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 <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> 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 <[email protected]
>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> 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
>>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>> Thank you Philipp. Very helpful.
>>>>
>>>> All the best,
>>>> Howard
>>>>
>>>>> On Jun 8, 2024, at 3:00 AM, Philipp Maas via INDOLOGY
>>>>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> 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
>>>>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>:
>>>>>> 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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>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> INDOLOGY mailing list
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>>>>
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