[INDOLOGY] nyaya and regress

Sun Jun 9 22:50:05 UTC 2024

Dear Madhava,

Thanks so much for your kind reply. On a personal note, I visited you at your U. Michigan office around 2002. We discussedl the extent of Vivekananda’s knowledge of Hindu śāstra.

Thanks for the reference to Brahma-sūtra 2.1.11, tarkāpratiṣṭhānād anyathānumeyam iti ced evam api avimokṣaprasaṅgaḥ. I will focus here on the first two words, tarka-apratiṣṭhānād, “because logic/speculation is not the foundation…” since apart from its epistemic significance, it is an idea which has reverberated in other texts.

Thus, there is a related verse of the Mahābhārata which repeats almost verbatim the first two words of Brahma-sūtra 2.1.11, and then adds three more lines:

tarko 'pratiṣṭhaḥ śrutayo vibhinnāḥ naiko ṛṣir yasya mataṃ pramāṇam |
dharmasya tattvaṃ nihitaṃ guhāyāṃ mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ ||

“Logic is not a foundation. Śrutis are manifold. There is not one sage whose opinion is evidence. The truth of dharma is laid down in a secret place. The path is that by which the great person has gone.”

This MBh verse was not chosen for the critical text of of BORI. It is only found in the Dn recensions, the Devanagarī manuscripts of Nīlakaṇṭha.

One more piece to this puzzle: In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (c. 1557) Madhya-līlā 17.186, we find the same MBh Dn verse, with one difference. Instead of naiko ṛṣir yasya matam pramāṇam, we have nāsāv (na asau) ṛṣir yasya mataṃ na bhinnam, “That one is not a sage whose opinion is not different,” an apparent tongue in cheek observation about the propensity of scholars to seek an original thesis. I have no idea whether the CC is citing a MBh recension lost to us, or is merely paraphrasing.

Thanks again to Madhava and others for this conversation.

Best wishes,
Howard

> On Jun 8, 2024, at 1:56 PM, Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:
> 
> Dear Howard,
> 
>      Glad to remind you of your teacher, Professor Scharfe. As his book is in German, it has not drawn as much attention in the Anglophone world.
>      Itaretarāśraya is like a chicken and egg argument. Apratiṣṭhāna, as brought up in the Brahmasūtra [tarkāpratiṣṭhānād anyathānumeyam iti ced evam api avimokṣaprasaṅgaḥ] says that all Tarka is apratiṣṭhita, and hence even if we bring up a superior Tarka, that superior Tarka can be shown to be faulty by an even more superior Tarka. Thus, there is a resulting Avimokṣa "no final solution." In an interesting way, this argument reminds me of a line from Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra "bādhyante dhīviśeṣeṇa yogino 'py uttarottaraiḥ" [this attribution is from my aging memory]. Here the argument is that any Yogic experience can be superseded by a higher level Yogic experience. This is also a sort of Anavasthā.
>      Many systems have placed arbitrary limits to avoid Anavasthā. For example, according to the  Nyāya-Vaiśrṣikas, there is a relationship of Saṃyoga between the monkey and the branch upon which the monkey is sitting. Now the Saṃyoga as a Guṇa relates to the monkey with the relation of Samavāya, and the same Saṃyoga relates to the branch with another Samavāya. Fine, but then what relation would connect the Samavāya to Saṃyoga? Does this need another Samavāya? So there is an interesting regresso ad infinitum situation. But the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas say that no further relation is needed to connect a Samavāya to Saṃyoga. But this is quite arbitrary.
> 
> Thanks for bringing up this topic. Best wishes,
> 
> Madhav
> 
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USAg
> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
> Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India
> 
> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jun 8, 2024 at 9:03 AM Howard Resnick <hr at ivs.edu <mailto:hr at ivs.edu>> wrote:
>> Thank you Madhav for this information, and thank you for bringing to mind my first and much appreciated Sanskrit professor, Hartmut Scharfe, whom I studied with as an undergraduate  at UCLA.
>> 
>> Regarding itaretarāśṛaya, often taken to mean ‘mutual dependence’, can this be seen as an indirect or oblique indication of infinite regress, by way of an apratiṣṭhāna, foundationless, situation?
>> 
>> Thanks and best wishes!
>> Howard
>> 
>>> On Jun 8, 2024, at 11:07 AM, Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu <mailto:mmdesh at umich.edu>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Another source for discussions of topics like Anavasthā and Itaretarāśraya may be Hartmut Scharfe's book: "Die Logik im Mahābhaāṣya," Berlin 1961.
>>> 
>>> Madhav M. Deshpande
>>> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
>>> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
>>> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
>>> Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India
>>> 
>>> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Jun 8, 2024 at 6:47 AM Howard Resnick via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
>>>> Thank you Philipp. Very helpful.
>>>> 
>>>> All the best,
>>>> Howard
>>>> 
>>>>> On Jun 8, 2024, at 3:00 AM, Philipp Maas via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dear Howard,
>>>>> On anavasthā and related terms in various systems of thought, see also Oberhammer, G. (1991). Terminologie der frühen indischen Scholastik in Indien. Vol. 1. A-I. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, p. 32f.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Philipp
>>>>> __________________________
>>>>> 
>>>>> Prof. Dr. Philipp A. Maas
>>>>> Professor for Modern Indology
>>>>> Institute of Indology and Tibetology
>>>>> Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich
>>>>> ___________________________
>>>>> 
>>>>> https://spp1448.academia.edu/PhilippMaas
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Am Di., 4. Juni 2024 um 11:05 Uhr schrieb Howard Resnick via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>:
>>>>>> Dear Scholars,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Does the nyāya system speak about the problem of an infinite regress of proofs? Aristotle famously identifies and then avoids this problem through the notion of a self-evident foundation or starting point of knowledge. In Western epistemology, this strategy is often called foundationalism.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Is there anything at all similar or analagous in nyāya or other Indian schools? The Caitanya-caritāmṛta several times affirms that the Veda is ’self-evident’, svataḥ pramāṇa, but the term is not used there as a general or secular epistemic strategy. Is the CC simply repeating a well-known epistemic principle?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> All help will be greatly appreciated.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>> Howard
>>>>>> 
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