Re: [INDOLOGY] Searching for a little-known Nyāya

[Jan E.M. Houben]

Dear Walter,
The nyaaya to which you point may have been based on actual observation:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/rabbit-fights-snake-and-wins-video-2015-6?r=US
Jan




*Jan E.M. HOUBEN*

Directeur d’Études

Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite

*École Pratique des Hautes Études*

*Sciences historiques et philologiques *

54, rue Saint-Jacques

CS 20525 – 75005 Paris

johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr

https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben

www.ephe.fr


On 25 June 2015 at 10:24, Walter Slaje <slaje at kabelmail.de> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
>
> I am searching for textual evidence of a little-known Nyāya.
>
>
> In an article by Soutik Biswas “Why India's sanitation crisis kills
> women” (BBC News India, 30 May 2014), it was claimed that “Several studies
> have shown that women without toilets at home are vulnerable to sexual
> violence when travelling to and from public facilities or open fields.
> [...]“. One mother told researchers, “We have had *one-on-one fights with
> thugs in order to save our daughters from getting raped*. It then becomes
> a fight that either you [the thug] *kill me to get to my daughter*, or
> you back off.”
>
>
> This courageous behaviour of mothers fighting for her girls at the risk of
> their own lives reminds one of the *śaśī-sarpa-nyāya* (“the bunny and the
> snake”), known to some by hearsay only, but not (yet) traceable. The
> generalization here lies certainly in the fact that a (physically weaker)
> female (*śaśī*) effectively fights a (physically stronger) male (*sarpa*).
> The latter would be the aggressor(s), the victim(s) the (female) bunny
> and/or her young.
>
>
> The rare feminine formation *śaśī* causes no real trouble, as occurrences
> of the word are anyway testified in the *Mokṣopāya* (VI.34.103) and in
> Ratnākaraśānti’s *Vidagdhavismāpana* (175) [written communication by
> Roland Steiner].
>
>
> In connection of the very idea behind this nyāya, I should also like to
> add that Gandhi could indeed have been aware of a similar popular maxim, as
> he refers explicitly to “the violence of *the mouse against the cat*“,
> writing that
>
>
> “A girl who attacks her assailant with her nails, if she has grown them,
> or with her teeth, *if she has them* [? W.S.], is almost non-violent
> (...). Her violence is the violence of the mouse against the cat.“ (Harijan,
> 08-09-1940).
>
>
> On the other hand, Gandhi had
>
> „(...) always held that it is physically impossible to violate a woman
> against her will. (…) If she cannot meet the assailant’s physical might,
> her purity will give her the strength to die before he succeeds in
> violating her. (…) I know that women are capable of throwing away their
> lives for a much lesser purpose.” (Harijan, 25-08-1940).
>
>
> The statement in the last paragraph, only cited for its somewhat
> conflicting character with the first one, would, if further pursued,
> however lead into an entirely different matter, better not to be touched.
>
>
> I would be fully satisfied if someone among this learned community could
> contribute to the mysterious* śaśīsarpanyāya*, on- or off-list.
>
>
>
> Thanking you,
>
> WS
>
>
> -----------------------------
> Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
> Hermann-Löns-Str. 1
> D-99425 Weimar
> Deutschland
>
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> sed quo magis veritas propagetur et lux eius, qua salus
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>
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