[INDOLOGY] Aikabhavika-nyaya

[Shankar Nair]

My thanks to Prof. Uskokov for providing this very helpful information.

Best wishes,
Shankar


Shankar Nair

Assistant Professor
Department of Religious Studies and
Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures
University of Virginia

On Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 8:17 AM Uskokov, Aleksandar <
aleksandar.uskokov at yale.edu> wrote:

> Dear Shankar,
>
> Look at Venkatramiah’s introduction to his translation of Parthasarati
> Mishra’s Sastra-dipika, pp. xxiv-xxv. The doctrine seems explicitly Mimamsa
> (or perhaps an imagined fix of one of their accounts of liberation), the
> claim being that samcita-karma in total is responsible for embodiment and
> can be eradicated in total (perhaps a reply to Sankara’s claim that samcita
> being accumulated without beginning, it could never be exhausted by living
> through it).
>
> Best,
> Aleksandar
>
> Get Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of
> Shankar Nair via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 9, 2019 10:56:32 PM
> *To:* indology
> *Subject:* [INDOLOGY] Aikabhavika-nyaya
>
> Dear all,
>
> I hope the early summer is treating you well. I write seeking help with a
> reference in Madhusūdana Sarasvatī's *Ved*āntakalpalatik*ā*. In a
> doxographical portion of the text, the author describes one group as
> follows:
>
> *Apare tu aikabhavikanyāyena ātmajñānamantareṇ**āpi** niṣiddhakāmyayor
> ananuṣṭhānāt nityanaimittikānuṣṭhānāt ca na āgāmikarmotpādaḥ**.*
> *Vidyamānasya copabhogena kṣayāt sakalakarmocchedalakṣaṇam apavargam āhuḥ.*
>
> (But others [say], via *aikabhavika-ny**āya*, as a result of the performance
> of the compulsory and occasional [*karmas*] and the non-performance of
> the prohibited and voluntary [*karmas*], even without knowledge of *ātman*
> , there is no production of future *karma*. They speak of “release” (
> *apavarga*) as characterized by the extirpation of *karma* entirely, due
> to the exhausting of present [*karmas*] by means of their enjoyment [in
> this current birth?].)
>
> I am trying to identify the group Madhusūdana has in mind as well as the
> principle/rule of "*aikabhavika*" that he references. The language used
> in the passage brings the Mīmāṃsakas quickly to mind; however, the
> organization of the treatise would strongly suggest that some Naiyāyika
> and/or Vaiśeṣika group is at play. I seem to hazily recall that Praśastapāda
> in his *Bhāṣ**ya*, perhaps, records a view along these lines? Yet I would
> be surprised to see a [Nyāya-]Vaiśeṣika articulation of *mokṣ**a* that
> gives so small a role to knowledge (cf. "*ātmajñānamantareṇ**āpi*").
>
> To further complicate the identification, I wonder if *aikabhavika* might
> in some way be connected with the well-known discussions of *ekabhavika* rooted
> in Yoga-Bhāṣya 2.13? I am inclined to read *ekabhavika* in that context
> as referring to a type of *karma* that bears fruit in a single subsequent lifetime,
> whereas I read Madhusūdana's *aikabhavika* here to refer to *karma* that
> bears fruit and becomes exhausted within the very same lifetime, i.e.,
> prior to death. I could certainly be mistaken, however, as I have seen "
> *aikbhavika*" in the Brahma-Sūtra commentarial literature (3,1.2.8) -- by
> Madhusūdana's fellow Advaitins -- in the former sense of *karma* that
> bears fruit in the immediately subsequent birth.
>
> I am open to all of your learned suggestions! If it helps at all, Madhusūdana
> later casts this viewpoint aside with disdain, calling it so unfounded that
> to bother to refute it would only bring shame upon the refuter.
>
> With many thanks for your insights,
>
> Shankar Nair
>
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Religious Studies and
> Middle Eastern & South Asian Languages & Cultures
> University of Virginia
>
>


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