṃ na kriyate. yathāvakābhir agniṃ vikarṣatīty atrāvakāśabdasyāpo vai śāntā iti vākyaśeṣānusāreṇāpsu lakṣaṇā nopeyate. arthavādādhikaraṇe guṇavādasūtreṇāpo vai śāntā ity abhijanastutidvāreṇāvakānām eva stutir iti vidhistutyor vaiy​adhikaraṇyaparihārāt.

107



The New Hermeneutics

107

The details notwithstanding, the basic principle formulated by Appayya here is simple: if the opening generates no need of any of the types we have been considering, it will not be reinterpreted regardless of what the closing has to offer. If it were really the case that the closing is stronger than the opening, one would invariably resolve any discrepancy between them by revising the opening to fit the closing. In this case, however, the opening enjoins the use of reeds, the closing speaks only of water, and yet, since the opening injunction makes sense by itself, we do not reconsider its meaning and instead adjust our understanding of the closing to agree with it. The same dynamic of needs and their satisfaction is seen even when dealing with textual portions that are not part of the same passage, as Appayya demonstrates by way of refuting yet another of Vyāsatīrtha’s examples. This is the case of the goat sacrifice mentioned earlier, where there is a generic injunction, “One should sacrifice an animal to Agni and Soma,” without any specification as to what kind of animal this should be.53 For Appayya, just as in the case of the wet pebbles, this injunction generates a performative need, in that one must offer some specific animal. And recall that one should, if possible, fill this need for specification with information provided by the text rather than by one’s own choice. The solution in this case, as everyone agrees, is that the ritual formula (mantra) used in performing this rite and specifically mentioning a goat determines that only this species should be offered. For Vyāsatīrtha, this mantra functions analogously to a closing insofar as it comes to be associated with this ritual only after one has taken in the injunction and therefore takes the form of a commentary thereon. Thus it substitutes a specific (goat) for the generic (animal). But for Appayya, just as in the “Section on What Is Wet,” this reinterpretation is not forced by the greater strength of something that comes later, be it the closing or a nonadjacent ritual formula, but rather by the injunction’s need for specification. At this point, the hypothetical objector notes that the case of the ritual formula is significantly different from that of the closing descriptive portion. The injunction and accompanying praise occur together as part of a single textual unit and must be interpreted so as to cohere with one another, whereas the ritual formula is textually disconnected, and one connects it with the ritual only after one has completed the interpretation of the injunction itself. In response to this Appayya refines his flowchart once again:

53. Ibid., p. 47. For the goat sacrifice, see section 3.1.

108

108

Fir st Words, L ast Words

No. One accepts the specific offered by a ritual formula even when one’s interpretation of the injunction has already been completed. This is so for the following reasons: (1) because it is wrong to intuit a specific animal when one is visibly present in the text, (2) because the injunction and the ritual formula must refer to the same thing, (3) because, since the general property of “animalness” exists entirely in a goat without any essential contradiction, the analogy of eating from brass vessels applies, and (4) because it is wrong for there to be no restriction [on the type of animal to be used] when a restriction is possible.54 All the reasons Appayya uses to refute this objection are by now familiar from the cases discussed earlier. What is distinctive here, however, is the introduction of the notion that the interpretation of a textual portion can be reopened even after it has been apparently resolved (paryavasita). Appayya has already acknowledged that in some cases the injunction’s need may never be satisfied by anything in the text itself, in which case one must supply what is needed through one’s own choice. However, needs never die and may be rekindled and then satisfied long after the interpretation of the passage is apparently settled, if a mantra or other mode of scriptural specification is found elsewhere. With this and a few similar examples and counterexamples, Appayya closes out his direct response to Vyāsatīrtha’s case against the traditional Mīmāṃsā position. But his reworking of this position replaces the organizing principle of sequence with the all-​important notion of need and with a nuanced flowchart that is cognitively sequential but not necessarily textually so. In addition, he introduces a few more types of need beyond those already discussed, such as the need to know the result (phala) of a certain ritual when it is not specified.55 As we have come to expect, though, he concludes the entire rejoinder to Vyāsatīrtha, first, by restating the “cuts-​both-​ways” argument, and, second, by reverting to the more traditional position, namely that in the cases under discussion, sequence does matter and the opening overrules the

54. Ibid., p. 47: na; paryavasitasyāpi vidheḥ pratyakṣaviśeṣe saty ākṣepāyogād vidhimantrayor ekārthaviṣayatvaniyamāt paśutvasāmānyasya kṛtsnasya chāge sadbhāvāvirodhena kāṃsya-​ bhojananyāyāvatārān niyamasambhave ’niyamānupapatteś ca mantrārpitaviśeṣagrāhakatvāt. See also Bronner, “The Power of Primacy and the Domination of the Injunction,” p. 118. 55. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 52.

109



The New Hermeneutics

109

closing.56 This helps maintain the veneer of traditionalism over what is really a systematic theory of interpretation that has no precedent whatsoever in earlier Mīmāṃsā.

4.5  Need in Vedānta Having fully developed his new need-​driven theory of interpretation in Mīmāṃsā, Appayya brings his book to a close by demonstrating the theory’s applicability to Vedānta, or “Later Mīmāṃsā.” In doing so, he follows the exact same pattern seen in his earlier treatment of Mīmāṃsā cases. That is to say, he begins by refuting a case already raised by Vyāsatīrtha but then quickly moves on to raise a series of cases that he himself chooses and that he presents as much stronger evidence for the opponent’s claim, only to dismiss them as well. Moreover, here, too, he begins with the straightforward sequence-​ based theory, contending that Śaṅkara, whose version of Vedānta Appayya purports to defend, accepted the established Mīmāṃsā position that opening overpowers closing. Appayya then goes on to develop a non-​sequence-​based argument operating on the principle of need. Although this discussion is presented as a coda to the main portion of the work, it is arguably its culmination. This is because the entire dispute over opening and closing, although framed in Mīmāṃsā terms, is taking place between contestants whose principal identities are defined by their rival Vedānta affiliations. The first Vedānta case Appayya discusses is the only one already raised by Vyāsatīrtha in his Moonlight on Intentionality (Tātparyacandrikā). This case pertains to a famous Upanishadic passage known as the “Doctrine of the Five Fires.” Here we find a dialogue between a young boy named Śvetaketu and a powerful king named Jaivali. The king begins by asking the boy five questions: where people go after they die, how they return, what the difference is between the “path of the fathers” and the “path of the gods,” how the “other world” is not filled up, and how the water in the fifth offering comes to have a human voice. The boy is forced to admit he does not know the answers to any of these mysterious questions, and he goes home to report the humiliating experience to his father and teacher, the sage Uddālaka. Uddālaka arrives at the court and begs the king for teaching, which he is granted. At this point the king explains in some detail the entire cycle of life, death, and rebirth as the result of five sacrifices to five fires of very different types. The gods offer 56. See ibid., pp. 52–​53 (vastutas tu) for the “cuts-​both-​ways” argument, and p. 58 (yat tu) for restating Kumārila.

10

110

Fir st Words, L ast Words

faith to the fire that is heaven, from which the moon is born; they then offer the moon to the fire that is the rain cloud, out of which rain pours; they offer the rain to the fire of earth, out of which food is produced; they offer food to the fire that is man, out of which semen is produced; and, finally, they offer semen to the fire of woman, out of which a fetus emerges, which explains the fifth question about the water coming to have a human voice. The teaching then proceeds to narrate in some detail what happens after death and the two possible paths for the deceased, but the relevant portion for our discussion is found in the section just outlined.57 The question for Vedāntins here is this: earlier in the passage the gods are said to have offered “faith” to the first fire, and later it is said that the offering consisted of water. How to reconcile the two? Both Śaṅkara and Madhva actually agree that “faith” should be understood figuratively to refer to “water,” although they differ as to why this should be the case. For Śaṅkara, this has nothing to do with sequence, and he offers several explanations as to why “faith” has to be interpreted in such a way: “plausibility” (upapatti), the fact that the opening and the closing must be in harmony with one another, and the fact that the word “faith” is seen elsewhere in scripture to refer figuratively to “water.”58 Madhva, on the other hand, in accordance with his new hierarchy of indicators, treats this as a simple case of sequential hierarchy. “Faith” is mentioned in the opening, “water” in the closing, and the closing always overrules the opening. Hence, it is the opening “faith” that must be figuratively reinterpreted according to the closing “water.”59 Vyāsatīrtha, in his Moonlight on Intentionality, very briefly reiterates the same argument and takes this as further proof of his new math.60 Here, as elsewhere, Appayya does not refer to Vyāsatīrtha by name but moves to demolish his view, which he ascribes to “the neophytes” (arvācīna).61 He follows the structure of Śaṅkara’s argument very closely but rephrases and reframes it in crucial ways that make it fit his own new theory. Śaṅkara stressed that the entire passage—​beginning, middle, and end—​must have

57. This portion of the dialogue is found both in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad 5.3–​9 (Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads, pp. 232–​236) and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 6.2.1–​14 (pp. 144–​148). 58. ŚBSBh on BS 3.1.5, pp. 662–​663. 59. Madhva, Nyāyavivaraṇa on BS 3.1.5, ed. Ālūru Vāmanācārya (Bangalore: Dvaitavedāntapr atiṣṭhānam, 2001), p. 160. 60. Vyāsatīrtha, Tātparyacandrikā on BS 1.1.4, MBSBh, vol. 2, pp. 37–​38. 61. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 58.

1



The New Hermeneutics

111

thematic coherence, and that only water and not faith can be consistently referred to as the primary offering material in the case of the fifth fire. As is consistent with Śaṅkara’s overall hermeneutic method, there is nothing in his argument to suggest that the indications of the opening should be privileged over the closing; all Śaṅkara insists on is the need for harmony among all portions of the passage.62 Appayya, on the other hand, recasts the argument as one that requires the later portions of the text to comply with what he calls the “ultimate opening” (paramopakrama).63 To explain: Vyāsatīrtha, following Madhva, considers only the contradiction between “The gods offer faith into this fire” (Chāndogya 5.4.2) and “It is for this reason that the water in the fifth offering comes to have a human voice” (Chāndogya 5.9.1). But, as Appayya points out, Śaṅkara, in discussing the same passage, refers back to Jaivaili’s initial question to Śvetaketu: “Do you know how is it that the waters in the fifth offering acquire a human voice?” (Chāndogya 5.3.3). Appayya refers to this even earlier passage as the “ultimate opening,” and since it already identifies water as the fifth offering, then, for him, all later portions of the passage must conform to the understanding it generates. Thus what for Śaṅkara was purely an issue of consistency that was sequence-​blind becomes for Appayya one more proof that sequence matters and that the opening is stronger. Moreover, as we have come to expect, from sequence he quickly moves to his favorite terminology of “need.” It is not that the mention of “water” in the closing forces a reinterpretation of the “faith” mentioned in the opening. Rather, the fact that “faith” is initially mentioned as an offering that is made into the fire generates a need: it has to be a substance one can pour. “Given that the word ‘faith’ on its own has a need to refer to a substance which can be cast into the fire, it makes sense, in light of the overall meaning, that it should refer to the ‘water’ which is mentioned in the surrounding portions.”64 Just as in the paradigmatic Mīmāṃsā case of the wet pebbles, here too the reinterpretation of a term is driven by its own necessities rather than by an external factor such as its location in a particular sequence. And, as in his earlier treatment of Mīmāṃsā cases, Appayya presents himself as defending a

62. See section 2.2. 63. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 59. 64. Ibid.: śraddhāśabdasya svata eva prakṣepayogyadravyaparatvākāṅkṣāyāṃ vākyaśeṣasamarpi-​ tāsv apsu tātparyopapattiḥ.

12

112

Fir st Words, L ast Words

long-​established argument within the tradition, while in fact he is elaborating his own completely new theory.

4.6  Uniting Vedānta against Dualism: The Tiny Space and the Big Tent At this point, Appayya turns to raise and refute objections that are self-​ constructed. The first three of these he deals with only briefly, and so will we. All three involve seeming contradictions between the earlier and later portions of a passage, and all were resolved by Śaṅkara in favor of the closing, although without explicitly citing sequence as the reason. Appayya, embracing the opponent’s view, makes the claim that, in each case, it is the closing that overpowers the opening, but in refuting his own objections he shows that the resolution could be reached without reference to sequence. Indeed, in two of these cases he resorts to the by now standard device of need for specification, and in the other case he denies that contradiction existed in the first place, thereby dismissing its relevance.65 But it is the fourth and final objection that draws by far the greatest share of Appayya’s attention. It concerns the “Section on the Tiny Space” (daharā-​ dhikaraṇa).66 The discussion grows out of another famous Upanishadic passage that begins as follows: “Now in this citadel of Brahman there is a tiny lotus—​an abode; within that there is a tiny space. You should seek for what is within that; indeed, you should meditate on that.”67 There are two main interpretive problems that consumed much attention in rival Vedānta readings of this passage. Both have to do with the all-​important question of what one should meditate on. First, think of the series of nested containers presented here: there is the “citadel of Brahman,” generally understood to refer to one’s body; then there is the “tiny lotus,” namely the heart; and then “a tiny space.”

65. Ibid., pp. 59–​61. The three cases are BS 3.3.6–​8, 1.4.11–​13, and 3.4.23–​24. The first of these is the one in which Appayya finds no real contradiction between the opening and the closing, and he supports this conclusion with yet another sympathetic reference to the views espoused by the followers of Prabhākara (gurumate, p. 61). As noted, this defense of Prabhākara’s and Kumārila’s schools of Mīmāṃsā as a common position is unique to Appayya, and as we shall show, he will seek to create a similar intersectarian consensus within Vedānta. 66. BS 1.3.14–​21. 67. Chāndogya Upaniṣad 8.1.1: atha yad idam asmin brahmapure daharaṃ puṇḍarīkaṃ veśma; daharo ’sminn antar ākāśaḥ. tasmin yad antas tad anveṣṭavyam; tad vāva vijijñāsitavyam (Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads, p. 272), See Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 60, for the quotation of this passage.

13



The New Hermeneutics

113

But does the following sentence instruct us to meditate on this “tiny space” or on yet another thing nested in it? The pronoun “that” in both clauses of the second sentence is ambiguous in its reference.68 Second, what exactly is the “tiny space”: does it refer to the fifth physical element, “space” (ākāśa), or does it refer to the meditator’s individual soul (jīva), or to the supreme soul (brahman)? While the former interpretation as the element “space” may seem more natural, most readers take the latter interpretation of “soul” to be meant, partly because later in the passage it is said, among other things, that the benefits of the enjoined meditation result from the knowledge of the self. Indeed, the section concludes, “So, now, he who knows the self and these true desires, when he departs [from this life], wanders as he desires through all their worlds.”69 It is at this point that Appayya introduces his hypothetical opponent. If the conclusion that we should meditate on the “tiny space” as brahman is based on a later portion of the text, this could be seen as showing that Śaṅkara, the author whose position Appayya purports to defend, in fact covertly accepts the greater power of the closing. Appayya’s first line of response to this self-​ constructed objection is to admit that Śaṅkara does rely on indications from later parts of the passage to justify the identification of the “space” within the heart as brahman, but also to point out that what decides the matter for Śaṅkara is that these indications far outnumber any indication to the contrary. In other words, this is a matter not of sequence but of preponderance of evidence. In support, Appayya cites a well-​known Mīmāṃsā interpretive principle that, as a general rule, more numerous indications in support of one interpretation of a text overrule a smaller number of indications that point to a contrary interpretive conclusion.70 Appayya notes that the sutra that introduces the “Section on the Tiny Space” bases its conclusion on “things that come later” (uttarebhyaḥ).71 The objector misguidedly focuses on the “later” element, but for Appayya, it is their plurality that is decisive.

68. In Olivelle’s translation (Patrick Olivelle, Upaniṣads [New York: Oxford University Press, 1996], p. 167), this ambiguity is decided in favor of a further nested entity, as he explains in p. 354n1. 69. Chāndogya Upaniṣad 8.1.6 (Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads, p. 274): atha ya ihātmānam anuvidya vrajaty etāṃś ca satyakāmāṃs teṣāṃ sarveṣu lokeṣu kāmacāro bhavati. 70. MS 12.2.22. See Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 61. 71. BS 1.3.14: dahara uttarebhyaḥ.

14

114

Fir st Words, L ast Words

The opponent responds to this by noting that the Mīmāṃsakas themselves apply the principle of preponderance only when the relevant indications (liṅga) are of equal importance. But when one indicator is particularly important, it will outweigh several lesser ones. Appayya is quick to note, however, that we cannot easily determine in this passage which of the indicators is of greater importance, which leaves us only with the principle of preponderance.72 The opponent then rests his case by reiterating that what really determines Śaṅkara’s interpretation of this passage is the concluding statement about the benefits of the enjoined meditation (phalatvopasaṃhāra): “So, now, he who knows the self . . .” He argues, moreover, that the opening of the passage, taken in and of itself, would unambiguously enjoin a meditation not on the “tiny space” but on something situated within it, and that it is only the concluding statement of benefits that forces us to reject this initial impression. Having thus recast Śaṅkara’s position on the “Section on the Tiny Space” as a further illustration of the greater force of the closing, the opponent offers a similar analysis of the most important competing reading of this passage, that of Rāmānuja, the founder of the Qualified Nondualist tradition. Rāmānuja explains the potentially ambiguous expression “you should seek for what is within that” by arguing that one should meditate both on the “tiny space,” that is, the supreme soul, and on “what is within that,” namely, its qualities—​ in the words of the concluding statement of result itself: “the self and these true desires.” Appayya’s constructed opponent ascribes to Rāmānuja the same methodology he has already identified as guiding Śaṅkara: Rāmānuja, too, relies ultimately on the concluding statement of results to determine the proper interpretation of the passage. In other words, opines the opponent, the two most widely established schools of Vedānta, while they differ in their understanding of this passage (and in their overall cosmologies), ground their respective readings of it in exactly the same way: an interpretive procedure that can be shown to conform with Madhva’s new hierarchy.73 Appayya’s ultimate response is to formulate a common defense of Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja against this hypothetical hermeneutic attack. The centerpiece of this response is to reiterate the basic principle already articulated, namely, that the multiple factors scattered throughout the passage indicating that the space should be meditated upon outweigh any counterindications, regardless of sequence. Thus the basic method here is to arrive at an overall consistency

72. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 62–​64. 73. Ibid., p. 65.

15



The New Hermeneutics

115

of the passage, and the best way of doing so is the most economical in the sense that it requires that the fewest possible components be reinterpreted in light of the whole.74 Using this method, Appayya winds up concluding that the imperative is to meditate on both the “tiny space” and what is inside it. This is a surprising conclusion as it appears to resemble Rāmānuja’s Qualified Nondualist reading of this passage more than Śaṅkara’s strictly Nondualist interpretation. Appayya offers several slightly different hermeneutic strategies to justify this conclusion.75 He refers his readers to a more detailed discussion of this topic in The Jeweled Amulet of Interpretive Reason (Nyāyarakṣāmaṇi), his freewheeling discussion of the interpretive principles involved in each section of the first chapter of Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Brahmasūtra. This work’s discussion of the “Section on the Tiny Space” offers a far more detailed description and analysis of the various possible interpretations of Śaṅkara’s reading of it, but it is significant that here, too, Appayya concludes with what looks like a harmonizing of Śaṅkara’s and Rāmānuja’s exegeses.76 This hybrid analysis of the “Section on the Tiny Space” is useful for Appayya in the Power of the Opening as it helps him to construct a common front defending “traditional Vedānta,” now including its two major schools of Nondualism and Qualified Nondualism, against the upstart school of Dualism. We have already seen Appayya strive to create a consensus Mīmāṃsā position that unites its two main branches in opposition to Madhva’s radical hermeneutics and Vyāsatīrtha’s new math. The emerging pattern, then, is one of minimizing or glossing over differences between pre-​Dualist lines of thinking in both Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta in order to create a coalition against a perceived external threat—​a big tent that leaves the Dualists out in the cold. This is made crystal clear in the concluding sentences of the book: Therefore, in Later Mīmāṃsā [Vedānta], too, the greater strength of the opening is both faultless and uncontested. And so it has been established that this position of some latter-​day thinkers who know not 74. Ibid., pp. 65–​66. 75. Ibid., pp. 67–​68. All of these strategies involve the implication (ākṣepa) or importation (adhyāhāra) of an unstated but necessary semantic or textual element: the explicitly enjoined meditation on the contained implies also meditation on the container; the pronoun “that” implies “all of that,” i.e., the containing space and what it contains; the reiteration of meditation on both the self and its qualities in the concluding statement of result implies and presupposes an earlier injunction to meditate on both. 76. Appayya Dīkṣita, Nyāyarakṣāmaṇi, ed. P. Gaṇapatiśāstrī. Kumbhakonam: Śrīvidyā Press, 1905, pp. 181–​183.

16

116

Fir st Words, L ast Words

the scent of the path of reason and who have dreamt up the reversal of power relations between the opening and the closing stands contrary to the statements of every single Mīmāṃsaka and is motivated merely by the desire to make their school distinct from others. Indeed, for those who rely on valid means of knowledge, this view should be disregarded just like the teaching of a Muslim guru, who would preach the reversal of the normal order between washing one’s hands after going to the bathroom, on the one hand, and brushing one’s teeth, on the other.77 The greater strength of the opening is presented as the universal consensus of the entire Vedic hermeneutic tradition, comprising both “early” and “late” Mīmāṃsā with all of their subdivisions. The “latter-​day thinkers,” whose identity is clear even if they are not named, are pointedly placed outside and are likened to the ultimate cultural outsider: the Muslim. Despite ending his work with a full-​throated declaration about the “greater strength of the opening” as “faultless and uncontested,” Appayya’s main arguments for his reading of the “Section on the Tiny Space” have surprisingly little to do with sequence, and therefore seem of little relevance to the book’s ostensible topic. Why, then, does he introduce this extended digression into Vedānta? For one thing, the “Section on the Tiny Space” had long been a topic of intense dispute among followers of various sects, and Appayya himself has already discussed the passage extensively elsewhere; The Jeweled Amulet of Interpretive Reason referred to earlier is only one of several works where the topic is treated at length.78 However, in most of these earlier discussions, Appayya shows little or no interest or even awareness of the Dualists as rival interpreters of the passage. In fact, even here, he does not

77. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 72: tasmād uttaramīmāṃsāyām apy upakramaprābalyam avikalam avigītaṃ ca. evaṃ ca sakalamīmāṃsakavyavahāraviruddho nayasaraṇigandhānabhijñair arvācīnaiḥ svamatasyetaramatavailakṣaṇyaprakaṭaṇāya kalpito-​ pakramopasaṃhārabalābalavyatyayo yavanagurūpadiṣṭaśaucamukhaprakṣālanapaurvāparya-​ vyatyāsavad upekṣanīyaḥ prāmāṇikaiḥ. Apropos this same passage, Duquette makes a similar point about the exclusion of Vyāsatīrtha from “the kind of hermeneutics practiced by Mīmāṃsakas at large—​Pūrvamīmāṃsakas and Advaitins as ‘Uttaramīmāṃsakas’ par excellence,” although he takes no notice of Appayya’s inclusion of even Prabhākara’s strand of Mīmāṃsā and Rāmānuja’s Qualified Nondualist Vedānta within this community of “Mīmāṃsakas at large.” See Duquette, “On Appayya Dīkṣita’s Engagement with Vyāsatīrtha’s Tarkatāṇḍava,” p. 13. 78. These texts include the Śivārkamaṇidīpikā, his Parimala subcommentary on the ŚBSBh, and his commentary on his own Varadarājastava.

17



The New Hermeneutics

117

directly engage with Madhva’s actual interpretation, namely, that what the passage enjoins is a meditation not on the tiny space but only on what is inside it: Brahman in his personal form as Vishnu.79 In other words, the sole focus here is not on Madhva’s new reading but on Vyāsatīrtha’s new math.80 That said, the way Appayya reconstructs and elaborates on Vyāsatīrtha’s interpretive theory in the form of his own invented objector may be intended subtly to suggest an internal contradiction within the Dualists’ camp. This is because the new principle of the greater power of the closing, if applied consistently to the passage in question, is shown here to result in confirming Śaṅkara’s position. After all, the objector claims that Śaṅkara based his reading on the power of the closing. Be that as it may, the long digression into the Vedānta debate over the “Section on the Tiny Space” seems very far removed from the overt theoretical concerns that form the bulk of the book, namely the Mīmāṃsā debate over interpretive methods. Not only does it essentially marginalize the entire question of sequence, the ostensible topic of this monograph, but it likewise moves away from the need-​driven hermeneutic theory that emerged as the subterranean theme of the book’s main discussions. In fact, the final section reads almost like an independent essay that was inserted, in an ad hoc manner, as an addendum to the book: it has no bearing on the main argument and does not respond directly to anything that any Dualist has ever said on the “Section on the Tiny Space.” One theme that unites this section with the rest of the book, however, is the tactical move to construct unity in the entire pre-​Dualist tradition. In his discussion of Mīmāṃsā-​related issues, Appayya generates a united front in defense of both Kumārila’s and Prabhākara’s positions against the perceived common threat of Madhva’s and Vyāsatīrtha’s new hierarchy. And in the concluding essay on the “Section

79. MBSBh ad 1.3.14, vol. 4, pp. 212–​213. 80. In fact, this is characteristic of Appayya’s policy in dealing with Madhva and his followers in other cases as well. For example, he opens his most direct polemic against Dualist Vedānta, Pounding the Face of Madhva’s System (Madhvatantramukhamardana), with an elaborate critique of Madhva’s citational practices. As shown by Roque Mesquita, a big part of Appayya’s critique is the accusation that Madhva actually manufactures fraudulent scriptural quotations from otherwise untraceable texts to support his radical interpretations of the Brahmasūtra and the Upanishads. See Roque Mesquita, Madhva’s Unknown Literary Sources: Some Observations (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000); Appayya Dīkṣita, Madhvatantramukhamardana, pp. 5–​12. And in the Power of the Opening, as we have seen, Appayya’s sole focus is methodological: he takes apart Vyāsatīrtha’s defense of Madhva’s revised hierarchy of interpretive principles but never attacks or even alludes to the Dualists’ position on any point of Vedāntic interpretation.

18

118

Fir st Words, L ast Words

on the Tiny Space,” he similarly defends a hybrid position that unites both Śaṅkara’s Nondualist and Rāmānuja’s Qualified Nondualist readings of the relevant Upanishadic passage against the same common foe.

4.7  Summary A book that portrays itself as a traditionalist defense of Kumārila’s position on the greater power of the opening ends up, instead, offering a radically new interpretive theory. This theory effectively marginalizes sequence in favor of need as the driving force in hermeneutics. This shift from sequence to need entails a completely different understanding of the cognitive procedures involved in interpretation. Kumārila’s argument for the greater strength of the opening assumes that the reader processes information bit by bit, as it is received. Appayya, by contrast, takes the position that information processing begins only after all the pieces have been taken in. Elsewhere he repeatedly argues that it is need, including the need to resolve hermeneutic doubts, that drives the interpretive process, again regardless of sequence. Moreover, out of this basic notion of need, Appayya develops an entire typology constituting different nodes on a complex mental flowchart of a type never before drawn. This overall method of apparent traditionalism combined with fundamental and pervasive innovation is consistent with his procedure in many fields. This approach proved to be tremendously effective in establishing Appayya as a commanding figure in every field he ventured into, and certainly the discussions we have reviewed in this chapter highlight the immense erudition and rhetorical firepower with which his views on Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta are presented. But this very method also rendered him vulnerable to potential counterattacks. For one thing, he could be exposed as covertly undermining and even attacking the traditions he purported to defend. For another, the traditionalist and revisionist elements in his arguments could be played off against each other. As we will see in the next chapter, the latter process is at work in the responses to the Power of the Opening, in particular by the Dualist Vijayīndra, who turns Appayya’s own arguments into a double-​edged sword.

19

5

The New Attitude Vijayīndra’s Calling the Game

What was the response to Appayya’s new theory? Was it recognized as such, and if so, with what effect or consequences? And what was the response in the Dualist camp to his attempt to leave them out, excluding them from the domain of legitimate Mīmāṃsā as well as Vedānta? The most concerted and focused response to Appayya’s treatise was written by Vijayīndratīrtha, Vyāsatīrtha’s grand-​pupil. His Conquest of the Closing (Upasaṃhāravijaya) is a detailed point-​by-​point rejoinder to Appayya’s arguments. This work, as we shall see, is less concerned with producing another new theory of the type we saw in the previous chapter, than in showing that the Dualists deserve a place at the table. Indeed, Vijayīndratīrtha shows that they are now integral to the debate as it has taken shape and are in a position to put their own stamp on it.

5.1  Arguing for Two Audiences: Vijayīndra’s Conquest of the Closing We know for certain that Vijayīndra (as we shall call him) was a contemporary of Appayya. B. N. K. Sharma gives his dates as 1514–​1595, closely paralleling the best estimate of Appayya’s lifespan (1520–​1593).1 Even if the estimates are slightly off, there is firsthand evidence that the two inhabited the same space at the same time. This evidence is in the form of a copper plate inscription dated to 1580, in which Sevappa Nāyaka of Tanjore with great pride describes himself as follows: 1. B. N. K. Sharma, A History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and Its Literature (Bombay: Booksellers’ Publishing Company, 1961), vol. 2, p. 165. First Words, Last Words. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197583470.003.0005

120

120

Fir st Words, L ast Words

In his assembly hall these three, like the three sacrificial fires, each upheld his own thought—​ Vijayīndra the lord of ascetics; Tātācārya the supreme Vaishnava, skilled in all sciences; and the glorious Appayya Dīkṣita, the one great king of Shaiva monism.2 This plate was inscribed some fifteen years after the collapse of the Vijayanagara imperial center in the Battle of Talikota (1565). India’s southern peninsula was now ruled by numerous competing chiefs (nāyaka) such as Sevappa. In this radically altered political and cultural space, local rulers competed for cultural advantage through patronizing or otherwise associating themselves with individual scholars and institutions that held prominence in erstwhile Vijayanagara and who represented translocally prominent movements. The three figures Sevappa identifies in this verse were the most important representatives of the three most prominent religio-​philosophical movements of his time. Vijayīndra was both a leading intellectual figure and a senior official in the by now highly influential Dualist establishment. The same could be said about Tātācārya’s position within the Śrīvaiṣṇava community: Vijayīndra belonged to and, according to this verse, stood at the top of a community of ascetics, whereas Tātācārya hailed from one of the most celebrated families of intellectuals among the adherents of Rāmānuja’s Qualified Nondualism in the South.3 Both of them were highly prolific authors of “one hundred books,” as was, of course, the final person in the list of three, Appayya Dīkṣita, “the one great king of Shaiva monism.”

2. tretāgnaya iva spaṣṭaṃ vijayīndrayatīśvaraḥ | tātācāryo vaiṣṇavāgryo sarvaśāstraviśāradaḥ || śaivādvaitaikasāmrājyaḥ śrīmān appayyadīkṣitaḥ | yatsabhāyāṃ mataṃ svaṃ svaṃ sthāpayantaḥ sthitās trayaḥ || Mysore Archeological Department, Annual Report of the Mysore Archeological Department for the Year 1917 (Bangalore: Government Press, 1918), pp. 55–​56; the text is given in B. N. Krishnamurti Sarma, “The Truth about Vijayīndra Tīrtha and Taraṅgiṇi-​Rāmācārya,” New Indian Antiquary 2 (1939–​1940): 661 and Sharma, A History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and Its Literature, vol. 2, p. 171. 3. For information about the Tātācārya family and its ties with the court, see Ajay Rao, “A New Perspective on the Royal Rāma Cult at Vijayanagara,” in South Asian Texts in History: Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock, ed. Yigal Bronner, Whitney Cox, and Lawrence McCrea (Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 2011), p. 32; Ajay Rao, “The Vaiṣṇava Writings of a Śaiva Intellectual,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 48–​49.

12



The New Attitude

121

One way to interpret what Sevappa is boasting of here is the deliberate creation of something like a public space, in which the leading figures of the rival traditions each “upheld his own thought” alongside the others. In this view, the presence of multiple competing traditions was essential to court life or even the public good, just as all three fires are necessary for the completion of the Vedic sacrifice. The point is not for any one tradition to triumph over the others, but for all three to be “upheld.” This upholding can be taken to mean both the reinforcing of one’s doctrines for followers within the movement, as well as effectively competing with rival traditions within what is now seen as a system. And indeed, the same dual focus can be seen in the opening verses of Vijayīndra’s Conquest of the Closing. The work opens, unlike Appayya’s rather minimalist introduction in his Power of the Opening, with a series of verses that position it both within the institutional and educational framework of Dualist Vedānta and within the larger public space to which we have just alluded. The work begins with a benediction invoking the man-​lion incarnation of Vishnu (narasiṃha), also incorporating reflections about multiple other incarnations in a highly poetic manner. The following six verses, more simple and direct, pay homage to Vijayīndra’s intellectual and institutional lineage within the Dualist tradition. He invokes the man-​lion again as “the favorite deity of the glorious teacher Madhva” (verse 2), directly praises Madhva and his speech (3–​4), then jumps ahead several generations to salute Jayatīrtha, the most celebrated commentator on Madhva’s works (5), moving on (again leaping over several generations) to his grand-​teacher Vyāsatīrtha (6), and concludes the line with a verse praising his own guru, Surendratīrtha (7). The next verse displays a marked shift in tone and content, signaled by a return to a more elaborate poetic meter and a syntactically and conceptually complex statement: It delights, word by word, when touching the ear of those who are fully equipped and skilled in navigating the three streams of word, sentence, and reason. And it is also an ever-​blooming Jasmine for a long line of bees in the form of his numerous students. If you thirst for knowledge, devote yourself to that speech of Vijayīndra, the jewel of ascetics.4

4. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, ed. Raja S. Gururajacharya (Nanjangud: Sri Parimala, 1957), verse 8, p. 2: ye nityaṃ padavākyamānasaraṇīsaṃśīlanālaṃkṛtās teṣām eva karoti yā

12

122

Fir st Words, L ast Words

The verse clearly indicates that Vijayīndra’s work addresses two separate audiences. On the one hand are the specialists in the prestigious triumvirate of linguistic-​cognitive sciences—​grammar (the science of the word), Mīmāṃsā (the science of the sentence), and logic (the science of reason)—​who form the larger scholarly community that extends beyond Vijayīndra’s camp. On the other are his own students, who are expected to continue the line whose origins are described in the previous verses, namely, the theological-​ soteriological tradition founded by Madhva. Vijayīndra’s speech is presented as a single jasmine flower that can be enjoyed in different ways by these different recipients. The learned will proudly apply it to their ears, like an ornament, while the students will take nourishment from it like bees. We can see, then, that Vijayīndra’s work is meant to serve at least two different functions. It indoctrinates students already inside the Dualist camp, while at the same time it upholds or magnifies the position of Dualism within the system of competing movements as described in Sevappa Nāyaka’s inscription. This twofold approach is reinforced in the immediately following verse, which concludes the introduction and identifies the specific topic at hand: Rejecting The Power of the Opening through the sound principles our guru has taught, The Conquest of the Closing shines forth.5 The explicit mention of the title of Appayya’s work together with the author’s own in the very opening of the text is highly unusual. It immediately places Vijayīndra in a live polemical context with his Shaiva contemporary, explicitly enacting the direct competition of rival parties as envisioned by Sevappa Nāyaka. At the same time, he speaks to his base by identifying the source of his own arguments as “the sound principles our guru has taught.” The juxtaposition of titles in the verse highlights the close affinity between the works of the two contemporaries. In fact, as we will see, The Conquest of the Closing borrows and incorporates large portions from Appayya’s The Power of the Opening both in the portions allotted to the opponent (pūrvapakṣa)

pratipadaṃ santoṣam ākarṇanāt | yā cānekavineyaṣaṭpadatates saṃphullamallī sadā saiṣā vāg vijayīndrasaṃyamimaṇer jñānārthibhis sevyatām ||. 5. Ibid., verse 9, p. 2: gurupādoktasannyāyair upakramaparākramam | nirākṛtyopasaṃhāravijayo ’sau prakāśyate ||.

123



The New Attitude

123

and in their refutation (siddhānta). Despite his claims to base himself on the positions of “our guru,” presumably Vyāsatīrtha, there is much in Vijayīndra that has no precedent in earlier Dualist treatment of this topic and that builds directly on Appayya’s new hermeneutics. Indeed, Vijayīndra is arguably the best reader Appayya has ever had, certainly for this text. He understands very well the implications of Appayya’s thorough rethinking and covert reshaping of the Mīmāṃsā tradition, and he sets out to use his innovation against him. For Vijayīndra, much as he would like to defend the traditional Dualist position, Appayya’s intervention has changed the discourse to such an extent that there was simply no going back.

5.2  All Cards on the Table: Vijayīndra’s Model of Cognitive Processing Vijayīndra’s book opens, like Appayya’s, with a short summation of the positions so far offered on the question of sequence. He begins by introducing the issue and very briefly restates Madhva’s hierarchy before turning to an overview of the traditional Mīmāṃsā position, based mainly on Kumārila. Then he gets down to business by zeroing in on the theoretical claim that lies at the heart of the Dualists’ arguments, namely, that the closing must overrule the opening “because it has the form of a commentary.” In doing so, he again follows the procedure of Appayya, who began his attack on Vyāsatīrtha with this very point.6 First comes a paragraph-​long summation of Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments about the closing as a commentary, followed by a restatement of Appayya’s basic critique. This critique, by the way, is attributed to “certain people” (kecit); nowhere in his work does Vijayīndra refer to his constantly quoted opponent by name, even though as we have seen he mentions the title of Appayya's book in the prelude. Recall that Appayya’s main attack on Vyāsatīrtha’s argument was that there is no a priori reason for any sequential preference in determining what can act as a commentary. A later part of the passage may help clarify an earlier one, but the direction may just as well be reversed.7 Building on Appayya’s articulation of the notion of what it means to be a commentary, Vijayīndra begins his response by asserting that “it is beyond dispute that a commentary

6. See section 4.2 and Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 17. Appayya’s summary of the opponent’s view, however, is far more thorough. 7. See section 4.2.

124

124

Fir st Words, L ast Words

cannot at all operate unless the thing to be commented upon is already present in the mind.”8 This would seem to imply, pace Kumārila, that the opening cannot prevail over the closing simply by virtue of being taken in first; one cannot even be aware that one part of the text can help clarify another until both portions are cognized. Vijayīndra concedes, in agreement with Appayya, that in ordinary discourse (loka), the order in which the elements are taken in need not determine which elucidates the other. Vijayīndra’s general theory of explication dictates that no piece of the text can act as an explicator unless the element to be explained by it is already present in the mind. This is true of both human and Vedic language. Still, he argues, the Veda is different. In human language, sequence is a matter of the speaker’s will and hence optional. The speaker may choose, for whatever reason, to begin with the explicator and end with the explicandum or vice versa. In the Veda, however, the order is eternally and entirely fixed for purposes not accessible to ordinary means of knowledge (adṛṣṭārtha). That is to say, for reasons that we are not able to discern, memorizing and employing the Vedic text in the precise sequence in which it has been handed down will prove ritually efficacious; altering the sequence even slightly will render the Veda useless. This unique feature of the Veda, according to Vijayīndra, should guide our interpretive processing. Moreover, since the Veda is eternal and not the product of any human or divine author (apauruṣeya), it cannot rely on anything external to it to explain itself. Hence, despite the fact that the sequence of the Vedic text is not a function of its semantics, the interpreter should still, as a general rule, conform to its fixed recitational order when processing the information derived from it. Thus, when possible, in processing information conveyed by the Veda, we should treat the element brought to mind first, the opening, as the explicandum, and the element brought to mind last, the closing, as the explicator.9 This strategy for the differentiation of Vedic from human language rests in part on the fact that in human communication one can rely on extratextual factors such as the speaker’s intention to determine the meaning. Not so in the case of the Veda, where everything has to be gotten from the text itself. The problem with this line of argument is in its axiomatic insistence on a sequential principle of interpretation. In the absence of external guiding factors,

8. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, p. 9: vyākheyopasthitiṃ vinā vyakhyānapravṛttir eva nety avivādaḥ. 9. Ibid., pp. 9–​10.

125



The New Attitude

125

Vijayīndra sets forth what appears to be an arbitrary stipulation, namely, that what comes later should, all things being equal, be treated as the commentary on what comes earlier. Vijayīndra goes beyond Madhva and Vyāsatīrtha by charting the cognitive processing of the Veda in some detail, as we shall show. But in terms of justifying the power of the closing, he has little to add to the minimal positive arguments of his predecessors. The sequential relationship of explicandum and explicator remains a truism. While Madhva and Vyāsatīrtha presented this as a universal law, Vijayīndra does acknowledge the existence of exceptions. The examples he cites are by and large the same passages discussed by Appayya, where an earlier portion of text, either scriptural or mundane, is explicitly marked as explaining a later one. Vijayīndra incorporates these counterexamples into a more nuanced theory: where such explicit indications exist, an earlier portion may explain a later one. But in their absence, the closing explains the opening. This general principle applies whenever possible (sambhave).10 Vijayīndra follows Appayya in arguing that we cannot even be aware of a contradiction unless both contradictory elements are present in our mind. This would seem to render the question of sequence moot, but Vijayīndra still struggles to offer a rationale for why, in the cognitive moment when all cards are on the table and treated equally, we should still give consideration to the order in which they were placed there. He still maintains that the card that was placed last is the winner. To justify this claim, he introduces an interesting but problematic analogy: It is true that at the stage when we become aware of the contradiction in meaning between the opening and the closing, both must be simultaneously present in our mind as the elements of this contradiction, as in the case of the existence and nonexistence of a certain object. Nevertheless, the existence of the object in question could not be known as an element of that contradiction, unless it had been brought to mind first, before the contradiction is cognized. And, in the same way, the opening could not be known as something to be commented upon unless it was first brought to mind before the contradiction is cognized.11 10. Ibid., p. 10. Cf. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, ed. A. Subrahmanyasastri (Varanasi: Banaras Hindu University, 1973), pp. 17–​18. 11. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, p. 11: yady api copakramopasaṃhārayor ubhayor apy arthadvārakavirodhopasthitidaśāyāṃ tatpratiyogitvena yugapadupasthititvam aviśiṣṭaṃ

126

126

Fir st Words, L ast Words

The analogy here is between two different sorts of contradiction: that between the opening and the closing, with their potentially conflicting meanings, and that between the existence and nonexistence of an object in a certain place and time. What Vijayīndra is trying to show through his analogy is that even though awareness of a contradiction necessarily entails a simultaneous awareness of its conflicting elements, the sequence in which those elements come to mind is consequential. In the case of a contradiction between existence and nonexistence, such sequence is a logical necessity—​one cannot cognize the absence of a pot in a specific place without having first considered its potential presence there. In the case of the Veda, however, the sequence is a simple fact of its fixed textual arrangement; if we are hearing the text in order, the meaning of the opening will come into our mind before that of the closing. This analogy effectively shows that the need for simultaneity—​for all cards to be on the table—​is at least compatible with the claim that the order in which the elements were taken in is of consequence. But the analogy stops short of establishing what Vijayīndra set out to prove, namely, that the opening will, in cases of contradiction, necessarily be the explicandum, and the closing will be the explicator that ultimately determines its meaning. In addition, in the case of existence versus nonexistence, the sequence in which the contradictory elements come into our mind is logically fixed, but it has no apparent necessary role in deciding which of the two elements prevails in any given case—​that is, whether the object does or does not exist. In the Veda, however, Vijayīndra wishes to show that the sequence dictates a particular interpretive result. Perhaps aware of this weakness in his analogy, Vijayīndra goes on to provide additional rationales for the opening’s being in need of explanation: “And so, because anything that comes to mind first and is doubtful necessarily stands in need of explanation, and because the opening is like that, in the relevant cases, we conclude that it alone is the explicandum. And because the closing is not like that, it is the explicator.”12 Through the existence-​nonexistence analogy, Vijayīndra made a case for the awareness of the opening necessarily coming first but not for its necessarily being epistemically weaker. Now he adds a new criterion, that of the opening’s being doubtful. If it can be shown bhāvābhāvavat, tathāpi bhāvasya pratiyogitvajñāne ’pi virodhānupasthitikālīnaprathamopasthi­tivad upakramasyāpi vyākhyeyatvajñāne tadanupasthitikālīnaprathamopasthitir evāpekṣitā. 12. Ibid.: tathā ca sandigdhārthasya sataḥ prathamopasthitasya vyākhyeyatvaniyamād upakramasya ca tathātvena prakṛte tasyaiva vyākhyeyatvaṃ kalpyate. upasaṃhārasya tv atathātvena tadvyākhyānatvam iti.

127



The New Attitude

127

that openings in general both come to mind first and are doubtful, this would support their need to be explained. It is unclear to us what exactly Vijayīndra means by speaking of “relevant cases.” Does he mean to claim that all openings (being the relevant topic under discussion) are somehow doubtful, perhaps because more information is yet to come, or is he making a more limited claim that in all the cases debated by his predecessors the meaning of the opening can in fact be shown to be in doubt? Vijayīndra then proceeds to demonstrate on a case-​by-​case basis that the openings are doubtful in all of the major examples offered in the debate so far, which would seem to support the latter interpretation. If that is the case, his approach may be taken to represent a retreat from Appayya’s sweeping efforts of theorization to a case-​based reasoning of the kind we have seen in Vyāsatīrtha. However, in parts of his discussion, and especially in his statement “And the meaning of the opening is indeed doubtful” (asti copakramasya sandigdhārthatvam), he seems to imply the more far-​reaching claim.13 If this is his true intention, then he is taking Appayya’s expansion of the realm of doubt to new heights. Appayya created an elaborate typology of doubt, but Vijayīndra is making doubt universal for any statement that is incomplete. With this Vijayīndra more or less exhausts his positive argument for why the closing overrules the opening: that the fixed sequence of the Veda should ordinarily dictate sequential information processing; that our awareness of the opening necessarily precedes that of the closing on the analogy of the logical priority of existence over nonexistence when one entertains an ontological doubt; and that some or all openings are in doubt and therefore in need of explication (by the closing). The rest of his book is entirely devoted to his preferred mode of debate, namely, attacking Appayya’s argument in favor of the strength of the opening. Thus from this point forth the book takes a strange form consisting mostly of lengthy quotes, sometimes running several pages, from the Power of the Opening, followed by point-​by-​point rejoinders in the form of an inimical commentary (khaṇḍana)—​a genre that is just coming into vogue in this period, partly thanks to Appayya’s own efforts.14 Even more peculiar, his rejoinders to Appayya almost invariably deploy Appayya’s own

13. Ibid., p. 11. 14. For a discussion of a similar khaṇḍana, or hostile commentarial essay from this period, see Yigal Bronner and Gary Tubb, “Blaming the Messenger: A Controversy in Late Sanskrit Poetics and Its Implications,” Bulletin of SOAS 71.1 (2008): 76.

128

128

Fir st Words, L ast Words

arguments against him, often copying Appayya’s own wording in considerable detail. Vijayīndra begins with a detailed analysis of Appayya’s attack on Vyāsatīrtha’s use of the “Principle of Breaking the Chain.”15 Recall that Vyāsatīrtha cites this rule—​establishing that when more than one priest breaks the required chain, it is the expiation applying to the last act of breaking that overrules all prior ones—​as an established Mīmāṃsā precedent for giving greater weight to the final element in a sequence. As we noted, Appayya rejects the analogy between the happenstance of the priests’ inattention, which may occur in any order, and the sequence of the Vedic text, whose order is fixed. In the Veda, he argues, following Kumārila, the opening is always taken in first and precludes any interpretation of the closing that conflicts with it. If the literal meaning of the closing taken by itself would contradict the opening, it must necessarily be interpreted figuratively in accordance with the opening.16 To anyone who would argue the contrary, Appayya posed the following dilemma: “In this case, do you believe that the knowledge produced by the closing, which you think of as blocking the opening, has as its object the meaning of the closing already construed with the opening, or not yet construed with it?”17 Appayya goes on to demonstrate that neither alternative is tenable. To construe the meaning of the two portions is to read them as expressing a harmonious meaning. Therefore, on the first option, the meanings of the opening and the closing cannot construe with one another unless the contradiction has already been resolved by taking one of them figuratively, but when we hear the opening, we take it at face value since there is nothing to block its literal interpretation. The closing, which the opponent wishes to see as overruling the opening, cannot express anything that fails to harmonize with the already interpreted opening. The second option is rejected on two grounds. First, Appayya stipulates that it is established by our linguistic training (vyutpatti) that we interpret language piece by piece as we hear it, fitting each new piece to those already interpreted. Thus we cannot make sense of a later piece without construing it with what has come before. But, he argues, even if we reject this obvious truth of language, the opponent’s 15. See sections 3.4, 4.2. 16. As we have already shown, there is a tension in Appayya’s work between his endorsement of Kumārila’s position and his own theory. See section 4.2. 17. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, pp. 11–​12 [=Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, p. 18]: kim atropakramabādhakatvenābhimatam upasaṃhārajanyaṃ jñānam upakramārthā-​ nvitopasaṃhārārthagocaram upeyate. kiṃ vā tadananvitatadarthagocaram.

129



The New Attitude

129

argument will still fail. This is because when we consider the opening and closing as forming a single sentence (ekavākyatvam anusandadhatām), it is impossible to interpret the closing in its literal sense due to the impossibility of its forming a single sentence with the opening, and we must therefore interpret it figuratively.18 Vijayīndra quotes Appayya’s arguments at great length and then turns to refute them. In response to the dilemma Appayya has posed, Vijayīndra unambiguously chooses the second option: that we first understand the meaning of the opening (and the closing) as unconstrued with the rest of the sentence. In fact, he argues, it is completely impossible for it to be otherwise. On Appayya’s interpretation, he contends, we have a case of a contradiction in which we do not even cognize the two contradictory poles as such, because even the awareness of the literal meaning of the closing is prevented from arising in the mind by the contradictory opening. But if we do not understand the literal meanings of both the opening and the closing, how do we become aware that there is any contradiction in the first place? It is essential, therefore, that we understand the literal meaning of both segments independently of one another before we can even recognize that there is a contradiction needing resolution. This line of argument definitively rules out any claim that the opening predetermines our interpretation of what follows it. It also implies a rejection of Appayya’s sweeping claim about linguistic training, namely, that all interpretation takes place piece by piece. Instead, Vijayīndra’s model demands that we see each piece for what it is before we try to fit all the pieces together. In other words, only once all the cards are on the table can the process of making sense of them collectively begin. Having established this much, Vijayīndra now turns Appayya’s own argument against him. He confronts Appayya with the very same dilemma: when one understands the meaning of the opening, does one understand it as already construed with the meaning of the closing, or as not yet construed with it? If the former, Appayya faces the same problem of mutual dependency that he attributes to his opponent. That is to say, one cannot construe the meaning of the two segments unless the contradiction between them has already been resolved, but the resolution of the contradiction itself depends on construing them in the first place. If the latter, the opponent is left in essential agreement with Vijayīndra’s notion that interpretation happens only once all the

18. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 18–​19 [=Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, pp. 12–​13].

130

130

Fir st Words, L ast Words

cards are already on the table. Building on a distinction first introduced by Appayya, Vijayīndra develops a multistage model of discourse interpretation. First is the stage when the interpreter is not yet considering the unity of the sentence (ekavākyatvānanusandhānadaśā). At this stage one takes in the literal meaning of each component independently of the others. Only then comes the second stage, when there is consideration of sentential unity (ekavākyatvānusandhānadaśā). It is only at this stage that one compares the meanings of the opening and the closing, tries to fit them into a harmonious whole, and, if a contradiction arises, resolves it by giving one precedence over the other.19 This all-​cards-​on-​the-​table model of interpretation is an effective counter to Appayya’s and Kumārila’s arguments for the power of the opening. The opening cannot win simply by coming in first, because the second interpretive stage cannot begin before all the parts have already arrived, essentially rendering their order of arrival irrelevant. But, as we have seen with Appayya’s work, this mode of attack on the very importance of sequence threatens to undermine any positive argument for the relevance of a particular sequence, in Vijayīndra’s case, the preeminence of the closing over the opening. In effect, both Appayya and Vijayīndra are trying to defend a received doctrine, but the arguments that they end up developing, largely in parallel, seem to point toward a conclusion at odds with both traditions, namely, that all cards must be on the table for the hermeneutic process to begin and that the sequence in which the various elements arrive is hermeneutically irrelevant.

5.3  Borrow the Tools, Destroy the Toolbox We begin to see a pattern here of growing convergence between the seemingly staunch rivals. One sign of this convergence is the increasing presence of Appayya’s text in that of his opponent. Indeed, as we have said, after he has finished developing his minimal positive argument for the power of the closing, Vijayīndra’s work gradually takes on the character of a hostile commentary (khaṇḍana) on Appayya’s treatise. But, even in formulating his own rejoinders, he is very much indebted to his rival’s vocabulary, concepts, and line of thought, often simply repackaging or inverting Appayya’s arguments against him.

19. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, p. 13.

13



The New Attitude

131

A good illustration of this is found in the midst of Vijayīndra’s extensive critique of Appayya’s discussion of the “Section on What Is Wet.” Recall that Appayya has developed in this context his notion of “need”: the initial injunction to use wet pebbles needs, he said, further specification, something that the later praise of clarified butter provides. This later piece of information, then, does not block the force of the earlier injunction (“wet”) but merely narrows it down to a specific substance, which only proves that the closing complies with the need of the opening. Vijayīndra extends this line of argumentation by demanding that it apply equally to cases in which the Mīmāṃsakas have always believed the opening to be stronger precisely because the closing complies with it. In fact, he flips Appayya’s arguments in a way that supports his own attack on the classical Mīmāṃsā case illustrating the power of the opening, namely, the “Section on Opening with Veda”: Furthermore, you say that the contraction that is needed, even though it involves a partial abandonment of the literal meaning of a term, does not constitute blocking (bādha). But, if this is so, then the fact that the terms “ṛg” etc. (in the injunction “one performs loudly with the ṛg”) abandon their own meaning, which is caused by the word “Veda” in the opening, would also not constitute blocking. These words also have a need to abandon their natural meaning in order to attain sentential unity with the opening. And, even if they do not have such a need, there is still an opportunity to apply here the analogy of eating from brass vessels, since it is possible for the words “ṛg” etc., which stand in the preeminent injunctive portion, to refer to Vedic texts as well as to mantras . . . so that they can go together with the word “Veda,” which refers to specific Vedic texts . . . even though that word stands in the subordinate descriptive portion. Therefore, since it turns out that the opening does not block the closing here either, the opponent’s claim that the opening is stronger than the closing should also be given its last rites.20

20. Ibid., p. 33: kiṃ cākāṅkṣitasaṃkocasya svārthaikadeśatyāgātmakasyāpy abādhatve “uccair ṛcā kriyate” ity ṛgādiśabdānām upakramasthavedādiśabdena kriyamāṇaḥ svārthatyāgo ’pi bādho na syāt. teṣām apy upakramaikavākyatvāya svārthatyāgasyākāṅkṣitatvād anākāṅkṣitatve ’pi pradhānabhūtavidhyuddeśasthitargādiśabdānām ṛgādiṣv iva vede ’py uktarītyā śaktisattvena . . . guṇībhūtārthavādastha-​. . . granthaviśeṣarūpavedavācivedaśabdānusāreṇa tatrāpi kāṃsyabhojinyāyasyāvatāras sambhavatīty upakramasyāpy upasaṃhārābādhakatvāpat-​ tyā tasyopasaṃhārāpekṣayā parābhyupagataṃ prābalyam api dattajalāñjaliḥ syāt.

132

132

Fir st Words, L ast Words

Recall that the issue at hand is one of only two canonical cases the Mīmāṃsakas cite as proof for the power of the opening. The Vedic passage begins with a descriptive portion explaining the origin of the “Vedas” and then proceeds to enjoin, “One performs loudly with the ṛg, loudly with the sāman, and quietly with the yajur.” These terms normally refer not to whole Vedic corpora but to individual verse or prose mantras, creating a seeming contradiction between the opening (with its mention of whole Vedic texts) and the closing (with its seeming reference to individual mantras). Given the interpretive principle that the injunction and its accompanying descriptive portion must address the same thing, we must either take the term “Veda” in the opening to refer to the individual mantras that form a part of the relevant Vedic corpus, or interpret the terms "ṛg" etc. to refer not to the individual mantras but to the larger textual corpora in which they are contained. As we have shown, the Mīmāṃsakas conclude that the latter position is correct, based on the sequence in which the information is given: the descriptive passage using the word “Veda” comes first and establishes the subject matter—​whole Vedic texts—​for the entire passage; by the time we get to the injunction we have already formed a judgment about the topic of the passage, and we are primed to interpret the injunction figuratively, as applying to whole Vedic texts.21 Vijayīndra applies Appayya’s innovative theory of need to this case, something Appayya himself avoided. In doing so, he shows that the argument for the power of the opening here can be undermined in precisely the same way that Appayya undermined Vyāsatīrtha’s argument for the power of the closing in the “Section on What Is Wet.” Just as the ambiguous term “wet” there needs specification and takes it from any other portion of the text that can fill this need, whether earlier or later, the same can be said about the terms "ṛg" etc., which, as Vyāsatīrtha has already shown, are also ambiguous, being used sometimes to refer to mantras and sometimes to refer to Vedic corpora.22 This being the case, these terms likewise need specification and find it wherever it occurs, regardless of sequence. Therefore, even in this stock example of the power of the opening, it cannot be said that the opening blocks the closing. Indeed, if we apply Appayya’s theory of need to it, it could be taken to prove that the opening complies with the need of the closing. Vijayīndra goes on to provide an alternative argument precisely modeled after Appayya’s own alternative in the “Section on What Is Wet.” Appayya,

21. Section 3.2. 22. Section 4.3.

13



The New Attitude

133

after all, maintained that even if one were to deny that the ambiguous term “wet” needs the contraction it receives from the term “butter” in the closing, it nevertheless can accept this contraction without losing its superior status, as illustrated by the analogy of the teacher who eats out of brass vessels to comply with the restriction imposed on his student.23 Vijayīndra makes exactly the same point here, only in support of the superiority of the closing. Even if the polysemic terms "ṛg" etc. in the closing do not require contraction to one of their possible meanings, nevertheless they can accept such a contraction in conformity with the term “Veda” in the opening without thereby losing their superior status. As is clear from Vijayīndra’s conclusion that “the opponent’s claim . . . should also be given its last rites” (emphasis added), this is another cuts-​both-​ways argument, of the type we have already seen in Appayya’s book. If one were to accept Appayya’s logic of need, then both the power of the closing and the power of the opening—​the whole notion of sequence as a decisive factor in interpretation, that is—​would be laid to rest. Significantly, Vijayīndra does not clearly indicate here whether or not he himself buys into this logic of need. His point here is simply that Appayya cannot, as he wishes to do, use the need argument to undermine the power of the closing without at the same time undermining the power of the opening. At this point, the arguments of the two opponents converge in the sense that both of them are applying Appayya’s new need-​based interpretive method, each in order to attack a case used to support the other’s received tradition; they are also using the same analogy of brass utensils to the same effect. The cumulative effect of this convergence, however, seems to point to a conclusion that neither is willing to openly accept, namely, that the order in which information appears in the Veda has no interpretive force. One difference between the two texts, nevertheless, is that Vijayīndra, unlike Appayya, is generating very little that is new in either argument or language. A strikingly large portion of his text is simply repetition, repackaging, or inverting of whole passages from his main countertext. This repackaging is made easier by the fact that in many cases Vijayīndra’s rejoinder is, as we have just seen, that an argument made by Appayya cuts both ways. But this is not the only way in which Appayya is being recycled. Take another instance from Vijayīndra’s extended discussion of the “Section on What Is Wet.” As we saw earlier, Śabara, in discussing this section, introduces an additional

23. Section 4.3.

134

134

Fir st Words, L ast Words

example, the injunction “One wraps the cloth,” followed by a descriptive portion, “Indeed, that cloth that is made of linen is fit for all the gods.”24 This illustrates the same principle as “One places the wet pebbles,” in that the injunction refers to a universal (cloth) which is narrowed down to a particular type (linen) based on the associated descriptive passage. Because this descriptive passage occurs later, Vyāsatīrtha took it to demonstrate the power of the closing, just as he did with the closing “Clarified butter indeed is power.” Vijayīndra, for his part, notes that this example is significantly different from that of the wet pebbles because the injunction actually includes the word for the generic substance (“cloth”), whereas “One places wet pebbles” does not include any term for liquid, either specific or general. In the example of the wet pebbles one might argue that what is blocked by the mention of butter in the closing is simply some liquid the hearer might have imagined rather than something explicitly mentioned in the text. In this example, however, it is the explicitly mentioned generic “cloth” that is contracted and therefore blocked by the more specific “linen” in the closing. Hence, argues Vijayīndra, here the closing clearly overrules the opening.25 This is where the heavy repackaging begins. Vijayīndra starts by quoting a complex argument by Appayya, who tried to account for the additional problem of the cloth example, which he anticipated. Appayya argued that even in this case, we cannot really take the word “linen” to block or contract “cloth.”26 In response, Vijayīndra provisionally deploys Appayya’s own theory of need against him. The performer of the injunction needs to narrow down the generic “cloth” to a specific type thereof, and, by Appayya’s own argument, he will first seek this specification in any part of the passage itself. In this case, one finds the sought-​for specification in the closing, which means that the closing definitely does overrule, or block, the generic “cloth” in the opening, thereby demonstrating the closing’s greater strength.27 At this point Vijayīndra defends Vyāsatīrtha’s universal claim that contraction always amounts to a form of blocking, and therefore that the examples of both wet pebbles and the wrapping with cloth show the opening being 24. Section 3.1. 25. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, pp. 28–​29. 26. For Appayya, the closing descriptive passage cannot be taken to block the opening because it serves the purpose of praise, and only a passage that serves no other purpose can serve to block another (Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 31–​32; cf. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, p. 29). 27. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, pp. 29–​30.

135



The New Attitude

135

blocked by the closing. As we have seen, Appayya tried to resist this claim by distinguishing between two types of contraction: one that is needed by the more generic passage, as in the cases of the wet pebbles and the cloth, as opposed to a contraction that is not driven by any need and that therefore amounts to real blocking (as in the example “One offers into the offering fire”).28 Vijayīndra rejects Appayya’s attempted distinction between needed and unneeded contraction as both arbitrary and nonparsimonious. It is simpler and more reasonable, he says, to adopt the universal principle that all contraction involves a blocking of a more generic term by a more specific one, as Vyāsatīrtha has already noted.29 Furthermore, Vijayīndra calls the theory of need itself into question. He argues that Appayya’s notion of performative need has no bearing on the cases at hand for the following two reasons. First, interpretive decisions about performance take place only after syntactic decisions have been made and, in our cases, the syntactic decisions preclude any performative uncertainties. One must first join together and therefore harmonize the generic opening injunction and the more specific descriptive passage in the closing. But this joint interpretation of all the pieces of the text—​which, in these cases, requires the narrowing down of the generic to match the specific—​takes place before the question of performative need can even arise. This line of argumentation is in keeping with Vijayīndra’s already noted propensity to map in detail the precise sequence of steps in the interpretive process. But it is also an example of his “all-​cards-​on-​the-​table” approach, which, as we have shown, undermines the relevance of cognitive sequence altogether. The second argument is that, even on Appayya’s theory, the supposed performative need generated by the generic term in the injunction cannot be satisfied even by the more specific term in the closing. Even if the performer comes to the conclusion that he must use clarified butter rather than some other liquid, he is still faced with a potentially unlimited set of choices: should he, for example, use fresh or old butter, or butter made from cow or buffalo milk?30 So, even after the supposed clarification, the performer is still in a state of uncertainty and would have to make his own decisions just as before. If the need does arise, then, it can never fully be resolved.

28. For the offering fire, see sections 3.1, 4.3n36. 29. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, p. 32. 30. Ibid., p. 33. The examples actually come from Kumārila, as shown in section 3.1.

136

136

Fir st Words, L ast Words

At this point, Vijayīndra turns to directly attack Appayya’s alternative analysis based on the analogy of eating from brass vessels. As we have seen, Appayya argued that even if we do not accept that the performative need generated by the opening injunction drives the interpretive process, the fact that the closing decides the specific element to be used does not prove that it is superior. Vijayīndra points out that accepting this analogy would directly contradict Appayya’s own attempt to differentiate between needed and unneeded contractions. On the brass vessel analogy, a more generic opening could always tolerate a contraction conforming to a more specific closing, whether it needs it or not. According to Vijayīndra, this would overturn Appayya’s own analysis of the injunction “One offers into the offering fire,” discussed earlier.31 It is here that Vijayīndra introduces his own ultimate analysis of the “Section on What Is Wet,” using the “cuts-​both-​ways” method already discussed. Basically, he insists that if we are to accept Appayya’s new theory of need at all, it must be employed consistently, and if employed consistently, it applies just as well to the cases in which traditional Mīmāṃsā argues for the greater strength of the opening, thereby undermining these arguments. Appayya’s new theory, in other words, is a double-​edged sword. This whole discussion illustrates the various types of textual and theoretical convergence growing out of this conversation. For one thing, there is the tendency of Vijayīndra to reuse Appayya’s text, whenever possible, both adopting his formulations of the counterarguments in favor of the closing and reusing his positive arguments against him. For another, there is the conceptual recycling. As a rule, Vijayīndra does not create new theories or argumentative tools but picks up those tools Appayya has already created and shows how they can be used to support his own position as well as to undermine Appayya’s. At some points he uses Appayya’s theory of need to establish his own conclusions; at others he shows how the same theoretical tool of need, if really applied consistently, would undermine Appayya’s conclusions. In still other cases, his cuts-​both-​ways strategy seems to suggest that all sequence-​ based arguments in the end turn on themselves, making it impossible to demonstrate conclusively the superiority of either opening or closing in all cases. Ultimately, Vijayīndra does not really need to prove his own conclusion or even develop his own set of tools. All he really needs to do to win the debate as he understands it is to show that his theory is just as likely to be true (or false) as his opponent’s.

31. Ibid.; see also sections 3.1, 4.3n36.

137



The New Attitude

137

5.4  “Anyway, I Could Still Be Right” As the work progresses, Vijayīndra increasingly displays this tendency of scaling back or curtailing the strong positive claims for the power of the closing advanced by Vyāsatīrtha and settles for the far more modest claim that Appayya cannot prove him wrong. In previous chapters we have seen that both Vyāsatīrtha and Appayya take a similar approach to Mīmāṃsā case law as it relates to their discussion. Vyāsatīrtha assembles as many cases as he can where the closing appears to overrule the opening and argues in each case that only the supremacy of the closing can account for this; in all cases where the opening appears to overrule the closing, however, he shows that it does so not by virtue of being the opening but for some other reason. Appayya inverts this method: for him, when the opening wins, it is because it is the opening, and when the closing does, it is always for some other reason. Vijayīndra, for his part, undoes this entire method by consistently arguing that, in a case of competing hermeneutic rationales, one explanation does not have to rule out another. In other words, even if Appayya can show, in any given case, a reason why the later portion of a text wins apart from its being the closing, this does not undermine the case for the strength of the closing as an additional factor. Take, for example, the case of the “Hawk.” As shown in previous chapters, Appayya challenges Vyāsatīrtha’s use of the hawk example. As Vyāsatīrtha notes, Śabara says that when we hear the injunction “To put a spell on one’s enemy, one should sacrifice with the hawk,” we are faced with a doubt: should we sacrifice an actual bird, or is “Hawk” the proper name of the enjoined sacrifice? The doubt is resolved, as Śabara explained, by the simile provided in the following descriptive portion: “Like a hawk . . . this swoops down and seizes your hateful rival.” For Vyāsatīrtha, as we have seen, this is an example of the closing overruling the opening.32 Appayya counters this notion by arguing that Vyāsatīrtha (and, implicitly, Śabara, too) has misunderstood what it is that we learn from the closing in this case. He argues that an ideal reader sees from the injunction alone that “Hawk” must be the name of a sacrifice and not an actual bird of prey. All the reader needs to know is the semantic basis for this name (pravṛttinimitta), and the closing fills this need with the simile it provides.33

32. See sections 3.1, 4.2. 33. See section 4.4.

138

138

Fir st Words, L ast Words

Interestingly, Vijayīndra frames his discussion of the “Hawk” by incorporating elements of Appayya’s revisionist understanding about the nature of the doubt and of the resolution offered by the closing: “Likewise, in the case of 'To put a spell on one’s enemy, one should sacrifice with the hawk,' the closing determines that the word 'hawk' is a name by offering up a semantic basis in the form of similitude. Thus this too is an example of the strength of the closing.”34 This is another good example of Vijayīndra using Appayya’s arguments to his own benefit: the fact that the closing supplies, as Appayya has argued, the semantic basis for the sacrifice’s name is now taken to prove its power over the opening. Vijayīndra paraphrases Appayya’s arguments to the effect that the opening injunction itself, independently of the closing, allows the reader to conclude that “Hawk” must be the name of the sacrifice. Vijayīndra not only endorses Appayya’s revisionist understanding of the need for a semantic grounding for the name; he essentially accepts his opponent’s argument that the need to avoid a sentence splitting does force us to accept that the word “Hawk” in the injunction is the proper name of a sacrifice.35 “But really” (vastutas tu), Vijayīndra essentially dismisses all of this as irrelevant. The fact that other signs or interpretive principles may point to the conclusion that “Hawk” is the sacrifice’s proper name does not in any way rule out the fact that the closing also points to such a conclusion: “We do not rule out that other principles (nyāyāntara) determine the meaning of the opening. But the closing also determines it. Indeed, in the present case, determination based on the closing is not harmed even if other principles apply.”36 This argumentative move proves to be Vijayīndra’s key strategy in undermining Appayya’s dismissal of Vyāsatīrtha’s examples for the power of the closing. Appayya may be entirely correct in identifying alternative principles that explain cases where the opening appears to conform to the closing, but his explanations simply do not matter. However many other interpretive principles may point to the desired conclusion in

34. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, p. 40: evaṃ “śyenenābhicaran yajeta” ity atrāpi śyenaśabdasya yāganāmatva upasaṃhārasya sādṛśyarūpapravṛttinimittasamarpakatayā nirṇāyakatvād upasaṃhāraprābalya idam apy udāharaṇam. 35. As we show in section 4.4, for Appayya, if we take “hawk” in the sense of a bird, the injunction would enjoin two separate things, the sacrifice for bewitching one’s enemy and the use of a particular substance, a hawk, resulting in the cardinal sin of splitting the sentence (vākyabheda). 36. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, p. 41: vastutas tu . . . na hi vayaṃ nyāyāntarasyopakra-​ mārthanirṇāyakatvaṃ vārayāmaḥ. kiṃtv upasaṃhārasyāpi tannirṇāyakatvam. tac ca prakṛte nyāyāntarasadbhāve ’py akṣatam.

139



The New Attitude

139

any particular case, the principle of the power of the closing remains perfectly valid. In fact, Vijayīndra argues, if the existence of one route to a desired interpretive conclusion is taken to preclude other equally valid routes, this, too, is an argument that cuts both ways. As he says regarding the “Hawk” example: Furthermore, one cannot avoid the fact that, at a time when one has not yet considered alternative principles, the closing is useful for determining that “Hawk” is a name, since it determines that “hawk” cannot be a designation of the substance to be offered in the ritual. Otherwise you would be faced with the problem that even in the case of those other principles, at a time when one does not consider any one of them, the principles that are being considered would likewise not be decisive.37 Alternatives explanations are just that: alternative. Whichever one thinks of first validly leads to the appropriate conclusion, regardless of the possibility of later finding other, equally valid means to the same conclusion. If the existence of alternative means for establishing a certain resolution precluded the validity of the others, then all the means would be equally invalidated. There is no fixed rule about which order governs our consideration of these principles: whichever one happens to come to mind first decides the case, without damaging the others (assuming that they all point in the same direction). Here, too, sequence seems to be less and less of a factor, and the convergence between the two rivals becomes even more pronounced. Vijayīndra can now accept virtually all of Appayya’s conclusions without abandoning any part of his own central thesis. Once Vijayīndra has developed this versatile argumentative strategy, he employs it again and again.38 This becomes his main method for dealing with Appayya’s Vedānta section, for example. We have already seen that the main part of Appayya’s discussion of openings and closings in Vedānta is his landmark study of the “Section on the Tiny Space” (daharādhikaraṇa). Recall that this discussion revolves around an Upanishadic passage that begins by

37. Ibid., p. 42: kiṃ ca nyāyāntarānanusandhānadaśāyām upasaṃhārasya guṇavidhitvābhāvanirṇayamukhena nāmatvanirṇayopayogitvaṃ durvāram. anyathā nyāyāntareṣv apy anyatamānanusandhānadaśāyām anusaṃhitanyāyasyāpy anirṇāyakatva​prasaṅgaḥ. 38. See, for example, ibid., pp. 45, 49, 56, 62, 67.

140

140

Fir st Words, L ast Words

focusing on the lotus that is the heart and says, “Within that there is a tiny space. You should seek for what is within that; indeed, you should meditate on that.” The main questions that arise here are (1) whether this passage tells us to meditate on the “tiny space” or yet another thing nested inside it, and (2) what exactly is this “tiny space”—​is it simply the physical element “space,” or does it refer to the meditator’s individual soul, or even the supreme soul. Śaṅkara and his followers conclude after much discussion that the passage tells us to meditate on “the space” rather than on something inside it, and that this space is identical with the supreme soul. Following the words of the relevant sutra, Śaṅkara bases his conclusion on “things that come later” (uttarebhyaḥ), that is to say, elements that appear later on in the text that make sense only if the object of meditation is the supreme soul or Brahman. Picking up on the language of the sutra, Appayya invents an argument for the proponents of the closing and discusses the “Section on the Tiny Space” at great length, only to conclude that it is not the fact that these indicators come later that is decisive, but rather that they are multiple and outnumber any indication to the contrary.39 As we noted earlier, the position Appayya thrusts onto the closing theorists is not actually the interpretation adopted by Madhva and his followers. They in fact held that one should meditate not on the tiny space but on what is inside it: Brahman in his personal form as Vishnu. Despite this, Vijayīndra actually defends Appayya’s invented argument for the closing theorists and defends it precisely by what has now become his default argument, that however many alternative interpretive principles Appayya may summon in support of the desired conclusion, nothing rules out the operation of the closing as an additional factor. Thus, after quoting at length Appayya’s contention that the multiplicity of interpretive factors pointing to the supreme soul is decisive here, Vijayīndra retorts, “If you say this: no. Because even so, the power of the closing is not given up. This is because the closing states the result of worshiping that thing, and it does not lose its power to determine that the opening phrase, ‘what is within that,’ points to the tiny space as the object of worship.”40 As indicted by the concessive phrase “even so,” Vijayīndra is not actually rejecting Appayya’s argument for the relevance of plurality. He is simply dismissing it as irrelevant to the debate at hand. Even if this or 39. Section 4.6. 40. Vijayīndratīrtha, Upasaṃhāravijaya, p. 62: iti cen na. evam api tadupāstiphalopasaṃhāra-​ syopakramagatasya [corr., “-​pagatakramas”] tasmin yad antar ity āder daharākāśasyopāsyatva​paratvanirṇāyakatvātyāgenopasaṃhāraprābālyānapāyāt.

14



The New Attitude

141

other additional factors point to the conclusion that the tiny space should be worshiped, the closing also points to the same conclusion and is as much a decisive factor as any other. Of course, as already noted, the interpretation Vijayīndra is defending here is not that of his school and actually contradicts the Dualists’ reading of the passage. As Vijayīndra himself points out immediately afterward, beginning with the formulaic “but really” (vastutas tu), one should not meditate on the tiny space at all, but on the god Vishnu within it. This insincere defense of a position that is not his own and that Appayya himself invented merely in order to then refute it—​a position, that is, that no one has ever upheld—​ illustrates another striking aspect of Vijayīndra’s method that becomes increasingly evident as his work progresses: his flippant attitude.

5.5  Summary One important difference between Appayya’s Power of the Opening and Vijayīndra’s Conquest of the Closing is that the latter has little interest in developing a novel comprehensive hermeneutic theory of the sort we have seen in the former. Vijayīndra is by and large content to undermine his opponent’s conclusions by reusing the theoretical resources already provided by Appayya himself. For this very reason there is an extraordinary textual and conceptual overlap between the two works. As we argued in ­chapter 4, there is a tension within Appayya’s own work between the seeming implications of his new, need-​based hermeneutics and the wish to maintain at least outward faithfulness to the received Mīmāṃsā position his work is ostensibly meant to defend. Vijayīndra is fully aware of this tension and exploits it in his polemics against his opponent: as we have seen, he argues that the logic of need, if accepted, would undermine the supposed cases for the predominance of the opening just as effectively as it does the cases that Vyāsatīrtha assembled to demonstrate the power of the closing. This tension is very much present in Vijayīndra’s work as well, and in fact he is much closer to openly embracing it. It is precisely this aspect of his work that imbues it with an unusually self-​ conscious level of gamesmanship. It often seems that for Vijayīndra, the point is not to present a fully developed hermeneutics but simply to score a debater’s point; not really to prove himself right but simply to show that he cannot be proven wrong. He does this by systematically deploying “cuts-​both-​ways” arguments of the sort already found, even if less prominently, in Appayya’s monograph. Furthermore, there is his increasingly reflexive use of the “alternative principle” method, namely,

142

142

Fir st Words, L ast Words

the claim that if it can be reasonably argued that the closing determines any given interpretive decision, then no matter how many other determining factors can be supplied, and no matter how powerful they may be, nothing can undermine the case for the power of the closing. This method ensures Vijayīndra’s success in the game as he has now defined it, a game, that is, that effectively serves the two audiences he identified in the opening of his work. For the bees that make up his sectarian base, this tactic shows that none of their tenets can be damaged or overthrown by their rivals. To the wider intellectual public, he demonstrates both his erudition and his polemical prowess. The ultimate effect of this display, however, is to suggest, with a wink, that his own positive arguments are less than entirely serious. Seen as a whole, the work and its argumentative methods give a strong impression of flippancy. While the Conquest of the Closing sets out to uphold Madhva’s inverted interpretive hierarchy and its inbuilt insistence on the importance of sequence, it ultimately provides no unambiguous positive argument for the power of the closing. In fact, Vijayīndra is willing to concede that in ordinary, nonscriptural speech, sequence has no relevance in interpretation. (The speaker, after all, can say things in whichever order he or she chooses.) Even in the interpretation of scripture, where the sequence of syllables is eternally fixed, he insists that the interpretive process can begin only once all parts of a given passage are taken in and processed independently of each other and of their place in the sequence. While he asserts, somewhat arbitrarily, that the ensuing cognitive process is governed by the sequence of the text so that later portions reshape our understanding of earlier ones, his characteristic argumentative mode is by design reversible and therefore inconclusive. His preferred “cuts-​both-​ways” strategy does just that: its cuts both ways. If it shows that Appayya cannot decisively rule out the power of the closing, it also shows that the Dualists cannot decisively rule out the power of the opening. Likewise, his “alternative principle” method averts the dismissal of the power of the closing by an opponent but would likewise avert the Dualists’ own dismissal of the power of the opening. The question naturally arises, then: To what extent is Vijayīndra sincere in his defense of the power of the closing? Does he really care about the truth-​ value of the tenets he has inherited and is supposedly defending, or is he merely interested in scoring points for his team? This question of Vijayīndra’s sincerity opens up a set of additional queries: To what extent was Appayya himself serious in his defense of the traditional Mīmāṃsā position? In his case, too, we saw an overt defense of one position—​that opening overpowers closing—​while the logic of his argument seems to point to a contrary

143



The New Attitude

143

conclusion, namely, that need drives the interpretive process regardless of sequence. Another question, given that the two authors share so much in terms of both actual words and argumentative methods, is what they share in addition, in terms of their social space and intellectual commitments. Recall that Sevappa Nāyaka has had them co-​inhabit his court and has likened them to two of the three sacrificial fires. Recall also the way Vijayīndra positions himself, in the beginning of his work, as writing for two separate audiences: students within his fold, and the broader intellectual community that extends beyond it. Does this suggest that for all their supposed rivalry, Appayya and Vijayīndra were in some sense part of a common and cooperative enterprise? Finally, and perhaps most important, what does their shared intellectual pose as defenders of long-​established conclusions tell us about the role of innovation in their works and, more broadly, in their period? And what does the insincerity detected in their works tell us about their willingness or even their ability to say something that is truly new?

14

6

Behind the Veil of the Old New Directions in the Study of Scholastic Innovation

6.1  Closing Out the Debate What happens to newness after it bursts into the open? In previous chapters we described at some length the eruption of an intense controversy that called into question many long-​accepted truths and led to significant innovation, not merely in the treatment of specific interpretive cases but on the level of more general hermeneutic theory. This innovation was consistently cloaked in the garb of traditionalism, but, as we have seen, there is good reason to suspect the authors’ sincerity in their professed adherence to the positions of their predecessors. Indeed, the argument between defenders of the opening and proponents of the closing developed in ways that threatened to render the entire question of sequence moot. But if one expected this new theorization of textual cognition to steer the discussion in a novel direction, let alone to create a new theoretical synthesis, one would quickly become disappointed. Surprisingly, given the intensity of the debate discussed thus far, the controversy over the relative strength of the opening and the closing dies out almost immediately after Vijayīndra’s time and returns to its former status as, at best, a minor issue. Indeed, the whole debate is largely passed over in possibly deliberate silence. To begin with, after Vijayīndra, no one from either side of the debate composes a whole treatise on this topic or provides a systematic study of it.1

1. One possible exception is the Upasaṃhāravijayaparājaya, presumably a Qualified Nondualist attack on Vijayīndra’s Conquest of the Closing. The work is reported to have existed in a single, First Words, Last Words. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197583470.003.0006

145



Behind the Veil of the Old

145

In later Mīmāṃsā, we see only occasional references to the controversy, and only apropos the few key cases that gave rise to the debate. Even the most celebrated and self-​consciously innovative Mīmāṃsā authors in seventeenth-​ century India, the great Banaras scholars Khaṇḍadeva (1575?–​1665) and his pupil and commentator Śambhubhaṭṭa (fl. c. 1675–​1710), make only passing allusions to this debate and largely ignore its deeper and potentially more threatening theoretical implications. Both scholars show clear awareness of the recent discussion, although Khaṇḍadeva nowhere openly acknowledges, let alone engages with, the arguments of either Appayya or his Dualist opponents on this question. In his examination of the two classical Mīmāṃsā cases in support of the power of the opening, the “Section on Opening with Veda” and the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual,” Khaṇḍadeva displays no overt awareness of the recent controversy and says nothing that could not have been derived directly from the age-​old discussion of Kumārila.2 Śambhubhaṭṭa, when concluding his commentary on each of these two sections of Khaṇḍadeva’s Lamp on Kumārila’s School (Bhāṭṭadīpikā), appends a brief concluding footnote addressing Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments against the power of the opening and Mīmāṃsā’s refutation of it. Apropos Khaṇḍadeva’s discussion of the “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual,” Śambhubhaṭṭa summarizes the main argument of Vyāsatīrtha (whom he labels “neophyte,” or arvācīna, using Appayya’s term) and claims that Khaṇḍadeva, simply by silently ignoring it, has in effect refuted it.3 In the “Section on Opening with Veda,” Śambhubhaṭṭa does not

privately held manuscript and is inaccessible to us. V. Raghavan, New Catalogus Catalogorum (Madras: University of Madras, 1966), vol. 2, p. 373. 2. See Khaṇḍadeva, Bhāṭṭadīpikā, with the commentary Prabhāvalī of Śambhubhaṭṭa, ed. N. S. Ananta Krishna Shastri (vol. 1, pp. 276–​279) (vedopakrama) and S. Subrahmanya Sastri (vol. 2, pp. 85–​89) (aśvapratigraha), 5 vols., 2nd edition (Delhi: Sri Satguru, 1987); and Khaṇḍadeva, Mīmāṃsākaustubha, ed. A. Chinnaswami Sastri, 2 vols. (Benares: Chowkambā, 1924–​1929), vol. 2, pp. 309–​319 (vedopakrama). 3. Khaṇḍadeva, Bhāṭṭadīpikā, vol. 2, p. 89: “Some neophytes consider the closing to be stronger than the opening and suppose that the ritual is performed by the giver of horses because of the indication that subordinate rituals can produce assistance [for the main ritual] only in so far as they share the same place, time, and performer as the main ritual (precisely by virtue of being a subordinate rite), but not because the opening is stronger. Those [neophytes] are rejected by my revered teacher precisely by the fact that he does not mention the indication of the subordinate ritual’s production of assistance only by having the same place, time, and performer as the main ritual.” (ye tūpkaramāpekṣayopasaṃhārasyaiva prābalyaṃ nirūpayanto ’rvācīnā atra karmāṅgatvavaśenaivāṅgānāṃ pradhānasamadeśakālakartṛkatvenopakārajananasāmārthyarūpāl liṅgād dātur iṣṭiḥ, na tūpakramaprābalyeneti kalpayanti, te pūjyapādair aṅgagatasya samā​nadeśakālakartṛkatveno-

146

146

Fir st Words, L ast Words

attribute a similar meaning to Khaṇḍadeva’s silence regarding Vyāsatīrtha, but he himself does address Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments and refers readers directly to Appayya’s book for their refutation (the only time he actually mentions Appayya’s work by name).4 Here Śambhubhaṭṭa seems to imply that Appayya’s discussion simply offers a pure defense of the long-​held Mīmāṃsā position and nothing more. Both authors provide a deeper and more complex engagement with this debate and Appayya’s innovations in discussing the “Section on What Is Wet.” In this section, unlike in the two discussed earlier, Khaṇḍadeva’s language is clearly shaped by both Vyāsatīrtha’s and Appayya’s texts. For instance, his well-​informed hypothetical opponent highlights the issue of sequence in a way not seen in the relevant discussions of Śabara and Kumārila. The opponent points to the “Section on Opening with Veda” to challenge the conclusion that here pebbles should be wet with butter: if, in fact, the opening is stronger, as is held in the “Section on Opening with Veda,” then the generic injunction (“wet”) in the opening should overpower the specific information (“butter”) in the closing. The same hypothetical opponent explicitly rejects the idea that was introduced by Vyāsatīrtha, namely that, in the “Section on What Is Wet,” what determines our interpretation is the power of the closing based on the analogy of the “Principle of Breaking the Chain” (apacchedanyāya).5 Thus, while the rival position defended by the opponent is exactly the same position explored and rejected by Śabara and Kumārila a millennium earlier—​namely, that any liquid can be used to wet the pebbles—​here the argument shows awareness of and incorporates elements from the more recent controversy. Likewise,

pakārajanakatvarūpaliṅgasyānupanyāsenaiva parāstāḥ.) For Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments, see section 3.3. 4. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 279: “Those who desire the greater strength of the closing because they do not accept the power of the opening explain the traditional conclusion in this section by taking as the primary reason the problem of the uselessness of the sentence ‘Loudly with the Sāman’ which is shown by the subordinate sutra [3.3.8]. They have been taught a lesson by the foremost of Mīmāṃsakas in his tract, The Power of the Opening, as can be seen there.” (ye tv asminn adhikaraṇa upasaṃhāraprābalyam icchanta upakramaprābalyānaṅgīkāreṇātra-​ tyena “dharmopadeśāc ca na hi dravyeṇa sambandhaḥ" iti guṇasūtreṇa darśitām “uccaiḥ sāmnā” itivākyavaiyarthyānupapattim eva mukhyahetutvenāṅgīkṛtya siddhāntam upapādayanti, te mīmāṃsakamūrdhanyair evopakramaparākramavāde śikṣitāḥ, tatraiva draṣṭavyam [corr. draṣṭavyāḥ].) 5. Khaṇḍadeva, Mīmāṃsākaustubha, vol. 2, pp. 293–​294.

147



Behind the Veil of the Old

147

the opponent considers and rejects the applicability of the goat example, first introduced into the discussion by Vyāsatīrtha.6 More interestingly, in his own conclusion Khaṇḍadeva deploys Appayya’s analytical toolkit of “need” (ākāṅkṣā) and its satisfaction (śānti). He speaks of the performative need for a specific substance that is satisfied by the particular liquid “butter” (dravyākāṅkṣāśānteḥ) mentioned in the concluding descriptive passage, and he likewise speaks of the need of the injunction that prompts the search for specification and that is satisfied by the same passage (vidher āk​āṅkṣāśāntau).7 Śambhubhaṭṭa, in his parallel discussion in his commentary on the Lamp on Kumārila’s School, engages even more deeply with Appayya’s arguments. First, he draws not just on the goat example already referred to by Khaṇḍadeva but also cites additional parallel cases that Appayya introduced into the debate. For example, he has his own version of the hypothetical opponent consider and reject the applicability of Appayya’s use of the analogy of the brass utensils to defend the standard conclusion. Appayya’s primary argument was that the opening injunction needs the specification that is offered by the closing. But he also argued that even if this notion of need is set aside, the injunction can conform to the specificity offered by the closing without any harm to itself, just as a teacher who can eat from any type of vessel can limit himself to the brass variety in order to allow the student to meet his own ritual obligations.8 Second, he expands the discussion of need far beyond what we see in Khaṇḍadeva. Thus he reiterates Appayya’s elaborate eightfold typology of textual doubts from the level of polysemic stems up, repeats many of Appayya’s examples, and even paraphrases large portions of Appayya’s text almost verbatim, although without giving Appayya credit and without highlighting this typology as an innovation.9 Third, and most interesting, Śambhubhaṭṭa seems to try to harmonize Appayya’s theory of need, developed in the context of the “Section on What Is Wet,” with his more conventional sequence-​based analysis of the “Section 6. Ibid., p. 296. For Vyāsatīrtha’s discussion; see section 3.1. 7. Ibid., pp. 297–​298. For Appayya’s typology of needs, see section 4.4. 8. Śambhubhaṭṭa, Bhāṭṭadīpikā, vol. 1, p. 128. For the brass vessels example, see section 4.3. The opponent also considers and rejects Appayya’s use of another ritual case discussed in the "Section on Indrapīta." See Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, ed. A. Subrahmanyasastri (Varanasi: Banaras Hindu University, 1973), pp. 48–​49. 9. Śambhubhaṭṭa, Bhāṭṭadīpikā, vol. 1, p. 129. Cf. Appayya Dīkṣita, Upakramaparākrama, pp. 36–​37, and section 4.3.

148

148

Fir st Words, L ast Words

on Opening with Veda.” Recall that Vijayīndra already noted the tension between Appayya’s treatment of these two sections and made use of it in his critique of him: if in the wet pebbles case the need of the injunction drives specification without regard to sequence, as Appayya holds, then the same principle should undermine the standard Mīmāṃsā conclusion about the strength of the opening as determining the conclusion in the “Section on Opening with Veda” (where the opening descriptive passage is held to prevail over the closing injunction purely because of its sequential priority).10 Śambhubhaṭṭa, following Appayya, argues that in the case of the pebbles, the injunction needs a specification and therefore accepts contraction, despite the fact that the contraction comes from the closing descriptive passage. For him, therefore, this is not a case where sequence plays any part. It is only in the absence of such need, he implies, that the opening’s relative strength can come into consideration. In other words, the question of sequence is relegated to the few cases where the logic of need does not apply.11 Thus, while Śambhubhaṭṭa does not directly allude here to Appayya or Vyāsatīrtha, as he did in the other two cases discussed earlier, it is only here that he seriously grapples with and attempts to assimilate Appayya’s most radical innovation: his development of a theory of need as something that overrides and largely displaces sequence-​ based analysis. Remember, however, that all this is done as an aside and without explicitly acknowledging the innovation in question. Apart from Khaṇḍadeva and Śambhubhaṭṭa, later Mīmāṃsakas appear to almost totally ignore the Vyāsatīrtha-​Appayya debate over sequence and its wider implications. And on the Dualists’ side, the silence regarding this debate is even more deafening. In the sources that we have been able to examine, no post-​Vijayīndra Dualist engages or even refers to this controversy. Later Dualists are aware of Madhva’s inverted hierarchy and its conflict with the traditional Mīmāṃsā position, and some of them show awareness of Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments and examples in support of this position. But as far as we can tell,

10. See section 5.3. 11. Śambhubhaṭṭa, Bhāṭṭadīpikā, vol. 1, p. 128: “Because the need for that [specification] is satisfied by the descriptive passage itself, it is not right to take the injunction as intent on providing the specification already offered by that [descriptive passage], because the injunction requires contraction for its own sake. . . . It is precisely for that reason that here there is no blocking in the form of crushing of the closing descriptive passage by the opening, nor is there blocking in the form of contraction of the opening by the closing.” (arthavādenaiva tadapekṣāśāntes tatsam­ arpitaviśeṣaparatayā vidher na yuktaṃ vyavasthāpanam, saṅkocasya. . . . svārthatayaivāpekṣaṇāt. ata evātra nopakrameṇopasaṃhāragatārthavādasyopamardalakṣaṇa​bādhaḥ, na vopasaṃhāreṇopakramasya saṅkocalakṣaṇo bādhaḥ.)

149



Behind the Veil of the Old

149

none shows any overt familiarity with Appayya’s attack on these arguments or Vijayīndra’s rejoinder. Strikingly, this is true even of Rāghavendra Tīrtha (fl. 1623–​1671), Vijayīndra’s pupil and direct successor.12 Rāghavendra (as we will call him) must certainly have had an intimate knowledge of Vijayīndra’s works and polemics against Appayya. But even when he comments directly on Vyāsatīrtha’s two main discussions on the power of the closing in the Apocalyptic Dance of Reason and the Moonlight on Intentionality, he avoids any engagement with Appayya’s counterarguments in the Power of the Opening or with his teacher’s rejoinder in the Conquest of the Closing. This is despite the fact that he directly engages with Appayya’s arguments on many other points. A particularly noteworthy example is his discussion of the “Section on the Tiny Space” (daharādhikaraṇa). Commenting on the portion devoted to this topic in the Moonlight on Intentionality, Rāghavendra discusses and refutes in detail Appayya’s defense of his Shaiva interpretation of the “tiny space” and even refers by name to Appayya’s most important Shaiva-​Vedānta work, Kindling the Sunstone of Shiva, something he does several times.13 But nowhere in this discussion does he even allude to Appayya’s extensive treatment of the “Section on the Tiny Space” as a case study of the power of the opening (as discussed in section 4.6). Moreover, in the Summary of Kumārila's School (Bhāṭṭasaṃgraha), his own brief commentary on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra, Rāghavendra completely avoids any reference to the controversy.14 Given his extensive knowledge of Appayya’s and his own teacher’s works, this silence can only be deliberate.15 How are we to explain the sudden and almost total disappearance of this recent and intense controversy? It is not as if this was always the case with controversial innovations in this period. A point of contrast can be seen in the response to Appayya’s works in other domains, most notably his other main Mīmāṃsā monograph, the Elixir for Injunctions (Vidhirasāyana). In this work, Appayya performs a similar act of offering a radical revision of earlier

12. On his dates and life, see B. N. K. Sharma, A History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and Its Literature (Bombay: Booksellers’ Publishing Company, 1961), vol. 2, pp. 274–​281. 13. MBSBh, vol. 4, pp. 277, 279. 14. Rāghavendratīrtha, Bhāṭṭasaṃgraha, ed. K. T. Pandurangi, 2 vols. (Bangalore: Dvaita Vedanta Studies and Research Foundation, 2004), vol. 1, p. 36 (the “Section on What Is Wet”), pp. 108–​109 (the “Section on Opening with Veda”), and p. 137 (the “Section on the Horse-​ Receiving Ritual”). 15. Of course, much more work needs to be done on Vijayīndra's other polemics against Appayya and the details of their later reception in the Dualist camp.

150

150

Fir st Words, L ast Words

thought in the guise of defending it. Specifically, he reexamines Kumārila’s definitions of the three basic types of scriptural injunctions and considers a vast array of potential objections to each—​all of which seem to be invented by himself—​and produces a modified and refined definition for each category. Thus he preserves the basic categorical structure but, in effect, replaces the traditional definitions of Kumārila with new formulations of his own. Indeed, the text is entirely devoted to taking Kumārila’s definitions apart and replacing them, even if it maintains a pseudo-​traditional veneer, presenting itself as a mere clarification of Kumārila’s position. But in the case of the Elixir, very much unlike that of the Power of the Opening, this pseudo-​traditional pose was immediately recognized and attacked as such. Within 150 years of its composition, the work generated at least six book-​length attacks (as well as several monographs dedicated to its defense) from within Kumārila’s school, and many other authors offered systematic critiques of Appayya’s innovations in the Elixir.16 Why was the response to the similarly pseudo-​traditional Power of the Opening different? The reason seems at least partly related to the institutional and social dynamics of the intersectarian quarrel of the sequence debate. In the case of the Elixir, the debate was entirely system-​internal—​followers of Kumārila arguing with other followers of Kumārila—​whereas the debate over sequence involved an external threat to the system coming from the Dualists.

16. Works devoted to attacking the Elixir for Injunctions (Appayya Dīkṣita, Vidhirasāyana, ed. Mukundaśāstrī [Banaras: Chaukhamba Sanskrit Series 13, 1901]) include Śaṅkarabhaṭṭa’s Vi-​ dhirasāyanadūṣaṇa, ed. Sūryanārāyaṇa Śarma Śukla (Banaras: Royal Press, 1937), cf. Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Adyar Library, vol. 9: Mīmāṃsā and Advaita Vedānta, ed. V. Krishnamacharya (Madras: Adyar Library, 1952), pp. 108–​109; Veṅkaṭanārāyaṇa’s Vidhibhūṣaṇa (mentioned on p. 7 of the appendix of Vācaspatimiśra, Tattvabindu, ed. V. A. Ramaswami Sastri [Madras: Annamalai University Sanskrit Series 3, 1936]); Kollūri Nārāyaṇaśāstrin’s Vidhidarpaṇa (see A Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Government Oriental Manuscript Library, Madras, ed. M. Raṅgācārya [Madras: Government Press, 1910], vol. 9, pp. 3336–​ 3337), Veṅkaṭādhvarin’s Vidhitrayaparitrāṇa (Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Adyar Library, vol. 9, pp. 114–​115, and A Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Government Oriental Manuscript Library, Madras, vol. 9, pp. 3334–​3336); Nārāyaṇa’s Vidhicamatkāracandrikā (see A Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Government Oriental Manuscript Library, Madras, vol. 9, pp. 3333–​3334); and Gopāla Bhaṭṭa’s Mīmāṃsāvidhibhūṣaṇa (see Ganganatha Jha, Pūrva-​ Mīmāṃsā in Its Sources [Banaras: Benares Hindu University, 1942], appendix, p. 62). Works defending the Elixir include the Durūhaśikṣā of Appayya’s grand-​nephew, Appayya “III” (see Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Adyar Library, vol. 9, pp. 118–​121), and the Vidhiratnāvalī of Śrīnivāsadāsa (Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Adyar Library, vol. 9, pp. 141–​142). See also Lawrence McCrea, “Playing with the System: Fragmentation and Individualization in late Pre-​colonial Mīmāṃsā,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 36.5–​6 (2008): 579–​581.

15



Behind the Veil of the Old

151

It may be the case, then, that because Appayya is attacking an external foe, other followers of Kumārila were willing in this case to gloss over or ignore the potentially subversive elements of his new theory and accept at face value his work’s pseudo-​traditional veneer. The external quarrel with the Dualists turns this into something of a team sport, and, as long as Appayya can be seen as fighting for the “home team,” we can see why fellow Mīmāṃsakas such as Khaṇḍadeva and Śambhubhaṭṭa may have been happy to cheer him on without turning an overly critical eye on his analysis. In the case of the Elixir, on the other hand, this incentive to unite against an external challenge is absent, and rival interpreters of Kumārila are more ready to call Appayya out as subversive. As we have already seen, the struggle between Appayya and the Dualists is tied up with significant patronage interests, and there are therefore institutional pressures to present a common front against the rival camp. In the intra-​Mīmāṃsā quarrel surrounding the Elixir, by contrast, these pressures are largely absent, as there is no relevant institutional structure or competition for patronage resources in play. By this time, virtually everybody writing on Mīmāṃsā does so as a follower of Kumārila, and it is largely his authoritative writings that define the Mīmāṃsā tradition for everyone. The sudden and intense negative reaction against the Elixir seems to be driven by a fear of the intellectual consequences of chipping away at the theoretical bedrock of the tradition. This dispute over the Elixir thus shows the beginnings in this period of a new willingness to call into question long-​established truths and authorities but also an intense conservative response in defense of both. We will come back to these themes. The silence of the later Dualists on the sequence debate is perhaps harder to explain. Given their complete refusal to engage with this controversy, even in the case of Vijayīndra’s own pupil Rāghavendra, we can only speculate as to their reasons. One possibility that suggests itself is that the nature of Vijayīndra’s engagement with Appayya’s critique makes further discussion pointless and perhaps counterproductive. In particular, his predominant “cuts-​both-​ways” mode of argument offers less a strong positive defense of Vyāsatīrtha’s new math than a double-​edged tactic that effectively undermines Appayya’s arguments against Vyāsatīrtha, but only at the cost of simultaneously undermining his own. Vijayīndra’s argument, then, seems almost by design to terminate in a stalemate, leaving the Dualist case for the power of the closing at an intellectual dead end. More generally, it may be argued that the controversy died out as a direct result of its innovations. In other words, a debate that began in seeking

152

152

Fir st Words, L ast Words

to prove the interpretive predominance of either the opening or the closing ended up by virtually conceding that sequence is moot and has no interpretive relevance. Moreover, there was an increasingly evident gap between the hard-​edged opposition in the rhetorical self-​presentation of the rival positions (embodied, for example, in the titles Power of the Opening and Conquest of the Closing) and the growing convergence of the opponents’ actual lines of argument. The debate seems to have dissolved itself, and, after Vijayīndra, the evident consensus of all of its successors, regardless of their camp, is that they wanted to move on.

6.2  Modes of Innovation and Pseudo-​traditionalism in the Abrahamic Traditions: A Comparative Coda What have we seen so far? Our survey of the debate over the relative importance of the opening and the closing demonstrates that substantive innovation did in fact occur in early modern Indian hermeneutic theory. But it also reveals that the authors of such innovation were extremely reluctant to present it as such, concealing the innovative elements of their theories under a guise of faithfulness to received doctrines. As we have suggested, the eventual demise of this debate and of the innovation that came with it is linked to this pose of deference to tradition. Before we address the question of why our protagonists disguise their innovativeness, we would like to offer a comparison. After all, this phenomenon can be seen elsewhere, in many similar scholastic traditions with their own structures of scriptural and doctrinal authority, and it may be helpful to sample a few cases from the same traditions that we briefly examined in the introduction. Our first example of tactically concealed innovation can be seen in the work of Abū Ḥāmid al-​Ghazālī (c. 1058–​1111), one of the most prolific and celebrated Muslim theologians, philosophers, and jurists of the eleventh century. Al-​Ghazālī presents himself as very much a traditionalist who defends established theological doctrine against the threatening innovations of philosophically minded thinkers, but on certain basic points of cosmology he himself seems to borrow heavily from the very same philosophers he criticizes. This highly ambivalent attitude toward the possibility and desirability of philosophically driven innovation can be seen most clearly in al-​Ghazālī’s account of causality. Al-​Ghazālī generally presents himself as an upholder of the Ash’arite school of theology against the critiques of “the philosophers.”

153



Behind the Veil of the Old

153

The Ash’arites traditionally advocated a radically “occasionalist” theory of causality. They held that there are in fact no true causal laws whatsoever. Each and every occurrence in the world, mental as well as physical, is specifically willed by God and caused only by that divine will. As God is all-​powerful, He is absolutely unconstrained. Hence even events that appear to follow one another with absolute regularity do not result from any invariant or mechanical causal law, but simply from the will of God. Philosophers such as Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, 980–​1037), on the contrary, building on the logical and metaphysical theories of Aristotle, held that God, as the first cause, creates a world in which regular causal laws apply, such that physical effects follow from specific physical causes with absolute regularity and without a specific will of God operating in each case. One of the most important recent analysts of al-​Ghazālī’s thought, Richard Frank, has in several studies advanced the argument that al-​Ghazālī, while wishing to present himself as a faithful upholder of traditional Ash’arite doctrine, in fact incorporates into his cosmology significant elements that echo those of Avicenna. Specifically, Frank argues that for al-​Ghazālī, the world is a fully deterministic system, in which secondary causes produce their effects without the direct intervention of a specific divine will.17 This directly contradicts Ash’arite occasionalist doctrine, but Frank argues that al-​ Ghazālī frequently seeks to mask his departure from the traditional Ash’arite stance on this question. Frank carefully surveys al-​Ghazālī’s statements on such causal determinism, or “the efficient causality of secondary causes,” in several of his major works. He shows that, while al-​Ghazālī explicitly argues for such causality in some works, he appears to reject it in other works that have generally been taken to advocate a strictly Ash’arite position. This, Frank argues, “would prima facie seem unlikely, unless one is willing to take it that al-​Ghazālī is egregiously inconsistent either in what he believed, or in what he chose to say.”18 Frank resolves this apparent inconsistency by arguing that, while al-​Ghazālī does maintain a consistent set of theological and cosmological doctrines throughout his works, he deploys in much of his oeuvre a “rhetoric of harmonization,” seeking, where possible, to mask or to minimize the divergence of his position from traditional Ash’arite stances:

17. See especially Richard M. Frank, Creation and the Cosmic System: Al-​Ghazālī and Avicenna (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1992) and his Al-​Ghazālī and the Ash’arite School (London: Duke University Press, 1994). 18. Frank, Al-​Ghazālī and the Ash’arite School, p. 29.

154

154

Fir st Words, L ast Words

In most of his writings, primary elements are brought into clear conceptual focus in at least a few places and in some works more or less regularly throughout. In many places, however, one or another of them may be deliberately suppressed or obscured or held scarcely discernible just beneath the articulated surface of the text.19 Frank sees this deliberate masking or obscuration of al-​Ghazālī’s position as contextually driven, seeking to avoid alienating certain audiences in certain works: His usage is rhetorical, his aim to give a familiar and traditional tone to what he says and so make it palatable to those who would reject it outright were it set in other, more formal terms. . . . Often al-​Ghazālī will avoid presenting his position, either fudging the issue, sometimes in a fog of traditional language, or dodging it altogether as for one or another reason inappropriate to the immediate context or occasionally as not to be divulged.20 So in some places al-​Ghazālī clearly articulates doctrines that conflict with the traditional Ash’arite stance on certain points, but in some places he uses deliberately obscure or ambiguous language to mask these deviations. Describing al-​Ghazālī’s approach in such cases, Frank observes that he “employs vague formulations of the kind we have seen in such a way as to give the impression of asserting traditional teaching without actually doing so.”21 Al-​Ghazālī’s evasive approach regarding his own departures from traditional teachings is very clearly in play in one of his most famous works, the Tahāfut al-​Falāsifa, The Incoherence of the Philosophers. This work is programmatically devoted to exposing and undermining heretical and countertraditional views set forth by philosophically oriented authors, most notably Avicenna and al-Fārābī (872–​950). But there are many key issues on which it seems that his actual view is closer to that of these philosophers, Avicenna in particular. Al-​Ghazālī’s most important discussion of the nature of causality is found in the seventeenth chapter of the Incoherence. Here his extended treatment of this topic clearly shows the tension involved in 19. Ibid., p. 86. 20. Ibid., p. 89. 21. Frank, Creation and the Cosmic System, p. 36.

15



Behind the Veil of the Old

155

his attempt to finesse the distinction between Ash’arite occasionalism and a system of regular causal laws of the sort advocated by Avicenna. The problem is raised particularly in discussions of the occurrence of miracles as recorded in the Quran. How can such occurrences be accounted for if one accepts a universe of genuine and invariable causal laws? Al-​Ghazālī begins by presenting the philosophers’ argument against the acceptance of such miracles: This being the case [they argue] then as long as we suppose a fire having the quality [proper to it] and we suppose two similar pieces of cotton that come into contact with it in the same way, how would it be conceivable that one should burn and not the other, when there is no choice [on the part of the agent]? Based on this notion, they denied the falling of Abraham in the fire without the burning taking place.22 Al-​Ghazālī, defending scriptural accounts of miraculous occurrences against any such attack, maintains the general principle that, despite apparent causal regularities, all events occur solely subject to God’s will: We do not concede . . . that God does not act voluntarily. . . . If, then, it is established that the Agent creates the burning through His will when the piece of cotton comes into contact with the fire, it becomes rationally possible [for God] not to create [the burning] with the existence of the contact.23 In other words, God can decide that one piece of cotton should burn, but not the other. But conceding this possibility, the philosophically minded opponent contends, will necessarily preclude all judgments of necessary causal relations and thereby completely undermine our ability to practically function in the world: This leads to the commission of repugnant contradictions. For if one denies that the effects follow necessarily from their causes and relates them to the will of their Creator, the will having no specific designated course but [a course that] can vary and change in kind, then let each of

22. Al-​Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, ed. and trans. Michael E. Marmura (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2000), p. 169. 23. Ibid.

156

156

Fir st Words, L ast Words

us allow the possibility of there being in front of him ferocious beasts, raging fires, high mountains, or enemies ready with their weapons [to kill him], but [also the possibility] that he does not see them because God does not create for him [vision of them]. And if someone leaves a book in the house, let him allow as possible its change on his returning home into a beardless slave boy . . . or into an animal. . . . If asked about any of this, he might say: “I do not know what is in the house at present. All I know is that I have left a book in the house, which is perhaps now a horse that has defiled the library with its urine and its dung, and that I have left in the house a jar of water, which may well have turned into an apple tree. For God is capable of everything.”24 If there are no regular causal laws, any event could follow any other, and our everyday predictive knowledge would become wholly impossible. Wishing to avoid this violation of our basic intuitions about causality without compromising God’s ability to perform miracles, al-​Ghazālī provides the following reply: [Our] answer [to this] is to say: If it is established that the possible is such that there cannot be created for man the knowledge of its nonbeing, these impossibilities would necessarily follow. We are not, however, rendered skeptical by the illustrations you have given because God created for us the knowledge that He did not enact these possibilities. We did not claim that these things are necessary. On the contrary, they are possibilities that may or may not occur. But the continuous habit of their occurrence repeatedly, one time after another, fixes unshakably in our minds the belief in their occurrence according to past habit.25 That is to say, it is theoretically possible that God could, for example, suddenly transform a book into a horse, but He allows us to know that this possibility will not be actualized, enabling us to successfully make judgments about the succession of ordinary events. Yet, despite their seemingly invariable regularity, each of these successive events occurs by God’s will and could have been willed otherwise, even if the succession is never violated in actuality. Hence it may in fact always be the case that a certain event follows another,

24. Ibid., pp. 169–​170. 25. Ibid., p. 170.

157



Behind the Veil of the Old

157

but it is maintained that it could have been otherwise had God willed it so. This allows for the belief that miraculous deviations from seemingly invariant causal laws recorded in scripture could have occurred, while nevertheless maintaining the validity of ordinary judgments regarding causality and the regularity of events. So far, al-​Ghazālī’s account seems fully consistent with Ash’arite occasionalism. However, in addition to this seemingly occasionalist account of miracles, al-​Ghazālī suggests an alternative way to account for miraculous occurrences, one that maintains the universality of empirically established causal laws: The second approach, with which there is deliverance from these vilifications, is for us to admit that fire is created in such a way that, if two similar pieces of cotton come into contact with it, it would burn both, making no distinction between them if they are similar in all respects. With all this, however, we allow as possible that a prophet may be cast into the fire without being burned, either by changing the quality of the fire or by changing the quality of the prophet.26 If one adopts this approach, then universal causal laws, for example, that fire invariably burns flammable substances, are maintained without deviation. The miracle is explained not by assuming that God selectively negates the seemingly universal law, but that He transforms the substance, of either the cotton or the prophet, into something noncombustible when it is cast into the flames, or transforms the fire into something that lacks the property of burning. This second view seems closer to that of the philosophers: fire really does, by itself, cause the cotton to burn, without requiring a separate and independent act of divine will in each and every instance. In the case of miracles, God does not violate ordinary causal laws—​making fire fail to burn a normally flammable substance—​but conforms to them by changing the basic nature of the entities involved. Both views, as presented here, seem to be acceptable to al-​Ghazālī. It is important to maintain on scriptural grounds that miracles can and do occur, but the causal theory by which one accounts for this is not similarly restricted. It is noteworthy that al-​Ghazālī does not say here which of these two accounts of miracles he himself accepts, opting instead to maintain ambiguity.

26. Ibid., p. 171.

158

158

Fir st Words, L ast Words

In light of al-​Ghazālī’s ambivalence and seemingly self-​disguised innovation in the domain of causal theory and elsewhere, it is interesting to note that he himself devoted considerable efforts to demarcating the boundaries of acceptable debate, most notably in The Decisive Criterion for Distinguishing Islam from Clandestine Apostasy (Fayṣal al-​ tafriqa bayna al-​ Islām wa-​ l-​ zandaqa). In this work, al-​Ghazālī seeks to specify those views that constitute apostasy and warrant expulsion from the Muslim community, and those matters in which, by contrast, variances of opinion are acceptable. He does this seemingly both in order to pinpoint those views of his opponents—​the philosophers and others—​that are truly beyond the pale of acceptability and to defend himself against accusations from some quarters that he has deviated from traditional views in his own works.27 His views overall are quite liberal, holding that, on all but a few central points of faith, differences of opinion are due toleration. So, different theories of causality, for example, may be equally acceptable so long as they do not contravene the requirements imposed by the basic tenets of Islam—​for example, by denying that the miracles recorded in scripture can possibly have occurred. This renders key elements of cosmological and metaphysical doctrine in effect optional. Through this exploration of the boundaries of permissible variation in opinion, al-​Ghazālī is hence able once again to present himself as a defender of orthodoxy, while quietly legitimating his own deviations from traditional belief. The case of al-​Ghazālī shows some noteworthy parallels with the debate at the heart of this book. To begin with, his stance on causality resembles the “new math” idea as we have seen it develop in the work of Vyāsatīrtha. Al-​Ghazālī’s position is that certain conclusions—​about the occurrence of miracles, for example—​must be upheld, but that the theory that accounts for these events may be subject to revision. Second, we see in his debate with the philosophers a situation where his divergence from his ostensible rivals is much smaller than it is made to seem, while his adherence to his ostensible allies is less than he would like us to believe. Finally, this is a clear case where the author is careful to mask his quite radical innovations, and also a case where some of his critics easily saw through this mask.28 A similarly ambivalent and covertly critical attitude toward orthodox beliefs within a scholastic tradition can be seen in the work of Peter Abelard

27. See Frank Griffel, Al-​Ghazālī’s Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 105–​109 and Frank, Al-​Ghazālī and the Ash’arite School, pp. 76–​77. 28. For the criticism of al-​Ghazālī, see Frank, Al-​Ghazālī and the Ash’arite School, pp. 76–​77.

159



Behind the Veil of the Old

159

(1079–​1142), one of the most controversial intellectuals of twelfth-​century Europe. Abelard was a major figure in the fields of logic, metaphysics, and Christian theology, but his critical analysis called into question many traditionally held positions, and his views were widely attacked as misguided if not outright heretical. He was challenged, in particular, for his attempts to apply logical analysis to the notion of the Trinity, whose members he deemed to be “numerically the same . . . but different in definition or property.”29 While Abelard maintained that his theological investigations followed from and were fully consistent with the scriptures and the teachings of the Church, he was accused of undermining the full equivalence of the persons of the Trinity through his analysis. His chief critic, Bernard of Clairvaux, for example, charged that his ascription of distinct properties to the three persons of the Trinity threatened to undermine their equal supremacy by ascribing omnipotence to God the Father but not to the Son or to the Holy Spirit.30 Abelard’s views were condemned as heretical at the Synod of Soissons in 1121, and he was forced to burn his first major theological work, the Theologia Summi Boni. Apart from these controversies arising from the application of logical or philosophical analysis to existing theological categories, Abelard also came to be seen as heretical in his direct hermeneutic and critical analysis of scriptural and other Church writings. This can be seen most clearly in his Sic et Non (Yes and No), a collection of 158 theological questions to which the answers are not provided but on which the scriptures and the texts of the Church Fathers seem to present contradictory views. Abelard does not actually offer a detailed analysis of these questions or an explanation of the apparent contradictions in Church teaching they give rise to, but he begins his work with a general introduction, in which he discusses the kinds of contradictions to be found in Christian writings and the ways in which they may be properly resolved or decided. In many cases, he argues, these contradictions are only apparent, 29. Abelard, Theologia Chistiana, quoted in J. E. Brower and K. Guilfoy, The Cambridge Companion to Abelard (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 225. The philosophical problem of ascribing distinct properties to the supreme divinity without undermining its unity has striking parallels in the main theistic schools of Vedānta. The Qualified Nondualists, as their name suggests, hold that God, and the entire universe that serves as His body, constitute a single undivided whole, but that this whole possesses real internal distinctions. The Dualists uphold the doctrine of “Non-​difference with distinction” (saviśeṣa-​abheda), arguing that God has multiple, real, and distinct properties, but that these properties are part of His essential nature and are non-​different from Him. 30. See Constant J. Mews, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 162–​163.

160

160

Fir st Words, L ast Words

resulting from misunderstandings of particular words and phrases when used in certain contexts: When, in such a quantity of words, some of the writings of the saints seem not only to differ from, but even to contradict, each other, one should not rashly pass judgement concerning those by whom the world itself is to be judged. . . . The unfamiliar manner of speech gets very much in the way of our achieving understanding, as well as the different meanings these words very often have when a given word is used with a particular meaning only in that particular manner of speech.31 In other words, seeming contradictions are not necessarily real contradictions. Yet Abelard also allows for the possibility that contradictory statements found in a particular text or author may be the result of misrepresentation or faulty transmission of the text: “We also ought to pay close attention so that, when some of the writings of the saints are presented to us as if they were contradictory or other than the truth, we are not misled by false attributions of authorship or corruptions in the text itself.”32 He even allows for a kind of sequence-​based resolution of conflicts, suggesting that particular authors, having articulated a certain view at one time, may have altered or retracted it in later statements: “Nor is it any less a matter for consideration whether such statements are ones taken from the writings of the saints that either were retracted elsewhere by these same saints and corrected when the truth was afterwards recognized . . . or whether they spoke reflecting the opinions of others rather than their own judgment.”33 Abelard thus presents his questions and the analysis surrounding them as broadly supportive of Church teaching, seeking to resolve and where possible explain away seeming conflicts in the writings held as authoritative. But his openness to doubt regarding the consistency and accuracy of the Church Fathers’ writings, or even the scriptures themselves, and his suggestion of the possibility of textual corruption in both bodies of texts, left him open to charges that his work undermined rather than upheld the teachings of the Church and were seen by his rivals as an attack on Church authority. His Sic

31. Abelard, “Prologue to Sic et Non,” trans. W. J. Lewis, Internet Medieval Sourcebook, n.d., https://​sourcebooks.fordham.edu/​source/​Abelard-​SicetNon-​Prologue.asp. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid.

16



Behind the Veil of the Old

161

et Non was consequently condemned along with his other major writings and was placed on the Church’s index of forbidden books. Even from this brief description of the well-​known controversies surrounding Abelard’s works, we can see notable similarities to the case discussed in our book. Abelard sought to present his views as orthodox, even when significantly deviating from standard teachings. His apparently neutral presentation in Yes and No is an attempt to highlight discrepancies in the Church’s teaching without overtly adopting the position of a critic. But, as in the case of both al-​Ghazālī and Appayya Dīkṣita (especially in his Elixir), this pretense was readily seen through. A key difference in this case, however, is the mechanisms of enforcement in play. As noted, Abelard’s works were suppressed and even burned, and he was not allowed to spread his ideas freely. Finally, another noteworthy example of the reluctance of scholastic innovation openly to announce itself can be found in a controversy among Jewish religious leaders and scholars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.34 On one side of this controversy stands Yechezkel Halevi Landau (1713–​1793), better known as Noda B’yhuda (after his most famous work). Landau, whose career as a rabbi was spent mainly in Brody and Prague, embodies a fascinating mixture of conservatism (especially in his purist Talmudic approach to ritual) and radicalism (it was alleged that he was an admirer of the Kabbalist and Messianic leader Sabbatai Zevi). This complexity is evident in his position in an interesting controversy about proportions. In the Gemara, the instructions for setting aside a part of the dough of the Saturday challah are given either in fixed volumes, using eggshells as the basic units, or in proportions measured by the length of the finger. These different accounts were already known, juxtaposed, and somehow equated in the commentaries on Karo’s Shulchan Aruch (1563), the most widely consulted ritual book in Judaism. But Landau performed his own experiments, and he came to the conclusion that the volume calculated in eggshells did not yield the same quantity as that measured in fingers. As the two measurement systems had a scriptural basis, Landau accepted both as valid. He thus concluded that the discrepancy must indicate some historical change: either fingers had grown longer since the times of the Torah, or eggs had grown smaller. Given that the world is prone to deterioration, he came to believe the latter.

34. The following summary is based on Maoz Kahana’s important study Halakhic Writing in a Changing World, from the “Noda B’yhuda” to the “Hatam Sofer,” 1730–​1839 ( Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 2015).

162

162

Fir st Words, L ast Words

The implications of Landau’s realization are quite radical: his empirical experiment invalidates the instructions of the Shulchan Aruch, which meant that the vast community following that work’s authority were not performing their ritual obligations properly. To use the terms we employed in c­ hapter 3, this is a case where a new math did yield new results. But Landau stopped short of accepting the full implications of his radical discovery and did not alert his community to his new math and to the required ritual alteration. Instead of publishing the new measurements as a ruling, he basically buried his discovery in a footnote to one of his later books. He also did not alter the proportions in his private ritual, although he apparently stopped saying the necessary blessing when eating challah made according to the old proportions. All this was done while he was publicly attacking a colleague of his for coming up with new proportions of his own and for implying that he, Landau, was in basic agreement with this.35 Landau’s concealed innovation nonetheless generated a strong response from Moses Sofer (1762–​1839), also known as Moses Schreiber, and better known as Hatam Sofer, after his main work. Sofer, whose career was mostly spent at the Jewish cultural and political center of Bratislava, was the most renowned authority on Jewish Halakha of his day. He was exposed to innovative approaches to the scripture, religion, and ritual, especially from the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah, and at a time of great changes and upheaval (including the Napoleonic Wars), he, too, was a complex figure when it came to innovation. Indeed, Sofer was extremely fond of experiments of the type Landau carried out, and he recorded them meticulously in his diary. But, unlike Landau, he was initially untroubled by the discrepancies in proportions. In 1820, he was approached by a concerned follower who came across Landau’s footnote and who saw an unforeseen consequence in the conclusion that eggs have become smaller. Another ritual instruction using the size of an egg as a standard had to do with the etrog citrus used for ritual purposes in the holiday of Sukkot. According to the Shulchan Aruch, etrogs were supposed to be at least the size of an egg to be ritually kosher. But if nineteenth-​century eggs are significantly smaller than past specimens, many etrogs that Jews now were using were substandard.36 Sofer was initially untroubled by this implication. He did not rule out a change in the size of eggs but maintained that if the world changes, it does

35. Ibid., pp. 143–​147, 127–​137. 36. Ibid., pp. 348–​352.

163



Behind the Veil of the Old

163

so in harmony, and so, if eggs diminished in size, so did the citruses, and the same could be true with respect to fingers. Thus, while Landau’s new math could have been valid, it initially yielded for Sofer the same old results. It is in this context that Sofer coined a slogan that became famously identified with him: hadash asur min haotrah bekol makom. This can literally be taken to mean “Anything new is scripturally forbidden anywhere.” Actually, this Talmudic quote was cleverly adapted from its original context, where it simply meant that a new crop of barley is scripturally forbidden for use (before a certain date), not just in the land of Israel but also in the diaspora. Yet despite originating this staunch traditionalist motto, Sofer kept repeating his experiments, and at some point in 1821, he realized he could no longer deny the discrepancy first noted by Landau. Eggs were not as large as they were supposed to be, even if one compensated for an alleged diminution of things in the world, and this suddenly seemed to have numerous implications for a variety of injunctions. It also meant that generations of Jews, including the great authorities of the tradition, failed in performing their rituals. Sofer now came to the creative conclusion that the authoritative words of Eleazar Rokeach of Worms (1176–​1238), the founder of the Ashkenazi Halakhic tradition, were either miscopied or misunderstood, and once this mistake (the details of which should not concern us) was realized, the proportions of things measured by eggs should be doubled. By doing so, Sofer accepted the new math and new results of Landau, while maintaining that he was really restoring the old results by going back to an undistorted version of the original math.37 This controversy resembles our book’s main case study in several interesting ways. First, as in our story of opening and closing, this is a case where two staunch rivals end up being much closer to one another than either is willing to admit. While Landau became the butt of Sofer’s “never-​to-​newness” slogan, they shared the methodology of empirical studies, surely partly influenced by the Enlightenment, as potentially overcoming authoritative texts. Moreover, as in the case of Appayya and Vijayīndra, both Landau and Sofer tried to disguise their innovations: Landau by burying his in a note, and Sofer by never putting his in writing. (It was published by one of his students as part of a larger book, and Sofer said that the entire publication was done without his permission, though he gave it his blessing in retrospect.)38 Finally, this heated controversy died out without much impact; even the staunchest followers of

37. Ibid., pp. 352–​354. 38. Ibid., p. 357.

164

164

Fir st Words, L ast Words

Sofer did not revise their private measurements and did not follow up on this issue publicly.39 Some innovations, disguised though they may be, can be too embarrassing or unsettling.

6.3  Hermeneutics and Insincerity All of these case studies, together with the controversy that forms the main subject of our book, suggest the importance of a dimension of hermeneutical history that has so far been little noticed or, at the very least, largely undertheorized, namely, the role of sincerity or its absence. In all of these cases we believe we see a deliberate gap between the writers’ quite radical innovations and their outward pose of deference to authoritative tradition. The authors we have followed use a variety of means to mask their innovativeness: they present themselves as merely clarifying or fleshing out the established position; they argue that they simply revise the method for drawing conclusions without typically changing the theological or ritual outcome; if they find fault in orthodoxy, they never say so openly but let the fault speak for itself, as it were; and they distance themselves from an opponent whose position is far closer to theirs than they are willing to acknowledge. In short, they often seem to be less than sincere in their protestations of orthodoxy, and they are frequently criticized by others precisely on this ground. To be sure, in some cases there are social and institutional forces that drive this divergence between an author’s apparently genuine views and his or her outward presentation. In the case of Abelard, as we have seen, serious professional and personal penalties could be and were exacted for deviations from established doctrines or modes of interpretation. Al-​Ghazālī, by contrast, was not subject to personal persecution of this kind, but his writings suggest that he was well aware of this possibility and tried to avert it. But we should not see hermeneutical insincerity solely as a response to overt mechanisms of domination or legal sanction. After all, Moshe Sofer did not face any inquisition, and it is clear that the eventual publication of his ideas by his student—​from which he only halfheartedly distanced himself—​did not get him socially shunned. In his case, it may be that the image he had already created for himself in the context of this controversy as the flag-​bearer of “no newness” might have been compromised by a full acknowledgment of his new ritual discoveries.

39. Ibid., p. 358.

165



Behind the Veil of the Old

165

In the South Asian case, there was certainly no question of external sanctions for the positions discussed in this book. Indeed, censorship of any doctrinal positions or the suppression of written or spoken opinions by the state or other institutional centers of power were virtually unknown in premodern South Asian history; the one notable exception is the branch of the Portuguese Inquisition situated in Goa.40 Of course, there existed less overt and explicitly coercive constraints on the public expression of intellectuals. Some of the participants in philosophical and theological debates in this period were part of large organized religious institutions with a recognized canon of texts and a clear party line on a variety of doctrinal questions. In the context of the debate discussed in this book, this is certainly true of the two Dualist thinkers, Vyāsatīrtha and Vijayīndra. Both of them headed major monastic institutions (maṭha) of the movement founded by Madhva, and as such they certainly would have been expected to maintain, at a minimum, a pose of deference to Madhva’s declared position. But all this may have meant in practice is that they were not supposed to say he was outright wrong. Even if certain of Madhva’s philosophical positions and certainly some of his textual practices (particularly his citation of unknown and untraceable scriptural texts) had become something of an embarrassment, they could not be openly discarded or overturned, although they could be silently bypassed or left in the background as new and more updated positions and arguments were being developed. Appayya, on the other hand, represents a very different sort of public intellectual, one that became more prominent in this period: he is not working within or at the head of any large established institution, nor does he belong to any strict lineage of teachers to whose opinions he must adhere (or at least appear to adhere) other than that of his family, which itself was of mixed sectarian background. Like many other such intellectuals of his time, he sought support from multiple patrons with varying sectarian inclinations at different points in his career. It may be the case that he sometimes adjusted his textual production to meet the needs or preferences of these patrons, for example, writing more Vishnu-​oriented treatises when working for his Vaishnava sponsors Cinna Timma and Veṅkaṭapati, and arguing more as an ardent proponent of Shiva when receiving support from the Shaiva Cinnabomma.41 But 40. On which, see Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World Histories, 1400–​1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 114–​126. 41. Ajay Rao, “The Vaiṣṇava Writings of a Śaiva Intellectual,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 41–​65.

16

166

Fir st Words, L ast Words

in no way was he compelled to maintain consistency in his positions or patronage affiliations, and he could and frequently did change both. In any case, patrons were usually not in the business of restricting the doctrinal positions of the scholars they supported, and they often wished to be seen as ecumenical promoters of multiple conflicting stances and traditions. This is nicely demonstrated in the 1580 inscription of Sevappa Nāyaka of Tanjore, who took pride in enabling the work of the leading Dualists, Qualified Nondualists, and Shaiva scholars under his auspices, Appayya being the foremost of the last group.42 In theory, this could have freed Appayya, the scholar who is said to have been bathed in gold by his benefactors,43 to say whatever he wants. He could, it would seem, have argued openly that the opening was not any more powerful than the closing without suffering any penalty, at least as far as his financial support was concerned. He likewise could have said that Mīmāṃsā’s received categorization of Vedic injunctions was simply wrong. But he did neither and instead thinly disguised his criticisms of Kumārila on both points. Why did he bother to maintain the rhetorical posture of a traditionalist, when he was in fact undermining established views, as was clearly and immediately recognized by his contemporaries, at least in the case of the Elixir? We do not have a definitive answer, but several possible explanations come to mind. First, as we have both argued elsewhere, Appayya marks a turning point in early modern Sanskrit scholasticism, initiating a more overt historical consciousness and a greater willingness to subject various traditional authorities to critical scrutiny if not outright rejection. More generally, for Appayya and for many of the New Intellectuals in the following centuries, there appears to be a shifting historical boundary line within any given tradition, before which open criticism is regarded as unacceptable. In the field of Mīmāṃsā, for example, up to Appayya’s time, scholars working in the dominant Bhāṭṭa school (the school founded by Kumārila) were certainly willing to criticize post-​Kumārila writers and commentators, but never Kumārila himself, the school’s founder. Within a couple of generations, however, Bhāṭṭa writers such as Khaṇḍadeva were willing to cross this line, openly criticizing Kumārila and Śabara but still holding the author of Mīmāṃsā’s root text,

42. See section 5.1 for a discussion of this plate. 43. Y. Mahalinga Sastri, “Appayya Dīkṣita’s Age,” Journal of Oriental Research (Madras) (1928): 232.

167



Behind the Veil of the Old

167

Jaimini, sacrosanct.44 In Sanskrit poetics, similar lines were being drawn and redrawn at precisely this time. Appayya himself was the first in many generations to suggest that the great Kashmiri authority, Ānandavardhana, had led the field astray, although again, he did so tacitly, and directly criticized only Ānandavardhana’s follower, Abhinavagupta. He likewise criticized a variety of other figures, including the great eleventh-​century synthesizer Mammaṭa, whose work was acquiring a status of great authority during this time.45 By contrast, he invariably treats the early poetic theorist Daṇḍin (c. 700) as authoritative and beyond criticism, even as he acknowledges the vast change that theory has undergone since Daṇḍin’s times.46 Appayya’s approach, again, came under direct criticism, and others were ready to call him out as a renegade.47 In short, this was a period when the boundaries of traditional authority were being negotiated and fiercely fought over: before Appayya's time, it was almost unimaginable to openly criticize the most respected authorities within a certain school; after him, it came to be accepted as legitimate; and Appayya’s work can be seen as marking a threshold in this process. A second, related point is a growing sense, within the different scholarly traditions, of anxiety about their coherence and overall stability. Sometimes this is in response to a direct external attack. For example, Appayya appears to respond to Vyāsatīrtha’s elaborate historical critique of incoherence within Nondualist metaphysics and theology by attempting to clarify and systematize the Nondualist positions through his own internal historical survey.48 But in other cases, the anxiety seems to be more general and not occasioned by any direct intellectual threat. For instance, Appayya’s aforementioned rethinking of Ānandavardhana’s theory of suggestion came to be seen by some of his successors as undermining the established foundations of poetic theory. As the most famous of these critics, Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja (king of pandits in the Mughal court), wrote in a direct attack on Appayya’s return

44. McCrea, “Playing with the System,” pp. 579–​581. 45. Yigal Bronner and Gary Tubb, “Blaming the Messenger: A Controversy in Late Sanskrit Poetics and Its Implications,” Bulletin of SOAS 71.1 (2008): 81. 46. Yigal Bronner, “Back to the Future: Appayya Dīkṣita’s Kuvalāyananda and the Rewriting of Sanskrit Poetics,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 48 (2004): 60–​73 and Yigal Bronner, “Dandin’s Bee Still Busy,” in A Lasting Vision: Dandin’s Mirror in the World of Asian Letters, ed. Yigal Bronner (forthcoming). 47. Bronner and Tubb, “Blaming the Messenger,” pp. 84–​85. 48. See section 4.6, and Lawrence McCrea, “Freed by the Weight of History: Polemic and Doxography in Sixteenth Century Vedānta,” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 87–​101.

168

168

Fir st Words, L ast Words

from suggestion to figurative analysis, “If you are going to break the dam of the old conventions, and follow the path of your own whims . . . there will be massive confusion.”49 More generally, during this period there seems to be a growing recognition of historical complexity and change within all the scholastic traditions, such that the problem of internal consistency and stability comes into particular prominence. This could be seen as both an opportunity and a threat, and both of these are clearly observable in the work of Appayya and in the responses it elicited. Third is the more specific anxiety pertaining to the perceived threat to the combined systems of Vedānta and Mīmāṃsā—​the two Mīmāṃsās—​posed by the recent rise of the Dualists as an intellectual and social force. As we have shown, Appayya attempts for the first time to formulate a defense of Mīmāṃsā in general (both the school of Kumārila and that of Prabhākara) and what he takes to be mainstream Vedānta (both the Śaṅkara and the Rāmānuja schools) against the Dualists, whom he compares to foreign interlopers. This sort of anxiety may help explain his double move in his Power of the Opening: on the one hand, he is quietly revising his camp’s standard position to allow him to better defend it against the new attacks of Vyāsatīrtha and his followers, and on the other, he is swearing allegiance to the pillars of the tradition that support his newly constructed “big tent.” A different way of putting this is that Appayya feels compelled to defend the entire community of hermeneutic endeavor, a community that is recognized as such only when it is seen to be destabilized by an external danger. In the light of our analysis of this controversy, it seems appropriate to reinvestigate and fine-​tune Pollock’s stated dichotomy between “newness of the intellect” and “oldness of the will,” already discussed in the introduction.50 If we accept the possibility of less than sincere protestations of traditionalism, we need, at the very least, to add a third dimension: newness of the intellect may be combined with newness of the will, but also with oldness of rhetorical self-​ presentation. This means that an author may be self-​consciously innovating in substance as well as in form, while wishing to pretend otherwise, as we 49. Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja, Rasagaṅādhara, ed. Mathuranath Shastri with the commentaries of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa and Mathurānātha Śāstrī, Kāvyamālā 12 (Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1939; reprinted, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1983), pp. 560–​561 (vyājastuti section): yadi tu prācīnasaṃketasetuṃ nirbhidya svaruciramaṇīyā saraṇir ādriyate . . . bahu vyākulīsyāt. Translation from Gary Tubb and Yigal Bronner, “Vastutas tu: Methodology and the New School of Sanskrit Poetics,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 269. 50. Sheldon Pollock, “New Intellectuals in Seventeenth-​Century India,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 38.1 (2001): 19; see section 1.1.

169



Behind the Veil of the Old

169

have seen in both the South Asian and comparative cases we have discussed. This added dimension opens up new potential avenues of inquiry: Does the oldness of self-​styling fool its target audience, or do they recognize and challenge it as hypocritical, from either an innovative or a traditionalist standpoint? Does this rhetorical stance remain stable, or is it just a first step toward a more full-​throated revisionism? Does the covertness of the innovation allow for further intellectual development, or can it seal itself off in a way that precludes this? We have tried to show in this book that substantive innovation does indeed occur in the scholastic traditions of the early modern period in India. We have also argued that this newness of the intellect was a willed and self-​ conscious effort with sometimes radical theoretical consequences. Indeed, authors in this period often wrote with a finely tuned awareness of their context and standing in a set of historically shifting discourses, wherein they were both responding to and making such shifts. Charting the way authors navigated these discourses and their self-​understanding of their own place in their contemporary discursive situations (as well as in the historically deeper traditions they contributed to) should become an important focus in the intellectual history of South Asia, and especially of the early modern period. We are, of course, not the first to consider whether this or that author might have been sincere in his or her self-​presentation. There are also fields of inquiry that are more attuned than others to such questions. For instance, scholars studying the rulings of judges have often highlighted the discrepancy between their apparent reliance on statutory language or purported legislative intent and the willed departure they frequently embody from both.51 In intellectual history, however, this approach has been largely neglected. One does find offhand comments on the veiled nature of innovation in medieval 51. Most important here is the work of Lawrence Solan on textualism and statutory interpretation; see especially “Private Language, Public Laws: The Central Role of Legislative Intent in Statutory Interpretation,” Georgetown Law Journal 93.2 (2005): 427–​486; “Statutory Interpretation, Morality, and the Text,” Brooklyn Law Review 76.3 (2011): 1033–​ 1048; “Learning Our Limits: The Decline of Textualism in Statutory Cases,” Wisconsin Law Review 2 (1997): 235–​284; “The New Textualists’ New Text,” Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 38.5 (2005): 2027–​2062; and The Language of Judges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). See also Felix Frankfurter, “Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes,” Columbia Law Review 47.4 (1947): 527–​546; Reed Dickerson, “Statutory Interpretation: Dipping into Legislative History,” Hofstra Law Review 11.4 (1983): 1125–​1162; William D. Popkin, Statutes in Court: The History and Theory of Statutory Interpretation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999); and James J. Brudney and Corey Ditslear, “Liberal Justices’ Reliance on Legislative History: Principle, Strategy, and the Scalia Effect,” Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 29.1 (2008): 117–​173.

170

170

Fir st Words, L ast Words

scholastic traditions in Europe, or in the study of rabbinic hermeneutics.52 But what we do not have is a whole line of investigation that thematizes and systematically explores this covert innovation and the factors that shape it, based on a close study of the texts and their contexts and from a comparative perspective. Indeed, we may need to envision a broad new field of “sincerity studies” in the history of ideas.

52. For European cases, see Patricia Clare Ingham, The Medieval New: Ambivalence in an Age of Innovation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), p. 52; Mews, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard,” pp. 152–​153; Chad Schrock, “Peter Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum as Sacred History,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 77 (2010): 35; and Beryl Smalley, Studies in Medieval Thought and Learning: From Abelard to Wycliff (London: Hambledon Press, 1981), pp. 100–​101. For an example from the rabbinical world, see Moshe Halbertal, Interpretive Revolutions in the Making ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1997), p. 183.

17

Bibliography

Abelard, Peter. “Prologue to Sic et Non.” Trans. W. J. Lewis. Internet Medieval Sourcebook, n.d. https://​sourcebooks.fordham.edu/​source/​Abelard-​SicetNon-​ Prologue.asp. Ahmed, Shahab. Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017. Akhaṇḍānanda. Tattvadīpana in Prakāśātman, Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa. Al-​Ghazālī. The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Ed. and trans. Michael E. Marmura. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2000. Appayya Dīkṣita. Madhvatantramukhamardana. Ed. V. G. Apte. Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 113. Pune: Anandashrama Press, 1940. Appayya Dīkṣita. Nyāyarakṣāmaṇi. Ed. P. Gaṇapatiśāstrī. Kumbhakonam: Śrīvidyā Press, 1905. Appayya Dīkṣita. Upakramaparākrama. Ed. A. Subrahmanyasastri. Varanasi: Banaras Hindu University, 1973. Appayya Dīkṣita. Vidhirasāyana. Ed. Mukundaśāstrī. Banaras: Chaukhamba Sanskrit Series 13, 1901. Atkins, E. M., and R. J. Dodaro, eds. Augustine: Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Babylonian Talmud. Tractates Bava Batra, Gittin, Menahot Pesahim, Sotah. Vilna: Romm, 1895. Reprinted, New York: Otzar HaSefarim, 1965. Bar-​Asher, Meir Michael. “Exegesis of the Quran.” In Islam: History, Religion, Culture, ed. Meir Michael Bar-​Asher and Meir Hatina, 168–​190. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2017 [Hebrew]. Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra. Ed. A. Chinnnasvāmi Śāstrī. Kāśī Sanskrit Series 104. Banaras: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1934. Benton, Lauren. Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World Histories, 1400–​ 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Bhavanātha. Mīmāṃsānayaviveka. Ed. S. Subrahmanya Shastri. 4 vols. New Delhi: Rashtriya Sanskrit Samsthan, 1977–​2005. Brahmasūtra. In Brahmasūtra Śāṅkarabhāṣya.

172

172

Bibliography

Brahmasūtra Śāṅkarabhāṣya with the Commentaries Bhāmatī, Kalpataru, and Parimala. Ed. M. Anantakrishna Sastri. 2nd edition. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1938. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. In Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads. Bronner, Yigal. “Back to the Future: Appayya Dīkṣita’s Kuvalāyananda and the Rewriting of Sanskrit Poetics.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 48 (2004): 47–​79. Bronner, Yigal. “Dandin’s Bee Still Busy.” In A Lasting Vision: Dandin’s Mirror in the World of Asian Letters, ed. Yigal Bronner. Forthcoming. Bronner, Yigal. “The Power of Primacy and the Domination of the Injunction: Appayya Dīkṣita’s Two Personas in a Debate about Vedic Hermeneutics.” Journal of Hindu Studies 8 (2015): 111–​123. Bronner, Yigal. “A Renaissance Man in Memory: Appayya Dīkṣita through the Ages.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 11–​39. Bronner, Yigal. “South Meets North: Banaras from the Perspective of Appayya Dīkṣita.” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 10–​31. Bronner, Yigal, and Gary Tubb. “Blaming the Messenger: A Controversy in Late Sanskrit Poetics and Its Implications.” Bulletin of SOAS 71.1 (2008): 75–​91. Brower, J. E., and K. Guilfoy. The Cambridge Companion to Abelard. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Brudney, James J., and Corey Ditslear. “Liberal Justices’ Reliance on Legislative History: Principle, Strategy, and the Scalia Effect.” Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 29.1 (2008): 117–​173. Burton, John. The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990. Chāndogya Upaniṣad. In Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads. Charles, R. H., ed. and trans. The Book of Jubilees. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902. Chilton, Bruce, and Jacob Neusner. Judaism in the New Testament: Practices and Beliefs. London: Routledge, 1995. Chintamani, T. R. “The Date of Śrīkaṇṭha and His Brahmamīmāṃsā.” Journal of Oriental Research Madras 1 (1927): 67–​76. Coulson, Noel J. A History of Islamic Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964. Cuypers, Michael. The Composition of the Qur’an: Rhetorical Analysis. Trans. Jerry Ryan. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Dasgupta, S. N. History of Indian Philosophy. Vol. 2. Reprinted, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952. Dasgupta, S. N., and S. K. De. History of Sanskrit Literature: Classical Period. Vol. 1. Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, 1947. De, S. K. History of Sanskrit Poetics. 2 vols. Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1960. Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Adyar Library. Vol. 9: Mīmāṃsā and Advaita Vedānta. Ed. V. Krishnamacharya. Madras: Adyar Library, 1952.

173

Bibliography

173

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Government Oriental Manuscript Library, Madras. Vol. 9. Ed. M. Raṅgācārya. Madras: Government Press, 1910. Deussen, Paul. Outlines of Indian Philosophy with an Appendix on the Philosophy of the Vedānta in Its Relations to Occidental Metaphysics. Berlin: Karl Curtius, 1907. Dickerson, Reed. “Statutory Interpretation: Dipping into Legislative History.” Hofstra Law Review 11.4 (1983): 1125–​1162. Duquette, Jonathan. “On Appayya Dīkṣita’s Engagement with Vyāsatīrtha’s Tarkatāṇḍava.” Journal of Indological Studies 28–​29 (2016–​2017): 1–​24. Fishbane, Michael. “Use, Authority and Interpretation of Mikra at Qumran.” In The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, vol. 1: Mikra, ed. Martin Jan Mulder, 339–​377. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988. Fisher, Elaine. Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017. Foucault, Michel. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception. Trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon, 1973. Frank, Richard M. Al-​Ghazālī and the Ash’arite School. London: Duke University Press, 1994. Frank, Richard M. Creation and the Cosmic System: Al-​ Ghazālī and Avicenna. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1992. Frankfurter, Felix. “Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes.” Columbia Law Review 47.4 (1947): 527–​546. Frauwallner, Erich. History of Indian Philosophy. Vol. 1. Trans. V. M. Bedekar. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973. Ganeri, Jonardon. “Contextualism in the Study of Indian Intellectual Cultures.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 551–​562. Ganeri, Jonardon. The Lost Age of Reason in Early Modern India 1450–​ 1700. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Gottlieb, Isaac. “‘There Is No Earlier or Later in the Torah’ in Nahmanides’ Commentary.” Tarbiz 63 (1994): 41–​62 [Hebrew]. Gribetz, Arthur. Strange Bedfellows: Mut‘at al-​nisā’ and Mut‘at al-​ḥajj, a Study Based on Sunni and Shi’ī Sources of Tafsīr, Ḥadith, and Fiqh. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, Bd. 180. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1994. Griffel, Frank. Al-​ Ghazālī’s Philosophical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Hakyemez, Cemil. “Bada and Its Role in the Debates over Shi’i Doctrine.” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 25.1 (2008): 20–​39. Halbertal, Moshe. Interpretive Revolutions in the Making. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1997 [Hebrew]. Hallaq, Wael B. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

174

174

Bibliography

Hallaq, Wael B. Sharī’a: Theory, Practice, Transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Hayes, Andrew. Justin against Marcion: Defining the Christian Philosophy. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017. Hegel, G. W. F. The Philosophy of History. Trans. J. Sibree. New York: Dover, 1956. Inden, Ronald B. Imagining India. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Ingalls, D. H. H. Materials for the Study of Navya-​nyāya Logic. Harvard Oriental Series 40. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951. Ingham, Patricia Clare. The Medieval New: Ambivalence in an Age of Innovation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja. Rasagaṅādhara. Ed. Mathuranath Shastri with the commentaries of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa and Mathurānātha Śāstrī. Kāvyamālā 12. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1939. Reprinted, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1983. Jaimini, Mīmāṃsāsūtra. In Mīmāṃsādarśana. Jha, Ganganatha. Pūrva-​Mīmāṃsā in Its Sources. Banaras: Benares Hindu University, 1942. Kahana, Maoz. Halakhic Writing in a Changing World, from the “Noda B’yhuda” to the “Hatam Sofer,” 1730–​1839. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 2015. Kahana, Menahem. “The Development of the Hermeneutical Principle of Kelal u-​Ferat in the Tannaitic Period.” In Studies in Talmudic and Midrash Literature in Memory of Tirza Lifshitz, ed. Moshe Bar-​Asher, Joshua Levinson, and Berachyahu Lifshitz, 173–​216. Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 2005 [Hebrew]. Kasher, Rimon. “The Interpretation of Scripture in Rabbinic Literature.” In The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, vol. 1: Mikra, ed. Martin Jan Mulder, 547–​594. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988. Keith, Berriedale. A History of Sanskrit Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920. Khaṇḍadeva. Bhāṭṭadīpikā, with the commentary Prabhāvalī of Śambhubhaṭṭa. Ed. N. S. Ananta Krishna Shastri (vol. 1) and S. Subrahmanya Sastri (vols. 2–​5). 5 vols. 2nd edition. Delhi: Sri Satguru, 1987. Khaṇḍadeva. Mīmāṃsākaustubha. Ed. A. Chinnaswami Sastri. 2 vols. Benares: Chowkambā, 1924–​1929. Klar, Marianna. “Text-​Critical Approaches to Sura Structure: Combining Synchronicity with Diachronicity in Sūrat al-​Baqara. Part One.” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 19.1 (2017): 1–​38. Krishnamurti Sarma, B. N. “The Truth about Vijayīndra Tīrtha and Taraṅgiṇī-​ Rāmācārya.” New Indian Antiquary 2 (1939–​1940): 658–​672. Kumārila. Tantravārttika. In Mīmāṃsādarśana. Kumārila. Ṭupṭīkā. In Mīmāṃsādarśana. Kunjunni Raja, K. Indian Theories of Meaning. Madras: Adyar Library and Research Centre, 1963.

175

Bibliography

175

Levinson, Bernard M. “Goethe’s Analysis of Exodus 34 and Its Influence on Wellhausen: The Pfropfung of the Documentary Hypothesis.” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 114 (2002): 212–​223. Lieu, Judith M. Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Loewy Shacham, Ilanit. “Kṛṣṇadevarāya’s Āmuktamālyada and the Narration of a Śrīvaiṣṇava Community.” PhD dissertation. University of Chicago, 2015. Madhva. Brahmasūtrānuvyākhyānam. Ed. K. T. Pandurangi. Bangalore: n.p., n.d. Madhva. Brahmasūtrabhāṣya with Glosses of Śrī Jayatīrtha, Śrī Vyāsatīrtha and Śrī Rāghavendratīrtha. 4 vols. Mysore: Government Branch Press, 1911–​1922. Madhva. Nyāyavivaraṇa. Ed. Ālūru Vāmanācārya. Bangalore: Dvaitavedāntapratiṣṭhā nam, 2001. Madhva. Pramāṇalakṣaṇa. In Sarvamūlagrantha, ed. Vyasanakere Prabhanjanacharya, (vol 7), 1065–​1067. 7 vols. Bangalore: Sri Vyasamadhwa Seva Pratisthana, 1999. Mahalinga Sastri, Y. “Appayya Dīkṣita’s Age.” Journal of Oriental Research (Madras) (1928): 225–​237. Mahalinga Sastri, Y. 1929. “More about the Age and Life of Śrīmad Appayya Dīkṣita.” Journal of Oriental Research (Madras) (1929): 140–​160. Maimonides, Moses. Mishneh Torah. Ed. S. Frankel. Jerusalem: Hotzaat Shabsi Frankel, 2000. Maitrāyaṇīsaṃhitā. Ed. V. Sri Sātavalekar. 4th edition. N.p.: Svadhyaya Mandala, 1983. McCrea, Lawrence. “Appayyadīkṣita’s Invention of Śrīkaṇṭha’s Vedānta.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 81–​94. McCrea, Lawrence. “Freed by the Weight of History: Polemic and Doxography in Sixteenth Century Vedānta.” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 87–​101. McCrea, Lawrence. “The Hierarchical Organization of Language in Mīmāṃsā Interpretive Theory.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28 (2000): 429–​459. McCrea, Lawrence. “Over When It’s Over: Vyāsatīrtha's Hermeneutic Inversion.” Journal of Hindu Studies 8 (2015): 97–​110. McCrea, Lawrence. “Playing with the System: Fragmentation and Individualization in Late Pre-​colonial Mīmāṃsā.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 36.5–​6 (2008): 575–​585. McCrea, Lawrence. “The Transformation of Mīmāṃsā in the Larger Context of Indian Philosophical Discourse.” In Historiography and Periodization of Indian Philosophy, ed. Eli Franco, 127–​143. Vienna: Publications of the De Nobili Research Library 37, 2013. Menn, Stephan. Descartes and Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Mesquita, Roque. Madhva’s Quotes from the Purāṇas and the Mahābhārata: An Analytical Compilation of Untraceable Source-​Quotations in Madhva’s Works along with Footnotes. Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2008. Mesquita, Roque. Madhva’s Unknown Literary Sources: Some Observations. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000.

176

176

Bibliography

Mews, Constant J. “Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard.” In The Cambridge Companion to Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire, 133–​ 168. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Mīmāṃsādarśana. Ed. V. G. Apte. 6 vols. Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 97. Pune: Anandashrama, 1929–​1934. Minkowski, Christopher. “Advaita Vedānta in Early Modern History.” South Asian History and Culture 2.2 (2011): 205–​231. Minkowski, Chistopher. “Appayya’s Vedānta and Nīlakaṇṭha’s Vedāntakataka.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 95–​114. Minkowski, Christopher. “Astronomers and Their Reasons: Working Paper on Jyotiḥśāstra.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 30.5 (2002): 495–​514. Mishnah: Six Orders. Ed. Chanoch Albeck. Jerusalem: Bialik, 1955–​1959. Mysore Archeological Department. Annual Report of the Mysore Archeological Department for the Year 1917. Bangalore: Government Press, 1918. Nemec, John. “Innovation and Social Change in the Vale of Kashmir, circa 900–​ 1250 c.e.” In Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions: Essays in Honour of Alexis G. J. S. Sanderson, ed. Dominic Goodall, Shaman Hatley, Harunaga Isaacson, and Srilata Raman, 283–​320. Gonda Indological Studies, no. 22. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Nicholson, Andrew. Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Olivelle, Patrick. The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Olivelle, Patrick. Upaniṣads. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Paget, J. Carleton. “Jewish Christianity.” In The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3: The Early Roman Period, ed. William Horbury, W. D. Davies, and John Sturdy, 731–​775. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pārthasārathi Miśra. Śāstradīpikā. Ed. Sri Dharmadatta Suri. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1915. Patañjali. Vyākaraṇamahābhāṣya. Ed. Franz Kielhorn. 3 vols. Bombay: Bombay Central Book Depot, 1880–​1885. Pollock, Sheldon. The Ends of Men at the End of Premodernity. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2005. Pollock, Sheldon. “Mīmāṃsā and the Problem of History in Traditional India.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 109.4 (1989): 603–​610. Pollock, Sheldon. “New Intellectuals in Seventeenth-​Century India.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 38.1 (2001): 3–​31. Pollock, Sheldon. “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 105.3 (1985): 499–​519. Popkin, William D. Statutes in Court: The History and Theory of Statutory Interpretation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Potter, Karl. Presuppositions of Indian Philosophies. New Delhi: Prentice-​ Hall of India, 1963.

17

Bibliography

177

Powers, David S. Studies in Qur’an and Ḥadīth: The Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Prabhākara. Bṛhatī. Part 4. Ed. S. Subrahmanya Sastri. Madras: Madras University Sanskrit Series 25, 1964. Prakāśātman. Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa. Ed. S. Subrahmanyaśāstri. Varanasi: Shri Dakshinamurti Math, 2009. Prakāśātman. Śābdanirṇaya. Ed. T. Ganapati Sastri. Trivandrum: Trivandrum Sanskrit Series 53, 1917. Prakāśātman. “Śārīrakanyāyasaṅgraha.” Ed. T. R. Chintamani. Journal of Oriental Research Madras 1 (1937): 1–​60. Raghavan, V. New Catalogus Catalogorum. Vol. 2. Madras: University of Madras, 1966. Rāghavendratīrtha. Bhāṭṭasaṃgraha. Ed. K. T. Pandurangi. 2 vols. Bangalore: Dvaita Vedanta Studies and Research Foundation, 2004. Rāghavendratīrtha. Prakāśa on Vyāsatīrtha’s Tātparyacandrikā . In MBSBh. Rāmānuja. Śrībhāṣya. Ed. Vasudev Shastri Abhyankar. Bombay: Bombay Sanskrit and Prakrit Series 68, 1914. Rao, Ajay. “A New Perspective on the Royal Rāma Cult at Vijayanagara.” In South Asian Texts in History: Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock, ed. Yigal Bronner, Whitney Cox, and Lawrence McCrea, 25–​44. Ann Arbor, MI: Association for Asian Studies, 2011. Rao, Ajay. “The Vaiṣṇava Writings of a Śaiva Intellectual.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 44.1 (2016): 41–​65. Śabara, Mīmāṃsāsūtrabhāṣya. In Mīmāṃsādarśana. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Saito, Akane. “Mīmāṃsāsūtra 6.5.54 on bādha in Mandanamiśra’s Brahmasiddhi.” Journal of Indian Philosophy, October 3, 2020. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​ s10781-​020-​09447-​w. Śambhubhaṭṭa, Prabhāvalī. In Khaṇḍadeva, Bhāṭṭadīpikā. Śaṅkara, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya. In Brahmasūtra Śāṅkarabhāṣya. Śaṅkarabhaṭṭa. Vidhirasāyanadūṣaṇa. Ed. Sūryanārāyaṇa Śarma Śukla. Banaras: Royal Press, 1937. Schrock, Chad. “Peter Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum as Sacred History.” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 77 (2010): 29–​46. Shahab Ahmed, Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), pp. 44–​86. Sharma, B. N. K. A History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and Its Literature. 2 vols. Bombay: Booksellers’ Publishing Company, 1960 (vol. 1), 1961 (vol. 2). Sifre Deuteronomy. Ed. Louis Finkelstien and Saul Horowitz. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993. Signoracci, Gino. “Hegel on Indian Philosophy: Spinozism, Romanticism, Eurocentrism.” PhD dissertation. University of New Mexico, 2017.

178

178

Bibliography

Smalley, Beryl. Studies in Medieval Thought and Learning: From Abelard to Wycliff. London: Hambledon Press, 1981. Solan, Lawrence. The Language of Judges. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Solan, Lawrence. “Learning Our Limits: The Decline of Textualism in Statutory Cases.” Wisconsin Law Review 2 (1997): 235–​284. Solan, Lawrence. “The New Textualists’ New Text.” Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 38.5 (2005): 2027–​2062. Solan, Lawrence. “Private Language, Public Laws: The Central Role of Legislative Intent in Statutory Interpretation.” Georgetown Law Journal 93.2 (2005): 427–​486. Solan, Lawrence. “Statutory Interpretation, Morality, and the Text.” Brooklyn Law Review 76.3 (2011): 1033–​1048. Śrīkaṇṭha. Brahmasūtrabhāṣya with the Commentary Śivārkamaṇidīpikā by the Famous Appayya Dīkṣita. Ed. R. Halasyanatha Sastri. 2 vols. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1908. Reprinted, Delhi: NAG, 1986. Stein, Burton. The New Cambridge History of India. Vol. 1.2: Vijayanagara. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Steiner, Richard C. “Muqdam u-​Meʿuḥar and Muqaddam wa-​Muʿaḫḫar: On the History of Some Hebrew and Arabic Terms for Hysteron Proteron and Anastrophe.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 66.1 ( January 2007): 33–​46. Stoker, Valerie. “Darbār, Maṭha, Devasthānam: The Politics of Intellectual Commitment and Religious Organization in Sixteenth-​Century South India.” South Asian History and Culture 6.1 (2015): 130–​146. Stoker, Valerie. “Polemics and Patronage in Sixteenth-​Century Vijayanagara: Vyāsatīrtha and the Dynamics of Hindu Sectarian Relations.” History of Religions 51.2 (2011): 129–​155. Stoker, Valerie. Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory: Vyāsatīrtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-​Century Vijayanagara Court. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. Stroumsa, Guy G. “The Christian Hermeneutical Revolution and Its Double Helix.” In The Use of Sacred Books in the Ancient World, ed. L. V. Rutgers, P. W. van der Horst, H. W. Havelaar, and L. Teugels, 9–​28. Leuven: Peeters, 1998. Sudarśanasūri, Śrutaprakāśikā. In Brahmasūtra-​Śrībhāṣya with Śrutaprakāśikā, ed. Uttamūr Vīrarāghavācārya. 2 vols. Madras: Ubhayavedāntagranthamālā, 1967. Taittirīyasaṃhitā. Ed. Mahādeva Cimaṇājī Āpaṭe. 9 vols. Anandashrama Sanskrit Series 42. Pune: Anandashrama Press, 1940–​1951. Tsafrir, Nurit. “Islamic Shari’a.” In Islam: History, Religion, Culture, ed. Meir Michael Bar-​Asher and Meir Hatina, 220–​249. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2017 [Hebrew]. Tubb, Gary, and Yigal Bronner. “Vastutas tu: Methodology and the New School of Sanskrit Poetics.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 619–​632. Vācaspatimiśra, Bhāmatī on Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtrabhāṣya. In ŚBSBh. Vācaspatimiśra. Tattvabindu. Ed. V. A. Ramaswami Sastri. Madras: Annamalai University Sanskrit Series 3, 1936.

179

Bibliography

179

Vedānta Deśika. Yādavābhyudaya, with the commentary of Appayya Dīkṣita. Ed. U. T. Viraraghavacharya. Madras: Ubhaya Vedanta Grantha Mala, 1969. Verpoorten, Jean-​Marie. Mīmāṃsā Literature. In A History of Indian Literature, ed. Jan Gonda, vol. 6, fasc. 5. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz, 1987. Vijayīndratīrtha. Upasaṃhāravijaya. Ed. Raja S. Gururajacharya. Nanjangud: Sri Parimala, 1957. Viṣṇudāsa Ācārya. Vādaratnāvalī. Ed. Bannanje Govindacharya. Udipi: Sanmana Samithi, 1968. Vyāsatīrtha. Nyāyāmṛta. Ed. K. T. Pandurangi. 3 vols. Bangalore: Dvaita Vedanta Studies and Research Foundation, 1994–​1996. Vyāsatīrtha. Tarkatāṇḍava. Ed. V. Madhvachar. 4 vols. Mysore: Government Oriental Library, 1932–​1943. Vyāsatīrtha, Tātparyacandrikā. In MBSBh. Wedemeyer, Christian. Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism: History, Semiology, and Transgression in the Indian Traditions. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Witztum, Joseph. “Q 4:24 Revisited.” Islamic Law and Society 16.1 (2009): 1–​33. Wujastyk, Dominik. “Change and Creativity in Early Modern Indian Medical Thought.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 33 (2005): 95–​118. The Zohar. Ed. and trans. Daniel C. Matt. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009.

180

18

Index

For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Abelard, Peter, 158–​61, 164 Abhinavagupta, 2, 166–​67 abrogation, 20–​25, 26. See also naskh Advaita Vedānta. See Nondualist Vedānta ākāṅkṣā. See need Akhaṇḍānanda, 42–​43 Akiva, Rabbi, 14–​16, 61–​62 aktādhikaraṇa, 53–​54, 95. See also Mīmāṃsā case law: “Section on What Is Wet” alcohol, 23 al-​Fārābī, 154–​55 al-​Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid, 152–​58, 161, 164 allegory, 19 Analysis of Mīmāṃsā Interpretive Principles (Mīmāṃsānayaviveka), 68–​69 Ānandavardhana, 2, 166–​68 Anuvyākhyāna, 46 apacchedanyāya, 75, 91, 146–​47. See also Mīmāṃsā case law: “Principle of Breaking the Chain” Apocalyptic Dance of Reason, 51, 53, 57, 62, 80–​81, 87, 148–​49. See also Tarkatāṇḍava

Appayya Dīkṣita on blocking or narrowing, 25n.62, 96–​ 97, 131, 134 on brass vessels’ principle, 97–​98, 108, 131, 132–​33, 136, 147 citations by, 92–​94 on closing, 29–​30, 89–​93, 94–​98, 99–​ 102, 103–​5, 106–​7, 109 on cognition, 89–​91, 94, 108–​9, 118, 128–​29 “cuts-​both-​ways” argument of, 30, 90, 94, 101, 108–​9, 133, 151 on doubt (see doubt: Appayya Dīkṣita on) on “Five Fires” passage, 109–​11 on goat sacrifice, 107–​8 on Hawk sacrifice (see Hawk sacrifice: Appayya Dīkṣita on) importance of, 11, 29–​30, 82–​83, 84, 118, 120, 166–​67 inscription mentioning, 119–​20, 165–​66 Khaṇḍadeva and, 145–​47, 150–​51 on Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (see Kumārila Bhaṭṭa: Appayya Dīkṣita on)

182

182

Index

Appayya Dīkṣita (cont.) life and works of, 82–​84, 85n.9 on need (see need [ākāṅkṣā]: Appayya Dīkṣita on) patrons of, 83–​84, 85n.9, 151, 165–​66 on “Praise of Light” sacrifice, 102–​6 on “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” 91, 128–​29 Śambhubhaṭṭa and, 145–​48, 150–​51 as sarvatantra-​svatantra, 84–​85 on “Section on Opening with Veda,” 88–​89, 92–​93 on “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual,” 88–​89, 92–​93 on “Section on the Tiny Space,” 112–​ 15, 116–​17, 139–​41, 148–​49 on “Section on What Is Wet,” 95–​102, 103–​4, 107, 131, 132–​33, 147–​48 on “ultimate opening,” 111 as Vedāntin, 85, 109, 112n.65, 114–​15, 167–​68 Aptoriki, Rabbi, 17n.42 Aristotle, 7–​8, 152–​53 Ash’arites, 152–​53, 154–​55, 157 astronomy, 6 aśvapratigraheṣṭi-​adhikaraṇa, 70–​71. See also Mīmāṃsā case law: “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual” Augustine of Hippo, 18–​19 Avicenna, 152–​53, 154–​55 Bādarāyaṇa, 4, 40 Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra, 93 Bernard of Clairvaux, 158–​59 Bhagavad Gita, 45 Bhartṛhari, 34n.1 Bhāṭṭadīpikā, 145–​46, 147–​48 Bhāṭṭasaṃgraha, 148–​49 Bhavanātha, 68–​69 blocking, cognitive, 24–​25, 57, 60–​62, 76–​77, 128–​29

Brahman, 40, 42–​43, 79, 112–​13, 116–​17, 140–​41 Brahmasūtra, 40 commentaries of Madhva on, 45–​47, 51 commentary of Rāmānuja on, 43–​44 commentary of Śaṅkara on, 40–​41, 77–​78, 112, 114–​15 commentary of Śrīkaṇṭha on, 42–​43 “Section on the Tiny Space” in, 112–​18 Brahmins, 12, 44, 62n.27 brass vessels, principle of (kāṃsyabhojinyāya), 97–​98, 108, 131, 132–​33, 136, 147 Bṛhatsamhitā, 45–​46 Buddhists, 2n.3, 4, 36n.3 Burton, John, 25 butter, 53–​57, 58n.19, 59, 60, 61, 95–​96, 97–​98, 100, 131, 133–​34, 135, 147 Christians, 18–​21, 23, 158–​59 “closing” (upasaṃhāra), 28–​29, 36 in Brahmasūtra, 40–​41 as commentary (see commentaries: closings as) Kumārila or Mīmāṃsā on, 36–​37, 40–​41, 46, 53 Madhva or Dualists on, 46–​48, 53, 87, 123 Rāmānuja on, 43–​44 Śaṅkara on, 40–​41, 43–​44, 113 “stronger,” 46, 53, 58–​59, 79, 87–​88 Vyāsatīrtha on, 51, 52–​53, 54, 58n.19, 59–​61, 80–​81, 87 cloth (used in sacrifice), 53–​55, 133–​34 cognition, 11, 27, 29–​30, 59–​60, 61–​62, 75–​76, 144 Śabara on, 75–​76 Vācaspatimiśra on, 77–​78 See also Appayya Dīkṣita: on cognition; Kumārila Bhaṭṭa: on cognition

183

Index commentaries closings as, 47–​48, 53, 59–​60, 61–​62, 80–​81, 87, 89–​90, 123, 124–​25 inimical (khaṇḍana), 127–​28, 130 mantras as, 59–​60 scholarly approaches to, 4–​5 Conquest of the Closing (Upasaṃhāravijaya), 30, 119, 121, 122–​23, 141, 142, 148–​49 quotes or repetition in, 127–​28, 129, 130, 133–​34, 136, 140–​41 contradictions blocking vs. narrowing for, 24–​25, 60, 131 Christian approaches to, 19, 20, 26–​27, 159–​60 denied, 43–​44 Islamic approaches to, 21–​22, 24–​25, 26–​27 Jewish approaches to, 14–​16, 17–​18, 26–​27 Kumārila on, 36–​39 sequence resolves, 64, 68–​69, 160 daharādhikaraṇa, 139–​40, 148–​49. See also Upaniṣads: “Section on the Tiny Space” in Daṇḍin, 166–​67 Dasgupta, S. N., 3 De, S. K., 2, 3 declarative portion (arthavāda), 41, 47, 53–​57, 58n.19, 59, 62–​63, 66, 67–​68 Descartes, René, 7–​8, 10 Deussen, Paul, 4 discrepancy (vipratipatti), 55–​56, 57, 60 doubt Abelard’s tolerance for, 160–​61 Appayya Dīkṣita on, 98–​100, 101–​3, 104, 118, 137, 147 Jaimini or Śabara on, 53–​54, 137 Kumārila on, 55–​57, 59, 98 Śambhubhaṭṭa on, 147

183

Vijayīndra on, 126–​28, 138 Vyāsatīrtha on, 58–​59, 60, 137 Dualist Vedānta, 11, 28–​29, 44–​45, 48, 82–​83, 159n.29 Appayya Dīkṣita and, 115–​17 post-​Vijayīndra, 148–​52, 168 Vijayanagara court and, 49–​50 Duquette, Jonathan, 86n.10, 116n.77 eggs or eggshells, 161, 162–​63 Elixir for Injunctions (Vidhirasāyana), 85n.9, 149–​51, 161, 166 epistemology, 5–​6, 8, 45, 47 Europeans, 1–​2, 10, 165, 169–​70 faith, 109–​10, 111–​12 Fishbane, Michael, 2n.4 food, 18–​19, 23 Foucault, Michel, 92 Frank, Richard, 153–​54 Frauwallner, Erich, 2n.3 frequency, 21–​22, 67–​68 function, 34–​35, 56–​57, 58–​59, 67, 71, 72 Ganeri, Jonardon, 8–​9, 10–​11 genres, 6–​7, 127–​28 German Romanticists, 1–​2 Gottlieb, Isaac, 16 grammarians, 31–​32, 34n.1, 122 ḥadīth, 21, 24–​25 Hallaq, Wael, 21, 22–​23 harmony, 44, 110–​11 Hawk sacrifice Appayya Dīkṣita on, 88, 91, 105–​6, 137–​39 Śabara on, 137 Vijayīndratīrtha on, 138–​39 Vyāsatīrtha on, 61–​62, 75, 80–​81, 88, 105–​6, 137, 138–​39 Hebrew Bible, 18–​19. See also Torah

184

184

Index

hermeneutics Appayya Dīkṣita’s, 122–​23, 141 Islamic, 16n.41, 22–​23 Madhva’s, 46, 115 Mīmāṃsakas’, 31–​32, 113–​14, 116n.77 need-​based, 95–​96, 117–​18, 133, 141 rabbinical, 20–​21, 169–​70 Śaṅkara’s, 41, 110–​11 sincerity in (or not), 164–​70 Vedāntins’, 31–​33 Vedic, 24–​25, 27 Vyāsatīrtha’s, 50–​51 See also interpretive rules; interpretive theories or methods horses, 70–​73, 74, 145–​46 books becoming, 155–​57 Hymn to the King of Boon-​Givers (Varadarājastava), 84, 116n.78 illocutionary acts, 8 Incoherence of the Philosophers, 154–​55 “indicators of purport” (tātparyaliṅga) Madhva on, 45–​47 Prakāśātman’s list of, 41–​44, 45–​46 verse about, 42–​43, 45–​46 See also closing; declarative portion; newness; opening; plausibility; repetition; result Indra, 33–​34 inference (anumāna), 47 Ingalls, Daniel, 5–​6 injunctions biblical, 13–​15, 18–​19, 20–​21, 33 declarative or descriptive text and, 53–​ 57, 58n.19, 59, 62–​63, 66, 70–​71, 72, 98–​99, 100, 132, 147–​48 general vs. specific, 14–​16, 54, 60–​62, 68–​69, 97n.36, 146–​47 Jaimini on, 35, 102 Kumārila on (see Kumārila Bhaṭṭa: on injunctions) need created by, 95–​97, 131, 147

Quranic, 23–​24, 25–​26, 33 Śabara on (see Śabara: on injunctions) innovation capability of (or not), 1–​2, 8, 10 constrained or stifled, 5–​6, 8 covert, 9, 10–​11, 28, 29–​30, 52, 118, 144, 152, 153, 158, 163–​64, 168–​70 (see also traditionalism: rhetoric of ) as explication, 10 of genres, 6–​7 internal vs. external causes of, 2n.3 methodological, 6–​8, 10–​11 processes of, 6 rhetoric of, 10 theorization of, 6, 7–​8 insincerity. See sincerity intellectual traditions, 1–​2, 5–​7, 8–​9, 11, 30, 50. See also knowledge systems; philosophical systems; śāstras interpretive rules earlier vs. later in, 14–​15, 16, 17n.42, 17–​18, 19, 20–​22, 26–​27, 30, 33, 35, 39 (see also abrogation; “closing”; “opening”; sequential priority) “first come, first served,” 75–​76, 80–​81 general vs. specific in, 15–​16, 24–​25, 54, 61–​62 hierarchy of, 46, 56–​57 selective application of, 81 See also frequency; sequence interpretive theories or methods, 11 contextualist, 8 innovation in, 28 Islamic, 22–​23 Madhva’s innovations in, 47–​48, 69–​70 Midrashic, 13–​14 Mīmāṃsā or Mīmāṃsaka, 3, 58n.19, 66, 72 as “new math,” 52, 158, 162–​63 “piece-​by-​piece,” 31, 34, 36–​37 See also hermeneutics

185

Index Iṣfahānī, Abū Muslim al-​, 24–​25 Ishmael, Rabbi, 14–​16 Islam, 21–​27, 33, 115–​16, 158 Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja, 167–​68 Jaimini, 28–​29, 35, 63–​64, 67, 71, 75, 97–​ 98, 102, 166–​67 Jainism, 4 Jaivali, 109–​10, 111 Jayatīrtha, 51, 121 Jeweled Amulet of Interpretive Reason (Nyāyarakṣāmaṇi), 85n.9, 114–​15, 116–​17 Jews or Judaism, 12–​13, 14–​15, 17–​18, 20–​ 21, 22, 23, 161–​64 Kabbalists, 17–​18, 161 Kahana, Menahem, 15n.39 Kālidāsa, 3 kāṃsyabhojinyāya. See brass vessels, principle of Kannada, 50–​51 Kashmiris, 2, 166–​67 Keith, A. B., 3 Khaṇḍadeva, 144–​47, 148–​49, 150–​51, 166–​67 Kindling the Sunstone of Shiva (Śivārkamaṇidīpikā), 83–​84, 116n.78, 148–​49 knowledge systems, Sanskrit, 1–​2, 6–​8. See also intellectual traditions; philosophical systems; śāstras Krishna, 83–​84 Kṛṣṇadevarāya, 49–​50 Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, 17n.42, 28–​29, 36–​40, 44, 82, 93–​94, 149–​50 Appayya Dīkṣita on, 86–​87, 90, 98–​ 99, 117–​18 on cognition, 38, 64–​65, 66, 67, 72, 76, 80–​81, 90, 118, 123–​24 “first-​come, first-​served” strategy of, 67, 72, 80–​81

185 on injunctions, 37–​39, 55–​57, 72, 98, 149–​50 Madhva and, 47–​48 “piece-​by-​piece” strategy of, 36–​37, 38–​39, 47–​48, 86–​87 on “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” 38n.9, 76–​77 on ritual subordination, 71–​74 Śabara and, 36–​38, 39, 55, 68, 71–​72, 76 school of, 68, 73–​74, 112n.65, 149–​51, 166–​67 on “Section on Opening with Veda,” 64–​67, 81 on “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual” 71–​73 on “Section on What Is Wet,” 55–​57, 59, 66–​67, 81, 95, 146–​47 on sequence, 56–​57, 58–​59, 67, 71 Vyāsatīrtha on, 57–​59, 60, 68, 80–​81

Lamp on Kumārila’s School (Bhāṭṭadīpikā), 145–​46, 147–​48 Landau, Yechezkel Halevi, 161–​64 linen. See cloth logic Indian, 5–​6, 8, 50–​51, 122 (see also Nyāya; navyanyāya) Western, 5–​6 Madhva, 11, 18n.45, 28, 44–​48, 92n.26, 116–​17, 140–​41 citations by, 45–​46, 117n.80, 165 defended or praised, 29, 50–​51, 121, 142 on “Five Fires” passage, 110, 111 followers of, 44, 49–​50 innovations of, 28–​29, 45, 46, 48, 51, 68 life and works of, 44–​45 sequential hierarchy of, 28–​29, 46, 47–​48, 59–​61, 62, 67–​68, 69–​70, 77–​78, 81, 82, 95, 110, 114, 117n.80, 117–​18, 142, 148–​49

186

186

Index

Madhvatantramukhamardana, 45n.27, 82–​83, 117n.80 Maimonides, 12–​13 Mammaṭa, 166–​67 mantras, 59–​60, 107 ṛg, sāman, etc., 62–​64, 65–​66, 67–​68, 92–​93, 131–​32 Marcion of Sinope, 18–​19 marriage, 23–​24 maṭhas, 50, 165 Matilal, B. K., 5–​6 medicine, 6 Mesquita, Roque, 45–​46, 117n.80 “middle” (madhya), 43–​44, 110–​11 Midrashic literature, 13–​16 Mīmāṃsā, 31–​3, 46, 98–​99, 115, 122 boundaries of scholarship of, 93–​94 early or sutras of, 4–​5, 27, 28–​29, 35–​ 40, 64, 108–​9, 116 hermeneutics of (see hermeneutics: Mīmāṃsakas’) injunctions favored by, 37–​38, 55–​57, 67 later or post-​Śabara, 68, 116, 144–​45, 148–​49, 151, 166–​67 literal favored by, 54, 58n.19 opening favored by, 35, 36, 39–​40, 48, 53, 70–​71, 76, 93–​94, 109, 116, 147–​48 opportunistic use of, 74–​75, 81 passage defined by, 34–​35 on sacrificial names, 105–​6 schools of, 39–​40, 93–​94, 112n.65 on splitting sentences, 105–​6 See also Vedas: Mīmāṃsā view of; Vyāsatīrtha: Mīmāṃsā and Mīmāṃsābhāṣya, 36. See also Śabara Mīmāṃsā case law, 29–​30, 37–​38, 52–​53, 62, 137 on placement of offering, 60–​61 “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” 75–​ 80, 91, 128, 146–​47

“Section on Descriptive Passages,” 106 “Section on Opening with Veda,” 62–​71, 79, 81, 86–​87, 87n.16, 88–​89, 131–​32, 145–​46, 147–​48 “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual,” 70–​75, 86–​87, 88–​89, 90, 92–​93, 144–​46 “Section on What Is Wet,” 53–​59, 60–​ 61, 62, 68–​69, 95–​102, 103–​4, 107, 111–​12, 131, 132, 133–​34, 146–​48 Mīmāṃsānayaviveka, 68–​69 Mīmāṃsāsūtra, 35–​36, 46, 62–​64, 72–​73, 74, 75, 87n.16, 148–​49. See also Jaimini Moonlight on Intentionality (Tātparyacandrikā), 51, 87, 109–​10, 148–​49 Moses, 12–​14 motivation, 59 Muhammad, 21–​22 muta’t al-​nisā’, 23–​24 Nachmanides, 16 naskh, 22–​26. See also abrogation navyanyāya (“new logic”), 5–​6, 8 Nectar of Logic (Nyāyāmṛta), 51, 77–​78 need (ākāṅkṣā) Appayya Dīkṣita on, 95–​97, 100–​1, 102–​7, 108–​9, 111–​12, 117–​18, 131, 133, 134–​35, 141 Khaṇḍadeva on, 147 Śambhubhaṭṭa on, 147–​48 Vijayīndratīrtha on, 132, 135–​36, 141 New Intellectuals, 6–​7, 28, 30, 166–​67 new logic, 5–​6, 8 newness (apūrvatā), 41, 47 New Testament, 18–​20, 24 as commentary, 19, 20–​21 Nondualist Vedānta, 4, 114–​15, 117–​18 criticized, 83–​84, 167–​68 early, 4–​5, 28–​29 indicators of purport for, 41–​42

187

Index Madhva on, 46 polemics of, 82–​83 on “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” 77–​79 Vyāsatīrtha’s polemics against, 51, 77–​79 Nyāya, 84–​85 Nyāyāmṛta, 51, 77–​78 Nyāyarakṣāmaṇi, 85n.9, 114–​15, 116–​17 Nyāyavivaraṇa, 47 occasionalism, 152–​53, 154–​55, 157 “opening” (upakrama), 28–​29, 36 in Brahmasūtra, 40–​41 Kumārila on, 36–​38, 39, 40–​41 Madhva on, 46–​48, 82 need generated by, 103–​4, 106–​7 Prabhākara on, 39n.11 Rāmānuja on, 43–​44 Śabara on (see Śabara: on opening or sequence) Śaṅkara on, 40–​41, 109 “stronger,” 28–​29, 53, 62, 86, 88, 95–​97, 115–​17 Vyāsatīrtha on, 51, 52–​53, 54, 79 Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, 42–​43 Pārthasārathi Miśra, 74 past, the, 1–​2, 5–​6, 10 Patañjali, 87 perception (pratyakṣa), 77–​79 periodization (of history), 2n.3, 6–​7 philosophical systems, 84–​85. See also intellectual traditions; knowledge systems; śāstras philosophy Indian, 1–​2, 4–​5, 36–​37, 84–​85 Western, 2n.3, 7–​8 plausibility (upapatti), 41, 46–​47, 78–​79, 110 poetic theory. See Sanskrit: poetics

187

Pollock, Sheldon on “oldness of the will,” 7–​8, 10–​11, 30, 52, 168–​69 on Sanskrit knowledge systems, 6–​8, 28 on “transcendent śāstra,” 9 Pounding the Face of Madhva’s System (Madhvatantramukhamardana), 45n.27, 82–​83, 117n.80 Power of the Opening (Upakramaparākrama), 29–​30, 82–​ 83, 85–​89, 96, 115–​17, 118, 121, 168 responses to, 122–​23, 146n.4, 148–​50 (see also Conquest of the Closing) Prabhākara, 39–​40, 68–​69, 73–​74, 93–​ 94, 112n.65, 116n.77, 117–​18 Prajāpati, 63–​64, 70–​71, 72 Prakāśātman, 28–​29, 41–​44, 45–​46 Pramāṇalakṣaṇa, 47 preponderance, 113–​14 progress, 9 prolepsis, 8–​9 pseudo-​traditionalism. See innovation: covert; traditionalism: rhetoric of “purport indicators” (tātparyaliṅga). See “indicators of purport” Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, 32–​33, 84–​85. See also Mīmāṃsā Qualified Nondualist Vedānta, 40, 50, 85, 114–​15, 117–​18, 120, 144–​45n.1, 159n.29 Quran, 21–​26, 154–​55 rabbis, 14–​16 Rāghavendra Tīrtha, 79n.65, 148–​49, 151 Rāmānuja, 43–​44, 85, 114–​15, 117–​18, 120, 168 readers cognitive processes of, 38–​39, 44, 47, 52 ideal, 91, 96–​97 of past texts, 8–​9 theories about, 11

18

188

Index

repetition (abhyāsa), 41, 47, 67–​70, 92n.26 result (phala), 41, 47 revelation. See scriptures: revelation Ṛgveda, 62–​64, 65, 93 rhetorical tropes, 3, 4 rituals archetypal vs. modified, 75–​77 “Four-​potshard offering,” 70–​71, 72–​74 in Islam, 20–​22 in Judaism, 13–​14, 15–​16, 18–​19, 161–​63 manuals for, 45 in Mīmāṃsā, 32, 46, 52, 58–​59, 60–​61, 68–​69 universals vs. specific in, 96 in Vedānta, 33, 40, 52 See also sacrifices ritual subordination, 71–​74, 145–​46n.3 Rokeach, Eleazar, 162–​63 Śabara, 28–​29, 82, 93–​94, 133–​34, 146–​ 47, 166–​67 on cognition, 75–​76 commentaries on, 36–​37, 68 hermeneutic principles of, 36, 71 importance of, 28–​29, 36 on injunctions, 53–​55, 63–​64, 70–​71 on opening or sequence, 36, 37–​38, 39, 54, 63–​65, 67–​68, 70–​71 on “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” 75–​76 on “Section on Opening with Veda,” 63–​65, 67–​68 on “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual,” 70–​72, 74 on “Section on What Is Wet,” 53–​55, 57–​59, 146–​47 Vyāsatīrtha on, 57–​59, 64, 67–​68, 69–​70, 74, 137 Śābdanirṇaya, 42–​43

sacrifices Christian view of, 18–​19 to five fires, 109–​11 goat, 59, 68–​69, 107, 108, 146–​47 Hawk (see Hawk sacrifice) Mīmāṃsā on, 32, 59, 61–​62 names of, 103–​4, 105–​6 “Praise of Light” (Jyotiṣṭoma), 62–​63, 75, 102–​3 sponsors of, 70–​71 Torah on, 14–​15, 18–​19 Vedānta on, 33 Said, Edward W., 1n.2 Śālikanātha Miśra, 93–​94 Sāmaveda, 62–​64 Śambhubhaṭṭa, 144–​46, 147–​49, 150–​51 Śaṅkara, 4, 28–​29, 40–​41, 168 Appayya Dīkṣita and, 85, 109, 110–​11, 112, 113–​15, 116–​18, 139–​40 on Upaniṣads, 77–​78, 110–​11, 139–​40 See also Brahmasūtra: commentary of Śaṅkara on Sāṅkhya, 4, 84–​85 Sanskrit early modern, 6–​7, 166–​67 intellectual culture of, 6–​8 literature, 3 poetics, 2, 3, 166–​68 śāstras, 8–​9 transcendent or outside history, 9–​10 See also intellectual traditions; knowledge systems scholasticism, 152 in Europe, 10, 158–​59, 161, 169–​70 in India, 2, 3, 30, 166–​68, 169–​70 scriptures, 11 in Abrahamic religions, 12–​18, 26–​27, 33 atemporal or timeless, 11–​12, 17–​18, 26, 27, 33 harmony of, 44, 110–​11

189

Index perception or empiricism vs., 77–​79, 163–​64 revelation of, 12–​15, 17–​18, 26–​27, 33 sequence, 11 chronological or historical, 11–​12, 14–​ 19, 26–​27 cognitive process and, 27, 44, 59–​60, 61–​62 function vs., 34–​35, 56–​57, 58–​59, 67, 71, 72 intersectarian debates on, 31, 150–​51 irrelevant or marginalized, 30, 90, 94, 98, 99–​100, 101, 108–​9, 111, 112, 114–​15, 116–​18, 130, 133, 139, 147–​48, 151–​52 logical, 11–​12 in Mīmāṃsā, 35, 36–​38, 58–​59, 64, 69–​70, 71 opportunistic use of, 74–​75, 81 of phonemes, etc., 34, 34n.1 terminology of, 40–​41, 43–​44, 94 textual, 15–​17, 26, 27, 59–​60, 91 theorization of, 12 in Vedānta, 40–​41, 47–​48 sequential priority, 28–​30, 46, 47–​48, 82, 92, 147–​48. See also Madhva: sequential hierarchy of Sevappa Nāyaka of Tanjore, 119–​20, 122, 142–​43, 165–​66 Shaivas, 2n.3, 83–​85, 120, 122 Shaiva Vedānta, 83–​84, 85, 121, 148–​49 Sharma, B. N. K., 45, 119 Shi’as, 23–​24, 26n.64 Shiva, 2n.3, 42–​43, 50, 84, 148–​49, 165–​66 Shulchan Aruch, 161–​62 Signoracci, Gino, 1–​2 sincerity, 10–​11, 30, 142–​43, 144, 164, 168–​70 Śivārkamaṇidīpikā, 83–​84, 116n.78, 148–​49

189

Skinner, Quentin, 8 Ślokavārttika, 37n.7 Sofer, Moses, 162–​64 Someśvara Bhaṭṭa, 73–​74 Śrīkaṇṭha, 42–​43, 83–​84, 85 Śrīvaiṣṇavas, 50, 120 Stroumsa, Guy, 19–​20 Sudarśanasūrī, 43–​44 Summary of Kumārila’s School (Bhāṭṭasaṃgraha), 148–​49 Sunnis, 22–​24, 26–​27 Śvetaketu, 109–​10, 111 Tahāfut al-​Falāsifa, 154–​55 Talmud, 13n.32, 16–​17, 24–​25, 161, 162–​63 Tannaim, 12–​13 Tantra, 6 Tantrasāra, 73–​74 Tantravārttika, 36–​37, 38, 55n.14, 59n.20, 65, 78n.61 See also Kumārila Bhaṭṭa Tarkatāṇḍava, 51, 58n.19, 74n.52, 77n.60, 87. See also Apocalyptic Dance of Reason Tātācārya, 120 Tātparyacandrikā, 51, 87, 109–​10. See also Moonlight on Intentionality tātparyaliṅga. See “indicators of purport” temples, 50 Tirupati, 50 Torah, 12–​17, 24, 161 Deuteronomy, 14–​15 interpretive rules for, 16–​18 Leviticus, 14–​15 “no early or late in,” 16–​17 Numbers, 16–​17 traditionalism rhetoric of, 28, 29–​30, 84, 108–​9, 118, 149–​51, 154, 161, 166, 168–​69 sincere, 10–​11, 142–​43, 144 transcendence, 9–​10 Tsafrir, Nurit, 23

190

190

Index

Uddālaka, 109–​10 uniformity, 47 upakrama. See “opening” Upakramaparākrama. See Power of the Opening Upaniṣads, 4, 32–​33, 45–​46, 77–​78, 93, 117n.80 “Five Fires” passage in, 109–​12 “Section on the Tiny Space” in, 112–​15, 116–​18, 139–​40, 148–​49 See also Vedānta: Upaniṣads in upasaṃhāra. See “closing” Upasaṃhāravijaya. See Conquest of the Closing Upasaṃhāravijayaparājaya, 144–​45n.1 Uttara Mīmāṃsā, 32–​33, 84–​85. See also Vedānta Vācaspatimiśra, 77–​79 Vaishnavas, 50, 83–​84, 85, 120, 165–​66 Varuṇa, 70–​71 Vedānta Appayya Dīkṣita and (see Appayya Dīkṣita: as Vedāntin) early, 35, 40, 44 harmony favored by, 44, 110–​11 Mīmāṃsā and, 32–​33 “Principle of Breaking the Chain” in, 75, 77–​78 “purport indicators” in, 42 schools of, 28–​29, 32–​33, 40, 42–​ 43, 83–​84, 114 (see also Dualist Vedānta; Nondualist Vedānta; Qualified Nondualist Vedānta; Shaiva Vedānta) “Section on the Tiny Space” debate in, 109–​15, 116–​18, 139–​40 Upaniṣads in, 32–​33, 40, 44 Vedānta Deśika, 83–​85 Vedas, 2n.3, 31–​32 cognitive processing of, 124–​25

as corpora vs. mantras, 62–​64, 65–​66, 67–​69, 68n.39, 92–​93, 132–​33 declarative portions of, 56–​57, 59, 63–​64 eternal or ahistorical, 12, 18n.45, 33–​ 34, 90–​91, 124 impersonal (apaureṣeya), 12 Madhva’s or Dualists’ view of, 18n.45, 82–​83, 124–​25 memorized, 34–​35 Mīmāṃsā view of, 3, 9, 12, 33–​35, 62–​ 63, 132 passages (vākya) of, 34–​35, 55 perception vs. words of, 77–​79 Śaṅkara on, 28–​29 sequence of, 124–​25, 126, 127–​28 Vedānta view of, 12, 32–​33, 34–​35 Vijayīndratīrtha on, 124–​25, 142 vedopakramādhikaraṇa, 62–​63. See also Mīmāṃsā case law: “Section on Opening with Veda” Verpoorten, Jean-​Marie, 4–​5 Vidhirasāyana, 85n.9, 149–​51. See also Elixir for Injunctions Vijayanagara Empire, 29, 49–​50, 83–​84, 120 Vijayīndra. See Vijayīndratīrtha Vijayīndratīrtha, 11, 30, 118 alternative explanations of, 132–​33, 137, 138–​39, 140–​42 Appayya Dīkṣita and, 122–​24, 125, 127–​43, 151 audiences for, 121–​22, 141–​43 on cognitive sequence, 129–​30, 135, 142 on contradictions, 125–​26, 129–​30 date of, 119 on doubtful openings, 126–​28 as Dualist Vedāntin, 119, 120, 121, 122, 165 existence-​nonexistence analogy of, 126–​27

19

Index flippancy of, 141, 142 innovations of, 122–​23 inscription mentioning, 119–​20, 122 intellectual lineage of, 121, 122–​23 on “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” 128 on “Section on Opening with Veda,” 131 on “Section on the Tiny Space,” 139–​41 on “Section on What Is Wet,” 131, 132–​34, 136 sincerity of, 142–​43 summary of other’s views by, 123 on Vedic sequence or language, 123–​25, 126, 127–​28, 142 Vishnu, 2n.3, 40, 45–​46, 50, 83–​84, 116–​ 17, 121, 140–​41, 165–​66 Vyāsatīrtha Appayya Dīkṣita and, 85–​89, 90, 91, 92–​97, 101, 105–​6, 107, 108–​11, 116–​ 18, 123–​24, 129, 151, 167–​68 on blocking or narrowing, 25n.62, 57, 60–​62 Duquette on, 116n.77 importance of, 11, 29, 48, 49–​51, 82 Khaṇḍadeva and, 145–​47 on mantras, 59–​60, 67, 107 Mīmāṃsā and, 51–​54, 57–​59, 60–​ 62, 67, 74–​75, 81, 108–​9 (see also Kumārila Bhaṭṭa: Vyāsatīrtha on)

191 “new math” of, 52, 58–​59, 68, 81, 92–​ 93, 115, 116–​17, 158 on opening vs. closing, 16n.40, 51, 52–​54, 58n.19, 59–​60, 61–​62, 67, 79–​80, 88–​89 on placement of offerings, 60–​61 on “Principle of Breaking the Chain,” 77–​79, 128, 146–​47 Rāghavendra Tīrtha on, 79n.65, 148–​49 Śambhubhaṭṭa and, 145–​48 on “Section on Opening with Veda,” 67–​70, 79, 81, 87n.16, 92–​93, 146–​47 on “Section on the Horse-​Receiving Ritual,” 73–​75 on “Section on What Is Wet,” 57–​59, 60–​61, 62, 81, 95–​96, 132, 133–​34, 146–​47 on sequence, 52–​53, 54, 59–​60, 61–​62, 67–​68, 73–​74 Vedānta and, 77–​79, 165 works by, 50–​51 See also Kumārila Bhaṭṭa: Vyāsatīrtha on; Śabara: Vyāsatīrtha on

Yādavābhyudaya, 83–​85 Yajurveda, 62–​64, 70–​71 Zvi, Sabbatai, 161

192

193

194

195

196