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JIP - Recently Published (Springer)
JIP - Recently Published (Springer)A Note on the SadvitīyaprayogaA Note on the Sadvitīyaprayoga
view article | [Journal of Indian Philosophy (Online First™)] A South Indian Śākta Anthropogonỵ: An Annotated Translation of Selections from Maheśvarānanda’s Mahārthamañjarīparimala, gāthās 19 and 20Abstract This article represents the first of a projected series of annotated translations of the Mahārthamañjarīparimala of Maheśvarānanda, a Śaiva Śākta author active in Cidambaram around the turn of the fourteenth century of the Common Era.
The present translation includes excerpts from the text’s presentation of two of the levels of reality (tattvas), puruṣa and prakṛti. These two tattvas, the apex of the older Sāṃkhya scheme incorporated centuries earlier by the Śaivas, provide for Maheśvarānanda the centerpiece
and climax of his understanding of the structure of the Śaiva cosmos. Fundamental to the rhetoric of Maheśvarānanda’s idiosyncratic
presentation is his reliance upon a simultaneous strategy of integration and distinction of his argument within the wider
world of Śaiva doctrinal common sense. He seeks to integrate the characteristic meditative structure of his Krama or Mahārtha
system within a theological framework shared by all Śaiva theists. It can be seen that Maheśvarānanda’s interpretation of
the junction between these two reality levels delineates a picture of what it is to be a human being, equipped with an inner
life and a personality. The article also reviews the quality of the published editions of the Mahārthamañjarī, discusses its textual history, and offers a number of suggested emendations to the passages translated.
view article | [Journal of Indian Philosophy (Online First™)] Tarka as Cognitive ValidatorAbstract The meaning of the term ‘tarka’ is not clear in the modern literature on Classical Indian Philosophy. This paper will review different modern readings of
this term and try to show that what the Nyāyasūtra and its classical commentaries called a ‘tarka’ should be understood as the following: a tarka is a cognitive act that validates a content (of a doubt or a cognition or a speech-act) by demonstrating its logical fitness
or invalidates a content by demonstrating its logical unfitness. A tarka can act as a metatheory too. Generating certainty is, according to the Classical Nyāya, a job assigned to an epistemic instrument
(pramāṇa). It fails to do so when there arises a doubt regarding it. The moment a tarka dispels the doubt, the epistemic instrument
generates certainty. Tarkas of different types will be exemplified by critically analyzing Gaṅgeśa’s applications of tarka in his magnum opus Tattvacintāmaṇi. These examples will clarify the definition of tarka formulated in this paper.
view article | [Journal of Indian Philosophy (Online First™)] Competing World Views: Perspectivism and Polemics in the Satya-śāsana-parīkṣā and Other Jaina WorksAbstract Jaina authors use a pluralistic epistemological model as a tool to claim the superiority of Jainism over the other schools
of Indian thought. In this article the general tendency of the Jaina’s epistemic pluralism is discussed and it is shown how
the Digambara Jaina Vidyānandin tries to establish the Jainas’ pluralism on rational grounds by identifying erroneous epistemic
alternatives through methodological falsification.
view article | [Journal of Indian Philosophy (Online First™)] Brahmā: An Early and Ultimately Doomed Attempt at a Brahmanical SynthesisAbstract In this paper, I argue that, by comparing certain passages from the early Buddhist sūtras and the Mahābhārata, we can find evidence of a late- to post-Vedic “Brahmanical synthesis,” centered on the conception of Brahmā as both supreme
Creator God and ultimate goal for transcending saṃsāra, that for the most part did not become a part of the Brahmanical synthesis or syntheses that came to constitute classical
Hinduism. By comparing the Buddhist response to this early conception of Brahmā with the way in which Brahmā is treated in
certain sectarian portions of the Mahābhārata, I then argue further that the Buddhist critique of Brahmā as supreme deity was in part conceded by the Brahmanical tradition,
and sectarian accounts of supreme godhead sought to reconcile pravṛtti and nivṛtti values more subtly than the crude juxtaposition offered by the earlier Brahmanical synthesis offered by Brahmā. The result
was that Brahmā was relegated to an inferior position as a fully saṃsāric demiurge, a narrative found first in certain parts of the Mahābhārata and then continued throughout most of the Purāṇas.
view article | [Journal of Indian Philosophy (Online First™)] The Two Pratyabhijñā Theories of ErrorAbstract In this essay, it is argued that Abhinavagupta’s theory of error, the apūrṇakhyāti theory, synthesizes two distinguishable Pratyabhijñā treatments of error that were developed in three phases prior to him.
The first theory was developed in two stages, initially by Somānanda in the Śivadṛṣṭi (ŚD) and subsequently by Utpaladeva in his Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikās (ĪPK) and his short autocommentary thereon, the Īśvarapratyabhijñāvṛtti (ĪPVṛ). This theory served to explain individual acts of misperception, and it was developed with the philosophy of the Buddhist
epistemologists in mind. In a third phase, Utpaladeva developed in his Śivadṛṣṭivṛtti (ŚDVṛ) a second theory of error, one that involved the noncognition of non-duality (abhedākhyāti) and served to explain both the appearance and perception of multiplicity, despite the strict monism to which all Pratyabhijñā
authors subscribe. Abhinavagupta’s treatment of error, then, is significant not only because it was meant to explain all the
various theories of error offered by opposing philosophical schools, as Rastogi has shown, but more importantly because it
synthesized the thinking of his predecessors on the matter in a single, elegant account of error.
view article | [Journal of Indian Philosophy (Online First™)] A Question of Priority: Revisiting the Bhāmaha-Daṇḍin DebateAbstract As has been obvious to anyone who has looked at them, there is a special relationship between the two earliest extant works
on Sanskrit poetics: Bhāmaha’s Kāvyālaṃkāra (Ornamenting Poetry) and Daṇḍin’s Kāvyādarśa (The Mirror of Poetry). The two not only share an analytical framework and many aspects of their organization but also often
employ the selfsame language and imagery when they are defining and exemplifying what is by and large a shared repertoire
of literary devices. In addition, they also betray highly specific disagreements regarding the nature and aesthetic value
of a set of literary phenomena. It has thus long been clear to Indologists that the two are in conversation with one another,
but the nature of the conversation and its directionality have never been determined: Was Bhāmaha responding to Daṇḍin’s Kāvyādarśa? Was Daṇḍin making a rejoinder to Bhāmaha’s Kāvyālaṃkāra? Were the two authors contemporaries who directly interacted with one another? Or was their interaction indirect and mediated
through other texts that are no longer extant? Determining the nature of the interrelations between the two authors and their
texts may teach us a great deal about the origins of Sanskrit poetics, the direction in which it developed during its formative
period, and the way in which some of the disagreements between Daṇḍin and Bhāmaha metamorphosed in later time. By reviewing
existing scholarship, considering new evidence, and taking a fresh look at some of the passages that have long stood at the
center of this debate, this article sets out to answer the question of the texts’ relationship and relative chronology.
view article | [Journal of Indian Philosophy (Online First™)] |
