Michael T. Williams

Existence and Perception in Medieval Vedānta

Michael T. Williams

Existence and Perception in Medieval Vedānta

Vyāsatīrtha’s Defence of Realism in the Nyāyāmr̥ta

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Michael T. Williams

Existence and Perception in Medieval Vedānta

Michael T. Williams

Existence and Perception in Medieval Vedānta

Vyāsatīrtha’s Defence of Realism in the Nyāyāmr̥ta

Published with the support of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): 10.55776/PUB1084.

Michael Williams is a Research Associate at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. He completed his MPhil in Classical Indian Religion at the University of Oxford, and holds a PhD from the University of Manchester. He has previously been employed at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on Vedānta and Navya-Nyāya philosophy and the religion of the Mādhva school of Vedānta.

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Dedicated to my father, John Williams, who inspired my interest in this subject.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all the individuals and organisations who supported me in the writing of this volume.

The volume was mainly completed under the framework of the project “Religion and Reason in the Vedānta Traditions of Medieval India”, which ran from 2017 to 2021. The project was hosted by the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and funded entirely by the Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung/FWF; project number 30622). The FWF further provided financial assistance for the production of this volume and for making it available as an open-access work. The writing of the volume was also supported by a generous grant from the Jan Gonda foundation. This grant allowed me to work for six months at the International Institute of Asian Studies and the University of Leiden in 2016. This gave me time to write several chapters now included in the book and to work on developing my translations of relevant Sanskrit texts.

My sincerest gratitude goes out to my colleague Marcus Schmücker, who is presently senior researcher at the IKGA. Marcus has had the single biggest influence of any individual over this volume. He acted as the leader of the Religion and Reason project and encouraged and supported me in all aspects of preparing the volume. He read through my drafts carefully and provided me with extensive feedback which has enhanced it considerably. In particular, I must thank him for his careful scrutiny of my explanations of Advaita philosophy and extensive discussions about the translation of Sanskrit texts. I must also thank him for all his advice on the publication process and general encouragement to persevere with writing this volume.

The volume is ultimately based on my PhD thesis written at the University of Manchester. I must thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom, which funded my PhD research. I would like to thank Jacqueline Suthren Hirst, my supervisor, for all her ideas and advice when preparing it. The comments of Professors Christopher Minkowski and Ram-Prasad Chakravarti made during the defence of my thesis also helped me develop the thesis into the present monograph.

I would also like to extend my thanks to members of the Mādhva tradition. In 2010, I read the Nyāyāmr̥ta and its commentaries with Professor D. Prahladachar, who is now Śrī Vidyāśrīśatīrtha, the head of the Vyāsarāya Maṭha. His profound insight into the Nyāyāmr̥ta and its commentaries has always been inspiring. I must also thank Prof. Veeranarayana Pandurangi of Karnataka Samskrit University, who worked with me studying Vyāsatīrtha’s texts and the works of Navya-Nyāya philosophers while I was preparing this volume. He helped me to understand the Navya-Nyāya language which features so prominently in the texts translated in this book. I must also thank Prof. Srinivasa Kumar N. Acharya, who is presently associate professor at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education. His deep background in Mā-dhva and Navya-Nyāya philosophy helped me to understand Mādhva philosophy and Navya-Nyāya language.

I must further express my thanks to Cynthia Peck-Kubaczek, who carefully copy-edited this volume and helped to improve the clarity and consistency of my writing.

I must extend my deepest thanks to my partner Anna Szutt and our dear friend Alice Constantin who both accompanied me on fieldwork in India while I was still preparing this volume. They worked with me tirelessly in digitising numerous manuscripts in the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Centre, Chennai, and the Oriental Research Institute in Mysuru. I must of course thank both of these institutions for letting me make copies of the manuscripts in question. I must also thank the Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project, which supplied me with images of a manuscript of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī’s Advaitasiddhi which I consulted when writing this volume.

In general, I would like to thank Anna for all her love, encouragement, and patience over the years I wrote this volume. Finally, I must express my deepest thanks to my parents Rhiannon and John Williams, my sister Lowri, and Teegan. The love of all of you helped me to persevere over all the years of preparing this volume.

1 Introduction

This book is primarily about the philosophy of Vyāsatīrtha (1460–1539¹), an intellectual and religious leader who lived in South India at the beginning of what is now widely referred to as the “early modern” period (ca. 1500–1800). Also known as “Vyāsarāja” or “Vyāsayogi”, Vyāsatīrtha was by birth a member of the Mādhva tradition of Vedānta, a movement which had originated approximately two hundred years earlier. Better known in the West as the “Dvaita” (“Dualistic”) tradition of Vedānta, the Mādhva movement was founded by the philosopher and religious reformer Madhvācārya (1238–1317), in India today variously called “Madhva”, “Ānandatīrtha”, or “Pūrṇaprajña”. Madhva was born into a family of brahmins near the town of Udupi, on the western coast of what is now the state of Karnataka. While Madhva’s teachers initially attempted to train him in the philosophy of the Advaita (“Nondualist”) tradition of Vedānta, he rejected this philosophy and went on to establish his own school of theistic Vedānta, called Mādhva in reference to its founder.

Philosophical Advaita Vedānta is usually traced back to the work of Śaṅkarācā-rya and Maṇḍana Miśra, philosophers who probably flourished towards the turn of the eighth century. Advaitin philosophers argue that the brahman referred to in the Upaniṣads is an immaculate, self-reflexive consciousness that is eternal, unchanging, and free from qualities of any kind. According to them, the empirical world is a vast illusion mistakenly superimposed on this changeless reality. For Advaitin philosophers, although the world does have a provisional, practical “existence” (vyāvahārika-sattva), it does not enjoy ultimate reality. This practical existence persists until it is “sublated” by the deeper realisation of the non-dual brahman.

The Advaitins’ interpretation of the Veda remains the most widely known outside of India today, and Advaita philosophy continues to exert a deep influence on modern scholars in their interpretation of Vedānta texts. Yet the Advaitic interpretation was vigorously contested from the earliest stages in India. For example, the Vedāntin Bhāskara (fl. 750) gave a vitriolic critique of Śaṅkara’s arguments in his commentary on the Brahmasūtra, rejecting Śaṅkara’s illusionism, and comparing his arguments to the Yogācāra Buddhists. By contrast to Śaṅkara, Bhāskara claimed that the world is a genuine “evolution”/“development” (pariṇāma) of brahman, and that individual souls are truly distinct from one another.

From roughly the tenth century onwards, Vaiṣṇava theistic schools began to write critiques in Sanskrit of the Śāṅkara-Advaita tradition. In South India, the Viśi-ṣṭādvaitin philosophers Yāmunācārya (1016–1040) and Rāmānuja (1017–1137) gave a theistic interpretation of the Upaniṣads, identifying brahman with the Vedic god Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. In subsequent centuries, religious thinkers from a number of other Vaiṣṇava traditions in different parts of India wrote their own interpretations of the Brahmasūtra, including Nimbārka (fl. 750), Vallabha (1479–1531), and the scholars of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition.

Of all these traditions, the Mādhva movement is the most staunchly anti-Advaita. Like Bhāskara and Rāmānuja, Madhva rejected the illusionism of the Śāṅkara-Advaita tradition and proclaimed that the Advaitins are nothing more than Buddhists masquerading as brahmins. Madhva argued that the brahman referred to in the Upaniṣads is not the attribute-less consciousness of Advaita philosophy, but the personal god Viṣṇu, a flawless being of infinite perfections. According to the Mādhvas, Viṣṇu takes on a variety of earthly descents (avatāras), including Gopāla Kr̥ṣṇa, the Rāma of the Rāmāyaṇa, and the compiler of the Vedas, Veda-Vyāsa. The ultimate goal of all Vedānta traditions—liberation from transmigratory existence—can only be obtained through devoted worship of Viṣṇu.

Madhva argued that while the world of conscious and unconscious beings is profoundly inferior to god and depends on him in every way, it nevertheless enjoys the same “existence” (sattva) as god does. The innumerable conscious and unconscious beings that constitute this world are permanently distinct from both god and one another, and the distinctions between the individual souls persist even in liberation. This pluralistic realism put Madhva squarely at odds with the Advaita tradition. And while he also debated with other traditions of Indian philosophy, the Advaitins were always the leading target of Madhva’s critiques. He toured India to present his ideas to leading scholars from other traditions, eventually converting some to his cause.

By the end of his life, Madhva had succeeded in establishing a firm basis for his tradition in the Kanara region of South India. Yet for around two centuries after his death, the established religious traditions in the South largely ignored the new movement. During the sixteenth century, however, the Mādhvas were propelled into the centre of the power-politics of the Vijayanagara Empire, which was founded in 1336. In this period the Mādhva religion expanded its base considerably, spreading from its heartland to Tamil and Telugu speaking regions of South India, and ultimately as far north as Bihar. This expansion was accompanied by new recognition of the movement in the Sanskrit intellectual world. By the turn of the seventeenth century, Mādhva philosophical work had attracted critical responses from some of the leading minds of the Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita traditions.

As the most influential leader in the Mādhva tradition during this period, Vyā-satīrtha was at the heart of the Mādhvas’ rise to prominence. Among specialists today, he is widely regarded not only as being the most outstanding Mādhva thinker, but also a leading philosopher in India’s intellectual history. His relationship with the emperors of the Tuḷuva dynasty at Vijayanagara helped him to win new resources for his tradition and expand its sphere of influence considerably. He also acted as a preceptor to the leading figures of the Haridāsa movement, who popularised Mādhva philosophy through their devotional hymns written in the Kannada vernacular.

The main subject of this book is Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of the Advaita school of Vedānta in the first of his three major works, the “Nectar of Reasoning” (Nyāyāmr̥ta). The text was primarily written as a comprehensive critique of Advaita philosophy, although later chapters of the work touch on Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy as well. Measured in terms of the quantity of literature that was written on it, the Nyāyāmr̥ta was clearly one of the most important philosophical works in India from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. After Vyāsatīrtha’s death, it became a kind of governing text which helped set the intellectual agenda of the early-modern Vedānta philosophers. Leading Vedānta philosophers in India wrote scores of commentaries on the work. These commentarial texts were written not only by Mādhva philosophers, but also by Advaitin intellectuals, who found Vyāsatīrtha’s work important enough to write line-by-line critical commentaries on it. To date, only a small number of the commentaries on the Nyāyāmr̥ta have been published in printed editions. Vyāsatīrtha’s two other major works, the Tātparyacandrikā and the Tarkatāṇḍava, did not prove as influential outside of the Mādhva tradition as the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Nevertheless, Mādhva philosophers continued to study them, and Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in those texts reshaped Mādhva epistemology and metaphysics in the centuries after his death.

Vyāsatīrtha’s ideas were deeply influenced by the works of Madhva and Madhva’s leading commentator Jayatīrtha, yet he was no slave to his tradition. All of his works were philosophically innovative, and Vyāsatīrtha makes substantial intellectual modifications to the philosophical arguments of his predecessors in the Mā-dhva lineage. Sharma (1981: 294) went as far as to describe Vyāsatīrtha as a “second founder” of the Mādhva tradition. The originality of Vyāsatīrtha’s work stemmed to a great extent from his engagement with specialist disciplines outside of the Mādhva tradition. Vyāsatīrtha’s work shows a deep engagement with the ritual science of the Pūrva-Mīmāṃsākas as well as Sanskrit grammatical science (vyākaraṇaśāstra), and these aspects of his work influenced the Mādhva philosophers who followed him.

However, it was possibly Vyāsatīrtha’s study of Navya-Nyāya that exerted the greatest influence over his thought. One of the central themes of this book is Vyā-satīrtha’s critical engagement with the work of the epistemologist Gaṅgeśa Upādhyāya (fl. 1350), who is usually regarded as the originator of the “New Reason” (Navya-Nyāya) tradition. Gaṅgeśa is taken to have been born in Mithila, probably in the early to mid-fourteenth century.² His Tattvacintāmaṇi became the basis for the entire tradition of Navya-Nyāya, including the work of Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (fl. 1510) and the Bengal school of Navya-Nyāya. Navya-Nyāya ideas and terminology were adopted by diverse traditions of thought in India, including the Mādhvas and the various schools of Vedānta.³ Vyāsatīrtha was apparently the first South Indian philosopher to write a detailed response to Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi, and his work exerted a deep influence over the reception of Gaṅgeśa’s ideas by Vedānta philosophers.

1.1 Reception of Vyāsatīrtha’s work in modern times

There has been a continuous tradition of interpreting Vyāsatīrtha’s works within the Mādhva tradition since his death in the sixteenth century. Today, Mādhva scholars live primarily in the south of India, particularly in the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. Scholars in these networks continue to participate in a lively world of philosophical debate, and their knowledge is largely transmitted from teacher to student in private brahmin households. Many Mādhva scholars hold positions in the different maṭhas and traditional institutions that support Mā-dhva learning, and some have taken up positions teaching at modern universities that focus on Sanskrit learning. These scholars continue to study the medieval philosophical works of the Mādhva tradition and to write on them in Sanskrit, as well as in Kannada and English. At the heart of the Mādhva curriculum taught at these institutions is Jayatīrtha’s magnum opus, the Nyāyasudhā. The study of Vyāsatīrtha’s works is reserved for more advanced students.

While Deepak Sarma (1999 and 2004) has argued that there might be limits to what Mādhva scholars are prepared to teach outsiders to the tradition, they are often happy to share at least certain aspects of their knowledge with non-Mādhva scholars. This book is based partly on collaboration with leading Mādhva scholars. In 2010, I worked with D. Prahladachar in reading the opening chapters of Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmr̥ta and its commentaries that are translated in this volume. At the time, Prahladachar was based at the Pūrṇaprajñavidyāpīṭha in Bengaluru; he is currently the head of the Vyāsarāja Maṭha. In 2018, I further worked with Veera-narayana Pandurangi, Professor at the Karnataka Samskrit University, Bengaluru, in reading the Tarkatāṇḍava and the Navya-Nyāya Tarkasaṅgrahadīpikāsarasva.

Mādhva scholars led efforts to publish Vyāsatīrtha’s works in the twentieth century, in particular the scholar Krishna Tatacharya Pandurangi, who was responsible for leading a broad-ranging initiative to publish key Mādhva works. Many of these were republications of older editions that had fallen out of print, but Pandurangi also produced new editions of previously unpublished Sanskrit texts. In 2014, just after his death, the Vidyādhīśa Snātakottara Saṃskr̥ta Śodhakendra in Bengaluru published a new edition of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, which contains two previously unpublished Mādhva commentaries on the text. The leading Advaitin scholar Anantakrishna Sastri also published editions of Vyāsatīrtha’s works alongside responses to them written by Advaitin philosophers.

In the twentieth century, scholars in India worked to present Vyāsatīrtha’s philosophy to a wider public. Bhavani Narayanrao Krishnamurti Sharma, whose work on the history of the Mādhva school remains standard on the subject, introduced Vyāsatīrtha’s works to English speakers by writing summaries of their contents. Sharma (1994) wrote a detailed summary of the Nyāyāmr̥ta and the response of the Advaitin Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (fl. 1570) to Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in his Advaitasiddhi. He further summarised the contents of Vyāsatīrtha’s Tarkatāṇḍava and Tātparyacandrikā in his History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and its Literature (Sharma, 1981). The scholar Surendranath Dasgupta also published detailed explanations of Vyāsatīrtha’s philosophy in his wide-ranging studies of Indian philosophical thought. Dasgupta praised Vyāsatīrtha’s work, judging that he and Jayatīrtha “present the highest dialectical skill in Indian thought” (Dasgupta, 1949: viii). In the early years of the twentieth century, the scholar Venkoba Rao published an edition and study of the leading biography of Vyāsatīrtha’s life, the Vyāsayogicarita, thus helping to open up Vyāsatīrtha’s life and historical significance to modern scholarship.

There was very little interest among Western scholars in Vyāsatīrtha’s work in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the early years of the twenty-first have witnessed a surge of interest in his work among scholars both in Europe and North America. This new research on Vyāsatīrtha has been driven largely by interest in his historical role at Vijayanagara and his intellectual influence over the Advaita tradition. Focusing on Vyāsatīrtha’s role as a state-agent at Vijayanagara, Valerie Stoker (2016) published a detailed study of Vyāsatīrtha’s role as a monastic leader at the Vijayanagara court. Stoker’s work focuses particularly on the complex dynamic between Vyāsatīrtha and the Advaita/Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedāntins at Vijayanagara. She drew together Vyāsatīrtha’s philosophical work with extensive biographical, inscriptional, and monumental records that give us a detailed picture of his life and historical influence.

Research published by Lawrence McCrea (2015) has highlighted Vyāsatīrtha’s influence over the intellectual development of the Advaita philosophical tradition. Jonathan Duquette (2019) has highlighted the role that Vyāsatīrtha’s work played in drawing the Advaitin Appayya Dīkṣita into Navya-Nyāya learning. My own research (Williams 2014, 2020a, and 2020b) has contributed to the study of Vyāsatīrtha’s work by examining the influence that Gaṅgeśa and his followers in the Navya-Nyāya tradition had over Vyāsatīrtha’s thought. Meanwhile, Deepak Sarma (1999, 2004) has discussed Vyāsatīrtha’s contribution to the debate about access to Sanskrit texts in the Mādhva tradition, and recent work by Amit Chaturvedi (2020) has highlighted Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Gaṅgeśa’s theory of raw/immaculate perception.

1.2 The scope and purpose of this volume

Works like the Nyāyāmr̥ta were undoubtedly written as polemical interventions, and, as Stoker’s studies show, they can be fruitfully situated in the historical context in which Vyāsatīrtha created them. Yet they are also masterpieces of philosophical argumentation. While I sometimes discuss the historical questions surrounding Vyāsatīrtha’s work, this volume approaches Vyāsatīrtha primarily as a philosopher whose work has the potential to substantially enrich the growing cross-cultural conversation in philosophy. I have not attempted to undertake the considerable task of drawing comparisons between Vyāsatīrtha’s work and Western philosophy. However, this volume should help lay the basis for this larger project by opening up Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments to wider philosophical research.

The book primarily gives a philosophical reconstruction of the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. It is based largely on my own translations of relevant parts of the Sanskrit works of Vyāsatīrtha, Jayatīrtha, Madhva, Madhusūdana, Gaṅgeśa, and their many commentators. In most cases, this is the first time these works have been translated into English. The book began life as a doctoral thesis which explored particularly a part of the Nyāyāmr̥ta known in modern editions as the “Refutation of the First Definition of Illusoriness” (Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga), which is translated with a commentary in Chapter 9 of this book. In this short, yet dense, part of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha critiques the Advaitins’ doctrine of “indeterminacy” (anirvacanīyatā). Under one analysis, the “illusoriness” (mithyātva) that Advaitin philosophers ascribe to the world is indeterminacy. In this context, the claim that the world is indeterminate is not so much a statement that it is somehow ineffable or beyond description, but the more specific claim that it cannot be definitively shown to be either existent or nonexistent.

The thirteenth-century Advaitin philosopher Ānandabodha Yati presented a series of formal inferences to establish that the world has the quality of being indeterminate. Ānandabodha drew on the logical theory of the early Nyāya tradition to certify his inferences by showing that they were free from a range of formal fallacies. The early chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta are concerned with showing that these inferences are irredeemably fallacious, and that the world our perceptual faculties reveal to us must truly exist. Thus in practice, this book focuses on reconstructing the complex intellectual background to the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga.

One of the central themes of this book is how Vyāsatīrtha used and applied Navya-Nyāya works in the Nyāyāmr̥ta and Tarkatāṇḍava. As is well known to specialists, the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, including the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, show extensive reuse of texts written by Gaṅgeśa. The Mādhvas and the Naiyāyikas have much in common intellectually. Both traditions defended the reality of the sensory world against the critiques of the different anti-realist philosophies in India. Both are brahmanical traditions and they defend, in their own way, the main pillars of Brahminism, particularly the validity of the Veda and the social structures of the four castes and life-stages (caturvarṇāśramadharma). Both traditions defend in different ways the existence of god against sceptics. Moreover, Mā-dhva theories of knowledge and metaphysics were from the earliest stages based on a deep engagement with Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophy.

Yet, as I will discuss in this volume, the two traditions disagree strongly about a range of philosophical issues. Thus, while Gaṅgeśa presented Vyāsatīrtha with a range of new ideas and terms he could apply to his own work, Gaṅgeśa’s arguments also presented a sophisticated challenge to Madhva and Jayatīrtha’s theory of knowledge. It was left to Vyāsatīrtha to show that his predecessors’ arguments could be vindicated in the light of Gaṅgeśa’s new defence of Nyāya thought. The Tarkatāṇḍava was written as a comprehensive critique of the thought of Gaṅgeśa and commentators from his birthplace Mithila. Vyāsatīrtha’s followers in the Mā-dhva tradition continued to critically engage with Navya-Nyāya ideas, frequently travelling to Varanasi to study the texts of Gaṅgeśa and his followers.

1.3 Overview of Vyāsatīrtha’s philosophy

If we were to use modern terms to introduce Vyāsatīrtha’s work, we might fruitfully describe him as an “analytic theologian”. Indeed, it is reasonable to describe Vyāsatīrtha’s work as theology. The main purpose of the Nyāyāmr̥ta is to understand the true nature of Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa through the authoritative texts of Vedānta/Vaiṣṇava tradition. The Nyāyāmr̥ta is supposed to contribute to this overall task critically by ruling out the Advaitins’ interpretation of scripture.

Mādhva philosophers were consistently sceptical of the ability of inferential reasoning to prove ultimate truths, such as the existence of god or the true metaphysical status of the world. The first chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta itself were written to show that attempts by Advaitin philosophers to prove the “illusoriness” of the world are hopelessly flawed. Likewise did Vyāsatīrtha and his followers reject Gaṅgeśa’s own attempts to prove the existence of god using formal inferences, accusing the Naiyāyikas of being “rationalists” (haitukas) with insufficient regard for the Veda. Nevertheless, all Mādhva philosophers accept the validity of inference and ascribe it an important role in reaching a true understanding of scripture. Throughout the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha attempts to prove his claims using logical reasoning, most frequently in the form of critical argumentation directed against the Advaitins.

Elsewhere (Williams, 2020a: 109–110), I gave the following list of features of Vyā-satīrtha’s work that warrant describing it as “analytic”:

a deep attention to the conceptual analysis of the key terms involved in the philosophical discussions;

the use of new logical terms borrowed from Navya-Nyāya such as “determiner” (avacchedaka), “describer” (nirūpaka), and “pervasion” (vyāpti) to quantify relations precisely;

the extensive use of concepts from the Mādhva and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theories of the natural world in philosophical discussions;

the ubiquitous use of formal inferences (anumāna) to prove philosophical theories;

the evaluation of these inferences using a stock list of formal fallacies.

From this point of view, the work of Madhva and Jayatīrtha (and Indian philosophers in general) could also be described as “analytic”. However, in the works of Vyāsatīrtha, who was writing under the influence of Gaṅgeśa and his followers, these tendencies become more pronounced, to the point that we are warranted in speaking of a new, highly analytical style of doing philosophy in his works.

Vyāsatīrtha used this style of argumentation to give a new voice to Madhva and Jayatīrtha’s arguments against the Advaitins. All Mādhva philosophers reject the Advaitins’ claim that texts like the Upaniṣads and the Brahmasūtra teach that the world is a virtual effect of brahman. Instead, they hold that the world of our senses “exists” in the same way that brahman/god does, even if it is in every other way profoundly inferior to god. Like the other realist schools, Mādhva philosophers reject the idea that the external objects making up the world are somehow reducible to conscious states, as was proposed by the Yogācāra Buddhists for instance, as well as in some tendencies within the Vivaraṇa school of Advaita philosophy.

According to Madhva and his followers, conscious beings remain eternally distinct from one another, and stand in an immutable ethical hierarchy. The Mādhvas place “difference” (bheda) at the centre of their ontology, arguing that it is the very nature of things to be differentiated from one another. They further eschew the idea that there are repeatable properties/universals (jātis), arguing instead for a pluralistic ontology in which we group distinct things together only because of their innate similarity to one another.

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha argues that it is primarily perception that discloses the reality of the world to us, and that inference and scripture are powerless to contradict this fundamental insight. Sophisticated arguments cannot dispel the deep sense that perception gives us of the reality of the world. In fact, the truth of such perceptions is guaranteed by the nature of consciousness itself. We may test the validity of certain judgments through critical reasoning, but ultimately truth is “intrinsic” to knowledge. It is in the nature of our consciousness to detect the truth of our judgments, and our sense faculties are innately disposed to produce true judgments about the world. Errors occur, of course, but they are exceptions that stand in need of special explanation. And such episodes are very easily explained—they pose to us no mysteries or riddles, as the Advaitins claim.

The Nyāyāmr̥ta is a vast text that discusses practically every issue that had occupied the minds of Indian philosophers until the sixteenth century. Philosophically, the primary subject matter of the present book are problems having to do with the nature of being—about the nature of existence (sattva) and nonexistence (asattva), and their relationship to one another—as they were discussed by Vyāsatīrtha and the philosophers who were influenced by his work. These issues dominate the discussion in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, and Vyāsatīrtha returns to them time and again in his critique of Ānandabodha’s inferences.

As is well known, problems having to do with nonexistence or empty terms were at the heart of some of the most influential work in analytic philosophy in the early twentieth century. The philosopher Alexius Meinong argued that every denoting phrase must refer to a thing that is, in some sense, part of reality. Fictional entities such as “golden mountains” must have at least some sort of “being” in order to serve as truth-makers for judgments about them. In his famous article On Denoting, Bertrand Russell argued that descriptive phrases have a logical form very different from the one that their grammatical structure might suggest. By analysing descriptive phrases as collections of logical quantifiers and propositional functions, Russell believed that he had solved many of the philosophical problems associated with empty terms. Russell’s work inspired new philosophical approaches to the relationship between language and reality and, to many, pointed to a new way of doing philosophy altogether.

Indian philosophers, too, were puzzled by the “riddle of nonexistence”. They discussed pertinent problems in two contexts particularly. The first was their treatment of perceptual illusions. How can we explain perceptual errors, cognitions that seem to be about things that do not exist? When in poor light I form the mistaken belief that what is really a length of rope is a cobra, what exactly is the “cobra” part of that judgment of ? Do all the components of our judgments need to exist, or is it possible to imagine a conscious state that is directed towards something that simply does not exist?

Indian philosophers also explored these issues when analysing empty terms, such as “sky-flower” (khapuṣpa) or “the son of a barren woman” (vandhyāsuta). Philosophers of the Nyāya school particularly tended to refer to these as “unestablished” or “unexampled” (aprasiddha) terms. In many ways, the problems that occupied medieval Indian philosophers on this subject ran along similar lines to those that concerned analytic philosophers like Russell. Can statements involving empty terms be said to be meaningful at all? Are negative existential judgments that seem to be about such terms (e.g. “The golden mountain does not exist”) true, and if so, how? Can formal definitions include unestablished terms, and can we legitimately make inferences that involve them somehow?

These issues were also at the heart of much of the work done on Indian philosophy in the twentieth century. Questions of existence and nonexistence were discussed extensively by Bimal Krishna Matilal, who read the works of the classical Nyāya philosophers in the light of developments in analytic philosophy in the twentieth century. In his Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of Knowledge, Matilal discussed the Nyāya approach to perceptual illusions/empty terms primarily in the context of the Naiyāyikas’ debate with the Buddhists, comparing the Nyāya position with Russell’s approach to empty terms. Arindam Chakrabarti (1997) also gives an overview of these discussions in his work. The Advaita Vedānta view of being has been explored by Ram-Prasad (2002), who gave a reconstruction of what he calls Advaitic “non-realism” in the works of philosophers like Śrīharṣa (fl. 1140) and Vācaspati Miśra (fl. 960).

Jonardon Ganeri’s (2011) work on metaphysics in the Bengali Navya-Nyāya tradition in the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries focuses on the work of the philosopher Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (fl. 1500). According to our best calculations, Raghunātha was almost an exact contemporary of Vyāsatīrtha. Raghunātha’s demolition of classical Vaiśeṣika metaphysics in his “Determination of the Truth about the Categories” (Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa) prompted Navya-Nyāya philosophers to reappraise the foundations of their tradition’s thought, including their theories of being and non-being, or existence and nonexistence. Whether, like the philosopher Veṇīdatta (1695–1795), they accepted the radical spirit of Raghunātha’s critique, or, like Jayarāma Pañcānana (1620–1700), continued to defend the classical Vaiśeṣika system of categories, Navya-Nyāya philosophers writing from the sixteenth century onwards were deeply influenced by Raghunātha’s critical work on metaphysics.

As Raghunātha was shaking the foundations of Vaiśeṣika thought in North India, Vyāsatīrtha was drawing on the same intellectual resources of the Navya-Nyāya tradition to catalyse changes in Vedānta philosophy. Unlike Raghunātha, who was an unapologetically iconoclastic critic of established doctrines, Vyāsatīrtha consistently presented himself as a conservative thinker, going to great pains to show that his philosophy was part of an unbroken line following the works of Madhva and Jayatīrtha. Nevertheless, his work threw into question many of the foundational doctrines of the Mādhva and Advaita traditions, forcing their followers to critically re-evaluate their philosophy in the light of his arguments. All subsequent thinkers in the Mādhva tradition incorporated Vyāsatīrtha’s insights into their works. Moreover, his work on Navya-Nyāya inspired Mādhva intellectuals such as Satyanātha Tīrtha (fl. 1670) and Mannāri Kr̥ṣṇācārya (latter half of the eighteenth century) to engage critically with Raghunātha and the Bengal school of Navya-Nyāya. And while Advaitin philosophers publicly poured scorn on Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments, his work helped draw the Advaitins into the world of Navya-Nyāya learning and forced them to reappraise many of the central arguments of the medieval Advaita tradition.

1.4 Overview of this volume

In Chapter 2, I first outline the major historical facts about the Nyāyāmr̥ta and the large body of literature that has been written on it. In addition, I offer some observations on the historical context of Vyāsatīrtha’s work and its influence over later philosophers belonging to the Mādhva and Advaita traditions. The first part of the chapter also presents the lives of the early commentators on the Nyāyāmr̥ta, many of whom hailed from the town of Puntamba in what is now the state of Maharashtra.

In Chapters 3 and 4, I present the background to the Nyāyāmr̥ta in Mādhva and Advaita philosophical texts. Together, these chapters are intended to give a precise formulation of the scope of the disagreement between the two traditions. Chapter 3 outlines the Mādhva side of this disagreement. I draw mainly on Jayatīrtha’s commentaries on Madhva’s works to reconstruct the Mādhva epistemological and metaphysical positions that are pertinent to Vyāsatīrtha’s discussion.

Chapter 4 then turns to Advaita philosophy. I begin by giving an overview of relevant passages of the works of the classical Advaitins, particularly Vimutkātman (fl. 950), Prakāśātman (fl. 975), and Citsukha (fl. 1220), all of whom loom large in Vyāsatīrtha’s critique. The first half of the chapter largely discusses how these philosophers analyse the concept of “illusoriness” (mithyātva), which is the property that Ānandabodha’s inferences should prove of the world. The larger part of the chapter focuses on Vyāsatīrtha’s own analysis of Advaita philosophy in the “preliminary position” (pūrvapakṣa) that he gives for the Advaitins in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Vyāsatīrtha gives a detailed reconstruction of the Advaitins’ case in this part of the text. Chapter 4 also introduces the three inferences that Ānandabodha gave to establish that the world is illusory.

Chapters 5 and 6 give a reconstruction of Vyāsatīrtha’s case in favour of realism against Ānandabodha’s inferences. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha is first and foremost a critic of Advaita philosophy, yet I here attempt to show that his case against Ānandabodha hangs on a number of positive propositions about knowledge and the world. I begin the chapter by giving a map of Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Advaita which shows how these different positions hang together to make a case against Ānandabodha.

One of Vyāsatīrtha’s most significant contributions to the debate in the Nyāyā-mr̥ta lies in his analyses of “existence” and “nonexistence”. I begin my reconstruction in Chapter 5 by examining Vyāsatīrtha’s theory of existence and nonexistence against the backdrop of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory that existence is a special sort of universal/natural kind. Vyāsatīrtha rejects the theory that existence is a universal. Instead, he defines existence in terms of spatio-temporal instantiation. To exist is simply to be connected with some part of space and time.

Vyāsatīrtha argues that existence, in the way he defines it, is a property we can perceive directly in the objects of our experience, and thus argues that Ānandabodha’s inferences are ruled out by perception. The second half of Chapter 5 examines how Vyāsatīrtha uses the arguments of Madhva and Jayatīrtha to show that perception has the power to undermine Ānandabodha’s inferences. Vyāsatīrtha argues that perception is innately stronger than inference, and that we must consequently abandon any inference that denies the existence of the objects of our perceptions.

It is in this part of the Nyāyāmr̥ta that Vyāsatīrtha gives his most detailed defence of the Mādhva doctrine of the witness (sākṣin). He draws on the work of Madhva and Jayatīrtha to argue that the witness—the essence of the self and the faculty responsible for introspective perceptions—allows us to be certain that these judgments are true and will never be defeated even in future times, thus ruling out the universal “sublation” of the world’s existence anticipated by the Advaitins.

Chapter 6 continues this analysis of Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Ānandabodha, focusing more on philosophical problems surrounding nonexistence. Advaitin philosophers argue that perceptual error furnishes us with a familiar example for inferring the illusoriness of the empirical world. In response, Vyāsatīrtha argues that there is nothing inexplicable about perceptual illusions. They are simply cases where our perceptual faculties conspire with our memories to synthesise a new individual that does not correlate to any particular piece of reality. The things we seem to see in such illusions simply do not exist, and there is therefore no reason to reject our deeply held conviction that existence and nonexistence are exhaustive states.

In the second half of Chapter 6, I examine how Vyāsatīrtha argues that the doctrine of indeterminacy is actually a disguised contradiction. Vyāsatīrtha takes it that, in the way he has defined them, existence and nonexistence are “jointly-exhaustive”qualities. As such, any attempt to prove that something lacks both ends up establishing that that thing possesses them both, which is a contradiction. I consider Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in favour of this charge, along with Madhusūdana’s response to them in his Advaitasiddhi.

The bulk of the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga is concerned with showing that Ānandabodha’s inferences violate a number of formal constraints placed on inference by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers. Chapter 7 focuses mainly on giving the background to Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi. The pith of Vyāsatīrtha’s case is clearly taken from the works of Madhva and Jayatīrtha, yet in the Nyāyāmr̥ta he rejuvenates their arguments by drawing on Gaṅgeśa’s work on inference. Vyāsatīrtha draws particularly on Gaṅgeśa’s discussion of “universal-negative” inference to justify accusing the Advaitins of these formal fallacies. As I show in this chapter, Gaṅgeśa’s discussion there touches on philosophical questions about inference that are especially relevant to Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Ānandabodha’s inferences, particularly about when an inference can be dismissed as redundant, or when we must rule out an inference because some of its terms are not established for us.

The discussion in Chapter 7 thus provides the background in technical Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory necessary to understand the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga. Chapter 9 then contains a translation and commentary of this chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta as well as of some of its Mādhva and Advaita commentaries. It begins with an overview of the key terms borrowed from Navya-Nyāya by Vyāsatīrtha and his commentators, along with some observations on how Vyāsatīrtha’s commentators use them in their analysis of the arguments in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. The chapter then concludes with a translation of the relevant parts of the Nyāyāmr̥ta and the Advaitasiddhi, along with extracts from the Mādhva commentaries by Vyāsa Rāmācārya (1550–1620), Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka (1535–1605), and Śrīnivāsatīrtha (1560–1640).

1.5 Conventions used in this volume

All punctuation found in Sanskrit texts given in this volume is my own and does not necessarily reflect the punctuation used by the editors of the editions I am quoting from. Throughout this volume, I use forward slashes to indicate versification found in Sanskrit texts. Sanskrit commentators often coordinate their remarks on the texts they are commenting on by giving brief extracts from the root text in question (pratīkas). I have indicated the pratīkas found in the works of these commentators using inverted commas, placing the Sanskrit text of the pratīka after its translation to help the reader locate the relevant part of the root text. In many cases I have given variant readings found in editions in footnotes. I have coordinated these readings with the Sanskrit text using superscript numerals.

When referencing editions of Sanskrit texts, I have used the abbreviations that are given in the Bibliography of this volume. If quoting from a commentary on the root text found in the edition in question, I have given the full title of the relevant commentary before the abbreviation for the edition itself. Thus the reference: “Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, NAB, 1:110” would mean that I am quoting from the text of the commentary Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī as it is found on page 110 of the first volume of the Bengaluru edition of the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

2 An historical overview of the Mādhva–Advaita debate

The Nyāyāmr̥ta was the first of Vyāsatīrtha’s three major works, and it proved to be his most influential. Scores of commentaries were written on the text by leading Mā-dhva and Advaitin intellectuals, and the contents of the Nyāyāmr̥ta along with the Tātparyacandrikā laid the basis for Mādhva critiques of their Advaitin and Viśiṣṭā-dvaitin competitors in South India. After Vyāsatīrtha’s death, networks of Mādhva scholars based throughout South India wrote commentaries on his works and tried to reconcile his often innovative philosophical theories with the works of Madhva and Jāytīrtha.

During the last forty years of Vyāsatīrtha’s life, the Vijayanagara Empire was at the height of its military influence and cultural life. Vyāsatīrtha’s work helped to carve out a central role for the Mādhvas in the Empire. In the early decades of the sixteenth century, the Mādhva school went from being a relatively obscure tradition based in South Kanara to a leading political force in the Vijayanagara Empire. Vyāsatīrtha enjoyed a close relationship with the emperors of the Tuḷuva dynasty of Vijayanagara, and he was able to expand the resources and influence of the Mā-dhva tradition considerably during this period. After his death, the Mādhva religion spread across South India, and communities were converted to the Mādhva faith as far north as Bihar. Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments against the Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita traditions laid the intellectual basis for the Mādhva critique of these traditions as they debated one another in the South Indian polities that emerged after the Vijayanagara Empire went into decline in the second half of the sixteenth century.

Vyāsatīrtha’s life is well documented in numerous epigraphical and biographical sources. These supply a rich historical context to the composition of the Nyā-yāmr̥ta. Valerie Stoker (2016) has studied the connections of these sources with the philosophical arguments of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, showing how Vyāsatīrtha’s philosophical project was entangled with his political interactions with the Mādhvas’ Advaitin and Viśiṣṭādvaitin competitors at the Vijayanagara court. My purpose here is simply to give an overview of what is known about Vyāsatīrtha’s life in order to give some historical and intellectual context to the Nyāyāmr̥ta as well as its commentaries. This chapter also gives some biographical details for the major thinkers from the Mādhva and Advaita traditions who feature in the present volume.

I begin with an overview of what is known about the interactions between Mā-dhva and Advaitin philosophers prior to Vyāsatīrtha’s lifetime, and then go on to sketch the historical situation in which the Nyāyāmr̥ta was written. I then discuss what is known about the composition of the early Mādhva commentaries on the Nyāyāmr̥ta and their authors, before examining how Vyāsatīrtha’s work came to be studied and sometimes silently reused by Advaitin philosophers. I have left the discussion of the history of Vyāsatīrtha’s engagement with Gaṅgeśa and the Navya-Naiyāyikas to Chapter 7, where I present a study of Gaṅgeśa’s impact on the Nyāyā-mr̥ta.

2.1 The Mādhva critique of Advaita philosophy before Vyāsatīrtha

By the time Vyāsatīrtha was writing in the sixteenth century, Mādhva philosophers had been composing critiques of the classical Advaitins for over two hundred years. Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Advaita philosophy in the Nyāyāmr̥ta draws deeply on this history of Mādhva polemics against the Advaitins. Besides his own direct teachers, Vyāsatīrtha identifies Madhva and Madhva’s leading commentator Jayatīrtha as his main intellectual influences in the Mādhva tradition.¹

As a student, Vyāsatīrtha studied Madhva’s works and Jayatīrtha’s commentaries with his intellectual preceptor, Śrīpādarāja. It seems likely that his earliest works were the commentaries he wrote on Jayatīrtha’s explanations of four of Madhva’s polemical treatises. Several dates have been proposed for Madhva’s lifetime, but the most widely accepted are those given by Sharma, who argued that he lived from 1238 to 1317. Besides the genealogical records preserved at the different maṭhas in Udupi and epigraphical evidence that alludes to the life of one of Madhva’s leading converts,² the chief source of what we know about Madhva’s life is the Sumadhvavijaya, a verse biography of Madhva written by Nārāyaṇa Paṇḍitācārya (fl. 1330), a son of one of Madhva’s most important converts, Trivikrama Paṇḍitācārya.³

Madhva was born into a family of Śivaḷḷi brahmins in the village of Pājaka, eight miles from the coastal town of Udupi in modern-day Karnataka. To his followers, Madhva is an earthly incarnation (avatāra) of the wind god Vāyu. The tradition holds that Madhva’s teachings are derived from his direct study with the compiler of the Vedas himself, Veda-Vyāsa, who is considered by the Mādhva tradition to be the composer of the Brahmasūtra and a full earthly-incarnation (avatāra) of Viṣṇu.

Madhva was a Smārta Brahmin by birth, and members of his community had traditionally studied the philosophy of Advaita Vedānta.⁴ Yet as a young student Madhva vehemently rejected Advaita philosophy. He rebelled against his teacher, Acyutaprekṣa, and eventually succeeded in converting him to his cause. Madhva established a strong tradition in South India, which came to be based around the eight monasteries (Aṣṭamaṭhas) in Udupi. Udupi remains the spiritual centre of the Mādhva tradition in the present day. Madhva wrote critiques of the different systems of Indian philosophy, including Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, the various schools of Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā, and Buddhist philosophy. However, the Advaitins were always the central target of Madhva’s critical work.

Literary sources written by members of the Mādhva school during this period suggest that the early interactions of the two traditions were extremely acrimonious. The Sumadhvavijaya presents the Advaitins as base villains who shamelessly resorted to nefarious methods to try to defeat Madhva and his fledgling movement. In the twelfth chapter of the work, a coven of Advaitin philosophers conspires to put an end to the career of the brilliant young upstart who threatens their system. The text portrays these Advaitins as unapologetic intellectual obscurantists who had no compunction in using the dark arts of sophistry and sorcery to compensate for the intellectual inadequacies of their system. For instance, in the twelfth chapter of the Sumadhvavijaya, an unidentified Advaitin conspirator remarks:

So what if non-duality does not prove provable when it is met with irrefutable arguments demonstrating that brahman possesses qualities? No one can defeat us, for we are protected by [Padmatīrtha and others] who know the six dark arts, and who possess magic mantras and potions!⁵

Let’s go and with our cunning, plead to neutral parties: “Alas, our ancient tradition, the true scripture, is being destroyed by this newcomer!” Then, in their presence, we should smear [Madhva and his followers] with allegations, regardless of whether they are true or false!⁶

The Sumadhvavijaya goes on to accuse the Advaitins of theft, slander, sophistry, sorcery, assault, and even, at one point, of necromancy.

The text presents the Mādhvas as the vanguard of Indian realism, whose central purpose is to rid the world of the Advaitin menace and communicate the true meaning of scripture to beings trapped in transmigratory existence. In a verse charged with eschatological imagery straight from the eleventh book of the Bhagavadgītā and the burning of the Khāṇḍava forest in the Mahābhārata, the text presents the Mādhvas as the saviours of sentient beings from the delusions of Advaita philosophy. The plotting Advaitins finally admit to their fear of Madhva and his school as follows:

Here in this dense jungle that is our philosophy of illusion (māyāvāda), the Bhāṭṭas are broken, the trees are too thick for the light of the sun (prabhākara) to penetrate, and the travellers in the great vehicle (Mahāyānists) and the rest just tremble in fear! But we can’t ignore the flaming tongue of the truth, which is poised to burn it to ashes!⁷

Madhva’s polemics against the Advaitins are largely recorded in his “Ten Topical Treatises” (the Daśaprakaraṇas) and in his verse commentary on the Brahmasū-tra, the Anuvyākhyāna. The Daśaprakaraṇas are relatively short polemical works that focus on a particular philosophical subject. Five of them contain detailed refutations of Advaita thought—the Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya (“Ascertainment of the Truth about Viṣṇu”), the Tattvoddyota (“Illumination of the Truth”),⁸ the Mithyātvānumā-nakhaṇḍana (“Refutation of the Inference to prove that [the World] is Illusory”), the Māyāvādakhaṇḍana (“Refutation of the Doctrine that [the World] is Illusion”), and the Upādhikhaṇḍana (“Refutation of the [Advaita Theory] of Conditioning Adjuncts”). Madhva developed a legalistic style of argumentation which often focused on demonstrating that the inferential arguments made by the Advaitins to defend their philosophy suffer from an array of formal fallacies. His work is steeped in the Nyāya theory of inference, and it has been argued that Madhva was influenced by the inferential theory of the tenth-century Kashmiri Naiyāyika Bhāsarvajña.⁹

Despite their antagonism towards the Advaitins, the Mādhvas studied classical Advaita philosophy extensively. Madhva himself never identified his Advaitin opponents explicitly, but it is clear from his writings that he studied several of their works in depth. One of Madhva’s main influences was Vimuktātman (fl. 950), who wrote an independent work on Advaita philosophy called the Iṣṭasiddhi.¹⁰ Vimuktā-tman’s work exerted a deep influence over the development of the Advaita tradition, and also over the work of Rāmānuja, who made extensive use of the Iṣṭasiddhi when reconstructing Advaita philosophy in his Śrībhāṣya. When Madhva was writing over two centuries after Vimuktātman’s death, the Iṣṭasiddhi was apparently still regarded as a classic work of Advaita thought. The Sumadhvavijaya states that Madhva’s teacher, Acyutaprekṣa, attempted to teach Madhva the work as a young student. The text says that Madhva was less than impressed with Vimuktātman’s arguments, and he rejected the opening stanza as containing no less than thirty-two logical fallacies. Madhva’s own works show that he was closely familiar with Vimuktātman’s arguments.¹¹

Madhva also shows familiarity with Prakāśātman’s (fl. 975¹²) Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa in his Anuvyākhyāna.¹³ He also shows familiarity with the works of Sarvajñātman (fl. 1027)¹⁴ in his Anuvyākhyāna and Tattvoddyota. Madhva was also clearly aware of the work of the Advaitin dialectician Śrīharṣa (fl. 1140), whose arguments he refers to in his topical treatises.¹⁵ As I will discuss further below in this chapter, Madhva was clearly aware of the works of the Advaitin philosopher Ānandabodha Yati (fl. 1220). Ānandabodha, who is sometimes known as Ānandabodha Bhaṭṭāraka, seems to have flourished at the beginning of the twelfth century. He may have been a student of Vimuktātman, since he quotes Vimuktātman’s Iṣṭasiddhi and refers to Vimuktātman as “guru” in his Nyāyamakaranda.¹⁶

While Madhva laid the basis for the critique of Advaita philosophy in his tradition, his writings were extremely laconic. His works attracted a number of commentaries from his followers, but it was Jayatīrtha’s (1330–1388) elaborate commentaries on Madhva’s writings that came to be regarded as the standard explanation of his philosophy. According to traditional hagiographies, Jayatīrtha was born into a noble family with the name Dhoṇḍo Pant Raghunāth. He was born in South India either in what is today the state of Maharashtra, or further south in modern-day Karnataka. At some point early in his life, Jayatīrtha came under the influence of the ascetic Akṣobhyatīrtha (fl. 1350), who is regarded by tradition as a direct disciple of Madhva himself. Jayatīrtha left his family and was initiated into the Mādhva tradition as a renunciate.¹⁷

Jayatīrtha systematised Madhva’s thought by writing philosophically constructive commentaries on all of his main works (he is remembered in the Mādhva tradition as the “author of the ṭīkās”, the ṭīkākāra). His most important work is the “Nectar of Reasoning” (Nyāyasudhā), an extensive commentary on Madhva’s Anuvyākhyāna. Young students at the Mādhva vidyāpīṭhas in South India still study the text as a standard work of Mādhva philosophy in the present day. It includes an extensive critique of Advaita philosophy as well as an elaborate treatment of perceptual illusion known as the “The Discussion of the Five Theories of Error” (Pañcā-khyātivāda). Jayatīrtha’s commentaries quickly eclipsed earlier glosses of Madhva’s writings, and became regarded as the standard works on them. In the benedictory verses to all three of his major works, Vyāsatīrtha acknowledges Jayatīrtha as one of his main influences in the Mādhva tradition, and he interprets Madhva’s arguments largely through the lens of Jayatīrtha’s ṭīkās.

Jayatīrtha organised Madhva’s polemics against the Advaitins into a concise systematic debate treatise known as the Vādāvalī. The Vādāvalī was an attempt at a comprehensive refutation of Advaita philosophy, in which Jayatīrtha used contemporary Nyāya epistemological theory to evaluate the Advaitins’ philosophical arguments. It begins with a critique of Ānandabodha’s inferences to prove that the world is “illusory” (mithyā), which is also the starting point for the debate in the Nyāyā-mr̥ta. The work helped lay the basis for Viṣṇudāsācārya’s (fl. 1400) “Pearl-Necklace of Arguments” (Vādaratnāvalī) and ultimately the Nyāyāmr̥ta itself. The Vādāvalī is still studied today by young Mādhva students as a gentle introduction to the much more difficult Nyāyāmr̥ta.

Jayatīrtha was aware of all the Advaitin philosophers whom Madhva had been aware of. As Sharma observes, he clearly displays knowledge of Vimuktātman, Vā-caspati, Padmapāda, Prakāśātman, Śrīharṣa, and Ānandabodha.¹⁸ Jayatīrtha was also deeply influenced by the works of the Advaitin philosopher Citsukha (fl. 1220), whom it seems Madhva did not know. Along with Śrīharṣa, Citsukha is widely considered to be one of the greatest Advaitin dialecticians. He is usually taken to have worked mainly in the first half of the thirteenth century and is connected with what is today the Vizakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh.¹⁹ Jayatīrtha devoted a great deal of effort to refuting Citsukha’s arguments. According to Sharma, the Vādāvalī was written primarily to refute Citsukha,²⁰ and Jayatīrtha quotes from Citsukha’s Tattvapradīpikā at length in his ṭīkā on Madhva’s Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya.²¹ Although he does not usually name Advaitin philosophers in his works, Jayatīrtha does refer to Citsukha once by name in the Vādāvalī.²²

Scholarship by Sharma (1981: 268–285) and Edwin Gerow (1987 and 1990) has further highlighted the impact that the work of the fifteenth century Mādhva intellectual Viṣṇudāsācārya (fl. 1430) had over Vyāsatīrtha’s thought. Gerow (1990: xiii) argues that Viṣṇudāsa’s work marks a “crucial link” between Jayatīrtha and Vyā-satīrtha, and shows (1987: 565–577) how Viṣṇudāsa’s twenty interpretations of the Upaniṣadic mahāvākya “tat tvam asi” came to influence Vyāsatīrtha’s exegesis of the same text in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Gerow notes that until the rediscovery of Viṣṇudāsa’s Vādaratnāvalī, it was widely assumed that the twenty interpretations originated with Vyāsatīrtha himself. However, he argues that Vyāsatīrtha modelled his interpretation of the mahāvākya on Viṣṇudāsa’s, and that Vyāsatīrtha was largely responsible for “systematising” Viṣṇudāsa’s account rather than “extending” it. Gerow (1990: viii) further argues that the intellectual basis for Vyāsatīrtha’s engagement with Mīmāṃsā and grammatical science was laid by Viṣṇudāsa, who began to seriously engage with the ideas of these disciplines in his critique of Advaita thought. Curiously, Vyāsatīrtha does not refer to Viṣṇudāsa in his works despite the clear influence that the Vādaratnāvalī had over his thought.²³

2.2 Vyāsatīrtha and the rise of the Mādhvas in the Vijayanagara Empire

Despite the work of Jayatīrtha and Viṣṇudāsa, the Mādhvas seem to have largely existed in intellectual isolation during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The tradition does not seem to have enjoyed much support among South Indian rulers during this period. Madhva himself lived under the Hoysaḷa Empire, which ruled over most of what is now Karnataka between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. He died two decades before the founding of the Vijayanagara Empire by the brothers Harihara and Bukka Rāya in 1336. The rulers of Vijayanagara succeeded in uniting the local polities of South India and formed an empire that encompassed most of the South until its capital city was ransacked by a coalition of rival powers after the battle of Talikot in 1565. The Vijayanagara emperors of the Saṅgama dynasty seem to have had a close relationship with the Smārta-Advaitin community and their maṭha in Śr̥ṅgeri. There seems to be no inscriptional or literary evidence that the early rulers of Vijayanagara were influenced by the leaders of the Mādhva religion, although modern Mādhva scholars have argued that there is evidence suggesting that Mādhva saints held some influence in the early stages of the empire’s history.²⁴

Prior to Vyāsatīrtha’s lifetime, there is very little evidence that Mādhva arguments were studied seriously by any of the other traditions of philosophy in India. Some of the earliest references to Madhva’s works outside of the Mādhva tradition are found in the literature of the Viśiṣṭādvaita school. Roque Mesquita discusses how the Viśiṣṭādvaitin philosopher Veṅkaṭanātha refers to Madhva in his critique of Advaita philosophy, the Śatadūṣaṇī. Veṅkaṭanātha seems to imply that Madhva falsified numerous texts to serve his own ends.²⁵ Mesquita further points out that Veṅkaṭanātha’s immediate predecessor, Varadaguru (1200–1290), who was a senior contemporary of Madhva, makes similar remarks in his work on the theory of renunciation, the Yatiliṅgasamārthana.

Besides the works of these Viśiṣṭādvaitin scholars, Mādhava/Vidyāraṇya’s (fl. 1350) famous compendium of the different philosophies of his day, the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha, contains a chapter on the Pūrṇaprajñadarśana (“The System of Pūrṇaprajña [= Madhva]”). It is significant that the Mādhvas were included in this work, although the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha was clearly intended to be a very inclusive or even comprehensive overview of the main schools active at the time it was written. Sources in the Mādhva and Viśiṣṭādvaita traditions further speak of an oral debate between Jayatīrtha’s preceptor, Akṣobhyatīrtha, and Vidyāraṇya on the subject of the Upaniṣadic mahāvākya “tat tvam asi” at some point in the fourteenth century.²⁶

The neglect of the Mādhva school by the other traditions of Indian philosophy changed dramatically in the sixteenth century. In the early decades of this century, Vyāsatīrtha helped propel the Mādhvas into the centre of the power-politics of the Vijayanagara Empire, thus establishing them as a leading tradition in the Indian philosophical world. Sharma has concluded that Vyāsatīrtha lived from 1460 to 1539.²⁷ The Vyāsayogicarita, a campu-style biographical work which was written by the poet Somanātha, provides an extensive account of his life. According to the text, Vyāsatīrtha was born in the village of Bannur in what is now Karnataka. His father was Ballaṇṇa Sumati. Somanātha says that Vyāsatīrtha was born to his father’s second wife, Akkamma, and that he was named “Yatirāja” until his renunciation. His early education was overseen by Brahmaṇya Tīrtha, the leader of a prominent Mādhva maṭha. Vyāsatīrtha identifies Brahmaṇya Tīrtha as his “consecration-preceptor” (dīkṣāguru) in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. After his early education, Vyāsatīrtha travelled to the intellectual centre of Kancipuram in Tamil Nadu, where he is said to have studied the six classical darśanas of Indian philosophy. After his general education at Kancipuram, Vyāsatīrtha studied with the Mādhva philosopher Śrīpādarāja (also known as Lakṣmīnārāyaṇatīrtha), whom he refers to as his “intellectual preceptor” (vidyāguru) in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

According to Sharma,²⁸ there is evidence that Śrīpādarāja already exerted some influence over the emperors of Vijayanagara during the early years of its second dynasty. However, it was Vyāsatīrtha himself who seems to have led the Mādhvas to a position of prominence at Vijayanagara. The Vyāsayogicarita reports that Vyā-satīrtha was dispatched by Śrīpādarāja to Candragiri, which was at the time the capital of the empire. According to the text, he there impressed the emperor Sāḷuva Narasiṃha I (r. 1485–1491) with his abilities as a philosopher. Sharma (1981: 288) says that Vyāsatīrtha was entrusted with the worship of the god Śrīnivāsa at the Vaiṣṇava temple complex in Tirupati during Sāḷuva Narasiṃha’s reign. Vyāsatīrtha remained at the capital of the empire itself for several years, and continued to enjoy a close relationship with the early rulers of the empire’s third dynasty—Narasa Nāyaka, Vīranarasiṃharāya, and Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya. Under his leadership, the Mādhvas established a presence for themselves at leading centres of worship throughout the empire and, with the help of patronage from the Vijayanagara emperors, expanded the institutional basis of their religion.

Vyāsatīrtha was the head of an expansive network of maṭhas, and that network was extended considerably during the Vijayanagara period. The Vijayanagara emperors granted him considerable resources to build new maṭhas and related agrahāras (settlements of Brahmin families). Vyāsatīrtha also succeeded in having Mādhva rituals and icons inserted into key temple complexes within the empire, including Tirupati.²⁹ There is evidence that he enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the emperor Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya. On the strength of the evidence of the Vyāsayogicarita and passages of a text attributed to Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya himself, Sharma (1981: 289–290) argued that Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya regarded Vyāsatīrtha as his “personal guru”. The Vyāsayogicarita itself identifies Vyāsatīrtha as Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya’s “family deity” (kuladevatā), although the precise significance of this statement and the nature of Vyāsatīrtha’s relationship with Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya have been disputed by modern scholars.³⁰

Before Vyāsatīrtha, the Mādhva tradition had been largely confined to the western coast of Karnataka. Under his leadership, the tradition was able to expand its influence into Tamil and Telugu speaking regions of South India. Vyāsatīrtha competed with the Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita traditions to win patronage and resources from the Vijayanagara state. However, he also seems to have facilitated a tactical alliance with the Śrīvaiṣṇavas, which was rooted in the commonalities of their Viṣṇuoriented religions.³¹ Tradition ascribes eight Sanskrit texts to Vyāsatīrtha, although he may have written a further work which is now lost.³²

All of these texts are philosophical in subject matter. Vyāsatīrtha wrote four independent texts. The three most important of these, which are known collectively as the Vyāsatraya, are the Nyāyāmr̥ta, the “The Death-Dance of Logic” (Tarkatāṇḍava), and the “Illumination of the Purport [of Scripture]” (Tātparyacandrikā). Vyāsatīr-tha also wrote a relatively short independent treatise called the “Resuscitation of Difference” (Bhedojjīvana), a defence of the category of difference which had been the subject of critiques by Advaitin philosophers from Maṇḍana Miśra onwards.

Vyāsatīrtha’s earliest works seem to be the sub-commentaries he wrote on Jayatīrtha’s own commentaries on Madhva’s Daśaprakaraṇas. These are collectively known as the Mandāramañjarī. Vyāsatīrtha wrote these sub-commentaries on Madhva’s Mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana, Māyāvādakhaṇḍana, Upādhikhaṇḍana, and Tattvaviveka.³³ In his colophons to these texts, Vyāsatīrtha indicates that he wrote them on the basis of his study with Śrīpādarāja. These commentaries often display strikingly original thinking about key points of doctrine, and Vyāsatīrtha clearly deviates from Jayatīrtha in his interpretation of central epistemological and ontological concepts in them. As I will discuss in Chapter 3, later texts in the Mādhva tradition frequently accept the definitions and theories Vyāsatīrtha puts forward in these texts as standard aspects of Mādhva philosophy.

Besides composing philosophical works in Sanskrit, Vyāsatīrtha played a pivotal role in the Haridāsa movement. This movement, rooted in the devotion to Mā-dhva’s religious doctrines, saw its members disseminating these ideas through the creation of devotional poetry in the Kannada vernacular. Its origins can be traced back to Narahari Tīrtha (fl. 1327), one of Mādhva’s direct disciples. Notably, Vyāsatīrtha’s teacher, Śrīpādarāja, is recognised as one of the movement’s leading figures. Vyāsatīrtha himself contributed significantly to this cultural and religious wave by composing numerous hymns in Kannada under the nom de plume (mudrikā) “Śrī Kr̥ṣṇa”. Moreover, he is acknowledged as the preceptor of two of the most eminent Haridāsas, Purandaradāsa and Kanakadāsa.³⁴

Since Vyāsatīrtha refers explicitly to the Nyāyāmr̥ta in the Tarkatāṇḍava, we know that he wrote the former before the Tarkatāṇḍava. Vyāsatīrtha also refers to the Nyāyāmr̥ta in the Tātparyacandrikā, and we can thus say that the Nyāyā-mr̥ta was the earliest of his three major works.³⁵ According to Sharma (1981: 289), Vyāsatīrtha probably began to compose these three works during the reign of Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya’s predecessor, Vīranarasiṃha (r. 1503–1509). Vyāsatīrtha’s increasing prominence in the Vijayanagara Empire seems to have granted him new opportunities to publicise his philosophical arguments. In the introduction to his edition of the Vyāsayogicarita, the scholar Venkoba Rao claims that Vyāsatīrtha taught the Vyāsatraya at the Imperial University of the Vijayanagara Empire, where he occupied the Sarasvatīpīṭha.³⁶

The Nyāyāmr̥ta and the Tarkatāṇḍava are “debate books” (vādagranthas). They are independent (i.e. non-commentarial) works which were written to defend Vyā-satīrtha’s position primarily against the Advaitins and the Navya-Naiyāyikas. The Tātparyacandrikā, by contrast, is a sub-commentary on Jayatīrtha’s Tattvaprakāśikā, which is itself a commentary on Madhva’s earliest commentary on the Brahmasū-tra, the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya. In both the Tātparyacandrikā and the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha quotes copiously from Advaita philosophical works, frequently naming them and their authors explicitly. The Nyāyāmr̥ta was clearly intended to be an encyclopedic refutation of Advaita philosophy, and Vyāsatīrtha refers to a very wide spectrum of classical Advaitin authors throughout the text. A comprehensive study of these references in the Nyāyāmr̥ta has yet to be undertaken.

An early Advaitin whom Vyāsatīrtha quotes is Maṇḍana Miśra (fl. 690). Vyāsatīrtha repeats an entire śloka from Maṇḍana’s Brahmasiddhi, referring to its author simply as “Maṇḍana”.³⁷ Vyāsatīrtha also refers explicitly to Padmapāda’s (fl. 740) Pañcapādikā, which he cites in a discussion about the doctrine of indeterminacy.³⁸ Vyāsatīrtha further alludes to Sureśvara’s (fl. 740) Vārttika on the Brahmasūtrabhā-ṣya of Śaṅkara.³⁹ Vyāsatīrtha was clearly aware of Vācaspati Miśra’s Bhāmatī, and he quotes it frequently throughout the Nyāyāmr̥ta.⁴⁰ He also quotes Prakāśātman’s Vivaraṇa.⁴¹ Vyāsatīrtha was clearly aware of Śrīharṣa, whose Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍanakhādya he refers to simply as the Khaṇḍana.⁴² In the opening sections of the Nyāyā-mr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha refers several times to Ānandabodha’s works, usually in connection with the formal inferences that Ānandabodha made in the Nyāyamakaranda and Nyāyadīpāvalī. It is clear that Vyāsatīrtha, like Jayatīrtha, was deeply influenced by Citsukha’s Tattvapradīpikā, since he refers to Citsukha’s text extensively in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. He still refers to Citsukha as the “newcomer” (navīna) in this part of the text.⁴³

Vyāsatīrtha also shows familiarity with the extensive body of commentarial literature written on Prakāśātman’s Vivaraṇa. Lawrence McCrea (2015) has published a study of Vyāsatīrtha’s references to Advaita commentaries on the Vivaraṇa in the third book of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. McCrea’s analysis focuses on a chapter of the Nyāyā-mr̥ta where Vyāsatīrtha refutes the Advaitins’ interpretation of Br̥hadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2,4.5 (ātmā vā are draṣṭavyaḥ śrotavyo mantavyo nididhyāsitavyo maitreyi). McCrea examines how Vyāsatīrtha carefully scrutinised the various commentaries written on the Vivaraṇa when critiquing the Advaitins’ interpretation of this passage. In this section of the text, Vyāsatīrtha shows an awareness of Ānandapūrṇa Vidyāsāgara (fl. 1350),⁴⁴ Jñānaghana’s (fl. 900) Tattvaśuddhi,⁴⁵ and Rāmādvaya’s (fl. 1340) Vedāntakaumudī.⁴⁶ In this part of the text, Vyāsatīrtha also alludes to Citsukha’s commentary on the Vivaraṇa.⁴⁷

2.3 An overview of Sanskrit texts written on the Nyāyāmr̥ta

The arguments made against Advaita philosophy by Madhva, Jayatīrtha, and Viṣṇudāsa largely fell on deaf ears. Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmr̥ta, however, quickly attracted critical replies from Advaitin philosophers. Vyāsatīrtha’s success in attracting the attention of these prominent Advaitins reflects both the intellectual quality of his work and his tradition’s newly-won prominence at the Vijayanagara court. The Nyāyāmr̥ta was clearly Vyāsatīrtha’s most influential text. The Tātparycandrikā also gained a certain amount of attention from other traditions, since we know that Advaitin and Viśiṣṭādvaitin scholars wrote critical replies to the text after Vyāsatīrtha’s death. The Tātparyacandrikā further laid the intellectual basis for Vijayīndratīrtha’s (1514–1595) polemics against the Viśiṣṭādvaitins.⁴⁸

The Nyāyāmr̥ta proved to be a decisive intellectual breakthrough for the Mādhvas and quickly attracted critical replies. The first known Advaita work that responded to the Nyāyāmr̥ta was the Tattvaviveka which was written by Nr̥siṃhāśrama in 1547.⁴⁹ Although parts of the Tattvaviveka were occasionally discussed by Vyāsatīrtha’s early commentators, the text made little impact on the subsequent debate between the Mādhvas and the Advaitins.⁵⁰ Madhusūdana Sarasvatī’s “Establishment of Non-duality” (Advaitasiddhi) thus marks the true beginning of the debate between the two traditions. Madhusūdana seems to have written the Advaitasiddhi towards the end of the sixteenth century.⁵¹ The ensuing debate between Mādhva and Advaitin commentators formed one of the central genres of Vedānta philosophical literature for several centuries after the Nyāyāmr̥ta was written. Sanskrit commentarial literature continued to be written on the Nyāyāmr̥ta and Advaitasiddhi well into the eighteenth century, and contemporary Mādhva and Advaitin scholars still compose critical analyses of the Nyāyāmr̥ta literature in modern languages in the present day. Many of the most important contributions to this debate have already been published, although a large number still await editing in manuscript libraries in South India.

Members of the Mādhva tradition responded swiftly to Madhusūdana’s arguments. The lives of the Mādhva philosophers who built on Vyāsatīrtha’s work are often well-documented in the hagiographies written by members of the Mādhva tradition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An early commentary on the Nyāyāmr̥ta which has not yet been printed seems to have been written by Vijayīndratīrtha, who has sometimes been identified as a direct student of Vyāsatīrtha.⁵² Two early Mādhva commentaries on the Nyāyāmr̥ta were written by scholars originating from a village known as Puntamba⁵³ in modern-day Maharastra. Puntamba was at that time a stronghold of Vaiṣṇava religion in the region. These two works, which reply directly to the Advaitasiddhi, were written by Vyāsa Rāmācārya (1550–1620) and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka (1535–1605).⁵⁴ Both of these intellectuals seem to have been disciples of Raghūttama Tīrtha, who himself flourished in the latter half of the sixteenth century.⁵⁵

What little we know about Rāmācārya’s life comes mainly from the benedictory verses at the beginning of his Taraṅginī. As Sharma (1981: 178) observes, these verses indicate that he belonged to the Upamanyu gotra, and that “Vyāsa” was his family name. Rāmācārya states that his native village was “Ambāpūrī”, which, according to Sharma (1981: 179), must be identified with Puntamba. Rāmācārya clearly indicates that Raghūttama was his guru, although he credits much of his education to his elder brother, one Nārāyaṇa.⁵⁶ Anantakrishna Sastri (NAK: 88) records the story that Rāmācārya was able to study with Madhusūdana in person by approaching him in the guise of an Advaitin student. According to this story, Rāmācārya wrote the Taraṅginī during this period of study and presented it to Madhusūdana as a gift at the conclusion of the tuition.

We have considerably more knowledge of Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka’s life. This information comes mainly from a Sanskrit biography written about his son, Vidyādhīśa Tīrtha, who was a head of the Uttarādi Maṭha.⁵⁷ The modern-day Pandurangi family trace their lineage back to Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka, and they ultimately claim descent from Madhva’s direct disciple, Padmanābha Tīrtha.⁵⁸ Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka is said to have been the son of a learned brahmin named Trivikrama Bhaṭṭa. He studied śāstra in Varanasi, before learning Mādhva philosophy with Raghūttama.⁵⁹ After this he returned to Puntamba to teach. The Vidyādhīśavijaya indicates that Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka wrote further works elucidating Jayatīrtha’s commentaries, although these are not known to modern scholarship.⁶⁰ According to the Vidyādhīśavijaya, the Mādhvas living in Puntamba moved south at the end of the sixteenth century because of the Muslim invasion of the area.⁶¹ Vidyādhīśa eventually took sannyāsa and became head of the Uttarādi Maṭha. Unlike his father, he did not write on the Nyāyāmr̥ta, although he wrote an important commentary on the opening parts of Jayatīrtha’s Nyāyasudhā known as the Vākyārthacandrikā, which is said to have been composed in Udupi. Vidyādhīśa quotes from Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmr̥ta and Tātparyacandrikā frequently in that commentary.⁶²

Rāmācārya’s Taraṅginī clearly precedes Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka’s Kaṇṭakoddhāra, since Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka often criticises Rāmācārya’s views. As I discuss in Chapter 7, both commentaries are highly technical and evince a deep knowledge of Navya-Nyāya; both commentators frequently quote or summarise parts of Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi and its commentaries in their works. Sharma was of the view that Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka’s works are not as intellectually accomplished as Rāmācārya’s, although this evaluation has been disputed by Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka’s modern descendant Veeranarayana Pandurangi (2017: 183). There are clearly sections covered in this book (for instance, the Sattvanirukti) where Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka’s arguments against Madhusūdana are far more detailed than Rāmācārya’s.

Another early commentary on the Nyāyāmr̥ta is Śrīnivāsatīrtha’s (1560–1640) Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa. According to the modern Mādhva scholar K. T. Pandurangi, Śrīnivāsatīrtha came from the town of Bidarahalli near Bengaluru and was a nephew and disciple of a scholar known as Yādavarya. He gained the title Tīrtha from Rāghavendratīrtha on the basis of his contributions to Mādhva literature despite never actually undergoing sannyāsa.⁶³ The Prakāśa is valuable to modern scholarship since it generally explains the Nyāyāmr̥ta in conventional, lucid Sanskrit, in contrast to the more technical commentaries of Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka.

These Mādhva rejoinders to Madhusūdana’s Advaitasiddhi were in turn challenged by Advaitin philosophers. An early commentary written to defend the Advaitasiddhi is the Siddhivyākhyā of Balabhadra (fl. 1610). Balabhadra is usually taken to have been a direct student of Madhusūdana because Madhusūdana mentions him by name at the end of his Siddhāntabindu.⁶⁴ The Siddhivyākhyā is primarily a polemical response to Rāmācārya’s Taraṅginī, of which sections are often quoted verbatim. Balabhadra seems to have been unaware of Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka’s Kaṇṭakoddhāra, however. Two further commentaries were written on the Advaitasiddhi by Gauḍa Brahmānanda (fl. 1700).⁶⁵ These were analytic works, known generally as the Laghu-and Guru-Candrikās or (Gauḍa-)brahmānandīyas. The Laghucandrikā, as the name suggests, is a condensed version of the Gurucandrikā. As Nair (1990: 30) points out, there has been some doubt about the authorship of the commentaries based on internal evidence within their texts. However, he concludes that Brahmānanda must be the author of both works. Unlike Balabhadra, Brahmānanda deals not only with the Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, but also with the Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra.⁶⁶ Both commentaries contain highly technical reformulations of Madhusūdana’s arguments using Navya-Nyāya terminology.

The Mādhva philosopher Vanamālī Miśra (fl. 1680) critiqued Brahmānanda.⁶⁷ Vanamālī seems to have originated from Bihar in North India. Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka’s son, Vidyādhīśa Tīrtha, was responsible for spreading the Mādhva religion in the North, where he converted a community of tāntrikas in Gayā in Bihar to the Mā-dhva religion in the seventeenth century.⁶⁸ Vanamālī wrote a terse commentary on the Nyāyāmr̥ta known as the Saugandhya. Parts of the Saugandhya were published by Sastri (NAK). The work has also recently been published by K. T. Pandurangi (2014) in Bengaluru. Vanamālī’s works were in turn critiqued by the Advaitin Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāya (fl. 1755) in the Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāyī, which was written to explain Brahmā-nanda’s Laghucandrikā.

Vyāsatīrtha’s work thus shaped the intellectual development of his tradition profoundly, and original work on the Nyāyamr̥ta was still being written by members of the Mādhva religion three hundred years after his death. Recent scholarship has also highlighted how the text helped to reshape the Advaita tradition. Vyāsatīrtha was one of the Advaita tradition’s most ruthless critics, but he seems to have exercised a profound influence over the development of Advaita philosophy in the early modern period. While it is clear that Madhusūdana himself studied Navya-Nyāya in Bengal, Vyāsatīrtha’s work in the Nyāyāmr̥ta helped to draw Madhusū-dana deeply into the subject and to apply Navya-Nyāya thought to his interpretation of the works of the classical Advaitins. As I discuss in Chapter 6, Vyāsatīrtha’s work on indeterminacy and the problem of contradiction also prompted Madhusūdana to develop new arguments to defend his tradition’s thought on this issue.

Advaitin philosophers, of course, rejected Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments against their tradition, sometimes with outright disdain. Appayya Dīkṣita (fl. 1585), for instance, wrote critiques of Vyāsatīrtha and the Mādhva system with vituperative titles like “The Grinding of the Face of the System of Madhva” (Madhvatantramukhamardana).⁶⁹ Nevertheless, even Appayya seems to have reused parts of Vyāsatīrtha’s works implicitly on many occasions. Jonathan Duquette (2019) has explored Vyāsatīrtha’s influence over Appayya’s Śivārkamaṇidīpikā. He shows that in that text, Appayya draws heavily on Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Gaṅgeśa’s formal inferences to prove the existence of god in the Īśvaravāda of the Tattvacintāmaṇi. Duquette shows that Appayya tacitly reused aspects of the Īśvaravāda of Vyāsatīrtha’s Tarkatāṇḍava to build his own critique of Gaṅgeśa’s arguments. Duquette also argues that Appayya’s study of Vyāsatīrtha served to catalyse his own interest in Navya-Nyāya in general.⁷⁰

Besides helping to draw Advaitin philosophers into Navya-Nyāya thought, Vyā-satīrtha’s careful historical reconstruction of Advaita philosophy in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta may have helped to shape the Advaita tradition’s understanding of its own intellectual history. As McCrea (2015: 96–97) argues in his study of the third book of the Nyāyamr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha’s work may have marked the origin of the tendency of Advaitin philosophers to distinguish sharply between the Bhāmatī and Vivaraṇa sub-schools of Advaita thought. McCrea writes:

Considering the sharp division he draws between these two strands of Advaita thought and the seeming lack of such clear differentiation earlier, it seems almost reasonable to describe Vyāsatīrtha as the discoverer, not to say the inventor, of the Bhāmatī and Vivaraṇa schools of Advaita Vedānta. That Vyāsatīrtha’s own foray into the doxography of Advaita seems to have had such a significant impact on the way the Advaitins saw the divisions in their own field is a testament to his achievements as a scholar and as an intellectual historian. One might almost go so far as to say that Vyāsatīrtha knows the Advaitins better than they know themselves.

Thus, in the process of sparring with Vyāsatīrtha, the Advaita tradition may have absorbed some of his key ideas about their own history, and Vyāsatīrtha’s historical reconstruction of Advaita tradition may have helped draw divisions that are still recognised today. Despite being one of Advaita philosophy’s fiercest critics and a member of a tradition many Advaitins regarded with outright disdain, Vyāsatīrtha’s work in the Nyāyāmr̥ta and Tarkatāṇḍava quietly helped to reshape Advaita philosophy in the centuries after his death.

2.4 The Mādhvas and the transmission of Navya-Nyāya philosophy to South India

I will conclude this section with some general remarks about the role of the Mā-dhvas in the history of Navya-Nyāya thought. I will also discuss Vyāsatīrtha’s use of Navya-Nyāya extensively in the introduction to Chapter 7 of this volume. I conclude this section with some remarks about the Mādhvas’ engagement with the works of Navya-Nyāya before and after Vyāsatīrtha. The Mādhvas played an important role in bringing Navya-Nyāya learning to South India, and modern Mādhva scholars are still proud of their role in bringing the works of Gaṅgeśa and his followers to the South. Contemporary Mādhva scholars continue to study Navya-Nyāya philosophy, and students trained at the Mādhva vidyāpīṭhas in South India regularly participate in competitive debates on Navya-Nyāya works. Vyāsatīrtha was the first intellectual in his tradition, and probably the first in South India, whose works show a detailed engagement with Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi. According to the dates accepted by modern scholars, Gaṅgeśa (fl. 1325) lived approximately 175 years before Vyāsatīrtha was in his prime. Vyāsatīrtha’s earliest commentaries on the works of Madhva and Jayatīrtha show that he had an advanced knowledge of contemporary Nyāya ideas and technical language. By the time he composed the Nyāyāmr̥ta, however, it is clear that Vyāsatīrtha had studied the Tattvacintāmaṇi in depth. He shows an extensive familiarity with the second chapter of Gaṅgeśa’s work, which deals with the theory of inference.

There is some evidence that Gaṅgeśa’s arguments were already being studied in South India when Vyāsatīrtha was writing.⁷¹ However, the Naiyāyikas were not a major rival of the Mādhvas in the South. While Navya-Nyāya philosophy was undoubtedly studied in South India during the early modern period, the epicentre of Navya-Nyāya learning clearly lay in North India, first in Mithila and later in Bengal. It is difficult to identify any outstanding Nyāya philosophers in South India during the Vijayanagara period.⁷² The Mādhvas’ leading competitors in the Vijayanagara Empire were the Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedāntins, and later the Śivādvaita and Vīra-Śaiva movements.⁷³ If the Navya-Naiyāyikas were not among the leading competitors to the Mādhvas in the South, what motivated Vyāsatīrtha to engage so deeply with the school’s ideas?

Until the sixteenth century, the Mādhvas had largely been ignored by the other traditions of Indian philosophy. Vyāsatīrtha’s three major works clearly reflect an ambition to raise the profile of the Mādhvas as a philosophical school and to engage other traditions of philosophy in critical debate. The evidence from the Tarkatāṇḍava suggests that Vyāsatīrtha wanted to engage with cutting-edge Navya-Nyāya philosophers, including intellectuals like Yajñapati Upādhyāya (fl. 1460) and Jayadeva Pakṣadhara (fl. 1470), who seem to have been senior contemporaries of his. By engaging with Navya-Nyāya, a prestigious new philosophical school which already seems to have had some standing among South Indian intellectuals,⁷⁴ Vyā-satīrtha hoped to raise the profile of his own tradition and to demonstrate that the Mādhvas should be regarded as a serious intellectual presence in the Indian philosophical world.

Vyāsatīrtha’s work on Navya-Nyāya seems to be part of the broader move to normalise Mādhva philosophy that is already discernible in the works of the fourteenth-century Mādhva philosopher Viṣṇudāsācārya. In the early modern period, Advaitin philosophers like Appayya Dīkṣita seized upon the fact that Madhva himself had grounded his philosophical ideas in the controversial “lost” texts whose existence has been doubted by modern scholars. Vyāsatīrtha does not place much stress on these texts in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. The only place where he really makes use of such controversial sources is in the final book of the work, when discussing the distinctive Mādhva theory that the individual souls continue to stand in a hierarchical relationship to one another even in liberation.⁷⁵ He avoids the Brahmatarka, for instance, which is traditionally regarded as the basic Mādhva text on epistemology.⁷⁶ His engagement with key specialist disciplines of Indian thought (grammatical science, Mīmāṃsā, and Navya-Nyāya in particular) reflect this project to normalise Mādhva philosophy and to confer mainstream respectability on it by justifying it in the terms of these traditions. These factors no doubt contributed to the success of Vyāsatīrtha’s work in attracting replies from leading scholars of opposing schools, including Madhusūdana.

In the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha appears keen to demonstrate to his readers that he is familiar with Gaṅgeśa’s work. He alludes frequently to the chapter of the Tattvacintāmaṇi that deals with inference. The early portions of the Nyāyāmr̥ta show Vyāsatīrtha’s knowledge of the “Discourse about Subjecthood” section of the text (the Pakṣatāvāda)⁷⁷ and Gaṅgeśa’s inferences to prove the existence of god (the Īśvaravāda). In his Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha alludes frequently to the section of the Tattvacintāmaṇi dealing with “universal-negative inference” (kevalavyatireki-anumāna).

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, it is clear that Vyāsatīrtha’s main Navya-Nyāya influence was Gaṅgeśa. As far as I am aware, he does not refer to any post-Gaṅgeśa Navya-Nyāya philosophers, although his commentators sometimes do. By the time he wrote the Tarkatāṇḍava, however, Vyāsatīrtha clearly had a much deeper knowledge not only of Gaṅgeśa, but also of Gaṅgeśa’s intellectual heirs in Mithila. In the Tarkatāṇḍava, for example, Vyāsatīrtha is clearly aware of the works of Gaṅgeśa’s son, Vardhamāna Upādhyāya (fl. 1345).⁷⁸ He is also aware of Gaṅgeśa’s commentator, Jayadeva Pakṣadhara, whose ideas he incorporates into his account of Gaṅgeśa’s formal inferences to prove the existence of god.⁷⁹ He is also clearly aware of Jayadeva’s teacher and rival, Yajñapati Upādhyāya, particularly Yajñapati’s commentary on the chapter of Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi that deals with perception.⁸⁰ Vyāsatīrtha’s commentator Rāghavendratīrtha also seems to suggest that Vyāsatīrtha was aware of Pragalbha (fl. 1470) and Rucidatta Miśra (fl. 1505), although it is not clear from his texts themselves that Vyāsatīrtha was actually aware of these thinkers.⁸¹

By contrast to the Nyāyāmr̥ta, the Tarkatāṇḍava fell on deaf ears. Several Mādhva philosophers wrote commentaries on it, but the Navya-Naiyāyikas seem to have ignored the text entirely. No reply to the Tarkatāṇḍava by the Navya-Naiyāyikas is known to modern scholarship, and the later Mādhva works on the Tarkatāṇḍava that have so far been published—Satyanātha’s Abhinavatāṇḍava and Rāghavendra’s Nyāyadīpa—do not contain any references to rejoinders written by Navya-Nyāya philosophers.⁸²

Nevertheless, Mādhva scholars after Vyāsatīrtha continued to critique Navya-Nyāya thought. Vijayīndra Tīrtha wrote a commentary on the Nyāyāmr̥ta entitled the Nyāyāmr̥tāmoda. It has not yet been published, but according to Sharma (1981: 401) it is preserved in the manuscript libraries of Thanjavur. Sharma says that the scholar R. Nagaraja Sarma has cited a reference where Vijayīndra refers to a larger commentary he wrote on the Nyāyāmr̥ta. However, Sharma himself was not able to find this reference and the text has not been identified. Vijayīndra also wrote a commentary on the Tarkatāṇḍava. A manuscript of this is preserved at the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library in Mysuru. Modern Mādhva scholars are not interested in editing this work, however, in light of the corrupt state of the manuscript.⁸³

The only commentary on the Tarkatāṇḍava that has been published is Rāghavendra’s Nyāyadīpa. In the text, Rāghavendra shows that he had studied the Tattvacintāmaṇi in depth, as well as the works of Yajñapati and Jayadeva. He quotes from Jayadeva’s Tattvacintāmaṇyāloka frequently. He also shows that he was aware of a number of other Navya-Nyāya authors from Mithila and Bengal, including Pragalbha, Rucidatta, Narahari Upādhyāya, either Maheśa or Madhusūdana Ṭhakkura, and Raghunātha Śiromaṇi.⁸⁴ Rāghavendra’s goal in the Nyāyadīpa is to explain the Tarkatāṇḍava in lucid language; it is generally not an original work of philosophy.

An outstanding Mādhva author of the seventeenth century whose works so far have gathered little attention is Satyanātha Tīrtha (fl. 1670). According to Sharma (1981: 445), Satyanātha was a contemporary of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and the head of the Uttaradi Matha in Bengaluru. He seems to have been trained as a philosopher in Varanasi. He wrote a number of commentaries on the classical texts of the Mādhva tradition, as well as an independent critique of Navya-Nyāya called the Abhinavatāṇḍava.⁸⁵ The Abhinavatāṇḍava is acknowledged in the Mādhva tradition to be a highly original critique of Navya-Nyāya philosophy. Satyanātha’s treatment of the luminaries of Navya-Nyāya is less than reverent. He regularly refers to Gaṅgeśa, Raghunātha, and their followers with contempt as sthūladr̥śvans—“blockheads”! Despite the interest shown in Navya-Nyāya by Mādhva thinkers, Satyanātha’s work does not contain any evidence that the Navya-Naiyāyikas replied to Vyāsatīrtha and his followers.

In the Abhinavatāṇḍava, Satyanātha shows a deep knowledge of the Tattvacintāmaṇi, from which he quotes extensively. He is also aware of the Mithila school of Navya-Nyāya. Satyanātha refers explicitly to Yajñapati (AT: 28), Jayadeva (AT: 242), and Jayadeva’s student, Rucidatta Miśra (AT: 229). Like Rāghavendra, Satyanātha was also aware of the commentaries of the Bengal school of Navya-Nyāya. He had clearly read and studied the Dīdhiti commentary of Raghunātha, whose views he refers to frequently in the chapter of the Abhinavatāṇḍava that deals with inference. He also refers to Raghunātha once (AT: 200) in the chapter of the Abhinavatāṇḍava that deals with the subject of negative particles (nañartha). He does not refer to Raghunātha at all when discussing perception, however. He further refers to Raghunātha’s teacher, Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma (fl. 1490) (AT: 294). Satyanātha does not explicitly refer to Gadādhara Bhaṭṭa (fl. 1660), who was probably a contemporary of his. However, he sometimes refers anonymously to the works of Navya-Nyāya philosophers⁸⁶ who were presumably his contemporaries. Further study is needed to ascertain the philosophers he had in mind in these parts of the text.

Some of the leading work on Navya-Nyāya in the Mādhva tradition after Vyā-satīrtha is found in Mādhva commentaries on the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Unlike Vyāsatīrtha, who does not seem to have had any extensive personal contact with Navya-Naiyāyikas in North India, Madhusūdana seems to have studied Navya-Nyāya in Bengal. According to some scholars, Madhusūdana learned Navya-Nyāya with Mathurānātha Tarkavāgīśa, who was himself possibly a student of Raghunātha Śiromaṇi.⁸⁷ The authors of two of the earliest Mādhva replies to the Advaitasiddhi, Vyāsa Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka clearly had a deep knowledge of the Tattvacintāmaṇi. Rāmācārya also refers to Raghunātha Śiromaṇi by name in his Taraṅginī.⁸⁸ Śrīnivāsatīrtha clearly studied the works of Rucidatta, whom he alludes to in his commentary on the Nyāyāmr̥ta.⁸⁹

The practice of writing commentaries on the Nyāyāmr̥ta continued well into the eighteenth century. K. T. Pandurangi’s 2014 edition of the Nyāyāmr̥ta contains a previously unpublished commentary which sheds new light on the development of the ideas of the Mādhva school in the eighteenth century. This work was written by Mannāri Kr̥ṣṇācārya (fl. 1780)⁹⁰ and is called the Nyāyāmr̥tamādhūrī. It is a highly original and formidably difficult work; it gives a detailed analysis of Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in the light of Raghunātha and Gadādhara’s new ideas about epistemology. It is especially concerned with refuting Brahmānanda’s commentaries on the Advaitasiddhi. A more detailed study of this work is yet to be undertaken, but it shows that original contributions were still being made to the Nyāyāmr̥ta literature in the late eighteenth century.⁹¹

Pandurangi’s edition further contains a new commentary that seems to have been written earlier than the Nyāyāmr̥tamādhūrī. The Nyāyakalpalatā, written by one Kūrma Narahari Ācārya, seems to be a more derivative commentary. It quotes extensively from the earlier Mādhva commentarial literature on the Nyāyāmr̥ta, particularly the Taraṅginī. However, it also gives extensive explanations and glosses of the passages it quotes. It is apparently not influenced by the works of Raghunātha and Gadādhara. According to K. T. Pandurangi, Kūrma Narahari Ācārya was an expert in Mīmāṃsā.⁹²

2.5 Conclusion

In the two centuries following Madhva’s death, the Mādhva tradition was largely ignored by the other schools of philosophy in South India. The Nyāyāmr̥ta finally succeeded in drawing the Advaitins and the Viśiṣṭādvaitins into critical dialogue with the Mādhvas. Vyāsatīrtha’s work in the Nyāyāmr̥ta and Tātparyacandrikā helped reshape the discourse among Vedānta philosophers in the early modern period. In the three centuries after his death, the Nyāyāmr̥ta was a central focus of the energy of the leading Mādhva and Advaita philosophers of the day, drawing some of these traditions’ leading philosophers into debate with one another. Vyāsatīrtha’s rich historical construction of Advaita philosophy also subtly reshaped Advaita philosophy itself, drawing the Advaitins further into Navya-Nyāya learning and eventually leading them to reframe their own intellectual history.

As Stoker (2016) has shown, the Nyāyāmr̥ta undoubtedly helped to improve the profile of the Mādhvas in South India, and, in turn, the Mādhvas’ rise to a position of prominence in the Vijayanagara Empire increased interest in Vyāsatīrtha’s work. This allowed the Mādhva tradition to expand its institutional network and sphere of influence in South India considerably. Vyāsatīrtha’s success in attracting patronage from the emperors of the Tuḷuva dynasty gave him new opportunities to publicize his work and undoubtedly contributed to the willingness of the other traditions of Vedānta to take Mādhva philosophy more seriously. The result of Vyāsatīrtha’s work was thus a far more outward-looking Mādhva tradition that enjoyed new intellectual credibility alongside considerable political influence in South India.

In the next section, I will reconstruct the intellectual background to the Nyāyā-mr̥ta in the Mādhva and Advaita traditions. The Nyāyāmr̥ta was primarily written as a vindication of the theology of Madhva and Jayatīrtha. In Chapter 3, I present an overview of the Mādhva theology that Vyāsatīrtha is defending in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. I focus particularly on Jayatīrtha’s commentaries on Madhva’s works, which Vyāsatīrtha studied with his intellectual preceptor Śrīpādarāja at Mulbagal. In Chapter 4, I turn to the rich reconstruction of Advaita philosophy that Vyāsatīrtha gives in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

3 An outline of Mādhva philosophy

Vyāsatīrtha begins the Nyāyāmr̥ta with a series of eight benedictory verses (maṅgalaślokas) which summarise central points of Mādhva theology and celebrate some of his predecessors in the tradition:

(1) I worship the spouse of Lakṣmī, whose body consists entirely of auspicious qualities, who is permanently free from what is detestable, who can be known through the purest awareness, who is the means to obtain pure bliss, who can be known through every passage of the Veda, who is referred to by every word, and whose body is the colour of a newly formed cloud.

(2) I serve Hari, who removes all obstacles, the [instrumental] cause of this entire, existent world, an ocean of compassion, the friend of Ānandatīrtha [(Madhva)].

(3) I serve the peerless Ānandatīrtha, who annuls the three forms of suffering, and who is devoid of error, without impediment, swift of mind, and ever free from impurity.

(4) The words of Śrī Jayatīrtha shine forth, illuminating the thought of the guru [(Madhva)] with clear words and profound, irrefutable sentences.

(5) Always do I serve the sun that is [my Dīkṣā-guru] Brahmaṇyatīrtha, who is ever devoted to the feet of Viṣṇu, and who has dispelled the shroud of darkness and illuminated the true path.

(6) I offer my salutations to my Vidyā-guru, Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa Muni, endowed as he is with so many auspicious qualities such as knowledge, dispassion, and devotion.

(7) Churning the milky ocean that is Madhva’s śāstra with the mount Mandara that is [my] intellect, [I] drawn up the nectar that is the reasoning [found in Madhva’s works] to delight the learned.

(8) Since in some passages [my Nyāyāmr̥ta] draws together what is scattered [in the works of Madhva and Jayatīrtha, and] since in some passages it explains what has already been said [in their works, and] since in some passages it says things that have not already been said [in the works of Madhva and Jayatīrtha], this effort of mine [in writing this text] is fruitful.¹

In verses 3–6, Vyāsatīrtha praises his primary influences in the Mādhva tradition: Madhva, Jayatīrtha, and his “consecration” and “intellectual” preceptors, Brahmaṇyatīrtha and Śrīpādarāja (Lakṣmīnārāyaṇatīrtha). Notably, Vyāsatīrtha does not allude to Viṣṇudāsācārya, who, as I discussed in the previous chapter, has been shown by modern scholarship to have had a major influence over his work. In verse 7, Vyāsatīrtha explains the metaphor behind the title of his text, the Nyāyā-mr̥ta—“The Nectar of Reasoning” or “The Nectar that is Reasoning”. He explains that the title alludes to the famous story found in the epics and Purāṇas where the gods collaborate with the asuras to use mount Mandara to churn the milky ocean to recover the nectar of immortality from it. Vyāsatīrtha compares his act of authoring the Nyāyāmr̥ta to that of the gods: he uses the “mount Mandara” of his intellect to “churn” the “ocean” of Madhva’s philosophy in order to extract the “nectar” of the critical reasoning found in his guru’s works. Consistently with this metaphor, in the final benedictory verse Vyāsatīrtha ascribes himself a (misleadingly) modest role in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, claiming that he is simply drawing together what has been said by his intellectual predecessors in the Mādhva tradition, occasionally making original observations here and there.²

The first and second of these verses give important information about the Nyā-yāmr̥ta and Mādhva theology. The first verse states that god is a being possessed of infinite auspicious qualities who is simultaneously free from any flaws. Sentient beings can strive to obtain an immediate awareness (aparokṣajñāna) of god,³ and god himself rewards those who attempt to comprehend him with liberation from trans-migratory existence, liberation being a state of permanent bliss befitting the innate virtues of the individual soul in question. The central question that drives the discussion in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta is not the nature of god, however; it is rather the nature of the empirical world and its relationship to god/brahman.

In the second verse, Vyāsatīrtha states that the world “exists” and that it is an effect of Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. As is common in Sanskrit philosophical literature, the contents of these benedictory verses precipitate the philosophical discussion that unfolds in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Just after the verses, Vyāsatīrtha gives voice to a hypothetical Advaitin philosopher. This philosopher, apparently provoked by Vyāsatīrtha’s claim that the world exists in this way, interjects and states emphatically that the world is “illusory” (mithyā). This interjection marks the beginning of the Advaita pūrvapakṣa of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, in which Vyāsatīrtha carefully reconstructs the philosophy of the classical Advaitins, paying close attention to the nuanced differences between their individual philosophical positions.

I will analyse Vyāsatīrtha’s reconstruction of Advaita philosophy in Chapter 4 of this volume. The Mādhvas’ realist stance about the empirical world needs to be seen against the backdrop of their wider theological positions about god, the world, and how the two relate to one another. In this chapter, I will sketch the central features of the Mādhva theology that Vyāsatīrtha defends against the Advaitins in the Nyāyā-mr̥ta. My goal here is not to give a comprehensive overview of Mādhva philosophy, as has already been attempted for instance by Sharma (1986), Siauve (1968), and Sarma (2003). Rather, it is to give some context to Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments against the Advaitins in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, emphasising the themes that are particularly pertinent to my analysis of his critique in the chapters ahead.

I will here primarily refer to the works of Jayatīrtha, alluding to Madhva’s own writings in many instances. This analysis is not intended to be a philological reconstruction of Madhva’s own thought, as has been attempted for instance by Mesquita (2000 and 2016). In general what I present here is Madhva’s philosophy as it was standardised by Jayatīrtha in the fourteenth century. As always in Sanskrit literature, it is open to question about whether Jayatīrtha represented Madhva’s thoughts accurately. He was not a direct student of Madhva, and his commentaries are generally philosophically constructive, drawing long chains of reasoning out of Madhva’s laconic remarks. Nevertheless, Jayatīrtha’s interpretation of Madhva’s corpus came to be regarded as the standard one for later Mādhvas, and it is clear that Vyāsatīrtha largely interprets Madhva through the lens of Jayatīrtha’s commentaries. Presenting primarily Jayatīrtha’s interpretation of Madhva’s philosophy therefore serves to give a good backdrop to Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments.

3.1 Realism and god’s independence

The Nyāyāmr̥ta is primarily an attempt to defend the Mādhva realist stance about the world against the anti-realism of the classical Advaitins. Realism about a domain is widely held to entail two positions regarding the objects/facts that belong to that domain. The first is that the objects/facts in question can be said to “exist”; the second is that they exist somehow independently of consciousness. As he shows in his benedictory verses to the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha certainly agrees that the world of our senses exists. Later in the text, he states that the world enjoys whatever “existence” it is that brahman/god himself does. In the Sattvanirukti (“Determination of Existence”) chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta he says emphatically: “The very same sort of ‘existence’ that belongs to brahman must be present in the world as well” (yādr̥śaṃ brahmaṇaḥ sattvam, tādr̥śaṃ syāj jagaty api).⁴ What it means to say that brahman and the world “exist” is a complex question. How to define “existence” and “nonexistence” was one of the central points of debate among Mādhva and Advaitin intellectuals in the early modern period, and I will turn to Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions of these concepts in Chapter 5. In any case, unlike the Advaitins, Vyāsatīrtha clearly does accept that the world enjoys exactly the same sort of “existence” that brahman/god does.

The stance that the world exists was always at the centre of Mādhva theology, and this is reflected in the terms that Mādhva philosophers used to identify themselves. The Mādhva tradition is today perhaps most widely known outside of India as the “Dualistic” (Dvaita) tradition of Vedānta. However, medieval Mādhva philosophers usually referred to themselves as tattva-vādins, a compound which can be translated as: “philosophers who hold that [the world] is real”. The Mādhvas contrasted this designation with the term they usually used to refer to the Advaitins. Mādhva authors widely referred to the Advaitins as māyā-vādins, which could be translated as: “philosophers who hold that [the world] is illusion”.⁵ In texts like the Sumadhvavijaya, these designations also have a deliberate polemical force. By construing the terms differently one could translate the compounds as “proponents of the true philosophy”, and “proponents of the fraudulent/false philosophy”, respectively.

The Mādhvas have been described by modern scholars both as “dualists” and “pluralists”. Seen from one stance, Mādhva theology is indeed dualistic, because of its bifurcation of reality into “independent” (svatantra) and “dependent”/“nonindependent” (paratantra/asvatantra) beings. From another perspective, the Mā-dhvas could legitimately be described as “pluralists”. Madhva and his followers often emphasise that they accept that reality can be divided into at least three different types of beings: god, the individual souls, and insentient beings. They emphasise that these classes of beings are eternally distinct from one another, and that the individual members of these classes are likewise all intrinsically differentiated from the other individuals belonging to the same class. Madhva himself famously argued that there are five types of difference in reality (his “doctrine of five differences” [pañcabhedavāda]). According to Madhva, the five fundamental types of difference are the differences between: (1) god and the individual souls, (2) god and insentient entities, (3) the various sentient beings themselves, (4) sentient beings and insentient entities, and (5) the various insentient entities themselves.⁶

The ultimate goal of Mādhva theology is to understand god and his relationship to the world of sentient and insentient beings. Madhva taught throughout his writings that the highest truth taught by scripture is that Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa is a flawless being of infinite perfections, who is entirely self-dependent. The world, by contrast, exists in a permanent state of dependency on god. Like the Advaitins and the other traditions of Vedānta, the Mādhvas are primarily a tradition of scripture. They believe that knowledge of god can only be obtained through a correct understanding of the Veda and the large body of other texts that they accept as “true scriptures” (sadāgamas). According to Madhva and his followers, knowledge of god cannot be obtained purely by perception or inference because god is, by his very nature, inaccessible to the senses and reasoning. Mādhva philosophers therefore eschew the type of “rational theology” found in the works of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers like Udayana and Gaṅgeśa, who attempted to prove the existence of god using inference alone.⁷

While Mādhva philosophers clearly accept that inference is a valid means of knowledge, they are generally sceptical about its ability to prove grand metaphysical truths such as the existence of god, or the illusoriness of the sensory world. Nevertheless, they do not reject reasoning per se, nor do they deny that it can play an important role in the process of obtaining liberation. What they reject, as Jayatīrtha sees it, is “pure reasoning/inference” (kevalatarka or kevala-anumāna), that is, inference that operates independently of scripture and perception. Reasoning, however, can play an indispensable role in the process of obtaining liberation, provided it takes place within the overall framework of scriptural interpretation. A purpose of texts like the Nyāyāmr̥ta is to deepen and strengthen this understanding of scripture by ruling out alternative (and, from the Mādhvas’ point of view, false) interpretations of scripture like the Advaitins’.

Mādhva philosophers accept that scripture is a form of verbal testimony (āgama), which they regard as a separate means of knowledge (pramāṇa) besides sense-perception and inference. In the Pramāṇapaddhati, Jayatīrtha defines verbal testimony as “flawless speech” (nirdoṣaḥ śabdaḥ). For the Mādhvas, testimony includes both “personal” (pauruṣeya) and “impersonal” (apauruṣeya) speech. Jayatīrtha says that in both personal and impersonal testimony, the individual syllables (varṇas) that make up the speech are eternal and the words are innately linked to their objects. The difference between personal and impersonal testimony lies in whether the speaker of the text in question creates, with some measure of independence, a new text, or simply repeats verbatim what they have already learnt from tradition. The Mādhvas believe that the Veda is impersonal, since it passed down from teacher to student in uninterrupted succession; those who speak the Veda only repeat it parrot-like as they have heard it from their teachers. In the case of personal testimony, by contrast, the speaker is the active creator of the text who does not depend in this way on tradition.⁸

Madhva began his topical treatise the Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya (“Ascertainment of the Truth about Viṣṇu”) by giving a list of texts he considered to be “true scriptures” (sadāgamas). Like the Pūrva-Mīmāṃsakas and the other classical schools of Vedānta, the Mādhvas hold that the Veda is entirely impersonal; it has no author, human or divine. The remainder of scripture is produced by various personal beings. Perhaps the most important text besides the Veda for the Mādhvas is the Brahmasūtra. They attribute the sūtras to Veda-Vyāsa, whom they regard as an avatāra (“incarnation”) of Viṣṇu himself. Madhva wrote two commentaries on the Brahma-sūtra—the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya and the Anuvyākhyāna. His Brahmasūtrabhāṣya is treated with special reverence by his followers. According to the Sumadhvavijaya, its contents were taught to Madhva by Vyāsa himself while Madhva stayed with him in Badarikāśrama.⁹ Madhva also accepted the validity of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, as well as the Vaiṣṇava Purāṇas. Madhva wrote an extensive work on the Mahābhārata entitled the Mahābhāratatātparyanir-ṇaya. He also wrote a brief exposition of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (the Bhāgavatatātparyanirṇaya). Madhva further recognised the validity of the various Dharmaśāstra texts which lay down injunctions for the everyday life of the different castes.

Like the Viśiṣṭādvaitins, Madhva and his followers accept the Pāñcarātrasaṃ-hitās as valid scriptures. Pāñcarātra is an ancient form of Viṣṇu-worship which finds its earliest extant reference in the Mahābhārata. The Pāñcarātrasaṃhitās deal with a diversity of subjects, including particularly the nature of god, cosmology and cosmogony, temple and idol construction, and proper personal conduct. In the Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya, Madhva emphasises that the saṃhitā literature should be accepted “in its entirety”. Madhva also wrote the Tantrasārasaṅgraha, a short compendium summarising many of the magic rituals found in the saṃhitā literature. He further stressed that any other traditionally accepted texts that do not conflict with those he has already listed can be accepted as valid scripture.¹⁰

Besides these established scriptural texts, Madhva also accepted the existence of texts that are unknown to modern scholarship and which were also apparently not known to medieval scholars outside of the Mādhva tradition. In his Śatadūṣaṇī, the fourteenth century Viśiṣṭādvaitin theologian Veṅkaṭanātha accused Madhva of falsifying certain texts, as did the sixteenth century Advaitin scholar Appayya Dīkṣita. These unknown texts generally resemble Pāñcarātrasaṃhitās or Purāṇas. They include the Brahmatarka, a text on epistemology which Madhva and his followers refer to frequently. Mesquita (2000) examined Madhva’s references to these texts and presented an extensive argument that they were, in fact, composed by Madhva himself. Traditional scholars such as Sharma (2001) have denied that Madhva composed these texts, arguing that they were simply lost to tradition in the centuries following his death. Vyāsatīrtha himself quotes many of these works in certain parts of the Nyāyāmr̥ta.¹¹

3.2 God and the world

According to Mādhva philosophers, the fundamental truth these texts can reveal to us is the nature of god and his relationship to the world. Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa is a being of infinite positive qualities who is divested of all flaws. Mādhva theologians place a central emphasis on god’s independence. Madhva himself used the property of independence to distinguish god’s being from the being of all other entities in reality. At the beginning of two of his shorter topical-treatises, the Tattvasaṅkhyāna and the Tattvaviveka, Madhva says that god is the only “independent” (svatantra) being; the rest of reality is “dependent-on-another” (paratantra)/“non-independent” (asvatantra) because it permanently depends on god in various ways.

The fact that the world is dependent on god is not incompatible with the stance that it exists, according to the Mādhvas; for Madhva and his followers, something can be dependent but nevertheless existent. In fact, according to Jayatīrtha, to say that the world depends on god is to say that it derives its existence (sattā) from god. Jayatīrtha explains that to say that something is “dependent on another” (paratantra) means to say that that thing “requires something else from the point of view of the triple characterisation of ‘existence’ as essence, knowledge, or action”. In the Nyāyasudhā, Jayatīrtha clarifies that his explanation of dependence here reflects different interpretations by Indian philosophers of the concept of “existence”. To say that something “exists” could simply be to say that that thing has an essence (svarūpa). Alternatively, it could mean (as per some Naiyāyikas) that the thing in question is accessible to the means of knowledge. Or, it could mean (as per Dharmakīrti and Buddhists who follow him)¹² that that thing possesses causal efficacy. Jayatīrtha emphasises in the relevant passage of the Nyāyasudhā that dependent beings always derive all of these three things from god. All beings derive their essence from god; similarly, whether they can be known and whether they can act in the world around them depends on god.¹³ So all other beings are existentially dependent on god because they derive their essence, knowability, and activity from him.

Like the other classical traditions of Vedānta, Madhva and his followers accept that god is, in some sense, the cause of the world. However, unlike the Advaitins and the Viśiṣṭādvaitins, the Mādhvas do not accept that god is the material cause (upādānakāraṇa) of the world. As I will discuss below, according to the Mādhvas the material cause of all material things is material nature (prakr̥ti). God is, nevertheless, the instrumental cause of the world. Like Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja, Madhva accepts that Brahmasūtra 1,1.2 (janymādy asya yataḥ) teaches that god is responsible for the “creation, maintenance, and dissolution” of the world. However, Madhva developed a more expansive conception of god’s causality, which he summarised in the Tattvasaṅkhyāna as follows:

The generation, preservation, and dissolution of this entire world, as well as its governance, ignorance, enlightenment, bondage, liberation, pleasure, pain, concealment, and illumination¹⁴: all of these [are effected] by Viṣṇu; [this list of causal activities must be] expanded or contracted to fit [to the various different things in the world].¹⁵

So besides creating, maintaining, and destroying the world, Madhva takes it that god is further responsible for the various other aspects of the world he lists here. As Madhva seems to have realised, the different activities he lists here cannot all apply to each and every thing in the world. Eternal substances like time cannot be created or destroyed, and the insentient substances produced from material nature cannot be subject to bondage and liberation, for instance. He therefore seems to indicate in this passage that the activities that define Viṣṇu in Brahmasūtra 1,1.2 do not all apply to every type of being that depends upon god. As Jayatīrtha explains Madhva’s words here, only “governance” and “preservation” apply to all things; whether or not the remaining individual activities apply to some part of reality needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The fact that the world depends on god in these various ways does not imply for the Mādhvas that it is somehow nonexistent, or that it lacks the same sort of “existence” that god enjoys. Nevertheless, this relationship of dependency clearly implies a profound inequality between god and the world. Although the Mādhvas accepted that the world is not reducible to brahman in the way that the Advaitins hold, they were not straightforward dualists as their most widely used title (“Dvaita-Vedāntins”) might be taken to suggest. Both god and the rest of reality exist, but this does not mean that they exist on an equal footing. God is an independent, flawless being of infinite perfections; the world is a profoundly inferior domain that exists only in a permanent state of existential dependence on god. In fact, Madhva himself sometimes speaks of the world using terms like asat, asattva and so on, which should usually be translated using terms like “nonexistent” or “unreal” in Mādhva philosophical works. However, it is clear that in these contexts the terms are meant to communicate the inferiority of the world in relation to god, and not to suggest that it literally does not exist.¹⁶

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha himself argues that the world can be spoken of as asat simply because it is a dependent realm of being. He observes that the Purāṇic literature sometimes refers to the world as “nonexistent”, but gives alternative explanations for what words such as asat could mean in those contexts:

When the Purāṇas[, epics, and so on] refer to the world as being “nonexistent”, they say it because the world is a wicked place (asādhutvāt)[, using the word asat] like in the expression “[One] should not rely on a no-good (asat) person”. For, the [Bhagavad]gītā says—“The word sat is used both in the sense of ‘existence’ and ‘being-virtuous’ ” (BhG: verse 17,26); and— “Whatever is offered, given, whatever austerities are undertaken, and whatever is done by one who lacks faith is termed ‘no-good’ (asat); it is [useless] in this world and the next” (BhG: verse 17,28). And it is said in the Viṣṇupurāṇa that the word sat means “good” (sādhu).

Alternatively, [the Purāṇas and so on refer to the world as being asat] because [it is] not independent. For, the [Mahā]bhārata says—“ ‘Existence’ is said to be independence, and that belongs to Kr̥ṣṇa and no other. Know that beings other than [god] are “nonexistent” because they are not independent, O descendant of Bharata.” If [the word asat were not interpreted in these ways in passages such as these, and instead were taken to mean literally “nonexistent”,] then it would follow that [the world] must be completely nonexistent[, like the hare’s horn, as is claimed by the nihilistic Buddhists]!¹⁷

According to Vyāsatīrtha, when the Purāṇas and similar texts refer to the world as asat, we should take them to mean that the world is ethically corrupt, or that it is inferior to god by virtue of being dependent on him. Such passages clearly cannot be taken to imply that the world is literally “nonexistent” as the nihilistic Buddhists claim! So the Mādhvas accept that the world of our senses truly exists, even if it is by its very nature profoundly inferior to god.

Another feature widely associated with realism about a domain is that the domain in question must exist “independently of consciousness”. On the one hand, the Mādhvas do accept that the very existence of the world depends on Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, who is a conscious intelligent being. The world I have just outlined only exists because Viṣṇu wills it to do so, and it would cease to exist if he ceased to will as such. Nevertheless, they clearly do not accept that the world is a “product of consciousness” in the same way that certain anti-realist/idealist philosophers in India such as the Yogācāra Buddhists or certain strands of Advaita thought do. The Mādhvas clearly accept the existence of both physical and mental substances. Both are fundamental to reality, and there is no question that physical substances are somehow reducible to the mental states of any conscious being. The world of conscious beings and unconscious matter depends for its existence on god’s consciousness, but it is not therefore reducible to consciousness or conscious states.

3.3 The structure of the world in Mādhva philosophy

Mādhva philosophers developed a detailed picture of what the world contains. In several of his works, Madhva gave an inventory of the different types of conscious and unconscious beings that exist in a state of dependence on god. The ontological theory scattered throughout Madhva’s works was elaborated and systematised by Jayatīrtha, and then later by Vyāsatīrtha in his commentaries on Jayatīrtha’s works. Madhva’s ideas were clearly influenced by the pluralistic ontology of the Vaiśeṣika and Sāṅkhya schools, as well as by the Pāñcarātra literature.

Later Mādhva philosophers sometimes presented Madhva’s metaphysical theories along the lines of classical Vaiśeṣika ontology. An eighteenth century introduction to Mādhva philosophy, the Padārthasaṅgraha (“Compendium of the Categories”), for instance, presents Mādhva metaphysics by identifying the elementary “categories” (padārthas) that Madhva seems to have accepted in his works, before defining them and the various sub-categories of being that belong to them. In his Tattvasaṅkhyāna and Tattvaviveka, Madhva himself presented his ontology in a hierarchical fashion more reminiscent of the approach of the Sāṅkhya school than the classical Vaiśeṣikas.¹⁸ He begins by discussing god, before outlining the various classes of sentient beings who depend on god. He concludes by analysing the various insentient substances in the world and the different sorts of properties that belong to these substances.

The most inclusive ontological term that Madhva used is tattva (“reality”). “Reality” in this sense includes god himself, as well as the various conscious and unconscious beings that depend upon him. It also includes negative entities/“absences” (abhāva). Such “absences” should not be confused with impossible/fictional entities like the “son of a barren woman”, which Mādhva philosophers usually designate as “nonexistent” (asat). An “absence” is always the absence of something from some part of reality; for instance, one might speak of the “absence of an elephant” from the table I am writing on. For Mādhva philosophers, such absences constitute parts of the real world just as positive entities do. However, “reality” clearly does not include outright nonexistent things like “hares’ horns” or “the sons of barren women” according to the Mādhvas. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers also accept the category of absence and the Mādhva theory of absence was clearly influenced by their theories.

The remainder of dependent reality consists of “positive” beings. These positive beings can be divided into two types: conscious beings and unconscious beings. Madhva and his followers believe that the individual souls are eternal, sentient, and permanently distinct from one another. Each dependent conscious being has a definite place in a rigid hierarchy, beginning with Viṣṇu’s spouse, the goddess Lakṣmī/Ramā, and ending with the wretched souls of demonic beings. This hierarchy is eternal and immutable. Of the souls who form part of dependent reality, only Lakṣmī is said to be permanently free from suffering. The remainder of conscious beings experience suffering at some point and to some degree in their journey through transmigratory existence (saṃsāra).

A distinctive Mādhva doctrine, which some have argued was influenced by Jaina or Ājīvika philosophy,¹⁹ is that the inherent nature (svabhāva) of an individual soul determines its ultimate fate in reality. At several points in his works, Madhva says that there are three types of selves: gods, men, and demons. All gods are eligible for liberation and demons are condemned to hellish realms, but the situation with human beings is more complex. The most virtuous human souls are eligible for liberation, while those of middling character can look forward to an eternity of wandering in transmigratory existence. The most degenerate of the human souls will inevitably reach a kind of hell (what Madhva refers to as “the darkness”).²⁰ The idea that one’s ultimate destiny is determined by factors that cannot be changed through individual action has led many to compare this aspect of Madhva’s theology with John Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, although modern Mādhva philosophers have rejected these comparisons.²¹

Consistently with their view that the world is dependent upon god, the Mādhvas deny any true agency to the individual souls. David Buchta (2014) has already made a study of Madhva’s conception of agency. Madhva and his followers stress that the individual souls possess only “dependent agency” (parādhīnakartr̥tva). According to Madhva, this entails that god always causes the individual souls to undertake their various actions. God does not do this arbitrarily, however; he always takes into account the souls’ volitions, past deeds, and individual ethical natures. All of these factors are, however, themselves dependent on god.²²

3.4 Insentient beings

Besides the individual souls, Madhva and his followers also had a rich ontology of insentient beings. All souls are eternal according to the Mādhvas, but many insentient beings are not. In the Tattvasaṅkhyāna, Madhva divides up insentient beings primarily according to their temporal careers. He says that insentient entities can be divided into those that are (1) eternal, (2) non-eternal, and (3) those that are both eternal and noneternal. In the Tattvasaṅkhyāna, Madhva says that the eternal entities comprise the Vedas; Jayatīrtha adds that this category encompasses the syllables (varṇas) of the Sanskrit language and also space.²³

In the Tattvasaṅkhyānaṭīkā, Jayatīrtha explains that the category of beings that are “both-eternal-and-noneternal” includes “that which is not completely unchanging, but which is neither simply noneternal”. According to Madhva and Jayatīrtha, time and material nature (prakr̥ti) are both examples of entities that are botheternal-and-noneternal. Jayatīrtha explains that time qualifies for this category because, while time itself is eternal insofar as it has no origin and persists forever, its states (avastha) such as seconds, milliseconds, etc., are clearly impermanent. Unlike the Veda, the personal scriptures accepted by Madhva (the Purāṇas, the epics, and dharmaśāstra literature) are also both-eternal-and-noneternal. In the Tattvasaṅkhyānaṭīkā, Jayatīrtha explains that this is so because these texts are composed afresh in each world era, but their purport remains the same in each case.²⁴

According to Madhva, material nature is the stuff from which the material universe is created by god. It is, in other words, the “material cause” from which all material effects are formed. Madhva says that material nature exists perpetually but the modifications/effects that are produced from it are noneternal. In the Tattvasaṅkhyāna, Madhva outlines a theistic Sāṅkhya-like cosmogony wherein Viṣṇu impels material nature to manifest itself and evolve into the material world. In the same text, he includes a list of twenty-four evolutes of prakr̥ti, including the mahat, ahaṅkāra, the buddhi, the manas, and so on, as well as the “primordial egg” (hiraṇyagarbha) from which the material universe unfolds.²⁵ These are all noneternal entities according to Madhva.²⁶

Besides the conscious and unconscious substances mentioned above, the Mā-dhvas also accept that reality includes the various kinds of properties (dharmas) that are present in these substances. Like Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, they accept that these properties include “qualities”/“tropes” (guṇas)²⁷ such as contact, magnitude, numbers, and so on, as well as specifically mental tropes like cognition, pleasure, pain, and the like. Like Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, the medieval manuals of Mādhva ontology also accept that motions (karman, kriyā) are a kind of property present in certain kinds of substance.

Madhva and his followers do accept that reality contains “natural kinds” (jātis) in some sense of the term. However, their understanding of this type of property is very different from that of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers. As I will discuss in Chapter 5, for Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, natural kinds are very much like Aristotelian universals: they are eternal properties that are somehow multiply instantiated in different individuals. Mādhva philosophers, by contrast, deny that jātis are repeatable/multiply instantiated (anugata) properties. They are rather non-repeatable properties that are unique to the individual they occur in. We tend to group real things together into classes because of the innate similarity (sādr̥śya) these things possess to one another, and not because they somehow possess an identical property in each case.

A central problem for all Vedānta philosophers was how to explain the relationship between properties and their substances. This problem was especially significant to Mādhva philosophers because of its theological implications. The Mā-dhvas accept that god is a being of infinite positive qualities and they must therefore explain the relationship between god and his qualities. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers accepted that the properties of a substance are entirely different from the substances in which they inhere. The Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsakas by contrast held that they are both different and non-different from their substrates, and Viśiṣṭādvaitin theologians argued that god’s qualities are both different and non-different (bhedābheda) from him. Madhva adopted a different position about the relationship between properties and their substances from all of these traditions. He held that, depending on the type of property in question, properties are either identical with their substance, or both-different-and-non-different from it.

According to Jayatīrtha’s interpretation of Madhva’s words in the Tattvaviveka, Madhva divides properties into those that are coeval with their substance (yāvaddravya-bhāvins) and those that cease to exist before their substance does (a-yāvaddravya-bhāvins). Properties in dependent reality are sometimes coeval with their substances and sometimes not. God’s attributes, on the other hand, are always eternal and coeval with him. Madhva seems to accept that non-coeval properties are both-different-and-non-different from their substances. He claims that coeval properties, on the other hand, are simply identical with their substances. In the Tattvaviveka, Madhva explains this distinction as follows:

Properties (dharmas)—tropes, motions, natural kinds, and so on—are all identical with [their own] substances; they are of two sorts—those that are coeval with [their own] substance, and those that are destroyed [before their substance is]. The “destroyed” [kind of property] is both different from and identical with [its own substance]; coeval properties are not different [from their own substance].²⁸

In his commentary on the Tattvasaṅkhyāna, Jayatīrtha expands on the Mādhva theory of properties as follows:

Tropes (guṇas) are colour and so on; motions are throwing upwards and so on; natural kinds are existence (sattā) and so on. The word “etc.” (pūrva) [in this verse of the Tattvasaṅkhyāna] refers to [the other categories we, the Mādhvas, accept:] potentiality (śakti), similarity (sā-dr̥śya), the qualified thing (viśiṣṭa), and so on. [The words] “of substance (vastunaḥ)” [in the verse] mean “of substance (dravyasya)”. …

Unlike positive beings and so on, which are completely different [from one another], tropes and [other properties] are not [completely different from their substances]. Rather, they are essentially identical with the substances that act as their own substrate. Hence [Madhva] does not mention [properties] separately [in the root text]. But when [tropes and other properties] are distinguished [from their substances] in thought, then a distinction can also be made [between the two]. …

Certain tropes and [other properties] are coeval with [their own] substances, i.e. they exist for as long as [their] substance does. Other [tropes/properties] are “destroyed”, i.e. they themselves cease to exist even though [their own] substance continues to exist. Thus are [properties] of two kinds.²⁹

A problem with this position is that we seem to speak about such coeval properties as being distinct from their substances. For instance, we refer to the “equanimity (samatva) of god” or “god’s equanimity”, even though god and his property of being equnimous are, according to Madhva’s analysis, identical with one another. We might also speak of substances and their properties by using “grammatical apposition” (sāmānādhikaraṇya); for instance, we might say that “god is equanimous” (īśvaraḥ samaḥ). However, if “god” and “equanimity” are, as Madhva claims, not different things, then would this not simply express a tautology like the statement, “A pot (ghaṭaḥ) is a pot (kalaśaḥ)”? The point is that we think and speak about even coeval properties in a way that suggests we are differentiating them to some degree from their substances. If, in reality, such coeval properties are completely identical with their substance, how are we to explain that fact? Madhva and his followers argued that we need to accept a further category of beings called “distinguishers”/“differentiators” (viśeṣas) to account for the way in which we speak and think about such properties.

The category of viśeṣas is clearly based to some extent on the category of the same name that was accepted by the classical Vaiśeṣikas, although it is philosophically distinct and serves quite a different purpose in Madhva’s ontology. In Vaiśeṣika thought, viśeṣas are a separate category of being which explain how otherwise identical atomic substances can be ontologically distinct from one another. According to Madhva and his followers, the viśeṣas are a category of self-differentiating “distinguishers” which have the power to create the appearance of difference when there is none in reality. These viśeṣas explain how we are able to distinguish god from his eternal attributes, even though in reality god and his attributes comprise a unity. The Mādhvas’ viśeṣas are self-differentiating. They are taken to be present in substances yet, unlike the Vaiśeṣikas’ viśeṣas, they do not require a further relation such as inherence to relate them to those substances.

In his Mandāramañjarī commentary on Jayatīrtha’s Upādhikhaṇḍanaṭīkā, Vyāsatīrtha (UKh: 137) defines the viśeṣa as “that which causes [us] to speak of the difference [between things] when there is absolutely no difference [between them]” (atyantābhede bhedavyavahāranirvāhakatvam). He also gives the following definition of the viśeṣa—“being the cause of the fact that multiple words which denote things that are not different from one another are non-synonymous” (abhinnārthābhidhāyyanekaśabdāparyāyatānirvāhaktvam). The viśeṣas thus explain why we employ grammatical apposition even in the case of coeval properties and their substances. Even though such properties are identical with those substances, the viśeṣas make it possible for us to speak and think about them as being nonidentical. In reality, the words “god” and “equanimity” refer to identical things; however, statements like “God is equanimous” do not appear as tautologies because the operation of the viśeṣas allows us to distinguish in thought and speech between substances and their coeval qualities.³⁰

3.5 Knowledge and the world in Mādhva Vedānta

Madhva articulated his own theory of knowledge in texts like the Pramāṇalakṣaṇa (“Definition of Knowledge/the Means of Knowledge”). As I discuss in Chapter 7, in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta Vyāsatīrtha often draws on Navya-Nyāya theories to help refute Ānandabodha’s inferences. In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, for instance, he uses specific arguments from Gaṅgeśa’s work on the theory of inference to evaluate the Advaitins’ claims. Nevertheless, Vyāsatīrtha frequently refers to distinctively Mādhva theories about knowledge throughout the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Some background in these theories is therefore needed to fully understand Vyāsatīrtha’s defence of realism. For the remainder of this chapter, I will give an overview of the epistemological theory developed by Madhva and Jayatīrtha, focusing particularly on their theory of perception and how we can be certain that our judgments about the world are true.

Madhva and his followers hold that the conscious souls inhabiting the world can obtain knowledge (pramā) of the way the world really is through the valid instruments of knowledge (pramāṇas). According to Jayatīrtha’s interpretation of Madhva’s epistemological works,³¹ Madhva himself realised that there is an ambiguity in the term pramāṇa, which can be taken to refer both to the means that produce knowledge and to knowledge itself.³² Jayatīrtha takes Madhva to have attempted to overcome this ambiguity by holding that there are two types of pramāṇa. The first is kevala-pramāṇa, which refers to a veridical cognitive episode generated by one of the means of knowledge, and the second is anu-pramāṇa, which refers specifically to the means that produce such episodes of knowledge. In the Pamāṇalakṣaṇa, Madhva seems to give a general definition applicable to both of these sub-types of pramāṇa as “what accords to its object” (yathārthaṃ pramāṇam). In his Pamāṇalakṣaṇaṭīkā, Jayatīrtha says that this means that a pramāṇa is something that “takes for its object the thing as it stands” (yathāvasthitārthaviṣayīkārin).

Indian philosophers generally tended to think of cognitions, rather than linguistic statements, as being “valid”/“invalid” or “true”/“false”; it is cognitions that are usually regarded as the bearers of validity/veridicality (prāmāṇya). Like the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas, Mādhva philosophers tend to think of “knowledge” as a sort of quality/trope (guṇa) which occurs under certain conditions in the individual selves. Like the Naiyāyikas, the Mādhvas define “validity” in terms of object-correspondence (“veridicality”). Our mental judgments are valid/veridical in case they correspond/accord to their object. Different Mādhva philosophers explained the notion of correspondence differently. In the Pramāṇapaddhati, Jayatīrtha claims that “object-correspondence” (yathā-arthatva) simply means that the cognition in question does not “go beyond” (an-ati-kram) its object. Jayatīrtha’s definition here partly reflects his theory of error, which states that a cognition is erroneous if it mistakenly identifies its object with some other individual.³³

In his commentary on Jayatīrtha’s Upādhikhaṇḍanaṭīkā, Vyāsatīrtha gives a slightly different analysis of this definition of knowledge. He argues that in the definition of knowledge as yathārthaṃ jñānam, the word yathā should be interpreted in the sense of “similarity” or “likeness” (sādr̥śya). A true judgment, in other words, is one that is “similar to”/“like” its object. The obvious objection to this is that knowledge and its object are not necessarily anything like one another. Knowledge is, according to the Mādhvas, a trope/quality that is present in conscious subjects. My knowledge that there is a table in front of me therefore seems to be nothing like its object, the physical substance that is the table. Vyāsatīrtha anticipates this objection, but argues that knowledge and its object have the commonality of being “existent” (sattā). He argues that this excludes error from the definition, since in the case of error there is no such similarity between a cognition and its object. This is because, as I will discuss shortly, Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha both believe that the object of erroneous judgments (the “silver” we mistake mother-of-pearl for) can be entirely nonexistent.

The other sub-type of pramāṇa, the anu-pramāṇas, are the instruments that lead reliably to veridical cognitions. (In practice, Madhva’s followers, like other Indian philosophers, usually refer to these simply as the pramāṇas.) All episodes of knowledge are produced by one of these means of knowledge. Jayatīrtha says that an anu-pramāṇa is something that grasps its object indirectly (paramparayā). In the Pramāṇapaddhati (PP: 5) he says that it is the “cause of object-corresponding cognition” (yathārthajñānasādhanam). All Mādhva philosophers accept that there are three, and only three, means of knowledge: perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna), and verbal testimony (āgama).

The other schools of Indian philosophy often accepted more or fewer means of knowledge. The Naiyāyikas accepted the existence of a fourth pramāṇa, “comparison” (upamāna), which accounts for how, in certain circumstances, we are able to spontaneously apply words to kinds of individuals we have never encountered before. The classical Vaiśeṣikas, on the other hand, argued that verbal testimony is actually a form of inference, and that only perception and inference should therefore be regarded as true pramāṇas. The post-Śaṅkara Advaitins accepted, like the Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsakas, that there are six pramāṇas: perception, inference, verbal testimony, comparison, circumstantial implication (arthāpatti), and non-perception (abhāva). In the Pramāṇalakṣaṇa(ṭīkā) and the Pramāṇapaddhati, Madhva and Jayatīrtha argued at length that all of these so-called pramāṇas can be subsumed under either perception, inference, or testimony.

3.6 Perception

The nature of perception and what it tells us about the world lie at the heart of the debate between the Mādhvas and the Advaitins. Perception seems to reveal a world of discrete, mutually-differentiated objects and conscious subjects. As I will discuss in Chapter 5, Advaitin philosophers argued that this difference is illusory. They developed arguments to show that perception cannot really reveal difference to us, or that the difference it seems to reveal is merely “practical” or “transactional” and not ultimately real. An epistemological defence of perception is therefore vital to the Mādhva defence of realism, and Mādhva philosophers accord a special place to perception in their epistemology. Madhva and his followers defended a sort of empiricist theory of knowledge. For Mādhva philosophers, “seeing is believing”; in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha emphasises that perception is the primary means of knowledge, and that it is innately stronger than the other means of knowledge in case they seem to come into conflict with one another.

Madhva himself gave a very similar definition of perception to that found, for instance, in the Nyāyasūtra. According to Nyāyasūtra 1,1.4, perception must be a cognition that arises from the connection (sannikarṣa) of one of the sense-faculties with some object. In the Pramāṇalakṣaṇa, Madhva defined the means that produce perceptual knowledge as: “The connection of a flawless object with a flawless sense-faculty” (nirdoṣārthendriyasannikarṣa). Perceptual knowledge arises when one of the external sense-faculties is somehow connected with an object, provided that both the faculty and the object it is connected to are not afflicted by some kind of fault.³⁴

For Mādhva philosophers, perception is always “conceptual”; unlike the Advaitins and the Naiyāyikas, the Mādhvas refuse to accept the existence of “non-conceptual perception” (nirvikalpakapratyakṣa). According to the Naiyāyikas, non-conceptual perception is simply non-predicative cognition. As Jayatīrtha interprets the Nyāya theory in the Pramāṇalakṣaṇaṭīkā, perception happens in two stages. In the first stage we apprehend the mere essence of some thing (a substance, quality, or so on); an example would be the cognition “This is something-or-other”. In conceptual cognition, on the other hand, we apprehend something as qualified by a name, a trope, a motion, a universal, or so on. An example of conceptual perception would be the judgment “the pale-skinned brahmin is walking”, where we perceive that a particular substance has both a trope (the “light” colour trope) and a motion (walking). The first perception in this process is itself not perceptible according to the Naiyāyikas—we can only infer that it takes place. We reason, that is, that our conceptual perception of a substance as qualified by a trope, motion, etc., could not have occurred unless we had already had a perception of those properties beforehand.³⁵

Unlike the Advaitins and the Naiyāyikas, the Mādhvas regard all perception as determinate.³⁶ In his commentary on the Pramāṇalakṣaṇa, Jayatīrtha argues against the Nyāya theory on ontological grounds. As we saw above, according to Jayatīrtha’s interpretation of Madhva’s ontological theory, properties like tropes, motions, etc., are not completely different from their substances as the Naiyāyikas assumed. While coeval properties are taken by the Mādhvas to be identical with their substances, they can be distinguished from those substances with the help of the “distinguishers” (viśeṣas). So from the Mādhva point of view it is impossible to perceive the properties of a substance separately, as the Nyāya theory seems to require.

Like the Naiyāyikas, the Mādhvas accept that there are six material (prākr̥ta) sense-faculties which produce different sorts of perceptual knowledge. These are: the faculties of sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, and the internal faculty/“mind” (manas).³⁷ Under normal circumstances, these faculties operate to produce veridical judgments about the external world. The sense-faculties are, in other words, innately disposed to produce knowledge rather than error. Perceptual errors do occur of course, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule that our perceptual faculties present us with an accurate picture of the world.

3.7 Perceptual error

According to the Advaitins perceptual illusions throw realism into question. Under analysis, claim the Advaitins, illusions are simply indeterminable; they frustrate our best attempts to explain them, and in doing so force us to abandon our deeply-held beliefs about “existence” and “nonexistence”, ultimately throwing into question the ontological status of the empirical world itself. I will discuss the Advaitins’ standpoint of “indeterminacy” (anirvacanīyatā) extensively in Chapter 4. By contrast to the Advaitins, the Mādhvas argue that perceptual errors are mundane and perfectly explicable events which only occur under exceptional circumstances. According to Jayatīrtha, error is simply the converse of knowledge. In the Pramāṇapaddhati, he defines error as: “the certainty [about some object] that it is contrary [to the way it really is]” (viparītaniścayaḥ). A cognition is said to be erroneous, in other words, when it grasps its object as being different to the way it is in reality.

For Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha, error involves the active misidentification of one individual with another, for example, when one believes that a piece of mother-of-pearl is silver, or that what is really a post further down the road is an approaching man. In the Pramāṇapaddati, Jayatīrtha recognises that, like veridical cognitions, erroneous cognitions might be produced by a variety of different means. He says that erroneous cognitions always arise from a “pseudo” means of knowledge (pramāṇa-ābhāsa). Just as veridical cognitions are produced by either perception, inference, or testimony, erroneous cognitions are produced by either pseudo-perception (pratyakṣa-ābhāsa), pseudo-inference, or pseudo-testimony.³⁸

When I discuss error in this volume, I am usually concerned with what Jayatīrtha would call “pseudo-perception”, that is, the causal antecedents that produce a perception-like erroneous cognition. These episodes have always been problematic for realist theories of knowledge. The central problem is that they show that cognitions that appear to be veridical perceptions can arise even when the conditions that produce veridical perceptions are (apparently) absent. This raises the prospect that all our cognitions can arise in the absence of an external object, and thus opens the door to nonrealist positions.

The realist schools of philosophy in India argued against Buddhist philosophers that perceptual illusions do not have the radical metaphysical implications that they were often taken to have. A proper analysis shows that the factors that produce illusions are not so different from those that produce veridical perceptions after all. The Naiyāyikas argued that error involves the active misidentification of one individual in reality with another, or the misattribution of a natural kind to an individual that really lacks it. In the Nyāyasudhā, Jayatīrtha attempted to show that Madhva’s theory is a sort of revised version of the Nyāya explanation of illusion. There is one key difference between the two positions. In order to protect their realism, the Naiyāyikas attempted to show that the different components of the confusion that happens in error can be traced back to parts of the real world. Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha, by contrast, actually accept that the object of our illusions does not exist anywhere in reality. The “snake” we mistake a length of rope for in the darkness is completely nonexistent, although our cognition must occur somehow under the influence of earlier perceptions of snakes. This is one of the most distinctive Mādhva philosophical positions.

3.8 Knowing veridicality: the witness

According to Mādhva philosophers, validity/veridicality (prāmāṇya)—the fact of cognitions according to/being like their object—is a property that occurs in cognitions, which in turn belong to the individual souls. Indian philosophers had extensive debates about how we come to know that our cognitions are veridical or nonveridical. Mādhva philosophers believe that we perceive the veridicality of true cognitions, and that the faculty responsible for such perceptions is the very same faculty that perceives the bare cognitions themselves. This view situates them in broadly the same camp as the Advaitins and Pūrva-Mīmāṃsakas, who are taken to defend the theory that validity/veridicality is apprehended “intrinsically” (svataḥprāmāṇyavāda), although the Mādhva position is very different from these traditions’ in crucial ways. Mādhva philosophers also believe that our sense-faculties are innately disposed to produce veridical cognitions. Our senses do not require the assistance of external “epistemic virtues” such as those theorised by the Sāṅkhyas and Naiyāyikas in order to produce veridical judgments.

In the Pramāṇapaddhati, Jayatīrtha gives the following succinct account of the Mādhva position:

According to [our] teacher[, Madhva], a cognition qualified by veridicality is produced by merely the sense-faculties [in the case of perception, knowledge of the reason in the case of inference, and speech in the case of testimony. Contrary to the Sāṅkhyas] epistemic virtues (guṇas) [belonging to the means of knowledge] have nothing to do with [the production of veridical cognitions]. Nonveridicality is produced [in cognitions] by the sense-faculties[, knowledge of the reason, and speech] insofar as they are afflicted by [some kind of] flaw.

Likewise, both cognition and its veridicality are cognised by the witness alone. The witness apprehends only the essence of nonveridical cognition; the nonveridicality [of such cognitions], on the other hand, must be inferred.³⁹

In the Nyāyasudhā, Jayatīrtha says that veridicality is grasped “intrinsically” because it is “grasped only by the thing that grasps the cognition [itself]” (jñānagrāhakamātragrāhyam).⁴⁰ As he indicates in the passage of the Pramāṇapaddhati translated above, the faculty that perceives both cognitions and their veridicality is the “witness” (sākṣin).⁴¹ The witness is, according to Jayatīrtha, simply the essence of the knowing subject. Under normal circumstances, it perceives the veridicality of a cognition; it only fails to do so if it becomes aware of some factor that rules out that cognition’s being veridical. Error, on the other hand, is only apprehended “extrinsically” (parataḥ), that is, by a means of knowledge other than the witness. For Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha, we come to know that a cognition is erroneous only through a process of rational reflection in which we evaluate the consistency of the erroneous judgment with our other beliefs.

In accepting that veridicality is apprehended “intrinsically”, the Mādhvas therefore disagree sharply with the Naiyāyikas. According to the later Naiyāyikas, veridicality is apprehended extrinsically; that is, by something other than that which cognises the cognition possessing the veridicality itself. For the Naiyāyikas, we only come to know that a cognition is veridical through an inference that tests its consistency with our other experiences. In everyday life, the bias is towards belief; however, in important yet uncertain matters (e.g. the existence of god, the self, and so on), veridicality is not apprehended automatically. We need to engage in reasoning to come to believe that our judgments are veridical in these cases.

For Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha, to say that the veridicality of our cognitions is apprehended “intrinsically” is to say that it is apprehended by the witness, which also apprehends the bare cognition itself. In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha gave several analytical accounts of what this entails. At the very beginning of the text, he argues that for the purposes of debate the witness fulfills the same role as the Naiyāyika’s faculty of apperception (anuvyavasāya). The witness is responsible for introspective awareness; it is the cogniser of cognitions. Vyāsatīrtha says that when the witness apprehends some cognition, it invariably apprehends the veridicality of the same cognition provided that none of the factors which would rule out the cognition’s veridicality are present. A factor that could rule out the cognition’s veridicality could be, for instance, a fault in the perceptual faculties or the presence in the internal faculty of some doubt about the truth of the cognition.⁴²

Besides explaining how we can know that our judgments are veridical, the witness also has a number of other functions in Mādhva philosophy. In the Pramāṇalakṣaṇaṭīkā, Jayatīrtha explains that the witness is actually a sort of sense-faculty (indriya), but one that, unlike the other six, is identical with the knowing subject itself: it is the “essential faculty” (svarūpendriya). Why should the witness, the very essence of the self, be considered a faculty like the visual faculty and so on? In the Pramāṇapaddhati, Jayatīrtha says that the witness, like the six material sense-faculties, qualifies as an anupramāṇa (an instrument of valid knowledge) because it manifests (abhivyanakti) “essential knowledge”, that is, knowledge of the self’s own nature. Like the material sense-faculties, the witness is a factor in the production of knowledge because of its capacity to illuminate/manifest a certain type of knowledge.

According to Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha, the witness perceives internal states (knowledge, pleasure, pain, and so on). It can also perceive the sense-faculties themselves, which explains how it can perceive any faults that would rule out the veridicality of a cognition produced by them. Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha further accept that the witness can directly perceive at least certain external substances. They accept that it perceives bare time and space, as well as the invisible, sound-conducting substance known as “the ether”. This puts the Mādhvas at odds with Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers who argued that we can only infer space, time, and the ether, but never perceive them directly.⁴³

According to Mādhva philosophers, the witness is inerrant and incorrigible. The witness’s perception is permanently free from faults, because it leads only to certainty and never to doubt. The perceptions of the witness, they argue, are always attended by a sense of certainty and are never sublated at a later point in time. In this respect, the witness differs from the six external sense-faculties, which on occasion err in respect of their object. Only mānasapratyakṣa, consisting in a modification of the inner-faculty (antaḥkaraṇapariṇāma), can be false or doubtful. When commenting on relevant passages of Madhva’s Anuvyākhyāna, Jayatīrtha explains this position as follows:

It is clear that there can be faults in the case of the perception of the inner-faculty; [yet] why is it that there can be no [faults] in the case of the perception of the witness? With this in mind, [in the following verse of the Anuvyākhyāna, Madhva] says—‘Very firm’ (sudr̥ḍha).

What is ‘very firm’ is what is never subject to sublation. Resolution is a mental judgment that is characterised by certainty. The particle ‘where’ (yatra) [in Madhva’s verse] is used in the sense of ‘that which …’ (yaḥ).

This is what [Madhva] has said [in this verse]—We postulate that a cognition has faults either because [we] observe that it waivers, or because it is undermined by a stronger, sublating [awareness]. As it is said—“… and it is only through a stronger means of knowledge that faults are to be known, and not otherwise”. And the perception of the witness consists only in certainty, and is [never] sublated; this has been explained in the “pr̥thagupadeśāt” adhikaraṇa⁴⁴ [of the Brahmasūtra]. Therefore, since there is no reason to believe [it is subject to faults, the perception of the witness] cannot be subject to faults.⁴⁵

In the same passage of the Nyāyasudhā, Jayatīrtha attempts to ground this stance about the witness in the apparent infallibility of our perceptions of our own internal states. While our external perceptions might sometimes deceive us, Mādhva philosophers assumed we can never be in error when we are perceiving our own internal conscious states such as pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, and so on. We can never believe erroneously that we are in pain or that we are currently feeling pleasure, for instance. These judgments, in other words, are infallible; we never find out later that we were in error about them, and they are never doubtful in character. The witness itself must therefore be responsible for perceiving such internal states:

[Madhva] has said that there is never any doubt concerning something that is established by the witness. In order to bring this fact to experience, [he] first of all states the objects that are established by the witness [in the verse of the Anuvyākhyāna beginning with the word] “desire”: “Desire, cognition, pleasure, pain, fear, the absence of fear, compassion, and so on are all established by the witness; for, nobody is in any doubt about them in any case”. (Anuvyākhyāna, SMG1: 184; verse 3,4.143.)

By the words “and so on” (ādi) [in this verse] are understood effort and aversion, as well as their absences. “So what?” doubts [Madhva] and responds—“[For,] no [one] (na) …”. There is never the doubt, “Do I feel pleasure, or not?”; nor is there the doubt, “Is the pleasure [I am experiencing] real, or not?”; this is the meaning of the word “for” (hi) [in this verse].⁴⁶

Still, why should we accept that the witness is inerrant in all cases? Even if we concede that we can never be in doubt about our internal states, surely perceptual error itself shows us that the witness can be wrong in certain cases? In the same passage of the Nyāyasudhā, Jayatīrtha argues that we must conclude that all error consists in the perception of the inner-faculty (mānasapratyakṣa) rather than the perception of the witness. This may sound ad hoc, but he argues that we need to accept this in order to explain how practical activity (vyavahāra) is possible at all. In order to engage in practical activity, Jayatīrtha reasons, we need to be certain about objects in the world around us, and, in order to have this certainty, we must be certain that our judgments about those objects are veridical:

Objection: It is not possible that the perception of the witness is never sublated, because [we] observe that cognitions like the mother-of-pearl/silver [confusion] are sublated. For, no other cognition can occur at the same time that the [erroneous] cognition is taking place. With this objection in mind [Madhva] says—“That which (yad) …”. “For, perception that deviates in some cases [from its object] is perception of the inner-faculty”. (Anuvyākhyāna, SMG1: 184; verse 3,4.143.)

That perception which sometimes deviates in respect of [its] object—in the case of the motherof-pearl/silver [illusion], for instance—and which can be sublated must consist in a modification of the inner-faculty (manas), and it has the visual-faculty and so on for its cause. Why is this so? Because if [we] accept that the perception of the inner-faculty is sublatable, then nothing problematic follows. But if [we] accept that the [perception of] the witness is [sublatable], then, as has been said [earlier in this text], it would follow that all practical activity would be annulled.⁴⁷

The witness is the faculty responsible for telling us whether our judgments are veridical or not. Therefore, if we were aware of just one instance where the witness was in error, we could have no confidence in it and thus in our ability to distinguish truth from error. Yet we can and do distinguish between veridical and non-veridical judgments in our everyday life, and we act successfully and with confidence on the basis of this. To explain this fact, we need to assume that erroneous awareness always belongs to the inner-faculty and postulate the inerrancy of the witness. If we dismiss the witness’s inerrancy, then we dismiss with it the whole edifice of practical activity and religion, which is based on its ability to distinguish truth from falsity.⁴⁸

3.9 Conclusion

The fundamental question of the Nyāyāmr̥ta is the relationship of brahman to reality. In his benedictory verses to the text, Vyāsatīrtha claims that the world is an existent effect of god. The world may depend on god in various different ways, but this dependency does not imply that the world does not truly exist. As a dependent realm, the world is profoundly inferior to god, and scriptural texts often emphasise this inferiority to divine being. Yet the world enjoys exactly the same kind of “existence” that god does. The deep truth that scripture seeks to reveal to the sentient beings trapped in saṃsāra is not the unreality of this world, but the fact that it exists in a permanent state of existential dependence on god. A deep understanding of the nature of god has the power to move him to liberate conscious beings from bondage in transmigratory existence, but only if their immutable ethical natures warrant such a blessing.

As I will show in Chapter 5, Vyāsatīrtha uses the Mādhva theories of perception and knowledge outlined in this chapter to defend Mādhva theology against the inferences made by Advaitin philosophers to show that the world is a kind of illusion. The world that perception reveals to us—a pluralistic world of discrete conscious and unconscious entities—is ultimately real. Our perceptual faculties show us that this world is not some illusion which can be dispelled through an insight into a deeper level of reality. The witness—itself a kind of perceptual faculty—gives us certainty that the contents of our veridical perceptions will never be falsified, and thus rules out any possibility that the knowledge of our senses will be undermined by some future realisation of an underlying reality. Perceptual error does not open the door to anti-realist positions. On the contrary, perceptual illusions are easily explained, and only go to prove the rule that perception is a reliable source of knowledge of the world.

For Advaitin philosophers, by contrast, our perception of this pluralistic world of conscious and unconscious beings is simply a profound error which can be annulled by a deeper awareness of the reality of brahman. The world of mutually differentiated entities revealed to us by our senses, as well as the psycho-physical individuation of conscious beings itself, is merely an illusion caused by a mysterious force the Advaitins call, among other things, “nescience” (avidyā). For the Advaitins, the world is not a complete nonentity as certain Buddhists were taken to claim, yet the “reality” that perception reveals to us is very much provisional. The Upaniṣads have the power to dispel this world-illusion by showing that our imagined differentiation into distinct individuals is merely the result of a distortion of brahman by nescience. In the next chapter, I analyse Vyāsatīrtha’s own exposition of the philosophy of the classical Advaitins that he devotes most of the Nyāyāmr̥ta to refuting.

4 Vyāsatīrtha’s Analysis of Advaita Philosophy

4.1 Brahman and the world in Advaita philosophy

According to the Advaitins, Mādhva philosophers’ identification of brahman with Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa is utterly wrong. The brahman of the Upaniṣads is not a personal being of infinite qualities, and the theistic tendencies observable in many Upaniṣads do not convey brahman as it truly is. In his Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, Śaṅkara attempted to harmonise the diverse expressions of the Upaniṣads to show that brahman is identical with the innermost self (ātman) of sentient beings. The “self” in this context should not be confused with the “personal self”, in the sense of the individuated knowing subject who interacts as an agent with the everyday world and undergoes rebirth and death. Brahman/ātman is, for the Advaitins pure, unchanging consciousness. From the ultimate point of view, brahman is completely free from qualities (nirguṇa), good or bad. We can thus not refer to it directly through the use of words.

Brahman is self-manifesting (svayam-prakāśa), but it is concealed by a force that was known variously as “nescience” (avidyā), “illusion” (māyā), “ignorance” (ajñāna), and a number of other terms. According to Advaitin philosophers, it is this force that obstructs the self-luminosity of brahman and leads to the emergence of the appearance of a world of mutually-differentiated conscious subjects and objects. This world may enjoy a provisional reality from the point of view of those trapped in the illusion of transmigratory existence, but it certainly cannot be said to “exist”, as the Mādhvas claim. The differences that make up the empirical world of thinking subjects and inanimate objects are, in the ultimate analysis, an illusion which is superimposed on pure consciousness due to the effect of beginningless nescience. As a “virtual-effect” of nescience, the world is thus mere appearance, and, like all illusory appearances, it is liable to sublation (bādha) through true awareness. The final goal of Advaita philosophy is to bring about a radical realisation in which the apparent dualities of the world vanish and the self-luminous brahman manifests itself without the obstructing veil of nescience.

After Śaṅkara, Advaitin philosophers came to focus on the nature of nescience and its relationship to brahman, rather than on the nature of the ineffable brahman itself. The task of explaining the relationship between brahman and nescience presented numerous problems. If brahman alone exists, then how can we explain the appearance of the individual souls and the world-illusion? The Brahmasūtra itself seems to speak of brahman as the source of the world, but what exactly could this mean if the world is unreal? Should brahman or nescience be spoken of as the “cause” of the world-appearance, and, if so, what sort of a cause are they? Does nescience constitute a further entity besides brahman, or is it simply nonexistent like the proverbial “son of a barren woman”? Does brahman act as the locus of nescience, and, if not, where does nescience reside? Does nescience have an “object”, and, if so, what is it? Moreover, if the world does not really exist, how are philosophical debate and liberation itself possible? The programme of liberation proposed by the Advaitins and the practice of philosophical debate itself seem to depend on the assumption that the empirical world has some kind of existence, yet Advaitin philosophers deny that it truly exists.

By the time Vyāsatīrtha was writing, Advaitin philosophers had articulated a wide range of different stances on these questions. Many Advaitin philosophers concluded that it is nescience itself, and not brahman, that acts as the stuff out of which the world is formed. Śaṅkara’s commentator Sureśvara concluded that illusion (māyā) alone is the material cause of the world-appearance. He said that brahman is both the support and the object of nescience.¹ In his Iṣṭasiddhi, Vimuktātman claimed that the world is “made up” of illusion (māyānirmita).² He compared the relationship between brahman and the world to the relationship between a canvas and the painting painted onto it. Vimuktātman used this rich metaphor to show how brahman can act as the support for the world-appearance without acting as its material cause or undergoing any true change. The canvas (brahman) acts as a support for the painting (the world-illusion) which is superimposed onto it. The canvas is not the material cause of the painting, nor is the painting a modification of the canvas in the way a pot is a modification of the clay from which it is formed. The canvas existed before the painting came into being, and it would continue to exist even if the painting were wiped from it. Like brahman, the canvas existed before the painting and can continue to exist even if the painting is destroyed; the canvas can appear without the painting, yet the painting can only be perceived if it is superimposed on the canvas.³

By contrast to Vimuktātman and Sureśvara, in his Bhāmatī commentary on Śaṅkara’s Bhāṣya, Vācaspati Miśra said that brahman “associated with avidyā” constitutes the material cause of the world.⁴ Like Maṇḍana, Vācaspati claimed that nescience is located in the individual soul (jīva) and not in brahman itself. Padmapāda was not absolutely clear on the nature of the causal relationship between brahman and the world, but he does seem to say that brahman itself is the cause of the world through the operation of nescience.⁵

Padmapāda’s commentator, Prakāśātman, whose thought looms large in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, claimed that brahman is the changeless material (avikāryupādāna) that acts as the basis of the world-illusion. In his Vivaraṇa, Prakāśātman famously said that brahman is the cause of the world insofar as it is “combined with” (viśiṣṭa) indeterminate illusion (anirvacanīyamāyā). He clarified that this claim could be interpreted to mean that brahman combined with illusion is the cause of the world in the manner in which two threads twisted together combine to make up a length of rope. Alternatively, he says it could mean that brahman is the cause of the world insofar as it possesses illusion (māyā) as a “potency” (śakti). Finally, Prakāśātman says that this claim could also be interpreted to mean that brahman is ultimately the cause of the world because it acts as the locus of illusion, illusion itself being the material cause of the world.⁶

Prakāśātman also gave a clear articulation of the vivarta-vāda, the doctrine that the world-appearance is merely an apparent transformation of brahman. Prakāśātman says that vivarta refers to “the appearance in one thing of multiple unreal forms contrary to the prior state [of that thing] which, in reality, remains unchanged”. He contrasts vivarta with the process of “(true) transformation” (pari-ṇāma), which occurs when “a single thing, through the loss of its prior form/essence (svarūpa), takes on a real new form”.⁷ According to this doctrine, the world is a “virtual effect” of brahman, which, in reality, remains unchanged despite the appearance of the illusion. From the ultimate point of view, all Advaitin philosophers deny the existence of the world. Nevertheless, the earliest philosophers identified with the Advaita tradition—Gauḍapāda, Śaṅkara, and Maṇḍana—all accepted that it can be spoken of as having some degree of reality, and their followers explored this heirarchy of being in detail.

Advaitin philosophers distinguish between that which is “ultimately real” (pāramārthika-sat), that which has “practical/transactional reality” (vyāvahārikasat), and that which is “completely illusory” (pāribhāṣika-sat). Brahman alone is ultimately real, and the objects of everyday perceptual illusions (the “snake” seen where there is only rope) belong to the lowest, “illusory” level of reality. The empirical world, however, has some existence, at least from the point of view of those who have not yet been liberated from it. Until the world is sublated by the awareness of brahman, it has a provisional, “transactional” reality, just as dream-objects appear to exist to the dreamer until she wakes up. Advaitin philosophers took it that this aspect of their philosophy distinguishes them from “nihilistic” Buddhist philosopher (śūnyavādin) who, according to Brahmanical philosophers, claimed that the world is completely nonexistent like the “sky-flower”.

4.2 Three definitions of “illusoriness” (mithyātva)

The different positions of the classical Advaitins on the above issues have been discussed by Dasgupta (1932), Deutsch (1969), Granoff (1978), Phillips (1995), Gupta (1998), Schmücker (2001), Ram-Prasad (2002), and Minkowski (2011), among others. In this chapter, I will focus on Vyāsatīrtha’s reconstruction of Advaita philosophy in the pūrvapakṣa he gives at the beginning of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. As this part of the text shows, Vyāsatīrtha was acutely sensitive to the subtle differences between the positions of the classical Advaitins. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the text he wishes to draw a single binary disagreement between the Mādhvas and the Advaitins about the empirical world. Vyāsatīrtha takes it that the commonality binding the diverse strands of Advaita philosophy together is the claim that the “world is ‘illusory’” (viśvaṃ mithyā).⁸ He devotes the remainder of the pūrvapakṣa to clarifying what exactly this statement could mean, and how the Advaitins can support this claim. He focuses particularly on the formal inferences that Advaitin philosophers adduced to support their position.

The Advaitin wants to prove that the world has the quality of “illusoriness” (mithyātva), but what does this mean? At the beginning of the Advaita pūrvapakṣa, Vyāsatīrtha presents the following list of definitions of “illusoriness”:

“complete nonexistence” (atyantāsattvam);

“indeterminacy” (anirvācyatvam);

“being different from what exists” (sadviviktatvam);

“not being a locus of existence” (sattvānadhikaraṇatvam);

“not being an object of knowledge” (pramityaviṣayatvam);

“being an object of error” (bhrāntiviṣayatvam);

“sublatability” (bādhyatvam);

“being the object of a sublating cognition” (bādhakajñānaviṣayatvam);

“being the object [of a sublating cognition] by virtue of being the counterpositive of an absence that is made known by the cognition, ‘It is not, it was not, [and] nor shall it be’” (nāsti, nāsīt, na bhaviṣyatīti bodhyamānābhāvapratiyogitvena tadviṣayatvam);

“being liable to cancellation by knowledge” (jñānanivartyatvam);

[something’s] “being the counterpositive of a constant absence that shares a common locus with [that thing itself]” (svasamānādhikaraṇātyantābhāvapratiyogitvam);

[something’s] “being the counterpositive of a constant absence that is not the locus of the property of not occurring completely [in its locus] (avyāpyavr̥ttitva), and which constant absence shares a common locus with [that thing itself]” (avyāpyavr̥ttitvānāśrayasvasamānādhikaraṇātyantābhāvapratiyogitvam);

“being either nescience or an effect of [nescience]” (avidyātatkāryayor anyataratvam).⁹

This list of definitions is similar to the list of definitions that Citsukha gave in the Tattvapradīpikā.¹⁰ Given his deep familiarity with Citsukha’s work, it seems likely that Vyāsatīrtha drew on the Tattvapradīpikā in this regard. Vyāsatīrtha argues that all of these definitions suffer from obvious flaws, and finds them unworthy of further discussion. However, he goes on to consider five further definitions that seem to warrant deeper analysis. These five definitions, along with the Advaita philosophical works Vyāsatīrtha ascribes them to, are:

–

D¹: “Indeterminacy” (anirvacanīyatā), that is, “not being the locus of existence or nonexistence” (Padmapāda, Pañcapādikā),¹¹

–

D²: [Something’s] being the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence in the very thing that was taken to be [its] substrate (Prakāśātman, Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa and Sureśvara, Br̥hadāraṇyakopaniṣadbhāṣyavārttika),¹²

–

D³: Being liable to be cancelled by cognition by virtue of the fact that [the cancelling cognition] is a cognition (Prakāśātman, Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa),¹³

–

D⁴: [Something’s] being the counterpositive of a constant absence that shares a common locus with that thing itself (Citsukha, Tattvapradīpikā),¹⁴

–

D⁵: The absence of the quality of being existent by essence (Ānandabodha, Nyāyadīpāvalī).¹⁵

In the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha cycles through these definitions in turn, giving reasons to show that each cannot be the quality that the Advaitin wants to prove of the world. In this volume, I will mainly discuss three of these definitions—those of Padmapāda (D¹), Prakāśātman (D²), and Citsukha (D⁴). These are the definitions that Vyāsatīrtha devotes the most attention to in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

Advaitin philosophers argue that the illusoriness which they ascribe to the world is already established in the case of the mundane perceptual illusions we sometimes encounter in our everyday lives. The illusion where we mistake a piece of mother-of-pearl for silver serves as the “empirical instance”/example (dr̥ṣṭānta) in the formal inferences that Advaitin philosophers adduced to support their position. The episode could be narrated as follows. A person comes across a piece of mother-of-pearl sparkling on the ground in the sunlight. However, rather than forming the veridical judgment, “This is mother-of-pearl” (idaṃ śuktiḥ), for one reason or another they become persuaded that what lies before them is, in fact, silver. They greedily reach for the precious metal, only to find that, on closer inspection, it is just a worthless piece of shell. This final discovery is referred to as the “sublating-cognition” (bādhakajñāna). A sublating cognition is one that cancels an earlier, erroneous cognition. Indian philosophers often considered the process where one entity becomes confused with another as entailing the “superimposition” (adhyāsa) of the false thing on the real one. Hence the fake silver was often termed the “superimposed thing” (āropya, āropyamāṇa), and the mother-of-pearl as the locus/object of the superimposition (āropaviṣaya).

The Advaitins ascribe the property of “illusoriness” (mithyā-tva) to the “silver” that appears in this illusion. Mithyā is a difficult term to translate; there is no single English term that can fully capture its implications. According to the Monier-Williams Sanskrit dictionary, the term mithyā is primarily an adverb, which can be rendered as “distortedly”, “contrarily”, and “falsely”, among other translations. It has often been rendered with the word “false” by modern translators. A problem with translating the term mithyā as “false” is that it is strange to refer to things as “false”. In English, the term is usually used in connection with statements/propositions. I thus translate the terms mithyā and mithyātva as “illusory” and “illusoriness” throughout this volume.

Translating the term mithyā is further complicated by the fact that the Mādhvas and the Advaitins disagree fundamentally about what it means. Although they differ among themselves about how the two terms should be defined, all Advaitin philosophers agree that there is a fundamental semantic distinction to be drawn between the words “illusory” (mithyā) and “nonexistent” (asat). So far as the Advaitins are concerned, their claim that the world is “illusory” is significantly different from the claim that the world “does not exist”. This claim is crucial for the Advaitins because it should distinguish their stance on the world from the position of the nihilistic Buddhist philosopher (śūnyavādin), who was taken to claim that the world simply does not exist like the hare’s horn.

Mādhva philosophers argue that this is a distinction without a difference. For Madhva’s followers, to say that something is mithyā essentially means the same thing as saying that it is “nonexistent”. The two terms ultimately mean one and the same thing, and the “silver” that we seem to experience in the silver/mother-of-pearl illusion is “nonexistent” in just the same way that the “square circle” is. Madhva himself argued at length that the Advaitins’ claim about the world is no different from the nihilist’s, and that other aspects of the Advaitins’ philosophy draw parallels with the stances of Buddhist philosophers. The Mādhvas were certainly not the first tradition to accuse the Advaitins of being “Buddhists in disguise” (pracchannabauddhas). Bhāskara and Rāmānuja both made this claim before Madhva. The Mā-dhvas are unique, however, in the quantity and the depth of the arguments they make to justify this claim. Vyāsatīrtha himself pressed the case that the Advaitins are just crypto-Buddhists in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.¹⁶ In turn, medieval and modern Advaitin scholars have argued that certain aspects of Mādhva philosophy sit uncomfortably close to Buddhist thought.¹⁷

All of the five definitions of illusoriness given above should thus draw a clear distinction between the Advaitins’ position about the world and that of outright nihilism. The first definition of “illusoriness” of the five that Vyāsatīrtha takes seriously in the Nyāyāmr̥ta is “indeterminacy” (anirvacanīyatā, anirvācyatā). A large part of the present volume will be concerned with showing how the Mādhvas respond to this doctrine of the Advaitins. “Indeterminacy” (a more literal, but cumbersome, translation would be “indeterminability”) has often been taken to be a mystical statement to the effect that something is simply ineffable or beyond language. The Advaitin philosophers referred to in this volume used the term in a more specific sense, however.¹⁸ When Advaitin philosophers say that the object of perceptual error (the “silver”) is “indeterminate”, they usually mean that we cannot assign it a definite ontological status as existent (sat) or nonexistent (asat).

In the first chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha usually defines indeterminacy as “not being the locus of existence or nonexistence” (sadasattvānadhikaraṇatva). This is the analysis of indeterminacy given by Citsukha in the Tattvapradīpikā, which was also used by Jayatīrtha in the Vādāvalī.¹⁹ According to Advaitin philosophers, the facts about the silver/mother-of-pearl confusion make it impossible for us to assign the silver a definite ontological status. On the one hand, the “silver” appears vividly to consciousness. In fact, the victim of the illusion comes to believe that they are perceiving a real piece of silver in front of their eyes, and the experience is so convincing that they reach down to pick it up. On the other hand, this erroneous belief is eventually sublated when the victim of the illusion comes to realise that what was really in front of them was mother-of-pearl, not silver.

The Advaitins argue that these facts about perceptual error cannot be reconciled with the hypothesis that the “silver” either exists or does not exist. The “silver” we see where there is really mother-of-pearl cannot truly exist, otherwise we would not have the cognition that sublates it (“This is not silver, it’s mother-of-pearl!”). Then again, it cannot be entirely nonexistent either, because we have a vivid, perception-like cognition of it. The “silver” has appearance without reality, and these facts force us to abandon our attempts to account for the illusion by attributing a determinate ontological status to the silver. Like the silver, the empirical world in its entirety is indeterminate according to the Advaitins; it cannot be said to truly exist, but it is not completely nonexistent like a sky-flower, either.

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha attributes this definition of indeterminacy to the works of Padmapāda (fl. 740), who is taken to have been one of Śaṅkara’s direct students. The concept goes back further in Advaita philosophy, however. An early use of the term anirvacanīya in this way is found in the Brahmasiddhi of Maṇḍana Miśra (fl. 690). Maṇḍana uses the term when giving an explanation of the relationship between nescience (avidyā) and brahman:

Nescience is not the essence (svabhāva) of brahman, nor is it something other [than brahman]; it is not completely nonexistent, nor is it existent [like brahman]. For this very reason is it called “nescience”, “illusion”, [and] “illusory appearance”. If it were the essence of something, then, whether it were different or non-different [from that thing], it would be ultimately real, and hence it would not be nescience. If[, on the other hand,] it were completely nonexistent (atyantāsat), it could not enter into practical discourse/activity (vyavahāra), like the sky-flower, for instance; hence, [nescience] is indeterminable.²⁰

The concept of indeterminacy was developed considerably in the tenth century by Vimuktātman, whose work featured prominently in Madhva’s critique of Advaita.²¹ In a signal passage early on in his Iṣṭasiddhi, he outlines his position about the world in response to the argument of a hypothetical opponent who claims that liberation is simply impossible according to the nondualistic stance that only brahman exists. Vimuktātman sets up this opponent’s argument as follows:

Objection: In that case [i.e., if nothing other than brahman is truly real], what is the status of this world of duality, which is the object of [the instruments of knowledge]—perception and so on—[and] the basis of the parts of the Veda that enjoin/forbid actions and teach knowledge?

If, on the one hand, this world simply does not exist, then perception and [the other things taken to be instruments of knowledge] would have no object, and so they would not be valid instruments of knowledge. Likewise, the parts of the Veda that deal with action and knowledge [respectively would] have no basis, and[, being part of the world,] they would be by essence nonexistent; hence they too would not be valid instruments of knowledge. Moreover, since perception and so on are very much part of the world, if [the world] did not exist, then they [themselves] would not exist. [It might be objected that since śruti and smr̥ti have brahman for their object, they can be valid means of knowledge. However,] śruti, smr̥ti, and reasoning (nyāya) are not self-established [and hence they have no essence]. For all of these reasons, [if this world of duality simply does not exist then] the existence of brahman as [you have] described it could not be established on the strength of [any of the means of knowledge].²²

Vimuktātman’s hypothetical opponent goes on to anticipate some possible lines of response Advaitin philosophers could give to these criticisms, but finds them wanting, and concludes that the Advaitin’s position is hopeless:

If, seeking to avert these flaws, [you, the Advaitin,] accept that there is a world, then [you] must accept that [this world] is either different, non-different, or both-different-and-non-different from brahman. [The world cannot be] otherwise, for it is not possible for something to be in anything other than one of these three states. [If you accept] that [the world] simply is not a real thing (avastutva), then the faults [I] have [just] described pertain. For, the practical discourse that [I] have described cannot come about on the basis of [something that is entirely nonexistent,] like the horn of a man, or a sky-flower, etc. Even if [you accept that the world] is substantially real, then brahman as [you] have described it [i.e., as “one without a second”] would not be established as being in any of the three states [just outlined, i.e. being different, not different, or both-different-and-not-different from brahman].

Thus, whether the world exists or does not exist, brahman as you have described it cannot be established through the statements of the Vedānta. It is thus not tenable to claim that the perception [of brahman] leads to the ultimate obtainment of what is desired and avoidance of what is undesirable on the part of a man. Thus, [one] must have recourse to some other mode of liberation [than the one proposed by you,] or there is no liberation at all!²³

Vimuktātman believes that liberation follows from the direct experience of brahman generated by a deep understanding of the Upaniṣads. However, as an Advaitin, Vimuktātman also holds that brahman is “one, without a second”. Only brahman can really be said to exist; the world does not truly exist, and only a direct experience of the non-dual brahman has the power to dispel the world-illusion. In this case, what is the status of the empirical world? Does it “exist” in any sense of the term? Or is it a “mere nothing”, like the “son of a barren woman”?

Vimuktātman is apparently caught in a dilemma. He clearly cannot accept that the world truly exists in the same way that brahman does, because that would contradict his monistic stance about brahman. However, he cannot accept that the world is a complete nonentity either. It seems that Advaitin philosophers need to accept that we can know things through the valid instruments of knowledge, because they accept that it is these instruments which can ultimately lead us to the direct realisation of brahman which serves to liberate us. For this reason it seems that the Advaitin needs to assume that there is, in some sense, a world in order to explain how the instruments of knowledge can function to lead us to this liberating insight. How can the Veda tell us things about the world, if there is no world to speak of? We cannot perceive, talk about, or act in regard to things that have no existence whatsoever. Moreover, the instruments of knowledge themselves, including the Veda, must surely be part of the world. If the world does not exist, then, as a part of that world, the pramāṇas themselves must be nonexistent, and how can perception or verbal testimony lead us to knowledge if they themselves do not exist?

So, if Vimuktātman accepts that the world exists, then he is abandoning his monistic claim that only brahman is real. On the other hand, if he accepts that the world is completely nonexistent, then the means of knowledge, which are part of that world, cannot function to lead us to the liberating realisation of brahman. In neither case can there be liberation in the way that Vimuktātman, as an Advaitin, accepts. Liberation should come about through knowledge of the nondual brahman. Yet, if the objector in this passage is correct, either brahman is not “one without a second”, or the means of knowledge cannot lead us to the putatively liberating knowledge of brahman.

Vimuktātman responds to this objection by outlining an explanation of his stance that “illusion”—the basis of the empirical world—is indeterminate:

[In response] to this [I, Vimuktātman,] say—There is not so much as a single fault with my view, because [I] accept that the universe is formed from illusion (māyā). Since illusion, together with [its] effects, cannot be determined to be truly existent or truly nonexistent, the stated faults, which pertain to the views that the world is real or unreal, do not get so much as a side-glance into my position!

To explain—Since[, in our view,] the world is not truly real, our non-dualism is not compromised. And, since [the world] is not completely unreal, none of the faults stated [above]— perception and so on not being valid instruments of knowledge, etc.—follow, and there is not the failure to establish the existence of brahman as [we] have stated brahman to be[, i.e., as “one, without a second”]. And since the direct experience of [brahman] leads to the cessation of illusion and its effects, [we] have not failed to establish liberation.²⁴

Vimuktātman’s response to the dilemma laid out in this passage is to argue that his opponent’s charge rests on a false dichotomy. The world is an effect of illusion (māyā), and māyā and its effects are “indeterminable” from the ontological point of view. As an effect of māyā, the world is not a real thing (vastu), but it is not something completely unreal (avastu) either. As such, the world does not constitute a second real entity besides brahman, so the Advaitin’s nondualistic position is not undermined. Yet, since the world is not a complete nonentity, as the nihilistic Buddhist is taken to claim, perception and the other instruments of knowledge cannot be said to lack a basis/object, and we can achieve knowledge of brahman through them. For Vimuktātman, indeterminacy has the power to reconcile the possibility of liberation with the doctrine of nondualism.

This response might sound ad hoc, but Vimuktātman believes this position about the world can be grounded in an analysis of everyday perceptual illusions like the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion. In another passage of the Iṣṭasiddhi, for instance, he presents a case for the indeterminacy of the “silver” as follows:

If the “silver” [superimposed on] mother-of-pearl were existent, then the cognition of it could not be erroneous, just like the cognition of real silver; and, just like [the cognition of real silver, this cognition of silver] could not be sublated. If, on the other hand, [the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl] were nonexistent, then [one] could not cognise it any more than [one can cognise] a “man’s horn”, and there could thus be neither the erroneous cognition [of the “silver”], nor the sublation [of that erroneous cognition]. Nor [can it be argued] that [in the case of the “silver”] there is neither error nor sublation, because it is well-established to all beings [that the cognition of the “silver” is erroneous and that it is sublated by later experience]; and because [these facts] are accepted by all philosophers.²⁵

In this passage, Vimuktātman presents an argument for indeterminacy which would feature frequently in the works of Madhva and his followers. The indeterminacy of the world is prefigured in the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion. The “silver” cannot really exist because then the “erroneous” cognition would be a veridical one, and it could not later be falsified. Then again, it cannot lack existence altogether as the nihilist claims, since then it would be impossible for us to perceive it at all. The illusory “silver” that appears in this episode of perceptual error thus presents us with a case of something that resists determination as being either existent or nonexistent.

4.3 Prakāśātman’s and Citsukha’s definitions of illusoriness

Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of indeterminacy in the Nyāyāmr̥ta is the central topic of Chapter 6 of this volume. The two other definitions of illusoriness that Vyāsatīrtha devotes the most attention to in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta are the second and fourth definitions on the list of five discussed above. These definitions take a very similar approach to defining illusoriness to one another. Vyāsatīrtha himself indicates that he drew D² from Prakāśātman’s Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa. To say that something is “illusory” according to this definition is to say that that thing is “the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence in the very thing that was taken to be [its] substrate” (pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam).²⁶ The “counter-positive” of the absence is the “absentee”, that is, the illusory thing itself. So something is “illusory” according to D² if it is permanently absent from the very substrate in which it was (mistakenly) taken to exist. This definition applies to the case where we mistake mother-of-pearl for silver, for instance, because the “silver” is permanently absent from the location that we (mistakenly) took to be its substrate—the piece of mother-of-pearl lying in front of our eyes. Similarly, the empirical world is really permanently absent from brahman, the very locus from which it seems to emerge as an effect.

Citsukha’s own attempt to define illusoriness (D⁴) is very similar to Prakāśātman’s. As Vyāsatīrtha formulates Citsukha’s definition, something is “illusory” if it “is the counterpositive of a constant absence, which constant absence shares a common locus with that thing itself” (svasamānādhikaraṇātyantābhāvapratiyogitvam). In the Tattvapradīpikā, Citsukha says that this definition means that something (x) is “illusory” if x is permanently absent from the very thing that was (mistakenly) taken to be x’s own substrate.²⁷ It is difficult to identify a substantial philosophical distinction between Citsukha’s definition and Prakāśātman’s. Pellegrini (2011: 453) says that D² is “essentially the same” as D⁴. Vyāsatīrtha (NAB, 1:38) does attempt to draw some distinction by analysing D⁴ as meaning: “[something’s] being experienced only in the locus of its own constant absence” (svātyantābhāvādikaraṇa eva pratīyamānatvam). Madhusūdana follows him and adopts this analysis in the Advaitasiddhi (NAB, 1:104). Under Vyāsatīrtha’s analysis, the emphasis falls on the cognitive part of the definition, not on the “counterpositiveness” itself. However, it is not clear that this amounts to a substantial philosophical difference between D² and D⁴.²⁸ In fact, Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of the definition suggests that he thinks that the two definitions are not substantially different from one another. When he discusses Citsukha’s definition in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, he simply refers the reader back to what he has already said against Prakāśātman’s definition earlier in the text.²⁹

As I will discuss in Chapter 6, a serious challenge for Advaitin philosophers is to show that both of these definitions can do justice to their claim that there is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between what is “nonexistent” and what is “illusory”. This problem dominates the discussion of D² given by Vyāsatīrtha in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. There, Vyāsatīrtha argues that both Prakāśātman’s and Citsukha’s definitions of illusoriness really just amount to saying that something is “nonexistent”. Both D² and D⁴ ultimately say that the “illusory” thing is absent from all locations, even if it is mistakenly taken to exist somewhere. In fact, for Vyāsatīrtha, to say that something is “nonexistent” is simply to say that that thing is absent from all possible locations at all times. So, if we take “illusoriness” to be Prakāśātman’s definition (D²) or Citsukha’s definition (D⁴), what exactly is the difference between “illusoriness”/“nonexistence” supposed to be? What is it that distinguishes the Advaitins’ position about the world from the nihilistic Buddhist’s?

Advaitin philosophers argued that these two definitions distinguish “illusory” things from “nonexistent” ones because we can cognise illusory things, whereas nonexistent things such as the hare’s horn can never become the objects of certain types of conscious states. Vyāsatīrtha critiques this position in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, and I will discuss his arguments in detail in Chapter 6. For the moment I will examine another strategy that Advaitin philosophers used to distinguish Prakāśātman’s definition of illusoriness from outright nonexistence. Vyāsatīrtha himself discusses this strategy in his Advaita pūrvapakṣa (NAB, 1:37). There he gives a modified version of Prakāśātman’s definition. Something is illusory according to this definition if it

“is the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence from the point of view of [its] being ultimately real” (pāramārthikatvākāreṇa traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam).

The definition adds the qualifier pāramārthikatvākāreṇa (“insofar as [it (= the illusory thing) is] ultimately real”) to D². This interpretation of Prakāśātman’s definition reflects a particular theory about absence which can be traced back to the works of a Prābhākara Mīmāṃsaka known as Sondaḍa Upādhyāya (fl. 1200). According to this theory, it is possible for something to be the counterpositive of an absence from the point of view of a property that that thing never has. The traditional example of such an absence is the absence that seems to be referred to by the expression, “A pot does not exist from the point of view of [its] being cloth” (ghaṭaḥ paṭatvena nāsti). In this expression, the abstract noun in the instrumental case (paṭatvena: “from the point of view of cloth-ness”) indicates the property that acts as the “determiner” (avacchedaka) of the “counterpositiveness” (pratiyogitā) that is present in the pot. In other words, it indicates the mode under which the pot is absent from reality. The point is that the pot might not be nonexistent from the point of view of its being a pot (i.e. from the point of view of its own essential nature), but it must be absent from all possible locations from the point of view of its being a cloth, because a pot can never be a piece of cloth.

The Navya-Naiyāyikas refer to such an absence as: “an absence the counterpositiveness to which is determined by a property that does not share a common locus [with its own counterpositive]” (vyadhikaraṇadharmāvacchinnapratiyogitākā-bhāva). Technically, it is an absence where the property that determines counter-positiveness (the pratiyogitāvacchedaka) does not have any common locus with the thing that possesses that property of counterpositiveness (i.e. the counterpositive itself). In the example just given, the determiner of counterpositiveness is “clothness” (paṭatva) and the locus of counterpositiveness is the pot. A pot can never be a cloth, so the property of clothness never occurs in the counterpositive of the absence. According to those who defend this theory, such an absence is an example of a universal-positive (kevalānvayin) property, since it is present in all possible locations.

Advaitin philosophers applied this theory to defend definitions of illusoriness like Prakāśātman’s and Citsukha’s. When commenting on Vyāsatīrtha’s pūrvapakṣa, Śrīnivāsatīrtha gives a clear explanation of this argument:

If the quality that is to be established [as belonging to the world, i.e. illusoriness,] consisted [merely] in “being the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence in what was taken to be [its own] substrate”, then it would follow that [the world] is completely nonexistent. Nor is this a desirable consequence [for the Advaitins], since [they themselves] accept that [the world] is, by essence, different from what is nonexistent, and [thus the inference] would be proving something that has[, in their view,] already been ruled out (bādha). With this in mind, [Vyāsatīrtha] says—“From the point of view [of its being] ultimately real” (pāramārthikatva).

The idea is that there is not the fault [of bādha because the Advaitin] is proving that [the world] does not exist from the point of view of [its being] ultimately real, without ruling out [its] having a practical (vyāvahārika) essence which is different from what is nonexistent.³⁰

A pot is absent from all locations insofar as it is a piece of cloth, even though it is clearly not absent from all locations insofar as it is a pot. Similarly, the world could be said to be the “counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence” from the point of view of its being ultimately real, even though it is not the counterpositive of such an absence by its very essence. The expression pāramārthikatvākāreṇa in D² thus indicates the “determiner”/mode (avacchedaka) under which the world or the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl is the counterpositive of the absence in question. The idea is that when Prakāśātman’s definition is qualified in this way, “illusory” things still retain their essence from a transactional/practical (vyāvahārika) point of view, which distinguishes them from what is completely nonexistent. Nonexistent entities, by contrast, are absent from all times and all places from the point of view of their very nature. The definition thus captures the Advaitins’ idea that, even though the world is ultimately nonexistent, it still has such practical existence from the point of view of the non-liberated.

I will return to Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Prakāśātman’s definition of illusoriness in Chapter 6. It is the one of the three definitions of “illusoriness” that Vyāsatīrtha devotes the most attention to in the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, along with “indeterminacy”, and Citsukha’s definition. All of these definitions state in different ways that the world has appearance but not true existence; like the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl, the world appears vividly to consciousness, but it still stands to be sublated by a deeper awareness of brahman. The Advaitins take it that this distinguishes their position from the nihilists’ stance that the world does not exist. For Vimuktātman, moreover, the concept of indeterminacy explains how liberation is possible for the Advaitin. If the world were a mere nonentity, then there would be no world to be released from and no means to execute that escape; the fact of liberation requires that the world enjoys some reality. Similarly, for Citsukha’s and Prakāśātman’s definitions, the world is really absent from its locus (brahman), yet it is mistakenly taken to exist there until it is sublated by the awareness of brahman.

4.4 What is the Mādhva–Advaita debate about?

However “illusoriness” is analysed, the claim that the “world is illusory” must be incompatible with Mādhva philosophy. As a Mādhva, Vyāsatīrtha accepts unequivocally that the world “exists” in the same way that Viṣṇu does. Viṣṇu is the only truly independent substance, and the world exists in a permanent state of dependence on him. Moreover, existence and nonexistence are, according to Vyāsatīrtha, exhaustive states: there is nothing “indeterminate” that somehow resists being classified as either one of them. The philosophical stances of the Mādhvas and the Advaitins are thus incompatible. Vyāsatīrtha begins the Nyāyāmr̥ta by giving an analysis of what this difference of opinion actually amounts to. For the remainder of this chapter, I will outline Vyāsatīrtha’s own reconstruction of Advaita philosophy in the pūrvapakṣa of the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

As is common in Sanskrit philosophical literature, the debate between the Mā-dhvas and the Advaitins which unfolds in the Nyāyāmr̥ta is precipitated by the contents of one of the “benedictory verses” (maṅgalaślokas) with which Vyāsatīrtha begins the text. The verse in question reads:

I serve Hari, who removes all obstacles, the [instrumental] cause of this entire, existent world, an ocean of compassion, the friend of Ānandatīrtha.³¹

In this verse, Vyāsatīrtha states clearly that the world is an existent effect of Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. Just after his benedictory verses, Vyāsatīrtha gives voice to a hypothetical Advaitin opponent, who indignantly refutes this claim, declaring:

Objection (Advaitin): The world is illusory (mithyā)! …

Vyāsatīrtha subsequently attempts to clarify precisely what the dispute between himself and Advaitin philosophers entails:

… For, there is the following disagreement about this matter—Is that which is different from brahman and which is (1) not liable to sublation either by (a) something other than the knowledge of brahman, or (b) a qualificative [cognition], and which is (2) different from what is nonexistent, the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence in the thing that was taken to be [its] substrate, or not? Is it the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence insofar as [it is] ultimately real, or not?

Even though the world is liable to sublation by the non-qualificative knowledge of brahman that is produced by the Upaniṣads which have an impartite sense, it is not liable to sublation by either (a) something other than the knowledge of brahman, or (b) a qualificative (saprakāra) cognition. Hence [the world is not excluded from the subject, and the reasons in the various inferences that will be adduced to prove the Advaitin’s position] do not lack a substrate.³²

Vyāsatīrtha here gives here a set of what are technically called vipratipatti-vākyas (“statements of disagreement”). He gives them in the same form used by Gaṅgeśa in the Tattvacintāmaṇi.³³

The first thing that Vyāsatīrtha does in this passage is to delimit the subject (pakṣa) of the dispute, the domain that the Mādhvas and the Advaitins stand in disagreement about. Madhva and Jayatīrtha sometimes referred to this as the “object of the dispute” (vimata), without giving any further clarification. Other times they simply said that their dispute with the Advaitins is about “the world”/“the universe” (jagat, prapañca, viśvam, etc.). Vyāsatīrtha apparently finds these approaches wanting and tries to circumscribe this domain explicitly in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

What Vyāsatīrtha wants to include in the subject is essentially the “empirical world”, the everyday world that our senses reveal to us. Although they differ fundamentally about the ontological status of this domain, the Mādhvas and Advaitins stand in broad agreement that the “world” in this sense includes both individuated conscious beings (the jīvas), as well as the insentient objects they perceive. Vyāsatīrtha, however, attempts to circumscribe “the world” negatively by excluding several domains that should not fall within the scope of the dispute. Vyāsatīrtha’s formulation of the subject in this passage consists in a single “qualificandum” (viśeṣya) plus three qualifiers (viśeṣaṇas):

–

Qualificandum: “… what is other than brahman” (brahmānyat).

–

Qualifier 1a: Not being liable to sublation by something other than the knowledge of brahman (brahmapramānyenābādhyatva).

–

Qualifier 1b: Not being liable to sublation by a qualificative [cognition] (saprakā-reṇābādhyatva).

–

Qualifier 2: Being different from what is nonexistent (asadvilakṣaṇatva).

Vyāsatīrtha adds each of these components to the subject in order to exclude a particular domain from the scope of the subject that Advaitin philosophers ascribe the property of illusoriness to. The qualificandum (“what is other than brahman”) obviously excludes brahman itself from the subject. The Mādhvas and the Advaitins disagree fundamentally about the nature of brahman; however, both agree that he/it “exists” in some sense, so the Advaitins clearly do not want to prove that brahman is “illusory”/“unreal”. Qualifier 2 (“being different from what is nonexistent”) likewise explicitly rules out “completely nonexistent” (atyantāsat) things such as “the son of a barren woman” and the “hare’s horn”. According to Advaitin philosophers, such things are simply nonexistent, so they cannot legitimately be called “illusory”. Vyāsatīrtha thus excludes them from the subject.

Vyāsatīrtha has so far excluded both brahman itself and nonexistent entities from the scope of the subject. However, the specification of “the world” as it stands still seems to include objects of perceptual illusions that are sublated by subsequent experiences of the everyday world—the “silver”, for instance, for which a piece of mother-of-pearl is mistaken. As described above, from the Advaitin’s point of view, the silver is not entirely nonexistent like the hare’s horn, and it shares with the empirical world the property of being illusory. Nevertheless, the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion will act as the example (dr̥ṣṭānta) in the Advaitins’ inferences to prove their position. The example in an inference should be a case where the probandum and the reason are both already established to be present. So if the “silver” in the motherof-pearl/silver illusion were included in the subject, the inferences the Advaitin is about to formulate would simply be proving something that is, from their point of view, already established (siddhasādhana).

Vyāsatīrtha therefore uses qualifier 1a to exclude everyday perceptual illusions from the subject. This qualifier specifies that the subject does not encompass things that are liable to sublation by anything apart from the knowledge of brahman. The empirical world is, according to the Advaitins, only liable to be sublated by one kind of “knowledge”—the ultimate awareness of brahman that is generated by the deep study of the Upaniṣads. The objects of our everyday illusions, by contrast, can be sublated by regular valid cognitions (“this is not silver, but mother-of-pearl!”, for instance). So this qualifier excludes mundane illusions from the subject. The flaw of siddhasādhana is thus averted, but the objects that make up the empirical world are retained as part of the subject.

While commenting on this passage, Śrīnivāsatīrtha points out that there might be problems with this strategy for excluding everyday perceptual illusions from the subject. What about beliefs about brahman itself that are already known to be false? A Buddhist who holds that everything is momentary might falsely attribute the quality of “momentariness” (kṣaṇikatva) to brahman, for instance. From the standpoint of Brahmanical philosophers, this false belief can be sublated by the knowledge that brahman is an eternal, enduring thing. This sublating judgment is clearly not the kind of liberating awareness of brahman that the Advaitin has in mind. Nevertheless, it must surely count as a kind of “knowledge of brahman”, and hence the “momentariness” falsely attributed to brahman by the Buddhist could be said to be “liable to sublation by a knowledge of brahman”. In that case, it would be included in the subject formulated in this way. The problem with this is again that the Advaitin would be proving something that is already accepted by his Mādhva opponent. The Mādhva obviously accepts that brahman/Viṣṇu-Nārāyāṇa is not momentary, and so the Mādhvas already accept that this quality is “illusory”. So the contents of false judgments about brahman such as its being “momentary” might need to be excluded from the subject to avoid siddhasādhana.³⁴

Probably for this reason, Vyāsatīrtha allows that we could alternatively exclude the objects of perceptual illusions from the subject by using qualifier 1b, which specifies that the subject must not contain anything that can be sublated by a conceptual/qualificative cognition. Our illusory cognition of a rope as a snake can be sub-lated by the later qualificative awareness “This is actually a length of rope!”, which attributes a property (“being-a-rope”) to an individual in the real world. By contrast, the world, as the Advaitin understands it, is not liable to sublation by any qualificative awareness, but only by the impartite/nonqualificative awareness of brahman. Moreover, inserting 1b instead of 1a seems to avert the flaw of siddhasādhana just described. The illusory belief of the Buddhists that brahman is momentary can be sublated by a qualificative cognition, e.g., “brahman is not momentary, but eternal”; hence it is not included in the subject, and the Advaitin is not proving something that the Mādhvas already take to be true when they prove that the subject is “illusory”.

By specifying the subject in this way, Vyāsatīrtha takes it that he has precisely defined the scope of the debate between the Mādhvas and the Advaitins. In sum, the subject includes everything apart from—(1) brahman, (2) nonexistent things like hares’ horns, and (3) the objects of mundane perceptual illusions such as the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl. Everything that remains constitutes the subject about which the two traditions stand in disagreement. From now on, I will follow Vyāsatīrtha’s convention and simply refer to this domain as “the world”. The hypothetical Advaitin opponent whom Vyāsatīrtha gives voice to in this passage claims that all the things in this domain are not existent, but illusory. I have already discussed the three most important definitions of illusoriness Vyāsatīrtha critiques in the Nyāyāmr̥ta in the first half of this chapter. In the following, I will discuss his general treatment of the topic in his Advaita pūrvapakṣa.

4.5 Two further definitions of “illusoriness”

In the foregoing, I have analysed three of the five definitions of “illusoriness” that Vyāsatīrtha devotes serious intellectual attention to in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. I will now discuss the remaining two definitions of these five, which are:

–

D³: Being liable to be cancelled by cognition by virtue [of the cancelling thing’s] being a cognition (Prakāśātman, Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa),

and

–

D⁵: The absence of the quality of being existent by essence (Ānandabodha, Nyāyadīpāvalī).

Vyāsatīrtha says that D³ is intended to be a sub-definition of “sublatability” (bādhyatva) itself. To say that something is “sublatable” according to this analysis is to say that that thing is “liable to cancellation by cognition, by virtue of the fact that [the cognition that cancels it] is a cognition”. Something is sublatable, in other words, if (1) it can be cancelled by (another) cognition, and (2) the cognition that cancels it does so because it is a cognition. Vyāsatīrtha explains that the purpose of the qualifier “by virtue of the fact that [the cognition that cancels it] is a cognition” (jñā-natvena) is to stop the definition from applying to things that it should not apply to (i.e. the flaw of ativyāpti). If the definition were simply “being liable to cancellation by cognition” (jñānanivartyatvam), he argues (NAB, 1:38), then the definition would apply inappropriately to mental tropes in general, all of which are liable to “cancellation” by a subsequent cognition.

This problem stems from the ambiguity of the word nivartya (“thing cancelled”, “thing annulled”) in the definition (jñanatvena jñānanivartyatvam). The Naiyāyikas and the traditions that followed them thought of mental events as tropes which occur one-at-a-time in the individual self. A standard example they use in this regard is the case of a potter fabricating a pot. The potter might have a cognition of the clay from which she will fashion the pot, followed by a desire to make (cikīrṣā) the pot, which is, in turn, succeeded by a mental exertion (kr̥ti) to fabricate the pot from the clay. The Naiyāyikas regard each of these mental tropes as a cause of the cessation of the trope that precedes it, and so, in a sense, each trope “cancels” (ni-vr̥t) its predecessor. However, we would not say that a prior cognition is “sublated” by the subsequent cognition in that case. For example, if I have the cognition, (1) “The pot is blue” and then happen for some reason to think immediately after this that (2) “The table is orange”, then we would not say that “(2) sublates (1)”, even though (2) is partly responsible for bringing an end to (1) by taking its place in the stream of thought.

How can we distinguish between the operation of a cognition that “cancels” a preceding cognition by taking its place in the self, and the case of a cognition that “cancels” a preceding cognition by sublating/falsifying it? Both can be said to “cancel”/“annul” the preceding mental trope, but they do so in different ways. When discussing D³ in his Advaita pūrvapakṣa, Vyāsatīrtha attempts to distinguish these two relationships by differentiating the mode under which the second cognition cancels the preceding cognition in each case. Take, for instance, two series of cognitions, A and B. Series A consists in the following series of cognitions, which occur as a sequence in one and the same self:

(A¹) “The pot is blue”,

(A²) “The table is orange”.

Series B, on the other hand, is the series of cognitions that occurs in the standard example of perceptual illusion, i.e. the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion. Series B is thus the sequence of cognitions:

(B¹) “This thing is a piece of silver”,

(B²) “This thing is actually mother-of-pearl!”.

In both of these series, an earlier cognition could be said to be “cancelled” (nivr̥tta) by a cognition that comes after it. However, the mode under which A² cancels A¹, and B² cancels B¹ is different. A² cancels A¹ simply by virtue of being a distinguishing property of the self (ātmaviśeṣaguṇatvena). It pushes the prior cognition out of existence by taking its place in the stream of mental tropes, in the same way that other mental events such as desires and mental efforts annul the cognitions that precede them. By contrast, we could say that B² “cancels” B¹ by virtue of being a cognition. This is because only a cognition can “sublate” a previous cognition by falsifying its contents. In Navya-Nyāya technical language, the term used to show the mode under which a subsequent mental event cancels a prior one is avacchedaka (“determiner”, “limiter”).

A² and B² “cancel” A¹ and B¹, so in these two sequences, A² and B² are the cancellers (nivartaka) and A¹ and B¹ are the things cancelled (nivartya). The Navya-Naiyāyikas and the traditions that follow them express this relation by referring to two abstract properties which appear in the two things that enter into this relationship (“relational abstracts”). A² and B² are cognitions which have the relational property of nivartakatā (“being a canceller”) and A¹ and B¹ are cognitions which have the relational property of nivartyatā (“being cancelled”).

In the language of Navya-Nyāya, we say that the property of nivartyatā in A¹ and B¹ is “described by” (nirūpita—correlates with) the property of nivartakatā present in A² and B². The key difference is that the property of nivartakatā in A² is determined (avacchinna) by the quality of “being a distinctive property of the self that occurs [subsequently to A¹]” (uttarātmaviśeṣaguṇatva), whereas the nivartakatā present in B² is determined by the property of “being a cognition” (jñānatva). In other words, A² “cancels” A¹ by virtue of its being a distinguishing trope of the self, whereas B² “cancels” B¹ by virtue of its being a cognition.

Thus in the case of series A, where a trope “cancels” a previous trope simply by replacing it in the self, we refer to:

uttara-ātma-viśeṣa-guṇatva-avacchinna-nivartakatā-nirūpita-jñāna-niṣṭha-nivartyatvam (“The state of being-the-thing-that-is-cancelled that is located in cognition, and which is described by the state of being-the-canceller that is determined by the property of being-a-distinguishing-trope-of-the-self-that-occurs-subsequently [to the cognition it cancels]”).

On the other hand, in series B, where the second trope can be said to “sublate” the prior trope, we refer to:

jñānatva-avacchinna-nivartakatā-nirūpita-jñāna-niṣṭha-nivartyatvam (“The state of being-the-thing-that-is-cancelled that is located in cognition, and which is described by the state of being-the-canceller that is determined by cognitionhood”).

As Śrīnivāsatīrtha points out, in the case of series A, where one cognition “cancels” a prior cognition simply by occurring subsequently to that cognition in the self, the relational abstract nivartakatā cannot be said to be “determined by cognitionhood”. The cognition does not cancel the prior cognition by virtue of being a cognition, because the subsequent cognition could equally be cancelled in this way by a desire or a mental effort. By contrast, a sublating cognition can only be said to “cancel” the cognition that it sublates by virtue of being a cognition. No distinguishing property of the self other than cognition can “sublate” another cognition in this way. The relation of sublator/sublated is thus distinguished by specifying the mode under which the relational abstract nivartakatā is present in the sublating cognition. In this way, the definition identifies specifically the sublator/sublated relationship that the term mithyātva is being taken to express in D³ (“being liable to be cancelled by cognition by virtue [the cancelling thing’s] being a cognition”). From the point of view of Vyā-satīrtha’s pūrvapakṣin, D³ thus captures specifically the notion of “sublation”, which occurs when one mental judgment falsifies an earlier, erroneous one.

The final definition of the five that Vyāsatīrtha finds worthy of serious analysis in the Nyāyāmr̥ta comes from Ānandabodha’s Nyāyadīpāvalī.³⁵ According to this definition, to be “illusory” is simply to be “different from what is existent” (sadvivikta). In the pūrvapakṣa, Vyāsatīrtha anticipates a problem with this definition. The problem is that the definition might be read to prove something that the Mā-dhvas already accept (siddhasādhana). The definition might be understood to apply to existent things in general, because, so far as the Mādhvas are concerned, every existent individual is different from all other existent individuals. The definition should say that the “illusory” thing is different from all existent things, but it might be interpreted to say simply that one existent thing is different from another. The definition would thus prove something that is already established to the Mādhva, since the Mādhva already accepts that, e.g., an existent pot is different from an existent table.

To solve this problem, Vyāsatīrtha says that the definition should be interpreted as “lacking the property of being existent by essence” (sadrūpatvābhāva). The definition now effectively states that “illusory” things are illusory because they are differentiated from existent things in general, and the definition can no longer be interpreted to refer to distinctions between individual existent things. One potential objection to this solution is that the definition of mithyātva now applies inappropriately to brahman itself. According to the Advaitins, brahman lacks any qualities whatsoever. This means that brahman must lack the quality of existence itself.

To solve this problem, Vyāsatīrtha allows the Advaitin to argue that even though brahman might lack the property of existence, it can still be existent by essence. He finds precedent for this in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of universals. According to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika ontology, universals can only be present in individuals that belong to the first of their three categories (substances, tropes, and motions). The remaining four categories (universals, ultimate differentiators, inherence, and absence) never possess universals. “Existence”, according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, is itself a universal, and, as such, it can never be present in other universals. Nevertheless, universals are by their very nature existent, and we speak of them as such. Likewise, one could say that brahman is by its very nature existent, even though it lacks the universal “existence”. So this definition of mithyātva need not apply inappropriately to brahman itself.³⁶

This completes the list of the five definitions of illusoriness that Vyāsatīrtha subjects to serious intellectual analysis in the Advaita pūrvapakṣa of his Nyāyāmr̥ta. He then devotes the following five chapters to proving that none of these definitions is compatible with the Advaitins’ arguments. When critiquing these definitions, Vyā-satīrtha always considers them as analyses of the probandum (the quality to be proved) in the formal inferences that Advaitin philosophers used to establish their position about the world. He argues that however illusoriness is defined, these inferences are intellectually indefensible and riddled with formal fallacies.

4.6 Inferring that the world is illusory

According to the above definitions of illusoriness, the world of our senses is ultimately an illusion which stands to be sublated by a deeper awareness of brahman. In the Advaita pūrvapakṣa, Vyāsatīrtha also analyses various ways that Advaitin philosophers tried to prove this position about the world. For example, the philosopher Ānandabodha Yati made several inferences to establish that the world is illusory. Vyāsatīrtha ascribes three such inferences to Ānandabodha, writing:

And inference is a proof [that the world is illusory]. For, Ānandabodha says as follows—“The object of [our] dispute is illusory, because [it is] perceptible, because [it is] insentient, [or] because [it is] finite; just like the ‘silver’ mistakenly superimposed on mother-of-pearl”.³⁷

Vyāsatīrtha actually presents three different inferences in this passage. They can be written separately as follows:

“The world is illusory, because [it is] perceptible; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, dr̥śyatvāt; śuktirūpyavat).

“The world is illusory, because [it is] finite; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, paricchinnatvāt; śuktirūpyavat).

“The world is illusory, because [it is] insentient; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, jaḍatvāt; suktirūpyavat).

Ānandabodha himself is taken to have written three works on Advaita philosophy: the Nyāyamakaranda, the Pramāṇamālā, and the Nyāyadīpāvalī. Vyāsatīrtha refers to all three of these works by name in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.³⁸ In the Nyāyamakaranda, Ānandabodha stated explicitly at least two of the inferences that Vyāsatīrtha credits him with.³⁹ Ānandabodha devoted his brief tract the Nyāyadīpāvalī to giving a rigorous defence of the first of the inferences given above, attempting to certify it by demonstrating that it does not suffer from any of the formal fallacies accepted by the Naiyāyikas.

Ānandabodha was always a central opponent for medieval Mādhva philosophers. Madhva himself adopted Ānandabodha’s style of argumentation in his works. He devoted a brief topical treatise specifically to refuting Ānandabodha’s inference to prove the illusoriness of the world on the basis that it is perceptible (the first of the three inferences given above), a text usually known as the (Prapañca)mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana (“Refutation of the Inference to Prove the Illusoriness [of the World]”). Madhva also critiqued Ānandabodha’s inferences in a topical treatise usually known as the Tattvoddyota (“Illumination of the Truth”) and in the Anuvyākhyāna, his verse commentary on the Brahmasūtra.⁴⁰ In these texts, Madhva used Nyāya theories about inference to refute Ānandabodha’s inferences, perhaps drawing on the inferential theory of the tenth century Naiyāyika Bhāsarvajña.⁴¹ However, in his Pramāṇalakṣaṇa Madhva also used his own distinctive theories about inference and knowledge to refute Ānandabodha.

Jayatīrtha and Viṣṇudāsa both wrote detailed critiques of Ānandabodha’s inferences. Jayatīrtha in particular responded in his Vādāvalī to Citsukha’s defence of Ānandabodha’s arguments. In the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha is largely concerned with refuting these inferences. He generally follows the line of argument sketched out by Madhva and Jayatīrtha, but his case is much more detailed. As I discuss below in Chapter 7, Vyāsatīrtha draws frequently on the new epistemological ideas found in Gaṅgeśa’s chapter of the Tattvacintāmaṇi that is devoted to inference.

Besides Ānandabodha’s inferences, Vyāsatīrtha says that the Advaitins could prove their position by adducing passages of scripture which seem to establish their nondualistic stance about the world. Vyāsatīrtha’s pūrvapakṣin adduces several passages from the Upaniṣads which are taken to support the Advaitins’ interpretation of the Veda, before going on to defend this interpretation against the charge that it is incompatible with what perception tells us about the world. I conclude this chapter with a translation of this section because it introduces many of the epistemological themes that I will discuss when I turn to Vyāsatīrtha’s analysis of the concept of “existence” in the next chapter:

And the Veda proves that [the world is illusory]. For, words such as “without a second” (advitīyam) in [passages of the Veda] such as, “One alone, without a second …” (ekam evādvitīyam; Chāndogya Upaniṣad, 6,2.1) deny that there is any second thing [besides brahman].⁴²

The Advaita pūrvapakṣin goes on to argue that, despite appearances, there is no deep contradiction between the non-dualistic interpretation of the Veda and our perceptions of a pluralistic world:

Objection: Since [they] conflict with perception, inference cannot prove [the illusoriness of the world], and the Veda must be taken to have a secondary sense [in those passages where it seems to say that the world is illusory].

Reply (Advaitin): This does not follow. For, perception apprehends [only] the practical (vyā-vahārika) existence [of its objects], whereas inference [and scripture] deny the ultimate existence [of the objects that make up the world]. For, perception, which grasps only what exists in the present moment, cannot grasp permanent nonsublatability (trikālābādhyatva)[, which is what ultimate existence really is]. The thesis in the [inference] that concludes that “Fire is not hot”, by contrast, is sublated by perception only because [it] denies the practical existence of [fire’s] quality of “being hot”, which is established by [tactile] perception.

And [there is precedent for perception being ruled out by other instruments of knowledge] because [we] observe that our “perceptions” that the sky is dark-blue, or that the moon is the size of [one’s] thumb are ruled out by inference and scripture.⁴³

Vyāsatīrtha’s pūrvapakṣin here responds to the charge that their interpretation of scripture is contradicted by our perceptions of the everyday world. Mādhva philosophers, like the Naiyāyikas, argue that perception has a special status among the means of knowledge. Vyāsatīrtha clearly accepts that inference and scripture are valid instruments of knowledge, but he does argue that they always need to be reconciled with the facts that perception reveals to us about the world. If our “inferences” conflict with perception, then we must reject those inferences as invalid, and if our interpretation of scripture is at odds with perception, then so much the worse for that interpretation. Like Madhva and Jayatīrtha, he frequently likens this to the case where someone concludes on some basis that fire is cold, before plunging their hand into it and discovering the truth!

In this passage, the Advaita pūrvapakṣin counters this argument by invoking his distinction between “ultimate” existence and practical/transactional existence. He contends that perception can only tell us about the practical sort of existence; questions of ultimate existence are beyond its ken. It is true that invalid inferences can be ruled out by perception. However, the inverse is also true: we regularly take ourselves to have “perceived” things which are subsequently ruled out by inference. For example, a young child gazing through their hands at the night sky might conclude that the moon is actually the size of the thumb, only to be corrected by the instruction of an adult who tells them that it is not. So it is not the case that perception automatically trumps the other means of knowledge, as the Mādhvas argue.

4.7 Conclusion

Ānandabodha’s inferences were intended to help validate the Advaitins’ nondualistic interpretation of scripture by undermining the reality of the empirical world. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha turns his attention to these inferences, carefully analysing their core concepts and arguing that they each suffer from a plethora of formal flaws. Perception and what it tells us about the world is at the heart of Vyāsatīrtha’s critique. Like Madhva and Jayatīrtha, Vyāsatīrtha argues that Ānandbodha’s inferences to prove the “illusoriness” of the world are all “ruled out by perception” (pratyakṣabādhita), regardless of how they are interpreted. Vyāsatīrtha builds a case to prove that perception is always stronger than inference and that any adequate interpretation of scripture must be consistent with perception. The kind of radical sublation of perception by scripture postulated by the Advaitins is simply impossible; according to Vyāsatīrtha, perception discloses to us that its objects exist, and neither inference nor scripture have the power to undermine that insight. It is true that perception sometimes errs, but these are exceptional episodes which admit of simple explanations. They lack the power to undermine the trustworthiness of the everyday knowledge we garner through our senses.

As I have shown here, Vyāsatīrtha’s claim against Ānandabodha is grounded in his analysis of the nature of “existence” itself. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta he rejects earlier attempts by Indian philosophers to define existence as inadequate, and proposes his own analysis of the concept. Like the Advaitins and the Naiyāyikas, Vyāsatīrtha assumes that “existence” is a type of property that belongs to things we refer to as “existent”. However, he rejects these schools’ interpretations of existence in his Nyā-yāmr̥ta and proposes his own definition of the concept. Vyāsatīrtha offers his analysis as a direct contradiction of the Advaitins’ anti-realist stance about the world. He shows that existence is a property we can directly perceive in the objects of our experience. Vyāsatīrtha’s analysis of existence and nonexistence, which forms the basis of his critique of indeterminacy, is one of his most important contributions to Mādhva philosophy.

5 Perceiving existence

5.1 Vyāsatīrtha’s case for realism: an overview

In the opening chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha responds to his Advaita pūrvapakṣin by presenting a case against Ānandabodha’s arguments to prove that the world is “illusory”. Once again, the three inferences that Vyāsatīrtha assigns to Ānandabodha in the pūrvapakṣa are:

“The world is illusory, because [it is] perceptible; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, dr̥śyatvāt; śuktirūpyavat).

“The world is illusory, because [it is] finite; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, paricchinnatvāt; śuktirūpyavat).

“The world is illusory, because [it is] insentient; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, jaḍatvāt; suktirūpyavat).

All three inferences should establish that the world has the quality of “illusoriness” (mithyātva) by analogy to the case of perceptual error in which someone mistakes a piece of mother-of-pearl for silver. Technically, the property of illusoriness is the sādhya—the “probandum” or the thing that is to be established by the inference. The above inferences establish that illusoriness is present in the world on the grounds that the word possesses three different qualities: perceptibility (dr̥śyatva), finitude (paricchinnatva), and insentience (jaḍatva). The “silver” in the mother-ofpearl/silver confusion is the example (dr̥ṣṭānta).

Ānandabodha believes we are able to make these inferences because we have already observed that in each inference there is a universal relationship between the probandum and the reason. This universal relationship is what is termed “pervasion” (vyāpti). I will discuss this concept in detail in Chapter 7. For the moment, it is enough to say that it entails that the probandum is invariably concomitant with the reason; that is, that the probandum is present wherever the reason is present. Ānandabodha’s inferences are based on three separate vyāptis: (1) everything that is perceptible is illusory; (2) everything that is finite is illusory; and (3) everything that is insientient is illusory. According to Ānandabodha, we have observed each of these universal relationships in the same place: the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion that serves as the example in each inference. In each inference, the reason is a property that characterises the world but not brahman. The objects we experience in the everyday world are perceptible, but brahman is self-illuminating consciousness; it cannot be perceived by some further knowing subject. Similarly, the things we see in the world around us are finite in terms of space and time, but brahman is infinite from this point of view. Likewise, the objects we perceive in the outside world are insentient, but brahman is pure awareness.

The first chapters of the Nyāyāmr̥ta are primarily concerned with systematically refuting these inferences. Vyāsatīrtha analyses each component of the inferences in turn. He draws on the leading works of Advaita philosophy to supply formal definitions for each of these concepts. He begins with the probandum (mithyātva) before moving on to analyse the three reasons. Vyāsatīrtha tries to show that, no matter how their component parts are analysed, the inferences are always fatally flawed. He also attempts to prove that the inferences conflict with the other means of knowledge, including perception, scripture, and other inferences, and that this should lead us to abandon them.

In these first parts of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha’s critique returns again and again to the analysis of the concepts of “existence” (sattva, sattā¹) and “nonexistence” (asattva). By the time Vyāsatīrtha was writing, a rich discussion of these concepts had already been undertaken among Indian philosophers. In the Nyāyā-mr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha considers the definitions of these concepts given by the Advaitins, the classical Vaiśeṣikas, and certain Buddhists, among others. All of these traditions tended to think of “existence” as a kind of property which is present in certain things, but they had very different views about how exactly to define it. Buddhist philosophers like Dharmakīrti (fl. 640) argued that “existence” can be defined in terms of practical efficacy. The classical Vaiśeṣikas, by contrast, understood “existence” to be a universal/natural kind (jāti) which inheres in certain parts of the real world. Advaitin philosophers like Citsukha and Madhusūdana, on the other hand, argued that existence can be defined in cognitive terms as the capacity to become the object of certain types of mental awareness. These questions about existence and nonexistence were closely bound up with questions about perception, in particular whether existence is a perceptible property and whether we can perceive/cognise nonexistent entities like the hare’s horn.

The Nyāyāmr̥ta is primarily a critical work aiming to undermine the arguments of Advaitin philosophers. It is nevertheless possible to identify a set of positive positions accepted implicitly by Vyāsatīrtha which hang together behind this critique to make a positive case for the reality of the world. The following is a brief outline of the main philosophical positions implicit in Vyāsatīrtha’s case against the Advaitins. This should serve to give the reader an overview of the main arguments discussed in this chapter and the next.

1. We can directly perceive the existence of the objects of our perceptions.

Vyāsatīrtha argues that Ānandabodha’s inferences cannot succeed because they are “contradicted by perception” (pratyakṣabādhita). This is because Vyāsatīrtha believes that our perceptions reveal to us that their objects exist. This should not be confused with the argument that we can infer the existence of the objects of our perceptions based on the fact that we perceive them. Vyāsatīrtha maintains that we can directly perceive properties that we call “existence” in the individual things that we encounter through our sense faculties. For instance, when I perceive this computer in front of me, I not only perceive that it is a substance with certain qualities, I also perceive that it exists. In his Tattvoddyotaṭīkā, Jayatīrtha claims that all our perceptions tell us that their objects exist.² In the Sattvanirukti (“Determination of Existence”) chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha states that at least certain perceptions (e.g., “This pot exists”, “The table exists”) show us that the objects we perceive in the world around us truly exist.³

2. Illusoriness and existence are mutually incompatible properties; we cannot consistently claim that the world both exists and that it is illusory.

Even if Vyāsatīrtha manages to establish that the world of our experience has the property of “existence”, his arguments against Ānandabodha’s inferences only succeed if the judgment that the world “exists” is truly incompatible with the thesis that the world is illusory. Advaitin philosophers do not necessarily deny that the world has some sort of existence, because they assign it a provisional/transactional existence (vyāvahārika-sat). So the road is open to them to argue that our everyday perceptions only grasp this lesser, provisional type of existence, whereas inference and scripture have the power to teach us that, from the ultimate point of view, the world is a mere illusion. According to this line of argument, our perceptions that the objects of our experience exist cannot contradict Ānandabodha’s inferences, because those inferences and our perceptions are actually grasping two different levels of existence.

Vyāsatīrtha actually agrees that none of the definitions of existence defended by earlier philosophers in India truly contradict the Advaitins’ case that the world is illusory. However, he argues that the new definitions of existence and nonexistence he presents in the Nyāyāmr̥ta truly contradict the Advaitins’ claims. If we define existence as he does, then we cannot consistently claim both that the world “exists” and that it is “illusory”.

Existence and nonexistence can ultimately be defined in terms of absence (abhāva).

One of Vyāsatīrtha’s most important intellectual contributions to his school was to draw together Madhva and Jayatīrtha’s arguments to formulate coherent definitions of existence and nonexistence, which he offers to the Advaitin in a “spirit of friendship”⁴ in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. The Mādhvas follow the classical Vaiśeṣika philosophers in admitting into their ontology a separate category called “absence” (abhāva) to account for negative judgments such as “Anna is not at work” or “Devadatta is not Yajñadatta”. According to Vyāsatīrtha, existence and nonexistence can be defined by the quantification of absence across space and time. Briefly, to say that something “does not exist” is to say that it is absent from all times and places; to say that it does exist is to say that it is present in at least one location at one point in time. So “existence” simply means the quality of being connected with space and time. Perception reveals to us that the objects of our experience are existent simply because it shows us that those objects exist in at least one location at at least one point in time.

Perception itself can tell us that the “existence” we perceive in these objects will never be sublated.

Advaitin philosophers like Citsukha and Madhusūdana⁵ defined “existence” as “omni-temporal non-sublatability” (traikālika-abādhyatva). To say that something “truly exists” is to say that it can never be sublated/falsified by future experience. According to Advaitin philosophers, only brahman—self-illuminating awareness— can never be sublated, and so only brahman truly exists. If existence is defined as such, then how can perception tell us that its objects exist? Our perceptual faculties seem only to be able to tell about things as they are in the present moment; how could they tell us about what will or will not happen at some indeterminate point in the future?

Responding to this kind of objection, Vyāsatīrtha holds—consistent with his definitions of existence and nonexistence—that all we need to do to grasp that something exists is to apprehend that it is present in at least one place at at least one time. This still leaves open the possibility that our current perceptions of existence will be sublated at a future time. However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that we can be sure this will never happen, because certain types of perception can apprehend future states as well; as such, perception itself can tell us that our perceptions of the existence of objects in the external world will not be defeated in the future. Vyāsatīrtha does not argue that our external sense faculties (the visual-faculty and so on) can apprehend future states; he claims that only the witness (sākṣin)—the “internal faculty”, which is the very essence of the individual self—can do this. Refusing to accept this position would rule out the possibility of knowledge altogether.

Perception is stronger than inference; if inference and perception contradict one another we must abandon our inferences as faulty.

Even if it is true that perception stands in contradiction to Ānandabodha’s inferences, why should we automatically abandon the conclusions of these inferences in favour of our perceptions? Why not abandon perception instead? In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha argues that perception is innately stronger than inference because it can inform us about subtle aspects of the everyday world that inference and scripture cannot. He also argues that perception is stronger than inference because inference depends on perception to function. We can only infer things if we are aware of the various components of the inference (the inferential subject, the probandum, and so on) through perception prior to making the inference. So, if Ānandabodha’s inferences conflict with perception we must abandon them in favour of perception and not vice versa.

Existence and nonexistence are “fully contradictory” properties.

The Advaitins’ opponents had long argued that their doctrine of indeterminacy is simply a disguised contradiction. Vyāsatīrtha crafted his own definitions of existence and nonexistence partly to give substance to this old objection. As I will show below, existence and nonexistence as Vyāsatīrtha has defined them are what could be called “fully contradictory” properties: they are both mutually exclusive (nothing can both exist and not exist) and collectively exhaustive (everything that we can conceive of must have either one of these properties). Vyāsatīrtha accepts that the absence of existence is simply identical with the absence of nonexistence and, vice versa, that the absence of nonexistence is identical with the absence of existence. Advaitin philosophers claim that the world is indeterminate in the sense that it lacks both existence and nonexistence. However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that if existence and nonexistence are fully contradictory properties, then proving that something is “neither existent nor nonexistent” really amounts to the claim that it is “both existent and nonexistent”.

7. We can have cognitions of nonexistent things.

Advaitin philosophers claim that the “silver” in the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion cannot be nonexistent. If it were, how could we cognise it at all? Advaitin philosophers are therefore implicitly committed to the position that we cannot perceive nonexistent things. Vyāsatīrtha follows Jayatīrtha in arguing that we can cognise nonexistent things in a way that undermines the Advaitins’ argument. Madhva himself had a sort of “master argument” against the Advaitins’ proof for indeterminacy. He argued that it is simply contradictory to claim that one cannot cognise some entity or domain of entities. The fact that we can utter meaningful statements about the entities in question demonstrates that we can somehow cognise them: how else could we have the type of mental judgments that allow us to refer to them in language? The fact that we can make meaningful statements about nonexistent things like hares’ horns and the sons of barren women shows that we must somehow have cognitions of them, and Vyāsatīrtha defends this position in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

Perceptual illusions are just cases where we have perception-like experiences of things that do not exist.

As the Advaitin philosopher Citsukha realised,⁶ point (7) still leaves open the question of what type of cognitions we can have of nonexistent things. Specifically, can we have the type of vivid, perception-like cognitions of hares’ horns and the like as we do in perceptual illusions, and, if so, how? In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha follows Jayatīrtha in defending what Jayatīrtha christened the “neo-misidentification⁷- theory” of error (abhinava-anyathā-khyāti-vāda). Vyāsatīrtha argues that perceptual illusions are mundane events which are perfectly compatible with the realist positions he is defending. In fact, illusions are simply cases of mistaken identity. Our sense-faculties malfunction and dupe us into believing that some individual that really is part of the world around us is identical with something it is not. The “silver” in the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion is just as nonexistent as a flower that grows in the sky. Our cognition of the “silver” might ultimately be based on an actually existing piece of silver we have previously experienced but, strictly speaking, the “silver” does not correlate to any particular part of the real world.

In this chapter and the next, I show how these positions hang together to undermine Ānandabodha’s three inferences, and thereby offer a case in favour of realism about the empirical world.

5.2 The classical Vaiśeṣika scheme of reality

To understand Vyāsatīrtha’s theory of existence in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, it is necessary to take a brief excursion into classical Vaiśeṣika metaphysics. As discussed above, Vyāsatīrtha is firmly committed to the ontological theory Madhva developed in texts like the Anuvyākhyāna, Tattvasaṅkhyāna, and Tattvaviveka. Nevertheless, Madhva and the philosophers who followed him were all trained in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika ontology as well. Indeed, the influence of classical Vaiśeṣika metaphysics can be seen throughout the Nyāyāmr̥ta, with Vyāsatīrtha regularly referring back to Vaiśeṣika theories about the natural world. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, along with Buddhist and Advaita theories of existence, the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theories of absence and of “existence” as a universal/natural kind forms the backdrop to Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of existence.

Like Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika philosophy is connected with a set of sūtras, which have been dated to the first century of the common Common Era. However, these sū-tras came to be neglected and classical Vaiśeṣika thought largely evolved in the form of commentaries on the sole surviving work of the sixth century philosopher Praśastapāda, the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha. In the tenth century two commentaries were composed on Praśastapāda’s work by Vyomaśiva (fl. 950) and Śrīdhara (fl. 991). Another important manual of Vaiśeṣika philosophy was Śivāditya’s (fl. 1150) Saptapadārthī. By the time Vyāsatīrtha was writing at the turn of the sixteenth century, the two leading works in Vaiśeṣika thought were Udayana’s (fl. 984) commentary on the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha, the Kiraṇāvalī, and Vallabha’s (fl. 1140) independent work, the Nyāyalīlāvatī. Vyāsatīrtha’s Tarkatāṇḍava clearly shows that he had a deep awareness of the earlier Nyāya/Vaiśeṣika texts, and that he was familiar with both Udayana and Vallabha. He was also familiar with the works of Gaṅgeśa’s son, Vardhamāna (fl. 1345), who wrote commentaries on both the Nyāyalīlāvatī and the Kiraṇāvalī.⁸ The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika text that Vyāsatīrtha draws on most frequently in the Nyāyāmr̥ta is Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi.⁹

In the generation just prior to Vyāsatīrtha, a significant amount of literature was written on Vaiśeṣika metaphysics by philosophers based in Mithila. Śaṅkara Miśra (fl. 1430) wrote a manual of classical Vaiśeṣika in the form of a commentary on the Padārthadharmasaṅgraha entitled the Kaṇādarahasya. He also wrote a commentary on the Nyāyalīlāvatī entitled the Kaṇṭhabharaṇī, and a further commentary on the Vaiśeṣikasūtras themselves known as the Vaiśeṣikasūtropaskāra.¹⁰ Another Mithila-based philosopher named Vācaspati Miśra (II) (fl. 1440) wrote a commentary on the Nyāyalīlavatī, apparently entitled the Vardhamānendu.¹¹

These Mithila-based Naiyāyikas still defended what I refer to here as the “classical Vaiśeṣika” philosophy. This classical scheme largely reflects the metaphysical scheme articulated by Praśastapāda, although there were many important innovations by subsequent thinkers. In Vyāsatīrtha’s own lifetime, this classical picture came under attack from a radical Bengali Navya-Naiyāyika named Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (fl. 1510). In a brief work usually known as the Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa (“Determination of the Truth about the Categories”), Raghunātha systematically demolished the classical system of Vaiśeṣika categories and proposed a heavily revised version to take its place. As Jonardan Ganeri has demonstrated, Raghunātha’s work stimulated a renewed interest in metaphysics among Navya-Nyāya philosophers. In particular, the Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa inspired new texts by philosophers such as Jayarāma Nyāyapañcānana (fl. 1650) and Veṇīdatta (fl. 1740).¹² However, while later Mādhvas engaged in detail with Raghunātha’s ideas along with those of his commentators,¹³ Vyāsatīrtha himself was clearly not aware of Raghunātha, and his works largely reflect the classical Vaiśeṣika metaphysics.

I have chosen to present this background in classical Vaiśeṣika primarily based on Udayana’s brief manual, the Lakṣaṇāvalī, which has been studied and translated into English by Musashi Tachikawa. I have also drawn from Udayana’s Kiraṇāvalī, his Lakṣaṇamālā, and Śaṅkara Miśra’s Kaṇādarahasya. It is not clear that Vyāsatīrtha was aware of any of these texts, since he does not reference them in his works directly. However, they do present an accurate and authoritative overview of the major features of the classical Vaiśeṣika philosophy that Vyāsatīrtha would have been familiar with.

Like the Mādhvas, the classical Vaiśeṣikas were realists about the world of our senses. According to them, our everyday perceptions of the world around us must be the touchstone of metaphysical analysis. The underlying assumption is that reality must conform to the way we think and speak about it. The ultimate goal of Vaiśeṣika metaphysical analysis is to specify how reality must be in order to account for, in the most parsimonious way possible, the factual occurrence and validity of the true judgments that can be made by human beings.

The classical Vaiśeṣikas held that, upon analysis, everything there is comes under one of either six or seven “categories” (padārthas). The interpretive translation of padārtha as “category” is largely based on parallels with Aristotelian thought. It could be more literally translated as “a thing for which a word stands”. A category is an irreducible correlate of speech and thought. To say that something is a “separate category” (padārthāntara) is effectively to advance an irreducibility thesis about it. A category cannot be reductively defined in terms of other, more fundamental realities; the categories are the elementary correlates of thought and speech, which mark the horizon of metaphysical analysis. The property of “categoriness” (padārthatva) is therefore a “universal-positive” (kevalānvayin) property, a property that is present in all things words can refer to. Praśastapāda accepted that there are six, and only six, categories: substance (dravya), trope (guṇa), motion (karman), universal (jāti), ultimate differentiator (viśeṣa), and the inherence relator (samavāya). In the Lakṣaṇāvalī, Udayana accepts all of these categories as constituting the “positive categories”.¹⁴

In the Lakṣaṇāvalī, Udayana presents several definitions of “substance”. The principal function of a substance is to act as the substrate of guṇas, a term which is usually translated as “quality”, but is better rendered by “trope” (see above, Chapter 3, p. 61, fn. 27). A substance could thus be defined to be something that contains tropes. A problem with defining substancehood this way is that, according to the Vaiśeṣikas, substances do not contain tropes in the first moment in which they come into being. Udayana therefore defines substancehood (dravyatva) as “not being the locus of the permanent absence of tropes”; that is, a substance must be the locus of a trope at some point in its existence.¹⁵

According to the classical scheme defended by Udayana, there are nine substances: four atomic substances—earth, water, fire, and wind; a pervasive, sound-conducting substance known as the “ether”; time, space, and the individual selves; and the internal faculty (manas). Like the Mādhvas, classical Vaiśeṣika philosophers accepted the existence of atoms, although Raghunātha attacked this view during Vyāsatīrtha’s lifetime. The first four material substances can be both atomic and composite according to the classical view. Atoms are eternal whereas all composite things are non-eternal.¹⁶ In themselves, atoms are not perceptible by ordinary human beings, although they may be perceived by god and by certain advanced practitioners of yoga.¹⁷ The “particle” (truṭi) is the smallest thing that is perceptible to human beings. The particle is in turn composed of atomic-dyads (dvyaṇuka), which are themselves composed of the eternal atoms. In the Lakṣaṇāvalī, Udayana states that there are twenty-four kinds of trope. In the Lakṣaṇamālā he gives a full list and explanation of them.¹⁸

Beginning with Praśastapāda, classical Vaiśeṣika included an extensive discussion of physics. Classical Vaiśeṣika philosophers usually considered motion (kriyā, karman) to be a separate category. Motions can be perceived through the sense faculties. Śaṅkara Miśra says that the existence of the universal “motionness” is established on the basis of everyday perceptions such as “[This thing] moves”.¹⁹ Like tropes, motions inhere in substances. The category of motion includes, according to Udayana, “throwing upwards” (utkṣepana), “throwing downwards” (apakṣepaṇa), “contraction” (ākuñcana), “expansion” (prasāraṇa), and “general motion” (gamana). These motions are considered to be the non-inherence causes of the tropes contact (saṃyoga) and disjunction (vibhāga). Bodies are initially set in motion because they possess other tropes like “heaviness” (gurutva) or “fluidity” (dravatva).²⁰

The classical Vaiśeṣikas further accepted a category of “ultimate differentiator” (viśeṣas). According to Śaṅkara Miśra,²¹ ultimate individuators differentiate eternal substances from one another; we need to postulate them in order to account for how yogins, who have extraordinary abilities to perceive atoms, can distinguish one atom from another. The classical Vaiśeṣikas also accept a mass-relater called “inherence” (samavāya). Inherence is taken to be a singular, permanent relator through which wholes inhere in their parts, tropes and motions inhere in substances, and universals inhere in tropes, motions, and substances. Udayana simply defines inherence as “the permanent relator” (nityaḥ sambandhaḥ samavāyaḥ).²² The Mādhvas do not accept the classical Vaiśeṣika inherence-relator, and Vyāsatīrtha devotes a section of his Tarkatāṇḍava to refuting the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika doctrine.²³

5.3 Absence and existence in classical Vaiśeṣika

Vyāsatīrtha studied the works of the classical Vaiśeṣikas in depth, and the ontology I sketched in the above features regularly in his arguments in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Throughout the text, he frequently uses the formal arguments Vaiśeṣika philosophers used to prove the existence of the different parts of this scheme as examples to evaluate arguments made by the Advaitins. Moreover, when giving formal definitions of concepts, he often tries to show that they can be taken to apply to different parts of the Vaiśeṣika universe. Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments against Ānandabodha’s inferences were influenced in particular by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers’ theories of existence and absence. His own definitions of “existence” and “nonexistence” can only be understood against the backdrop of the classical Vaiśeṣika interpretation of these concepts.

All of the categories outlined above are “positive” categories of being according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers. However, like the Mādhvas, the classical Vaiśeṣikas accept that alongside these positive entities, reality further includes negative things/absences (abhāvas). They claim that we need to postulate absence as a separate category in order to account for negative judgments (“The pot is not on the floor”, “This table is not a piece of cloth”, etc.). Udayana simply says that “absence is the object of a judgment expressed by a negative particle” (nañarthapratyayaviṣayo ’bhāvaḥ).²⁴ The particular scheme of absence that became standard in Navya-Nyāya works found an early expression in the writings of Vācaspati Miśra.²⁵ According to this scheme, there are primarily two types of absence: relational absence (sāṃsargika-abhāva), and identity absence (tādātmya-abhāva). Whereas for Mādhva philosophers “difference” is a fundamental part of reality, the classical Vaiśeṣikas take it that difference is simply identity absence.

Udayana²⁶ says that relational absences are divided according to their duration across time. To say that some location has the “prior absence” (prāgabhāva) of something is to say that the thing in question will come to be present in that location at a later time. To say that some location has the “posterior absence” (dhvaṃsa) of something, by contrast, is to say that that thing was present in the location in question beforehand, but that it is no longer present there. (This is the objective correlate of judgments such as “The pot has been destroyed”.) I follow Ingalls (1951) throughout this volume in translating the term atyantābhāva as “constant absence”. It refers, in other words, to a permanent or omni-temporal absence. In Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika works “constant absence” is not identical with outright nonexistence, even if other thinkers in Indian philosophy might use the term in this way. In fact, in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thought, the “counterpositive” of a constant absence (i.e. the absentee itself) must be something that has already been established to exist in some part of the real world (a “well-established” [prasiddha] entity).

Most Navya-Naiyāyikas distinguished sharply between presence/absence (bhā-va/abhāva) on the one hand, and existence/nonexistence (sattva/asattva) on the other. They generally followed the classical Vaiśeṣikas and held that existence is a special type of “universal” (jāti, sāmānya). Other translations for the term jāti include “natural kind”, “universal”, and “class character”. Udayana’s definition of jāti/sāmānya in the Kiraṇāvalī, which was largely accepted by later authors, is “an eternal, unitary thing that occurs in multiple [other] things” (nityam ekam anekavr̥tti sāmānyam).²⁷ Universals can be present only in individuals belonging to the first three Vaiśeṣika categories (substances, tropes, and motions). They are related to individuals belonging to these categories by the inherence-relator. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers accept that we can perceive universals directly. They hold that we perceive them through the same sense-faculty that perceives the substance/trope/motion to which the universal in question belongs.²⁸

According to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, we are forced to postulate universals in order to explain what they termed “consecutive discourse” (anugatavyavahā-ra). Consecutive discourse essentially consists in a series of judgments of the form “a is F”, “b is F”, “c is F”, and so on, where a, b, and c stand for individual things and F for a single predicate. An example could be the set of judgments: “This individual here is a man”, “That other individual is also a man”, and “This third individual is likewise a man”. While the individual differs across these judgments, the predicate remains the same in each case. According to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, the most economical explanation for the fact that we make such “consecutive judgments” is that there is a single, unitary property (“manhood”, for instance), which inheres in the different individuals referred to in those judgments.

According to classical Vaiśeṣika philosophers, “existence” is simply a special sort of universal. Universals can be arranged hierarchically, according to the extent of their scope, i.e. the number of distinct individuals they occur in. According to Śaṅkara Miśra, “existence” is distinguished from all other universals by virtue of the fact that it has the greatest scope. Śaṅkara Miśra says that universals are of two types: the “higher” (para) and the “lower” (apara). The “higher” is the universal that is the pervader (vyāpaka); the lower is the universal that is pervaded (vyāpya). Of those, the higher is existence (sattā). Existence therefore pervades all other universals.²⁹ As a universal, existence inheres in individuals belonging to the first three categories—substances, tropes, and motions.

In the sixteenth century, Raghunātha challenged the view that existence is a universal. He argued, by contrast, that “existence” and “nonexistence” are simply identical with the states of being present or being absent (bhāvatva/abhāvatva). Like Raghunātha, Vyāsatīrtha rejects the theory that existence is a universal. In fact, he rejects the whole category of “universals” altogether. Like Raghunātha, moreover, Vyāsatīrtha argues that existence and nonexistence can ultimately be explained in terms of presence/absence. However, he argues that further quantification is needed to truly explain what “existence” and “nonexistence” mean.³⁰

5.4 The Mādhva critique of universals

Mādhva philosophers were deeply influenced by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theories about knowledge and metaphysics, but they were independent thinkers who defended distinctive positions. While he often adopts aspects of Navya-Nyāya philosophy in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha gives a wide-ranging critique of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika metaphysics in the Tarkatāṇḍava. Like the classical Vaiśeṣikas, Madhva and his followers accept that reality contains “absences” as well as positive entities. They also follow Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers in holding that absences can be divided according to the span of time they occupy. Madhva himself said that there is prior absence (the absence of something before it comes into existence), posterior absence (the absence of something after it has come into existence and then disappeared), and constant absence (sadābhāva) (the permanent absence of something from some location).³¹

Despite these similarities, there are significant differences between the Mādhva and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theories of absence. As described above, classical Vaiśeṣikas generally held that absence can be divided fundamentally into two sorts: mutual absence (anyonyābhāva) and relational absence (sāṃsargikābhāva). By contrast, Madhva and his followers do not hold that mutual absence/difference (anyonyābhā-va/bheda) is a distinct part of reality. Rather, they accept that difference is identical with the very essence (svarūpa) of things themselves. It is the very nature of things to be differentiated from one another, so we do not need to postulate a further type of entity to explain differentiating judgments.³²

The Mādhvas also disagree with Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers about what kinds of entity can act as the “counterpositives” (pratiyogins) of certain types of absence. The counterpositive of an absence is usually taken to be the absentee—the thing that the absence is “of”. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers refused to perform logical operations on unestablished (aprasiddha) terms like “a hare’s horn”. They argued that we cannot make inferences or formulate definitions involving such terms, and that they cannot be the counterpositives of absences.³³ The Mādhvas, by contrast, argue that the counterpositive of a constant absence must be some nonexistent thing like a hare’s horn or the son of a barren woman.

These particular disagreements notwithstanding, the Mādhva and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theories of absence are very similar to one another. However, the Mā-dhvas reject the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika category of universals/natural kinds as repeatable properties altogether. Mādhva philosophers defend a sort of nominalism. Reality, in their view, contains only particular individuals. There are no repeatable/consecutive (anugata) properties, as Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers claim. Thus there are as many “existences”, for instance, as there are things that we would properly term “existent”. As Sharma (1986: 106–107) has argued, the Mādhva rejection of repeatable properties seems to be partly due to their dispute with the Advaitins, and the fear that accepting universals might open up the door to non-dualist philosophy.³⁴ As I show below, Madhusūdana Sarasvatī’s commentary on the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta itself illustrates how Advaitin philosophers could use the principle of parsimony to help justify their monism.³⁵

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha gives an extensive critique of the Vaiśeṣika theory of universals. According to the classical Vaiśeṣikas, universals are singular properties that are instantiated in multiple individual things. They are also eternal: they admit of neither creation nor destruction. However, if universals are eternal properties which inhere in individuals, what happens to them when all the individuals that instantiate them are destroyed? In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha argues that the theory that there are eternal, multiply instantiated properties is ruled out by perception:

Moreover, perception shows that universals arise and are destroyed, because of experiences like, “The pot has come into being”, and, “The pot has been destroyed”; just as [we know that tropes like magnitude and colour arise and are destroyed on the basis of experiences like:] “The large thing has come into being” and “The large thing has been destroyed”; [or] “The dark-blue thing has come into being” and “The dark-blue thing has been destroyed”.

Nor can it be argued that this cognition[, that is, “The pot has come into being”/“The pot is destroyed”], having for its object the arising and [destruction] of the qualified-thing[, that is, the pot qualified by potness], is possible because of the arising and [destruction] merely of the qualificandum[, that is, merely the particular pot, and not potness too]. For, one could equally claim the contrary[; that is, that the judgment, “The pot has been destroyed”, having for its object the pot qualified by potness, is based on the destruction of the qualifier, i.e. potness].

Moreover, it would follow that judgments such as “The large thing has come into being”, and so on, are as such[—that is, that they have for their object the arising/destruction of the qualificandum, namely, the thing that possesses the magnitude trope in question].³⁶

“Cowness”, for instance, is, according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣikas philosophers, a universal that inheres in all the individual things we refer to as “cows”. What would happen if all the individual cows in the world suddenly disappeared from existence? Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers are bound to argue that the universal “cowness” must somehow continue to exist, but where and how? In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha argues that perceptual experiences such as “The pot arises”, or, “The pot is destroyed”, show that universals, if they do exist at all, must come into being and be destroyed.

The obvious retort to this argument is that it is not the universals themselves that come into being and disappear, but the individuals in which they inhere. Under this view, the awareness “The pot is destroyed” has for its object the destruction of a compound entity—the individual pot combined with/qualified by the universal (potness), which inheres in it. However, it is only the individual pot—the qualificandum—and not the qualifier itself (potness) that actually disappears from being. One might compare this to the case of a man holding a stick, argues Vyāsatīrtha. Here the stick is the qualifier and the man is the qualificandum. The destruction of the man does not necessarily lead to the destruction of the stick. However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that there is a crucial dissimilarity between these two cases. In the case of the combination man and stick, we still perceive that the stick continues to exist as part of reality even after the man has disappeared from existence. In the case of universals, by contrast, there is no perception of the sort, “The universal continues to exist in this place”. In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha uses these and a number of other arguments to refute the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of universals/natural kinds.

According to Vyāsatīrtha, then, the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of existence as a universal/natural kind is untenable because that category simply does not exist. If existence is not a universal, then what is it? Madhva, Jayatīrtha, and Vyāsatīrtha all accept that existence is a property which is present in the innumerable entities that make up reality. However, Mādhva philosophers hold that existence is not a single, multiply instantiated property. Rather, each individual existent thing has a unique property of “existence”. We group these properties together because of their natural resemblance/similarity (sādr̥śya) to one another. There are, in other words, as many “existences” as there are objects that we would properly refer to as “existent”. As Jayatīrtha puts it in the Nyāyasudhā: “Existence is not a single, consecutive thing; no, existences are differentiated according to the thing [they are present in]”.³⁷

5.5 Vyāsatīrtha’s definition of existence in the Sattvanirukti

According to Vyāsatīrtha, the classical Vaiśeṣika theory of existence as a universal fails because existence is not a single, multiply instantiated property, but rather a set of distinct properties that we group together because of their natural similarity to one another. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, he makes it clear that he also rejects the classical Vaiśeṣika theory of existence because it does not truly have the power to contradict the Advaitins’ inferences to prove that the world is illusory. Vyāsatīrtha lays out this argument in a section of the text referred to as the “Determination of Existence” (Sattvanirukti) in modern editions. I have translated and analysed this chapter elsewhere.³⁸ Here, I will focus on how Vyāsatīrtha uses his definitions of existence and nonexistence to undermine the Advaitins’ arguments for the illusoriness of the world.

As Vyāsatīrtha is aware in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, some Advaitin philosophers were happy to accept aspects of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika metaphysics as a provisional account of the everyday world. The Upaniṣads may lead us to the realisation that reality is simply the non-dual brahman, but the Advaitins were often prepared to accept the classical Vaiśeṣika account of “existence” as a universal as a plausible description of practical/transactional reality.³⁹ However, Advaitin philosophers gave a very different account of what it means to say that something ultimately “exists” (i.e. that it has pāramārthika-sattva). According to Citsukha and Madhusūdana, to say that something “exists” from the ultimate point of view is to say that it can never become the object of a sublating awareness.⁴⁰ “Existence” is, in other words, “omni-temporal non-sublatability” (traikālika-abādhyatva). The world of our senses stands to become the object of a stultifying judgment which tells us that it is unreal, and so only the self-illuminating consciousness that is brahman can be said to truly “exist”. So, the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory that existence is a universal/natural kind present in individuals in reality does not necessarily contradict the Advaitins’ stance about the world. If existence really means “omni-temporal non-sublatability”, then the Advaitins can simply admit that the objects of our everyday experience have the universal existence from the vyāvahārika point of view, but deny that they have ultimate reality as brahman does.

When defining “existence” in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha considers a further definition of existence defended by Buddhist philosophers. According to the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti,⁴¹ existence is nothing but “practical efficacy” (arthakriyākāritva). Vyāsatīrtha argues that this explanation of existence fails to truly contradict the Advaitins’ theory that the world is illusory. The problem is that it is implicit in Advaita philosophy that the world does have “practical efficacy”. According to the Advaitins, we can interact with the objects in the empirical world and speak about them as we might do with the objects in a dream, even if, like all dreams, it must eventually come to an end. So neither of these definitions of existence proposed by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Buddhist philosophers really contradict the Advaitins’ thesis that the world is an illusion.

For these reasons, in the Sattvanirukti Vyāsatīrtha rejects both of these Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Buddhist theories of existence. He then proposes his own theory of existence, which he believes has the power to truly undermine the Advaitins’ arguments to prove that the world is illusory. His analysis of existence draws on earlier remarks found scattered in the works of Jayatīrtha.

When discussing whether the term mithyā can refer to the Advaitins’ concept of “indeterminacy” in his commentary on Madhva’s Tattvoddyota, Jayatīrtha writes as follows:

Objection (Advaitin): If the word mithyā does not refer to what is indeterminate, then [you] must specify what it means.

Reply (Mādhva): True enough! We say [that it means] “nonexistent”.

Objection (Advaitin): In that case it follows that [the word mithyā] is meaningless! For [one] cannot [say]: “What is nonexistent exists” (asad asti), because [that is] contradictory. And if [the word mithyā] is meaningless, then it cannot be a word at all.

Reply (Mādhva): Wrong! Because there is nonexistence in the form of “being the counterpositive of a constant absence”. For, the statement “[It is] mithyā” does not mean “[It is] a hare’s horn”, or so on. For then [one] would not [say], “The hare’s horn is mithyā”.

Objection (Advaitin): So what [does it mean]?

Reply (Mādhva): [It means:] “It does not exist.” And so the [sublating judgment] “The silver is in fact mithyā” (mithyaiva rajatam) means “There is the constant absence of silver”.

Objection (Advaitin): How can something that itself is nonexistent have the quality of being a counterpositive?

Reply (Mādhva): Why do you ask “how”? For, unlike [the trope] colour and so on, the state of being a counterpositive does not depend on the existence of its locus. For, “being a counterpositive” is nothing more than “being an object of a cognition that is conducive to a cognition of an absence”. And we shall demonstrate [later in this work] that there can be a cognition even of what does not exist.⁴²

In this passage, Jayatīrtha says several things about the term mithyā and its relationship to the term nonexistence (asattva) that are pertinent to Vyāsatīrtha’s analysis of existence/nonexistence in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. He here reflects upon the meaning of mithyā in the context of the judgment that sublates the perceptual error where mother-of-pearl is mistaken for silver. What does the judgment “The silver is mithyā” actually tell us about the “silver” in this illusion?

Jayatīrtha’s Advaita pūrvapakṣin contends that the word indicates that the silver is “indeterminate”. In contrast, Jayatīrtha says that the term mithyā indicates that the silver is simply “nonexistent” (asat). In response to Jayatīrtha’s claim, the Advaita pūrvapakṣin asks what the term mithyā could mean if lacks a referent altogether. Words should have some object that they refer to, yet if the term mithyā simply refers to what is “nonexistent” it must surely lack a referent, and its very status as a “word” is thrown into question. Jayatīrtha responds to this objection by arguing that “nonexistence” refers to a specific property, namely “being the counterpositive of a constant absence” (atyantābhāvapratiyogitva). When we claim that the “silver is mithyā”, we are simply saying that it the counterpositive of a constant/absolute absence (atyantābhāva). Jayatīrtha here seems to use the term atyantābhāva to refer to a total/absolute absence from reality in general.

Jayatīrtha goes on to consider an objection to this position which would become important for Vyāsatīrtha in his debate with the Naiyāyikas in the Tarkatāṇḍava and with the Advaitins in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Jayatīrtha has argued that the term “nonexistent” refers to a specific quality, namely, “being the counterpositive of a constant absence”. Yet how can something completely nonexistent like a “square-circle” have properties at all? Existent things like substances and tropes may be able to have qualities, but how can a mere nonentity be said to possess any kind of property? In response, Jayatīrtha argues in this passage of the Tattvoddyotaṭīkā that to explain the fact that we can meaningfully assert certain things about nonexistent entities, we need to accept that some properties (counterpositiveness and nonexistence, for instance) do not require an existent locus. They stand in contrast in this respect to other properties (colour, heaviness, and so on) that can clearly can only be present in an existent substrate. In support of this, Jayatīrtha’s commentator Vedeśatīrtha points out that a pot, for instance, is said to have the property of being the counterpositive of a prior absence even before it comes into existence.⁴³

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha builds on Jayatīrtha’s observations to articulate this as the theory of asadāśrayadharmas, or “location-free properties”. I will discuss this theory in detail below in Chapter 7. What is of interest for the moment is the explanation of “nonexistence” Jayatīrtha gives in this passage, and how Vyāsatīrtha elaborates on this and similar remarks by Jayatīrtha to define existence in the Sattvanirukti chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. In the Sattvanirukti, Vyāsatīrtha follows Jayatīrtha and argues that “existence” and “nonexistence” can be defined in terms of the category of absence (abhāva).

Vyāsatīrtha begins the chapter by claiming that Ānandabodha’s inferences are contradicted by perception, which tells us that its objects exist. He then gives voice to an Advaita pūrvapakṣin who proposes a series of definitions of “existence”, only to find them all wanting:

Objection: (Mādhva): And [the reasons you, the Advaitin, have given in your inferences,] perceptibility[, insentience, and finiteness,] are contradicted by perceptions such as “The pot exists” and so on.

Reply: (Advaitin): Just what is this “existence”, which is [putatively] established by perception? Is it—

(1) the highest universal;

or, (2) the state of being different from what does not exist;

or, (3) practical efficacy;

or, (4) being the object of an episode of knowledge;

or, (5) having the capacity to be [an object of an episode of knowledge];

or, (6) not being an object of an episode of error;

or, (7) [something’s] not being the counterpositive of an absence that occurs in that thing’s own locus and at that thing’s own time;

or, (8) non-sublatability?⁴⁴

Vyāsatīrtha’s Advaita pūrvapakṣin dismisses definitions (1)–(3) on this list summarily, claiming that they merely prove something that he already accepts (siddhasā-dhana), and thus do not truly contradict his claim that the world “illusory”. Definition (1) captures the view of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, according to whom existence is a universal. Definition (3) refers to Dharmakīrti’s view that existence is simply practical efficacy. As discussed above, neither definition necessarily stands at odds with the Advaitins’ position. The Advaitin can accept that the world has “existence” defined as the “highest universal” or “practical efficacy” while still maintaining that it lacks ultimate existence in the form of “omni-temporal non-sublatability”. So neither of these definitions really contradict the Advaitin’s claim that the world is “illusory”.

Vyāsatīrtha goes on to critique the remaining definitions of “existence” given in the list above, arguing that they all suffer from insuperable difficulties. Having initially argued that he is not obliged to state his own definitions to the Advaitins, he goes on to state them as follows:

But in a spirit of friendship—“Existence” is said to be: “Not being the counterpositive of an absence belonging to all times and all places”; what is superimposed and what is completely nonexistent are both the counterpositives of [such an absence].⁴⁵

Vyāsatīrtha continues to explain his definition of “existence” as follows:

“Existence” is “not being the counterpositive of an absence belonging to all times and places”.

[This definition of existence] does not fail to apply to [contact (saṃyoga)], since if a contact trope is present in a region determined by something, then [the constant absence of that same contact trope] cannot be present in the region determined by that thing[, and thus contact cannot be said to be absent from all locations].

Since it has been stated that even the constant absences of the ether and so on also are not universal-positive properties, [the definition of existence] does not fail to apply to the ether and so on.

Since it has been stated that both what is nonexistent and what is superimposed are both counterpositives of the [sort of] absence [I have just] described[, my definition of existence] does not apply inappropriately to those cases.

If [one] is of the opinion that in judgments like “Cowness is never present in a horse” and the like, it is only the connection [with cowness] which is denied, the word “place” may be disregarded.⁴⁶

Here, Vyāsatīrtha defines existence by the universal quantification of absence across space and time. To say that something does not exist is to say that it fails to be present in any location at any time. To say that something “exists”, on the other hand, is to say that it has the absence of this quality; in effect that it is present in at least one location at some point in time. Each entity, in other words, has a “location-range”, a set of locations in which it is present. This range is extended temporally, as well as spatially. According to Vyāsatīrtha, something is existent if it has a non-null location-range. Something is existent, in other words, if it is present in just one location at a single point in time.

Like Jayatīrtha, Vyāsatīrtha defines existence/nonexistence in terms of absence. It might seem that Vyāsatīrtha is simply begging the question by defining existence in terms of this category—what exactly is “absence”? However, Vyāsatīrtha and the Mādhvas accept absence as a separate category for the same reasons that Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers do. According to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, explanations need to end somewhere, and absence is simply the irreducible category that we need to postulate in order to explain judgments like “Anna is not in the sauna”, or “Anna is not at work”. Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions are thus grounded in our everyday experiences of the world around us.

In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha anticipates objections that his definition of existence fails to apply to two parts of the world accepted in Mādhva and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika ontology. The first is contact tropes (saṃyogas). Contact tropes appear in substances as they come into contact with one another. They explain judgments such as “The pen is on the table” or “The bird is on the tree”, for instance. The problem is that Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers accepted that contact tropes are be “non-locus pervading”, in the sense that they are only present in part of their locus. The standard example used to illustrate this is the contact trope that appears in a monkey as it clings to a tree. The monkey is only in contact with a small part of the tree as it hangs from one of its branches. While the particular contact trope that binds the monkey to the tree in this case can be said to be present in one part of the tree, it clearly cannot extend to the whole tree. Consequently, we can say that the contact trope is simultaneously both present in and absent from the tree.

This potentially causes a problem for Vyāsatīrtha’s definition of existence. Contact tropes are clearly accepted by both the Mādhvas and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers to exist. Yet if existence means “not being absent from all places at all times”, then this definition might fail to apply to non-locus pervading properties like contact-tropes. The monkey-contact trope might be present in the tree, but it is also permanently absent from the same tree; as such it could be said to be absent from all possible locations, including the ones in which it should exist.

In response, Vyāsatīrtha says that with further parsing even contact tropes cannot be said to be absent from all locations. The contact trope binding the monkey to the tree can, from one perspective, be said to be “absent from the tree”. Yet the particular portion of the tree with which the contact trope is connected cannot possess the constant absence of that same trope; the monkey contact trope cannot be said to be absent from the precise segment of the tree’s branch that the monkey is in contact with, for instance. Hence even non-locus pervading contact tropes must all be present in at least one part of reality—the specific portion of the substance with which the contact trope itself is in contact with, however that portion is delineated. So even contact tropes must be present in some part of the spatio-temporal world, and the definition Vyāsatīrtha has proposed for existence does not fail to apply to them.⁴⁷

Vyāsatīrtha also raises the question of whether his definition of existence can be taken to apply to eternal, pervasive substances such as the ether, space, time, and the self. According to the Naiyāyikas, these substances have no substrate: they do not occur “in” anything. The constant absences of these substances were thus held to be “universal-positive” properties, properties that are present in every part of reality. This being so, it seems that “existence” as Vyāsatīrtha has defined it fails to apply to them, since they are permanently absent from every part of reality. Vyāsatīrtha’s answer to this objection is simply that he does not accept that such eternal substances are permanently absent from all locations. Elsewhere in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, for instance, he accepts that space and time are present in both themselves and in each other. He accepts that space and time are “self-instantiating” qualities, like “knowability” and “nameability”. They must instantiate themselves. Hence they do occur in some parts of reality, and his definition of existence must apply to them.⁴⁸

Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions of existence and nonexistence are deliberately crafted to undermine Advaita philosophy. Unlike the definitions proposed by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers and Dharmakīrti, this definition of existence seems to truly stand in contradiction to at least some of the definitions of “illusoriness” proposed by Advaitin philosophers. When formulating these definitions of existence/nonexistence, Vyāsatīrtha seems to have had in mind particularly the definitions of illusoriness that he ascribes to Prakāśātman and Citsukha. As we saw in Chapter 4, according to Prakāśātman, to say that something is “illusory” is to say that it is “the counterpositive of an omni-temporal absence in what was taken to be [its own] substrate” (pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam). In other words, something is illusory if it is permanently absent from the very locus where it was mistakenly taken to exist. The definition Vyāsatīrtha ascribes to Citsukha explains illusoriness in a very similar way. According to Citsukha, illusoriness consists in something’s “being the counterpositive of a constant absence that shares a common locus with that thing itself” (svasamānādhikaraṇātyantābhāvapratiyogitvam).

Vyāsatīrtha’s definition of existence in the Sattvanirukti clearly renders existence incompatible with both of these definitions. Both definitions of illusoriness effectively state that to be “illusory” is to be the counterpositive of an omni-temporal absence in all possible locations. However, something cannot be the “counterpositive of a permanent absence in its own substrate” if it is present in that substrate at at least one point in time. So Vyāsatīrtha’s definition of existence does seem to stand in direct contradiction to these definitions of illusoriness. As I will show below in Chapter 6, Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions here are also intended to undermine the Advaitins’ doctrine of indeterminacy, insofar as they are crafted to give firm ground to the charge that indeterminacy as the Advaitins understand it is simply a contradiction in terms.

5.6 Is existence perceptible? Some challenges from Advaitin philosophers

For the remainder of this chapter, I will focus on Vyāsatīrtha’s claim that Ānandabodha’s inferences are ruled out by perception. Vyāsatīrtha claims that “existence” as he has defined it is a property that is perceptible through our sense-faculties. In the Sattvanirukti, he claimed that Ānandabodha’s inferences are ruled out by everyday perceptions like “The pot exists”. Yet why should we be confident in the reliability of our perceptions, given that they might be sublated by later judgments? We regularly “perceive” that such-and-such is the case, only to find out later that we were quite wrong. Moreover, Advaitin philosophers do not have to accept Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions of existence and nonexistence. Advaitins like Citsukha and Madhusūdana accepted that to say that something “exists” is actually to say that it will never become the object of a sublating judgment. How can perception tell us that its judgments will never be sublated? And even if existence is perceptible, why should we abandon inference in favour of perception? Why would our perceptions have greater epistemic force than inference in this case?

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, just after the Sattvanirukti, Vyāsatīrtha gives an extensive discussion of these issues in an effort to show that perception has the power to truly undermine all of Ānandabodha’s inferences. He begins by considering the argument of the Advaitins that “existence”, defined as “permanent non-sublatability”, cannot be perceived, since perception cannot tell us that its objects will never be sublated at a future point in time. Vyāsatīrtha questions whether the Advaitin philosopher who poses this objection wants to reject perception as a means of knowledge altogether, or whether he is simply stressing that perception can only tell us about what is present in the current moment:

Objection (Advaitin): Nevertheless, how does perception apprehend that [its objects] will never be sublated? On the other hand, [we Advaitins] do accept that [the objects of our perceptions] are not sublated temporarily, just as the “silver”, for instance[, is taken to exist for a time before this notion is cancelled by the sublating awareness].

Reply (Mādhva): [In your opinion,] is it the case that (1) perception is simply not a valid means of knowledge? Or [do you opine that] (2) even though [perception] is a valid means of knowledge, [it] cannot grasp the fact that [its objects] are not sublated in all three times, since [it] can only grasp what exists in the present moment?⁴⁹

In case the Advaitin maintains the first alternative and rejects perception as a means of knowledge altogether, Vyāsatīrtha asks him what grounds he has for doing this:

Further, in case [you accept] (1), do [you] reject the veridicality (prāmāṇya) [of perception]— that is, [its] representing the truth [about its objects]—, which veridicality is apprehended intrinsically, because (1) [perception] is contradicted by inference? Or (2) because [perception] is contradicted by scripture? Or (3) merely because there is doubt that [something] will sublate [perception] at a future point in time?

The first two [of these reasons] are untenable, because[, in both cases,] there is mutual dependency—if [perception and inference] are both valid, then perception is invalid because it contradicts them; and, given that [perception is invalid, scripture and inference] are valid because they do not contradict [another] means of knowledge [i.e. perception]!

The veridicality of perception, on the other hand, which is stronger [than inference and scripture], does not depend upon [its] not standing in contradiction to them; hence there is no mutual-dependency[, on my part, for arguing that perception is stronger than inference and scripture]. For, the lion does not worry about the presence of baby bunnies when he enters the forest!⁵⁰

Vyāsatīrtha observes in this passage that the Advaitin might reject perception as a means of knowledge because it conflicts with inference and scripture, which the Advaitins take it tell us that the empirical world is illusory. However, Vyāsatīrtha observes that there is an inherent circularity in this argument. If it is necessary that something does “not conflict with other pramāṇas” in order to be a valid source of knowledge, then how do we choose? What criterion can we use to determine which means of knowledge we should abandon in case they conflict? Perception can only be dismissed as a means of knowledge if it conflicts with scripture and inference, but in order for inference and scripture to be valid in the first place we need to dismiss the idea that perception is a pramāṇa!

The obvious response to this is to ask why we should, in that case, favour perception as Vyāsatīrtha wants to. However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that the validity of perception does not depend on whether it is consistent with the other pramāṇas, because there is good reason to believe that perception is a stronger means of knowledge than inference and even scripture. The lion does not concern himself with lesser animals when he decides to enter the forest!

Vyāsatīrtha explores several lines of argument in the Nyāyāmr̥ta to establish the superior strength of perception in relation to scripture and inference. Later in the text, he argues that perception is stronger than inference because inference is causally dependent on it. We can only make inferences on the basis of the data that perception supplies us with. For instance, we can only infer that there is fire on a mountain because there is smoke on the same mountain if we have already perceived the mountain, some different instances of fire, the smoke, and so on. Similarly, we can only gain knowledge from scripture/testimony if we perceive language and its various properties using our perceptual faculties. Somewhat further on from the passage just translated, Vyāsatīrtha argues as follows:

… Moreover, since it is something that [inference and scripture] depend upon (upajīvya), perception is stronger [than inference and scripture], just like śruti [is stronger] than smr̥ti [because smr̥ti derives from śruti]. And [inference and scripture depend on perception] because the causes of inferential knowledge—the inferential subject, the probandum, the reason, the pervasion, and so on—and the causes of verbal knowledge—the essential nature of speech, as well as the properties of [that speech], consistency[, expectation, and proximity], the consistency of the introduction and the conclusion [in scripture], and so on—and the essential natures of inferential and verbal knowledge, as well the veridicality [of inferential and verbal knowledge], are all apprehended through perception.⁵¹

Inference depends on perception; we can only make inferences on the basis of the data our sense-faculties supply us with. Scripture is similarly dependent on sense-perception; we can only hear/read verbal testimony through our sense-faculties. Vyāsatīrtha takes it that this causal dependency itself could establish the superior epistemic strength of perception over scripture and inference. Nevertheless, he also argues that the superior strength of perception does not even rely on this dependency relationship, because perception is innately (jātyā) stronger than inference and scripture:

And perception is by its very nature stronger than inference [and scripture], because [it] apprehends particulars like [fine] lines, sub-lines, and so on which cannot be apprehended through [inference and scripture]; and because [perception] cancels things like confusion about which direction [one happens to be facing], which cannot be cancelled by inferential knowledge [or knowledge derived from scripture]. For, it is observed in the case where [one] infers [incorrectly] that fire is cold [because it is a substance] that, even though the inference does not depend [on tactile perception] since the subject [of the inference, i.e. fire,] and [the other components of the inference] are established through the visual-faculty and so on too, the perception of heat is by its very nature stronger [than inference].⁵²

Perception, Vyāsatīrtha argues, can tell us things about the world that inference and scripture cannot. For instance, it can tell us about the existence of minute lines present on the surface of objects, whereas inference and scripture can reveal to us nothing about such details. Moreover, perception can bring an end to delusions and doubts that apparently cannot be resolved through inference and scripture. If we mistakenly believe that we are facing east when we are, in fact, facing west, only perception can tell us that we are wrong; neither inference nor scripture are able to do so. This argument might seem problematic: surely verbal testimony and inference could convince us that we are wrong in such cases? For instance, someone trustworthy might tell us that we are in fact facing west, or we might infer that the direction we are looking in is the west because the sun rises there. However, Śrīnivāsatīrtha argues that it is a matter of experience that these cannot ultimately dispel our delusion. Even though we might be told we are wrong, and even though we might make a correct inference, it is only when we witness the fact that the sun does not rise there that we truly realise that the direction we are looking in is, for instance, west and not east.⁵³

To support his claim that perception is innately stronger than inference, Vyāsatīrtha observes that there are cases where certain types of perception undermine inference, even though the inference in question does not depend on the specific type of perception involved. Vyāsatīrtha adduces the famous example of the fallacious inference: “Fire is cold, because [it is] a substance” (vahniḥ śītaḥ, vastutvāt). The idea is that some unfortunate person makes this “inference”, only to plunge their hand into the fire and find out that it is very hot indeed! In this case, the inference is cancelled by perception, specifically a tactile perception. This may seem a strange example to use, because, as Vyāsatīrtha acknowledges, perception does communicate the various parts of this inference to us; for instance, we might only know about the fire in front of us through our faculty of sight. However, his point is that the particular perceptual modality by which we become aware of the fire in the first place (the visual-faculty) is different from the modality by which we become aware that the fire is hot (the tactile-faculty). Even though the inference does not depend on tactile-perception specifically, it still can be undermined by the tactile-perception that occurs when the person who made the false inference plunges her hand into the fire.

5.7 The witness and our perceptions of veridicality

Vyāsatīrtha has claimed that perception is innately stronger than inference, and that if the two come into conflict, we need to abandon our inferences as fallacious rather than concluding that perception is faulty. Thus, since Ānandabodha’s inferences contradict perception, which tells us that the objects in the world around us exist, we should abandon those inferences on this ground alone. However, as Vyā-satīrtha observes in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, the Advaitin could also attempt to cast doubts on perception’s status as a means of knowledge by arguing that the things it tells us about its objects might still be sublated at a future time. We observe that what we took to be a piece of silver later turns out to be mother-of-pearl, or a terrifying snake a mere length of rope, so how can we be sure that our perceptions of the existence of the world around us will not likewise be sublated? The mere doubt that our perceptions may be falsified at some future point in time should give us pause before accepting them as veridical. Moreover, as discussed earlier, Advaitins like Citsukha and Madhusūdana defined “existence” as omni-temporal non-sublatability (traikālikābādhyatva). For them, if we are to know that something “exists” through perception, we somehow need to perceive that it will never become the object of a sublating judgment, even in future times.

So it seems that in order to tell us that its objects truly and ultimately “exist”, perception must be able to apprehend future events as well as present ones. This might appear to contradict common sense, and there was a widespread assumption among Indian philosophers that perception can only apprehend what exists in the present moment. Pūrvamīmāṃsāsūtra 1,1.4, for instance, states that perception cannot apprehend dharma (in the sense of proper conduct), “because [perception] consists in the apprehension of what is presently existent” (vidyamānopalambhanatvāt).⁵⁴ Madhva and Jayatīrtha had already dealt with this argument of the Advaitins extensively in works such as the Pramāṇalakṣaṇa(ṭīkā) and the Nyāyasudhā.⁵⁵ Vyāsatīrtha devotes a large part of the Nyāyāmr̥ta to building on their arguments to refute this position. In a key passage on this subject, he argues as follows:

The second [reason you, the Advaitin, have given to show that Ānandabodha’s inferences are not sublated by perception], namely that perception cannot grasp the quality of “not being liable to sublation in all three times”, is also not tenable.⁵⁶ For, [existence in the form of “omni-temporal non-sublatability”] cannot amount to “existence in all three times”, since even in our view that [quality] is absent from the [parts of] the world that are non-eternal. Rather, [existence defined as omni-temporal non-sublatability] is the absence of whatever nonexistence it is that occurs in all three times.

And [the absence of the nonexistence occurring in all three times] is apprehended even when [something or other] is apprehended to exist at just one point in time. Hence perception, insofar as it grasps the existence [of something] in the thing that was taken to be [that thing’s own] substrate, establishes that [that thing] does not have illusoriness in the form of “being the counterpositive of an omni-temporal absence in what was taken to be [its own] substrate”.

For, perception (sākṣātkāra), insofar as it apprehends the existence (astitā) [of something] in that thing’s own time, rules out the absence [of that thing] in all three times; hence it does apprehend permanent non-sublatability. For, in the case of the Veda too, the factor that determines the non-sublatability of [the Veda’s] object is simply the veridicality of the knowledge [that the Veda produces]; the determining factor [in this respect] is not [the Veda’s] being speech, or its apprehending the existence of its own object in such a way that is not restricted to the present time, or [its] apprehending the existence of its own object as being connected to all times [and places]. For, [if it were so that the factor that determines the non-sublatability of the knowledge generated by the Veda were any of the latter factors,] then it would follow that [even] the object of the speech of an unreliable person that has the three aforementioned qualities would be eternally beyond sublation!

Vyāsatīrtha goes on to explain his theory that the veridicality of perception is apprehended by the witness consciousness:

And the veridicality [of some cognition]—that is, [its] representing [its object] as it truly is—is apprehended in the case of perceptual cognitions by the very thing that apprehends the cognition itself, viz. the witness, in just the same way as [the witness apprehends the veridicality] of cognitions produced by śruti; for, veridicality is “intrinsic”. And there is no sublation or fault ascertained [in the case of our perceptual cognitions that the world exists], as there is in the case of our cognitions of [the fake] silver and so on, by virtue of which [the veridicality of those perceptions] would be cancelled.⁵⁷

In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha addresses the Advaitins’ argument that in order to know that the objects of our perceptions exist, we would need to perceive the fact that those perceptions will never be sublated at some point in the future. Vyāsatīrtha asks his Advaitin opponent what “permanent non-sublatability” means. It clearly cannot imply that the object in question exists perpetually. While the Mādhvas accept the existence of eternal substances (time, the individual souls, etc.), they accept that the world is populated by non-eternal things like pots, tables, and chairs, too. Vyāsatīrtha argues, by contrast, that to perceive that something is never liable to sublation we simply need to perceive that it is present in at least one place at at least one point in time, and explains, in effect, how his definition of existence in the Sattvanirukti shows that perception can contradict Ānandabodha’s thesis that the world is “illusory”.

According to the definitions of existence and nonexistence that Vyāsatīrtha gave in the Sattvanirukti, to say that something “exists” is to say that it is not absent from all locations at all times. To perceive that something exists, in other words, we simply need to perceive that it is not nonexistent, that is, that it does not fail to exist in any location at any time. Once we apprehend the presence of the object in front of us, even for a moment, we perceive that it has the absence of nonexistence defined as such, and so we perceive that it exists. So perception can apprehend the absence of illusoriness, if by illusoriness we mean something’s “being the counterpositive of an omni-temporal absence in what was taken to be [its own] substrate” (pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam). When we perceive that something or other exists in some location at some particular time, we automatically rule out that it is absent from all possible locations at all possible times. So perception can apprehend existence, and it thus contradicts Ānandabodha’s inferences to establish the illusoriness of the world.

Perhaps this does not get to the roots of the Advaitin’s objection, however. Perception may be able to tell us that its object is present in a specific place and time, as Vyāsatīrtha claims, yet it might not be able to show us that this judgment will never be sublated. Vyāsatīrtha’s commentator Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka points out an obvious response to the argument Vyāsatīrtha has just made: Non-veridical experiences also apprehend their objects in this way. When I mistake a length of rope lying in front of me for a snake, I perceive the “snake” existing in a particular place and time. Given that there might be no way to distinguish between non-veridical cognitions and veridical ones at the time they occur, why should we not conclude that our erroneous judgments about reality confirm that their objects exist in all three times? In other words, how can we know that our perceptions are veridical at the time they occur, given that so many of our judgments have been sublated in the past?

Vyāsatīrtha argues that the distinction lies in the fact that the witness (sākṣin) apprehends the veridicality of cognitions in the case of veridical cognitions, and not in the case of non-veridical ones. His point is that the Advaitin is committed to this too, at least in the case of the Veda. The Advaitin does accept, after all, that the Veda itself can tell us something that is permanently beyond sublation, because the Advaitins believe it can tell us that brahman is identical with the inner-self of all beings. Vyāsatīrtha, following Mādhva epistemological theory, argues that the veridicality of mental judgments is apprehended “intrinsically” (svataḥ). The witness apprehends the cognition, and in doing so it automatically apprehends the cognition’s veridicality as well, unless it also perceives some factor (a fault in the perceptual faculties, for instance,) that blocks it from apprehending this veridicality. Unlike in the case of illusions such as the mother-of-pearl/silver error, in veridical perception the witness detects neither sublation nor a fault in the perceptual faculties that could block the perception of its veridicality.

One route out of this for the Advaitin would be to argue that the Veda has some property that perception lacks, which would allow us to be confident in the veridicality of the things it teaches. For instance, the Advaitin could argue that it is because the Veda, unlike perception, has the quality of being speech that we know that its object can never be sublated; or that, unlike perception, the Veda apprehends the existence of its object as extending beyond the present time. However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that with this, the Advaitin is caught in a reductio ad absurdum; if any of these are accepted as the criterion for veridicality we would have to conclude that even an unreliable person’s testimony is true. The veridicality of perceptual judgments is apprehended in exactly the same way that the veridicality of the knowledge generated by the Veda is perceived: it is perceived by the witness.

So we know that our true judgments will not be sublated because the sākṣin, the very thing that perceives the judgments themselves, guarantees that they will never be. This leads to the question: how can the witness perceive the future nonsublatability of its objects? In a way, Vyāsatīrtha has still not answered the Advaitin’s objection. Knowing that a cognition is “veridical” seems to entail knowing that it will never be sublated by another cognition, even in future times. It still seems that perception has to somehow “reach out” and apprehend future states if we are to be sure that what it tells us about its objects is veridical. Vyāsatīrtha, following Madhva and Jayatīrtha,⁵⁸ takes the position that we can, in fact, perceive future states. While we clearly cannot do this through the external sense-faculties (sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing), we can do so through the “essential faculty” (svarūpendriya),⁵⁹ that is, the witness itself:

Moreover, the witness, which apprehends future time periods, does grasp the absence of the future sublation of its [direct] objects—the ether[, time, space,] and so on—as well as that of pots and so on, which are indirectly its object, by means of grasping the veridicality of the flawless knowledge [of its indirect objects such as pots and so on]. For, there obviously can be no apprehension of veridicality that does not include the nonsublation of the object!

And it is our opponent[, the Advaitin,] who must abandon his position that perception apprehends only what exists in the present moment. For otherwise the illusoriness [which the Advaitin opines to be present] in the silver and so on—that is, its “being the counterpositive of an omni-temporal absence in what was taken to be [its own] substrate”—would not be perceptible[, yet the Advaitin believes it is].⁶⁰

The Mādhvas accept that the witness can perceive certain external objects; it can perceive bare time and space, as well as the ether. Vyāsatīrtha here argues that the witness perceives the fact that its direct objects will never be sublated in future times. The witness does not apprehend other things like pots and so on directly. However, it does apprehend that these objects are eternally beyond sublation by apprehending that the perceptions we have of them through our external sense-faculties will never be sublated. When the witness apprehends the veridicality of a perceptual judgment, it apprehends that that judgment will never be sublated in future times too.

Vyāsatīrtha’s claim that the witness must be able to perceive future states as well as present ones might sound implausible, but in this passage he tries to catch the Advaitin in a sort of tu quoque argument. The problem as he sees it is that Advaitin philosophers themselves make specific claims about what perception can tell us. In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha observes that Advaitin philosophers claim that we can perceive the “illusoriness” of, for instance, the “silver” we mistake a piece of mother-of-pearl for. If Prakāśātman/Citsukha’s definition of illusoriness is accepted, then to perceive that the silver is “illusory” is to perceive that it is absent from the mother-of-pearl in all three times. How could we perceive this, if perception is limited to the present moment? So the Advaitins seem to be in the same boat as the Mādhvas. They too need to accept that perception can somehow grasp things beyond the present moment if they want to claim that we can perceive the illusoriness of the objects of our perceptual errors. Unless they accept the proposition that the witness can somehow perceive future states, then important Advaita philosophical positions become untenable. The Advaitin cannot have it both ways; they must either accept that perception can tell us about things outside the present moment, or abandon their claim that we can perceive the illusoriness of our illusions.

Vyāsatīrtha concludes this section of the Nyāyāmr̥ta by restating his claim that Ānandabodha’s inferences are “ruled out by perception” since perception shows us that its objects truly exist, and thus cannot be “illusory” in the way Advaitin philosophers define that term:

Therefore [the reasons in your inferences, namely,] perceptibility[, finitude, and insentience], are contradicted [by perception,] since perception grasps [that the world has] the absence of illusoriness in the form of “being the counterpositive of an omni-spatiotemporal absence in the very locus where [it] was taken [to exist]”.⁶¹

5.8 Conclusion

The discussion in this chapter has focused on a single claim that Vyāsatīrtha makes against Advaita philosophy. According to Vyāsatīrtha, Ānandabodha’s inferences to prove that the world is an illusion are all ruled out by perception, which tells us that its objects exist. This aspect of Vyāsatīrtha’s case against Ānandabodha hinges on his definition of existence. Vyāsatīrtha draws extensively on Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophy in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, but he ultimately argues that the classical Vaiśeṣika theory of existence as a universal/natural kind is implausible. Vyāsatīrtha believes that it is implausible because the category of universals/repeatable properties itself is intellectually indefensible. Another drawback of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of existence from Vyāsatīrtha’s point of view is that it fails to undermine Advaita philosophy. The Advaitins can still accept this aspect of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophy, but argue that “existence” in this sense simply forms part of the everyday, transactional world that will ultimately be sublated by awareness of brahman.

In the Sattvanirukti, Vyāsatīrtha argues, by contrast, that existence is not a special sort of universal, nor “practical efficacy” (as Dharmakīrti defined it). Rather, existence is properly defined as the quality of being connected with space and time. Perception tells us that its objects “exist” by telling us that they are present in just a single location at just one point in time. Moreover, the witness, which apprehends the veridicality of such judgments, has the power to show us that they will not be sublated even in future times. Unlike the case of perceptual illusions like the rope/snake illusion, we know that these judgments are true because the witness— the very same faculty that is responsible for the perception of these internal states in the first place—grasps the veridicality that is present in them, given that there is no factor to prevent it from doing so.

All of this is beside the point, of course, if perception does not have the power to overrule inferences. Vyāsatīrtha argues that, in the end, seeing is believing: elaborate metaphysical inferences do not have the power to undermine our everyday perceptions of reality. Perception, Vyāsatīrtha argues, is innately stronger than inference, since it can inform us about subtle aspects of reality where inference and scripture fail to illuminate us. Given that perception truly contradicts the conclusions of Ānandabodha’s inferences, we must abandon those inferences and reject the Advaitins’ interpretation of scripture as being inconsistent with perception.

The arguments in this chapter have all focused on the nature of “existence” and how veridical perceptions show us that Ānandabodha’s inferences are wrong. In the next chapter, I will focus on Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments about the nature of nonexistence and perceptual error in the context of his critique of indeterminacy. Advaitin philosophers argue that the “silver” we might mistake a lustrous piece of mother-of-pearl for is indeterminate from the point of view of its ontological status: it does not truly exist, yet nor is it completely nonexistent. Vyāsatīrtha, following Jayatīrtha, responds by arguing that we can in some way cognise things that do not exist; in fact, perceptual illusions are simply cases where we mistake some aspect of reality for a fictitious object that lacks existence in the external world. It will also become clear how Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions of existence and nonexistence serve to buttress the old argument that the Advaitins’ concept of indeterminacy is simply a contradiction.

6 Illusion and nonexistence in the Nyāyāmr̥ta

6.1 Introduction

The previous chapter analysed Vyāsatīrtha’s case that the Advaitins’ arguments to prove that the world is illusory are ruled out by perception. Perceptions like “The pot is existent” show us that perception can directly grasp the existence of its objects. Since perception is stronger than inference, we must abandon Ānandabodha’s inferences in favour of perception. Regardless of how they are interpreted, Vyāsatīrtha argues that all of Ānandabodha’s inferences are ruled out by perception in this way. In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha assumes that Ānandabodha’s inferences are intended to prove specifically that the world is indeterminate in the sense that it lacks both existence and nonexistence. In this chapter, I will discuss two closely related charges that Vyāsatīrtha levels against the idea that Ānandabodha’s inferences can show us that the world is indeterminate. Firstly, Vyāsatīrtha argues that the example (dr̥ṣṭānta) in Ānandabodha’s inferences—the “silver” in the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion—actually lacks the quality of indeterminacy. Secondly, Vyāsatīrtha argues that the concept of “indeterminacy” itself is inherently contradictory.¹

Advaitin philosophers take it that perceptual illusions like the mother-ofpearl/silver confusion exemplify the property of indeterminacy. In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga as well as in a subsequent chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha argues that there is nothing indeterminate about perceptual errors such as the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion. Such illusions are simply cases of “mistaken identity” where we take some individual in reality to be something that it is not. Following Jayatīrtha, Vyāsatīrtha presents the Mādhva theory of illusion as a sort of twist on the Naiyāyikas’ theory. Like the Naiyāyikas, the Mādhvas claim that faults in the perceptual process lead the victim of the illusion to misidentify the mother-of-pearl as something it is not. What is distinctive about the Mādhva theory is their claim that the objects of illusions—the “silver”, for instance,—simply do not exist as any part of reality. The particular silver we mistake the lustrous shell for does not exist anywhere, at any time.

This controversial claim puts the Mādhvas at odds with the other schools of realism in India. The Naiyāyikas and the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas, whose theories of illusion feature heavily in Vyāsatīrtha’s work, developed their theory in the context of debating Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Buddhist philosophers. Like the Advaitins, these Buddhist schools used perceptual illusions as a gateway to radical non-realist theories of cognition. Buddhist philosophers argue that episodes of error prove that cognition can somehow arise in the absence of an external object. The theories of the Naiyāyikas and the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas, on the other hand, are designed to exclude the possibility that we can have cognitions when there is no object to stimulate them. They explained illusion either as a failure to recognise reality completely, or as a case where two parts of reality are mistakenly fused together in awareness. As Matilal has discussed (1986: 201–213), the Nyāya theory of illusion was closely connected with their analysis of empty terms like “hare’s horn”. The Naiyāyikas hold that these two things (the hare and the horn) are simply different parts of reality mistakenly compounded with one another. They sought to exclude such empty terms from their definitions and formal inferences altogether.²

By contrast, Vyāsatīrtha maintains that we can explain perceptual illusions as vivid, perception-like experiences of individual things that simply do not exist as part of reality. The different components of the illusion may be based on parts of reality, but the particular “silver” that we see where there is only mother-of-pearl is a fiction conjured up by our sense-faculties. Consistently with their theory of illusion, Vyāsatīrtha and Jayatīrtha accept that words such as “sky-flower” and “hare’s horn” can generate meaningful cognitions. As I discuss in Chapter 7, they even accept that we can make true/false claims about nonexistent things and that we can make certain valid inferences about them. The upshot of this in the context of the Nyāyāmr̥ta debate is that the Advaitins’ claim that the “silver” exemplifies indeterminacy is untenable. We can account for the silver simply by assuming that it is nonexistent, and so it cannot be indeterminate in the way the Advaitins take it to be.

The nature of nonexistence is also at the heart of debates between Vyāsatīrtha and Madhusūdana about whether indeterminacy is a disguised contradiction. Realist philosophers in India had long since argued that the claim that something is neither existent nor nonexistent is an implicit contradiction. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha uses his definitions of existence and nonexistence to give substance to this charge. Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions should make existence/nonexistence jointly exhaustive states of being—anything that we can name must have either one or the other of them. One consequence of this is that proving that something lacks both existence and nonexistence amounts to proving that it has both properties at the same time, which is a contradiction.

Advaitin philosophers did not want to be accused of contradiction. Citsukha rejected this charge in his Tattvapradīpikā, and Madhusūdana, responding to Vyāsatīrtha in the Advaitasiddhi, gave a novel argument to prove that indeterminacy is not really contradictory. He argues that “existence” and “nonexistence” are not jointly exhaustive qualities. In fact, nonexistence should be defined in cognitive terms. To say that something is “nonexistent” is to say that it can never be experienced as existing in any possible substrate. The Mādhva commentators of the sixteenth century who responded to Madhusūdana’s arguments largely focused on attacking his definition of nonexistence. Vyāsatīrtha’s sixteenth-century commentators Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka used his arguments to give rebuttals of Madhusūdana’s case, and I discuss these arguments in the final part of this chapter

6.2 Nonexistence in Madhva’s refutation of indeterminacy

The arguments made by Advaitin philosophers like Vimuktātman, Ānandabodha, and Citsukha in favour of the indeterminacy of the objects of perceptual illusions were frequently presented as a form of “circumstantial implication” (arthāpatti) in Mādhva works as follows:

If [the silver superimposed on mother-of-pearl] were existent, then it could not be sublated; if it were nonexistent, then it could not be experienced (sac cet, na bādhyeta; asac cet, na pratīyeta).

Vyāsatīrtha uses this pithy formulation of the argument repeatedly in the Nyāyā-mr̥ta. However, Advaitin philosophers had elaborated this pattern of argumentation into a full-fledged critique of the leading explanations of perceptual illusion proposed by Indian philosophers. Advaitin philosophers like Vimuktātman, Ānandabodha, and Citsukha argued that the existing theories of illusion proposed by the Buddhists, Mīmāṃsakas, and Naiyāyikas all fall short of giving a satisfactory explanation of perceptual error. They argue that we are consequently forced to accept that there is something intrinsically inexplicable/indeterminable about illusions. I will here review some of these earlier theories before showing how Vyāsatīrtha himself explains perceptual error in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

In the Pramāṇapaddhati, Jayatīrtha gives a whirlwind tour of the different theories of perceptual error accepted by Indian philosophers:

The followers of [the Mīmāṃsaka] Prabhākara and others argue that there is no such thing as cognition that does not correspond to its object (ayathārthajñānam). This is wrong, because [the existence of error] is established by experience. It is also established by reflection occurring after [the error has taken place]—“This long did I take this piece of mother-of-pearl to be silver!”

The Vaiśeṣikas [and Naiyāyikas] hold that the “silver” experienced [in the error] does exist in another part of reality [e.g. the shop of the silversmith].

The idealist Buddhists (vijñānavādins) hold that [the “silver”] is simply the essence of the [erroneous] cognition itself.

According to [the Vedāntin] Bhāskara, [the “silver”] exists in just that place and for just that time that it comes into being.

The proponents of the doctrine that [the world] is an illusion (māyāvādins) hold that [the “silver”] is neither existent, nor nonexistent, nor both-existent-and-nonexistent, but is simply indeterminable.

On the basis of the introspective experience that occurs after the error—“Nonexistent silver appeared [in my mind]”—[Madhva-]Ācārya holds that that the mother-of-pearl appears to be “silver”, whereby “silver” is completely nonexistent.

The Vaiśeṣikas [claim that] non-ascertainment and dream[-cognitions] constitute further sorts of non-object-corresponding cognitions.³

Jayatīrtha gives far more elaborate accounts of these different views in the Pañcā-khyātivāda section of the Nyāyasudhā. One of the views Jayatīrtha critiques there is the one usually associated with the Yogācāra school of Buddhism. According to Jayatīrtha’s presentation of the theory, the “silver” with which we misidentify the mother-of-pearl is, in fact, “existent”, but only as an internal, “mental” entity. In the Pañcākhyātivāda, he presents the theory of the Yogācārins as follows:

Yet other [philosophers] think that the “silver” actually exists, but only as an internal/mental entity. To explain—The silver cannot be, in the first place, nonexistent, because then [it] could not be experienced. Nor can it exist right before the eyes [of the victim of the illusion, that is, in the very place where it is falsely taken to exist], because then [the cognition of “silver”] would not be erroneous, and because this would stand in contradiction to the [subsequent] sublation [of the “silver” cognition by the cognition “This is mother-of-pearl”]. Nor can it exist in some other place, because there is no evidence for this.

Therefore, by elimination, [the silver] must be the form (ākāra) of the cognition [itself]. Moreover[, the fact that the “silver” is nothing more than the form of the erroneous cognition itself is established] by the inference: “This [silver] is identical with the cognition, because it is immediate in character when there is no connection of the [visual-]faculty [with an external object,] just like [a cognition of] cognition [itself]”. Nor [can it be argued that] if [the “silver”] is real, then [the cognition of “silver”] cannot be erroneous; for, [we, the Yogācāra Buddhists,] accept that “error” is simply the appearance of something that is really internal/mental as being external.⁴

The argument Jayatīrtha puts forward for the theory is very similar to the Advaitins’ argument for indeterminacy from circumstantial implication, although it leads to a radically different conclusion. The silver cannot be entirely nonexistent, since then we would not be able to cognise it at all. However, it cannot exist as part of the objective situation that gives rise to the illusion, since then our experience could not be sublated by the later realisation that what we are looking at is really mother-of-pearl. Unlike the Advaitins, however, the Buddhist who holds this position concludes that the silver must therefore enjoy an internal, mental existence as the form (ākāra) of the erroneous cognition itself. Cognitions under this view are “illusory” precisely because they project this internal form as though it were an external object. The subsequent sublating cognition simply cancels the externality the cognition falsely attributes to it.

Jayatīrtha has far less to say about the views of the other schools of Buddhism in the Nyāyasudhā. In the Tattvapradīpikā, Citsukha critiques a theory of perceptual illusion he attributes to the nihilistic Buddhists (śūnyavādins). Brahmanical thinkers ascribed to the nihilists the theory of asat-khyāti, which might be rendered as “cognition of something which is nonexistent”. The “silver” in the erroneous cognition “This is silver” is, under this view, simply nonexistent (asat). Yet how could a nonexistent entity enter into our consciousness? Brahmanical thinkers who discussed this theory did not give much by way of an answer to this question. Citsukha, for instance, simply says that we are able to cognise the silver because, unlike veridical perceptions, illusory cognitions somehow possess a “special potency” to manifest nonexistent objects, and that this potency amounts to their being “nescience” (avidyā).⁵

Partly in response to these arguments of Buddhist philosophers, the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas and Naiyāyikas both put forward theories of perceptual error which attempted to close the gap between valid and erroneous cognitions by tracing back the different components of the illusion to parts of the real world. According to these theories, all parts of our cognitions can be traced back to real-world objects, and there is thus no room for postulating that our cognitions arise in the absence of an external object or consist in merely experiencing cognition itself. At the beginning of the Pañcākhyātivāda, Jayatīrtha critiques the theory of the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas. He explains the Prābhākara’s position as follows⁶:

Objection: In case [you reject the stance that perceptual error is the result of mistaking something for something else], then what exactly is the origin of [erroneous] judgments such as “This is silver”?

[We, the Prābhākaras,] say [as follows]—[The judgment] “This is silver” [actually] comprises two cognitions, one [of which] is a memory and the other an immediate experience. Of those [two cognitions], the cognition of “This” consists in the apprehension merely of a proximate substance [(the mother-of-pearl)]. For, under the influence of a fault [in the perceptual faculties, the victim of the error] fails to apprehend a particular universal that is [really] present [in that substance], i.e. “mother-of-pearl-ness (śuktitva)”. Just the bare substance having been apprehended, it produces a recollection of silver by invoking a mental impression [of silver], owing to the similarity [of the mother-of-pearl to silver]. And, even though [the recollection of silver] consists in the apprehension of something that has already been apprehended, a [further] fault steals away one part of [that recollection of silver]—its character as being a recollection—and [the recollection] comes to resemble a direct experience [of the silver].

Thus does the [victim of the illusion] fail to differentiate the recollection of the silver and the apprehension of the proximate object [(the mother-of-pearl)] from one another, either in terms of their nature or of their object. Hence, because of [their] similarity to a cognition of a proximate piece of silver, even though they are two different things, the apprehension and recollection—“This” [and] “silver”—lead [the victim of the illusion] to speak about [“silver” and “mother-of-pearl”] as if they were non-different from one another, and to place them in grammatical apposition [with one another].⁷

According to this account, error strictly involves neither the active misidentification of two things, nor the misattribution of a characteristic to something that does not really possess it. Error, under this theory, occurs because we fail to cognise reality in its completeness. What appears to be a single cognition, “This is silver”, is the result of the failure of the victim of the illusion to grasp the difference between what are, in reality, two distinct cognitions. The first cognition is of the object that exists right in front of the victim of the illusion (the mother-of-pearl). Due to a fault in the perceptual process, the victim does not apprehend this object as qualified by its characteristic feature (i.e. as having the universal “mother-of-pearl-ness” [śuktitva]), but instead merely as a bare spatially and temporally proximate substance (“This thing here”). The similarity of the substance to silver prompts her to recall some piece of silver that she experienced on a previous occasion. However, yet another fault stops her from identifying the nature of her cognition as a recollection, and it simply appears as a bare cognition to her. There is thus nothing to differentiate the two cognitions to the victim of the illusion. She thus takes them as non-different from one another, and assigns them to the same substrate. She thus effectively assigns to the mother-of-pearl both spatio-temporal proximity and the quality of being silver, and proceeds to act as if the thing in front of her were a piece of silver.

As Matilal (1986) notes in his discussion of this theory, the Naiyāyikas often critiqued the Prābhākaras’ stance for being cumbersome. The Prābhākara needs to postulate the occurrence of two distinct flaws to explain why the different factors that give rise to the illusion occur, and there is no apparent causal connection between these two flaws. The Naiyāyikas see their own theory as being simpler and more intuitive than the Prābhārakaras’. The Naiyāyikas argue that error does entail the cognition of some real part of the world as being different from the way it truly is. For instance, in the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion, we mistakenly judge the mother-of-pearl to be a piece of silver. Jayatīrtha sometimes writes about the Nyāya theory as though it entails the misidentification of two individuals in reality with one another; that is, that we mistake the mother-of-pearl for some particular piece of silver that we have seen elsewhere.⁸ However, the Nyāya approach is also widely associated with the idea that we attribute a universal to something that lacks it. In the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion, for instance, we misattribute a universal (silverness [rajatatva]) to what is really a piece of mother-of-pearl. The Naiyāyikas want to argue that, under their analysis, the individual components of the illusion are all real. The mother-of-pearl and the universal silverness are both parts of the real world according to the Naiyāyikas; it is simply that the mother-of-pearl lacks the silverness that we are ascribing to it. What is perhaps not real, as Vyāsatīrtha will be quick to point out, is the relator that connects these two things.

6.3 Vyāsatīrtha’s explanation of perceptual error in the Nyāyāmr̥ta

According to Advaitin philosophers, all of these explanations of perceptual error fail to truly explain how we can have vivid, perception-like experiences of things that are not really there. We are consequently forced to abandon our attempts to explain such episodes as the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion, and conclude that they are simply indeterminate. Vyāsatīrtha agrees with the Advaitins that all of these earlier explanations fail to explain illusion, but he contends that his own, Mādhva, theory can do just that. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, he draws on Jayatīrtha’s work on illusion in the Pañcākhyātivāda and Tattvoddyotaṭīkā to give a theory of how such illusions occur.

Jayatīrtha’s own theory of error grew to a large extent from the arguments Madhva himself made against the doctrine of indeterminacy. Madhva argued that one of the assumptions underlying the Advaitins’ argument in favour of indeterminacy from circumstantial implication is faulty. The argument is based on the assumption that we cannot experience nonexistent things. However, Madhva argued that it is simply self-contradictory to argue that we cannot experience something that does not exist. The very fact that we can make judgments about something implies that we must have had some kind of cognition of it in the first place. In his critique of Advaita philosophy in the Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya, Madhva explains this argument against the Advaitin’s argument for indeterminacy in a short passage as follows:

Nor can it be argued[, by the Advaitin,] that from the ultimate point of view there is no difference,[ but] there is [difference] from the practical (vyāvahārika) point of view; for, there is no proof that [the “silver”, etc.] is different from both what is existent and what is nonexistent.

Has the philosopher who argues that “[the ‘silver’ cannot be nonexistent, because] what is nonexistent cannot be cognised” [already] had an experience of [what does not exist]? If [he] has not [had an experience of what does not exist], then [he cannot] deny the experience of [what does not exist]; if [he] has had [an experience of what does not exist] then the same applies. The “silverness” [superimposed] on the mother-of-pearl is not different from both what exists and what does not exist, because [we have] the intuition “[I] experienced only a nonexistent thing” [when the error is detected].

Nor can it be argued that since [the “silver”] is experienced, [it must] lack nonexistence; for error is nothing other than the experience of what is nonexistent as existent and[, vice versa,] what is existent as nonexistent.⁹

Madhva’s words here sketch an explanation of perceptual error which would help form the basis of Jayatīrtha’s more developed theory in the Nyāyasudhā. According to Madhva, an error is simply a cognition where we experience something as having the wrong ontological status: we take something that is nonexistent to be existent, or, vice versa, something that is existent to be nonexistent. In the motherof-pearl/silver illusion, we mistakenly take the “silver”, which is really nonexistent, to exist, for instance. On the other hand, Buddhist philosophers take the self (ātman), which (from the point of view of Brahmanical philosophers at least) truly exists, to be nonexistent.

In this passage Madhva further gives a sort of “master argument” against indeterminacy, which Vyāsatīrtha would repeat frequently in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. From Madhva’s point of view, the Advaitin philosopher is caught in a dilemma when he claims that “If the silver were nonexistent, it could not be experienced”. Either he has already had an experience of what is nonexistent, or he has not. If he has not, how can he make the judgment at all? Indian philosophers tended to assume that in order to speak about something, we need to have already had some cognition of that thing; how could we make meaningful statements about something we have never experienced? So this alternative is untenable. On the other hand, it is clearly self-contradictory for someone who already had an awareness of what does not exist to claim that we cannot experience it at all. So the Advaitin is caught in a dilemma; in either case he cannot argue that we cannot experience nonexistent things. For these reasons, Madhva believes that the argument for indeterminacy from arthāpatti is a non-starter.

A problem with Madhva’s argument, as Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha realised, is that, if it is successful, it only seems to prove that we can have certain types of cognitions of nonexistent entities. If Mādhva philosophers are to undermine the Advaitins’ argument for indeterminacy, it is not enough for them to show that we can have some sort of cognition of nonexistent things; they need to prove that we can have the sort of vivid, perception-like cognition that we do when we misperceive a snake as a rope, or mother-of-pearl as silver. Citsukha seems to have pointed this out in his Tattvapradīpikā.

Citsukha notes that perceptual illusions are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptions when they occur. They are both phenomenologically indistinguishable (they look/“feel” like veridical perceptions) and they are epistemically indistinguishable (they dupe us into believing that they are of presently existing entities). It is precisely these characteristics that distinguish perceptual errors like the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion from other cognitions that seem to involve nonexistent things. When I have a cognition of “silver” in the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion, I am moved to action precisely because that cognition seems like a veridical perception. In the Tattvapradīpikā, Citsukha argues that if we assume that perceptual illusions lack an objective basis in some existent object, we cannot fully explain their perceptual character. As Citsukha’s commentator, Pratyagrūpa (fl. 1400), interprets this passage, Citsukha is implicitly conceding that we might be able to have a minimal, “verbal” cognition of nonexistent things, which explains why we are able to speak about them. However, we simply cannot have a vivid, perception-like cognition of something that does not exist.¹⁰

So to really succeed in undermining the Advaitin’s argument, Vyāsatīrtha must explain how we can have vivid, perception-like awarenesses even when there is seemingly no object to stimulate them. The idea that we can have such perception-like cognitions of things that do not exist might seem to offend common sense, but why is this so?¹¹ In his Tattvoddyotaṭīkā, Jayatīrtha outlines the main line of objection to this position, and also gives a response to it which would heavily influence Vyāsatīrtha’s account in the Nyāyāymr̥ta:

By this reasoning, the following objection is refuted: “Since a direct cognition arises from the sense-faculties, and the sense-faculties can only bring about a cognition if they are connected with some object, and since there can be no connection with something that does not exist, there cannot be an immediate cognition that has for its object something that does not exist”. For, I, Jayatīrtha, accept that a sense-faculty which is connected to a piece of mother-of-pearl, being under the influence of some fault, generates a cognition of the mother-of-pearl as being silver.¹²

The “direct”/“immediate” (aparokṣa) character of perceptual illusions led Indian philosophers to assume that they must have similar causal antecedents to valid perceptions. According to the Mādhvas and the other realist schools in India, perceptual cognitions are produced by the “connection” (sannikarṣa) of one of the sense faculties (indriya) with an external object (artha). The senses clearly cannot come into contact with something that does not exist, since something that does not exist would lack the causal efficacy to affect them in any way. Hence, the argument runs, we cannot have direct cognitions of a nonexistent entity.

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha largely agrees with the account that Jayatīrtha gives in this passage of the Tattvoddyotaṭīkā. When critiquing the doctrine of indeterminacy in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, he argues as follows:

Therefore, since [the Advaitin’s position] of Anirvacanīyakhyāti is untenable, [our] misidentification (anyathā-khyāti) theory is the only tenable option. [According to this theory,] a flawed sense-faculty, being influenced by a recollected impression of silver, apprehends the “this” portion [of the cognition]—the mother-of-pearl—which is connected with [the flawed sense-faculty], as a completely nonexistent [piece of] silver.

And the perception [that occurs after the illusion has been sublated], “The silver that appeared [to me] is actually nonexistent” proves that the “silver” is nonexistent, as do the following inferences: (1) “The object under dispute [i.e. the silver] is nonexistent, because it is not the locus of existence, just like a horn on a man’s [head]”; (2) “Erroneous cognition has what is nonexistent for its object, because it has for its object something that is not the locus of existence, and because it has an object while not having merely something existent for its object, just like the indirect (parokṣa) cognition that has what is nonexistent for its object”.¹³

In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha gives a succinct explanation of the Mādhva theory of perceptual error. Error is simply a case of mistaken identity; erroneous judgments identify something with something that it is really not. A flawed sense-faculty apprehends the proximate piece of mother-of-pearl, which it is really in contact with, as being identical with a “piece of silver”. This “piece of silver” is a complete fiction, however; there is no individual existing anywhere in the real world that correlates to this part of the cognition.

Under Vyāsatīrtha’s theory, the conditions that produce veridical perception are essentially present in the objective situation that gives rise to the illusion. The visual-faculty is connected with an external object. However, that faculty somehow has the power to apprehend the real object as something entirely other than it really is. Vyāsatīrtha argues that the flawed sense-faculty presents the mother-of-pearl as being a piece of silver that simply does not exist. Following Jayatīrtha, he argues that in the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion, the visual-faculty misrepresents the object it is really in connection with because it suffers from some kind of a fault (doṣa).

Vyāsatīrtha here anticipates two challenges to his theory. We can understand the first one by invoking Matilal’s (1986: 211–212) distinction between “objective” and “imaginative” illusions. In many cases, perceptual illusions are brought about by a simple defect of the senses, or by some aspect of the external environment that is unfavourable to the production of a veridical perception. An example might be the “double-moon illusion”, where a diseased visual-faculty makes someone see two moons in the sky. There are, however, many perceptual illusions that seem to depend on the past experiences (what Matilal refers to as the “collateral data”) of the person who falls victim to the illusion. The mother-of-pearl/silver example itself seems to provide an instance of this type. It would be difficult to explain why someone confuses mother-of-pearl with silver unless they have already had an experience of silver at some other time and place. Matilal refers to this type of illusion as an “imaginative illusion”.

The theory that Vyāsatīrtha presents here works well for objective illusions, where it makes sense to attribute the false perception to a fault in the senses. It is easy to explain the “two-moons” illusion by arguing that a defect afflicting the visual-faculty causes it to apprehend the object as being different than how it really is. However, how can Vyāsatīrtha’s theory account for cases of imaginative illusions, where memory clearly plays a role? Vyāsatīrtha believes that he is able to account for imaginative illusions such as the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion because the flawed visual-faculty in question is influenced by the past experience of silver through the operation of memory. The visual-faculty in the illusion is somehow “assisted” by a latent mental impression of a previously experienced piece of silver that is being recollected in the current context. What is key to Vyāsatīrtha’s theory of illusion is that the particular piece of silver that features in the false judgment itself simply does not exist. The “silver” portion of our cognition is clearly based on a real piece of silver that we have seen elsewhere, but this should not lead us to conclude that it necessarily has that particular piece of silver for its object. The particular “silver” that appears in our judgment is no more a part of reality than the proverbial hare’s horn.

Consider, for instance, the case of a dream where I believe I am seeing a cow grazing in a field. The dream-cow is clearly based ultimately on an individual in the real world, perhaps a cow I saw on a farm once (a “prototype”). But, unless I happen to be dreaming of a particular cow that I have already seen (“Bessie”, the farmer’s favourite), then this aspect of my dream does not correlate to any specific piece of reality. After all, in the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion, there is nothing in the erroneous judgment “This thing in front of me is silver” to suggest that I have in mind some particular piece of silver that exists elsewhere in the real world. My past experiences are clearly partly responsible for the dream-cow and the illusory silver, but there is no reason to correlate either of them with any particular part of the real world, in the same way that I do when I speak or think about “Anna, my girlfriend”. The “silver”, just like my dream-cow, is pure fiction, though that fiction is inspired by an individual that exists as part of the real world.

In this passage of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha also deals with the charge that the theory he has just presented is essentially the same as the theory of the nihilist philosopher who accepts that an object of a perceptual illusion is a mere nonentity:

Nor can it be argued that, [if you, the Mādhva, accept that the object of erroneous cognitions is nonexistent you are subscribing to] the “appearance of the nonexistent” [theory of perceptual error]. For, even though we[, the Mādhvas,] accept that the silver is nonexistent, since [we accept] that the “this” portion [of the erroneous cognition, i.e. “This is silver”] is existent, unlike the standpoint of the outcasts [i.e. the nihilists], we do not accept that everything that appears in the cognition “This is silver” is nonexistent. Otherwise, it would follow that [both the Advaitins and the Naiyāyikas accept] the view of the outcasts [i.e. the nihilists]. For, the Advaitins also accept that we can have both a cognition of something different from what is existent, and an indirect cognition of what is nonexistent; and since, from the Naiyāyika’s point of view, the nonexistent identity of/connection between the silver and the shell can enter into experience.¹⁴

Advaitin philosophers, both medieval and modern, have made the case that the Mādhva theory is indistinguishable from that of the Buddhist nihilists,¹⁵ a charge which is all the more problematic for the Mādhvas, since they repeatedly denounced the Advaitins as “Buddhists-in-disguise”! However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that this criticism is misplaced. In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha stresses that it is only the “silver” portion of the erroneous cognition that is nonexistent according to his theory; he clearly accepts that the thing that the “this” part of the cognition refers to (i.e. the mother-of-pearl) is very much a part of reality. The nihilist, by contrast, is taken to assert that all the components of the illusion are nonexistent. Vyāsatīrtha obviously does not accept this, so, from his point of view, their positions are not the same.

One could still argue, however, that by accepting that we can have cognitions of nonexistent entities, Vyāsatīrtha has at least opened the back door to nihilist philosophy. By accepting that certain cognitions can take place even in the absence of an object, we run the risk of permitting the possibility that all our cognitions occur like this, and India’s classical realist philosophers were very keen to keep this particular door shut. Vyāsatīrtha has a tu quoque response to this charge. The alternative accounts of perceptual illusion offered by Advaitin and Nyāya philosophers are in exactly the same boat, he argues.

As Vyāsatīrtha points out, the Nyāya anyathākhyāti theory still seems to entail that we can somehow experience nonexistent things. As I mentioned above, according to one version of the Nyāya theory, the erroneous cognition is made up of three components: the universal “silverness”, the perceptual demonstrative “this”, and the relator that connects the two. While the Naiyāyikas were able to trace the first two components of the cognition back to some objectively existing entity, they were forced to concede that the third—the connection between the individual/the universal—lacks an object-correlate. The relationship between silverness and the piece of shell lacks existence in any space-time setting.

Likewise, Advaitin philosophers accept that we can have some sort of experience of nonexistent things. Citsukha, for instance, accepts that we can at least have a “verbal”/non-perceptual cognition of nonexistent things, which explains why we can think and talk about them.¹⁶ So tu quoque: if simply accepting that certain components of perceptual illusions fail to correlate to any piece of reality is sufficient grounds to condemn a theory as “nihilism in disguise”, then the theories of the Naiyāyikas and the Advaitins are equally open to this charge.

6.4 Nonexistence and the charge of contradiction in the Nyāyāmr̥ta

According to Vyāsatīrtha, the Advaitins’ argument in favour of indeterminacy is flawed because we can explain perceptual illusions simply by assuming that their objects do not exist. We can have a vivid, perception-like cognition of “silver” because the sense-faculties, aided by the “collateral data” supplied by memory, have the power to generate a cognition of something that does not exist as part of the real world. The silver is thus not indeterminate in the way the Advaitins claim, and it cannot function as the empirical basis for Ānandabodha’s inferences to prove that the world is indeterminate. In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha expresses this as the charge that the example (dr̥sṭānta) has the quality of “lacking the probandum” (sādhyavaikalya).¹⁷

Another objection against indeterminacy which Vyāsatīrtha explores in the Nyāyāmr̥ta is that, properly analysed, indeterminacy is simply a contradiction. He presents this charge in the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga,¹⁸ and analyses it in more detail when discussing indeterminacy and perceptual error at a later point in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Vyāsatīrtha was not the first philosopher to accuse the Advaitins of contradiction. Madhva,¹⁹ Jayatīrtha,²⁰ and Viṣṇudāsa all argued that indeterminacy actually amounts to a contradiction. The charge of contradiction goes back much further in Indian philosophy than the Mādhva tradition, however. Similar arguments are found in the work of the tenth-century philosopher Udayana, for instance. Udayana’s criticisms were answered by Citsukha in his Tattvapradīpikā. The Mādhva/Advaitin debate on the subject was partly shaped by these earlier discussions. Much of Vyāsatīrtha’s explanation of the charge in the Nyāyāmr̥ta reflects the arguments made by Udayana in his Nyāyakusumāñjali, and Madhusūdana’s response to Vyāsatīrtha often reflects Citsukha’s replies to Udayana.²¹

In his Tātparyapariśuddhi and Nyāyakusumāñjali, Udayana argued that as the terms are used in normal discourse, being and non-being (bhāva and abhāva) each invariably accompany the absence of the other. If something lacks being, it must have non-being; vice versa, if something lacks non-being, it must have being. The denial of either being or non-being therefore entails the affirmation of the other. In the Nyāyakusumāñjali, Udayana effectively gave a formulation of the law of excluded middle (LEM) as follows:

In the case of [two] mutually contradictory things, there is no third course; nor can there be unity among contradictory things, since merely stating [either one of them] will cancel [the other].²²

According to Udayana’s auto-commentary on this part of the Nyāyakusumāñjali,²³ the negation (niṣedha) of either being or non-being is identical with the postulation (vidhi) of the other of the pair. Therefore, to prove that something has the absence of being or non-being is effectively to prove that it possesses the other. To claim, as the Advaitin does, that something lacks both being and non-being is thus really to prove that that thing possesses both of them, which is nothing more than a contradiction. When responding to Udayana in the Tattvapradīpikā, Citsukha clearly indicates that he is not willing to accept that indeterminacy amounts to a contradiction. Just after defining indeterminacy, Citsukha responds to Udayana’s arguments as follows:

Nor is it reasonable to argue [as Udayana does] that the conjunction of the negations of existence and nonexistence—properties which stand in mutual opposition to one another—is impossible because the negation of one of [them, either existence or nonexistence,] is invariably accompanied by the affirmation of the other. For, [I] do not accept that the conjunction of the negations [of existence and nonexistence] is truly real (tāttvika). [My] purpose in stating that [the world] is different [from what exists/does not exist] is merely to show that [the world] cannot be determined as being [existent or nonexistent, which are] the counter-correlates of this or that [of the differences mentioned]. For, something [such as the world], which is, by its very essence beyond determination, cannot have a real (vāstava) property (rūpa), because, if it did, it would follow that that thing itself is ultimately real [and we clearly cannot accept this as Advaitins who are committed to the illusoriness of the world].

Nor is the negation of either one [of existence/nonexistence] invariably accompanied by the affirmation of the other [as Udayana has claimed], because [this] invariable concomitance is not established so far as the proponent of indeterminacy is concerned.²⁴

Citsukha gives two distinct responses to Udayana’s charge of contradiction in this passage. The first response is that, as an Advaitin, he does not accept that indeterminacy—the combination of the absences of existence and nonexistence—is a property which is really present in the world. If this were so, reasons Citsukha, as the substrate of that property, the world itself would have to be real, and that would contradict the Advaitins’ monistic stance that brahman alone exists. So the purpose of arguing that the world is indeterminate cannot be to ascribe a real property to the world. In this case, what would be the point in arguing for indeterminacy? Citsukha here seems to say that the purpose of claiming that the world is indeterminate is simply to show the futility of the various attempts made by philosophers to ascribe it some definite ontological status. In other words, he is saying that indeterminacy is not a definite claim/theory about the way the world is, but simply an attempt to show that all efforts to assign the world a definite ontological status fail.

Citsukha sketches another line of response to Udayana in this passage. Udayana effectively argued that being/non-being (Citsukha uses the words existence/nonexistence, sattva/asattva) are “jointly exhaustive” properties: something that lacks one of the pair invariably possesses the other. However, Citsukha points out that from the point of view of someone who is persuaded of the doctrine of indeterminacy, these generalisations do not hold. An adequate analysis of perceptual error should show us that some things simply resist determination as “existent” or “nonexistent”, and thus disabuse us of any notion that these are jointly exhaustive properties. In making his argument that indeterminacy is simply a disguised contradiction, Udayana is actually assuming the very thing that the proponent of indeterminacy has given a reasoned rejection of.²⁵

The Nyāyāmr̥ta and its literature reflect these earlier debates between the Naiyāyikas and the Advaitins. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha makes a very similar argument to Udayana. He claims that his definitions of “existence” and “nonexistence” render them jointly exhaustive qualities, and, as such, one and the same thing cannot be said to lack them both without contradiction. Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments are based on the definitions of existence/nonexistence he gave in the Sattvanirukti chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. His arguments in the Nyāyāmr̥ta stirred the Advaitins to new thought on this issue, and Madhusūdana gave an original response to this old objection in the Advaitasiddhi. Madhusūdana’s argument trades on an implicit awareness of the distinction between what might be called, in the terms of Aristotelian logic, “contrary” and “contradictory” pairs of qualities. He argues that the concept of indeterminacy does not lead to contradiction because, properly defined, existence and nonexistence are mutually exclusive but not jointly exhaustive properties. The Mādhvas’ claim that indeterminacy is contradictory is simply the result of their misunderstanding the true nature of existence and nonexistence. In response, Vyāsatīrtha’s Mādhva commentators Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka argued that Madhusūdana’s definitions are incompatible both with demonstrable facts of human knowledge and hallowed Advaita philosophical positions.

6.5 The charge of contradiction in the Nyāyāmr̥ta

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha frequently uses the definition of indeterminacy given by Citsukha as “being the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence” (sadasattvā-nadhikaraṇatva). In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, he offers three explanations of this definition, and argues that they all lead to different faults. All of Vyāsatīrtha’s analyses of indeterminacy claim that the world of our senses, and the perceptual illusions that prefigure it, have neither the property of being “existent” nor “nonexistent”.

What law, if any, does this claim violate? Before going on to analyse the debate between Vyāsatīrtha and Madhusūdana, it might help to introduce some terms from Western logic in order to clarify the charge. In his study of contradiction in Indian thought, Fritz Staal (1962) argued that by asserting that the same thing is neither existent nor nonexistent, the Advaitin is guilty of breaking the law of non-contradiction (LNC). More immediately, what the Advaitins seem to be guilty of is violating the law of excluded middle (LEM).

Whereas modern logicians tend to think of contradiction as a relationship that holds between statements or propositions, the Indian philosophers in the current debate thought about it as a relationship between properties, which can be present in, or absent from, locations. Staying true to this approach, we can say that according to the LNC, a property and its absence are mutually exclusive: they cannot be simultaneously present in one and the same location. As opposed to the LNC, the LEM expresses the fact that a property and its absence are collectively/jointly exhaustive. According to the LEM, any location must have either the presence or absence of some property at a particular time: for all x, x must either have some property or its absence.

Properties can be mutually exclusive without being jointly exhaustive. In Western logic, this has been expressed as a distinction between “contrary” and “contradictory” qualities. Contrary properties are mutually exclusive: it is contradictory to assert that a pair of contrary properties are both located in the same location at the same time. To take an example that Madhusūdana himself uses, we can say that cowness and horseness are contrary properties: it would be contradictory to say that something is simultaneously both a horse and a cow. If we take “L (a, b)” to represent the relationship “a is located in b”, then we can say that it is impossible to assert of a pair of contrary properties, P and Q, that:

where x is some location or other. However, contrary properties are not exhaustive in this way: it is not the case that every location must have either one or the other of them. In other words, we can assert of a pair of contrary properties that:

This holds in the case of cowness and horseness. A camel, for instance, is neither a horse nor a cow, so both cowness and horseness are absent from a camel. “Fully contradictory” properties, on the other hand, are both mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive: they cannot be located in the same location at the same time, and every location must have either one or the other of the pair.

Madhusūdana’s argument in the Advaitasiddhi effectively trades on the difference between these two relationships that can obtain between properties. He observes that the Advaitin is guilty of contradiction only if existence and nonexistence are fully contradictory properties. If we accept Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions of existence and nonexistence, then they are undoubtedly fully contradictory properties, and to assert their absences from the same location at the same time leads to a contradiction. However, Madhusūdana rejects Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions of existence and nonexistence and argues that he has better ones. Madhusūdana argues that, like cowness and horseness, existence and nonexistence, properly defined, are contrary properties but not contradictory ones. Claiming that they are absent from the same location at the same time is no more problematic that declaring that a camel is neither a horse nor a cow!

6.6 Madhusūdana’s solution to the problem of contradiction

Before examining Madhusūdana’s analysis of the charge of contradiction in the Advaitasiddhi, it will help to clarify Vyāsatīrtha’s own understanding of the relationship between existence and nonexistence. Vyāsatīrtha and his commentators used the concepts of essential identity (tādātmya) and pervasion (vyāpti) to formulate the relationship between the two properties. Vyāsatīrtha does not delve into the question of the logical relationship of existence and nonexistence in the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, where he simply claims that indeterminacy is contradictory. However, he gives a clear explanation of it in a later section of the Nyāyāmr̥ta where he critiques indeterminacy:

If, however, what is meant [by “indeterminacy”] is the state of lacking [existence and nonexistence] as I accept them, then since [I] accept that, out of both parsimony and necessity, nonexistence is nothing more than the absence of existence [and, vice versa, existence is nothing more than the absence of nonexistence], then, according to the maxim “Two negations strongly affirm the matter in question”, the negation of one or other [of existence or nonexistence] is identical with the affirmation of the other; hence [your position entails] a contradiction, just like saying, “[My] mother is a barren woman!”²⁶

Elsewhere, Vyāsatīrtha expresses this relationship while setting out an inference he believes undermines the doctrine of indeterminacy:

Existence and nonexistence are not the counterpositives of constant absences that share a common locus with one another, since [existence and nonexistence] are each identical with the constant absence of the other; just like potness and the absence of potness.²⁷

Vyāsatīrtha’s claims about the relationship between existence and nonexistence are based on his definitions of those properties in the Sattvanirukti. In that chapter Vyāsatīrtha argues that “existence” and “nonexistence” can be defined in terms of spatio-temporal instantiation. To be nonexistent is to be absent from all locations at all times. To exist, on the other hand, is to be present in at least one location at at least one point in time. These are clearly contradictory qualities: something must either be absent from all locations at all times or present in at least one location at at least one point in time, and nothing can be both. In the passages translated above, Vyāsatīrtha clarifies that he believes that existence and nonexistence are each identical with the absence of the other. Existence is identical with the absence of nonexistence and, vice versa, nonexistence is identical with the absence of existence.

So Vyāsatīrtha’s argument against indeterminacy runs as follows. The Advaitin wants to assert that the same thing has both the constant absence of existence and the constant absence of nonexistence. However, nonexistence is essentially identical with the constant absence of existence. Similarly, existence is essentially identical with the constant absence of nonexistence. The Advaitin wants to claim that existence and nonexistence are absent from the same location, but, since the postulation of existence or nonexistence is interchangeable with the negation of the other, what the Advaitin is really claiming is that the same thing has both existence and nonexistence. The Advaitin might as well claim that he “has a barren mother”!

Vyāsatīrtha’s Mādhva and Advaitin commentators debated this charge extensively in the Nyāyāmr̥ta literature. Madhusūdana gave an original response to Vyā-satīrtha’s arguments while commenting on the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga. In this section of the Advaitasiddhi, he probes deeper into the charge of contradiction as Vyāsatīrtha presents it in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Vyāsatīrtha assumed that indeterminacy amounts to a contradiction because existence and nonexistence are each identical with the absence of the other. Madhusūdana, however, analyses the problem further and anticipates that there might be three reasons (R) why a contradiction could result from the claim that something lacks both existence and nonexistence:

–

R¹: existence and nonexistence are each essentially identical with the absence of the other (sattvāsattvayoḥ parasparaviraharūpatayā)

–

R²: existence and nonexistence each pervade the absence of the other (sattvāsattvayoḥ parasparavirahavyāpakatayā)

–

R³: existence and nonexistence are each pervaded by the absence of the other (sattvāsattvayoḥ parasparavirahavyāpyatayā)

R¹ is just the explanation that Vyāsatīrtha has given for the relationship between existence and nonexistence. R² and R³, however, rely on the concept of pervasion (vyāpti) rather than essential identity to express this relationship.

R³, Madhusūdana argues, is a non-starter. It simply does not entail that existence and nonexistence are collectively exhaustive properties. It shows that the two properties are mutually exclusive, but not that they are jointly exhaustive. In R³ there are two pervasion relationships: (1) the absence of existence pervades nonexistence, and (2) the absence of nonexistence pervades existence. In other words, wherever there is nonexistence, there is the absence of existence, and wherever there is existence, there is the absence of nonexistence. This relationship holds, Madhusū-dana points out, between horseness and cowness. Something cannot be a horse and a cow at the same time: hence we can say that the absence of cowness pervades horseness, and vice versa. However, this does not entail that the pair are collectively exhaustive. The absence of horseness and the absence of cowness can clearly belong to, say, a camel, which is neither a cow nor a horse. While it certainly follows that horseness and cowness are mutually incompatible it does not follow from this that they are jointly exhaustive properties.

It may help to use modern logic to clarify this. Translated into PPL, the pervasion “A pervades B” could be written using the formula:

Hence we can write R³ as:

It is not incompatible with (1) to assert that:

Hence R³ poses no problem for indeterminacy.

R¹ and R² are less straightforward, however. Like R³, R² blames a pair of pervasion relationships for the contradiction that apparently ensues from indeterminacy. According to R², however, existence and nonexistence each pervade the absence of the other: Everything that has the absence of existence is nonexistent, and everything that lacks nonexistence is existent. Unlike R³, R² successfully shows that existence and nonexistence are jointly exhaustive qualities, because it shows that whatever has the absence of one must possess the other. Hence R² poses a serious problem for the Advaitins’ argument.

Having analysed the charge in this way, Madhusūdana argues that neither R¹ nor R² really pose a problem for the Advaitins’ doctrine of indeterminacy. According to Madhusūdana, neither of these relationships really pertain between existence and nonexistence, because existence and nonexistence should not be defined as Vyāsatīrtha defines them. Madhusūdana, like Citsukha, defines “existence” as non-sublatability. Existence, he argues, is nothing more than omni-temporal nonsublatability (trikālābādhyatva). To exist, in other words, is simply to lack the capacity to become an object of the type of stultifying judgment that tells us that what we once took to be true is false. Madhusūdana defines nonexistence in his commentary on Vyāsatīrtha’s Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga as follows:

Not being the locus of the property of being experienced as existent in some substrate (kva cid apy upādhau²⁸ sattvena pratīyamānatvānadhikaraṇatvam).

There might be problems with this formulation of the definition. As Madhusū-dana’s commentator Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāya points out, if the present-passive participle pratīyamānatva were taken literally as having the sense of the present, it would follow that, at the time when the thing in question is not cognised, it would not be indeterminable! Elsewhere in the Advaitasiddhi,²⁹ Madhusūdana gives a slightly different, and perhaps clearer, definition of nonexistence:

kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratītyanarhatvam

In other words, something is nonexistent if it lacks the potential to become the object of a cognition that asserts that it exists in some location. Given these definitions of existence and nonexistence, Madhusūdana concludes that indeterminacy really means:

Not being cognised as though existent in some substrate, while being different from what is permanently non-sublatable (trikālābādhyavilakṣaṇatve sati kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratītyanarhatvam).

As Madhusūdana points out,³⁰ while existence and nonexistence might be contrary qualities according to these definitions, they are not fully contradictory ones. Defined as such, existence is clearly not identical with the constant absence of nonexistence, and vice versa. So Vyāsatīrtha’s explanation of the charge of contradiction is invalidated. Similarly, existence/nonexistence cannot be said to each pervade the other’s absence. The indeterminate “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl lacks both existence and nonexistence as Madhusūdana has defined them. It lacks omni-temporal non-sublatability, since it is liable to be sublated by a later veridical awareness. It also lacks nonexistence, since we can have a cognition of it as though it were existent. So, from Madhusūdana’s point of view, the “silver” itself gives us a well-established case of something that lacks both of these qualities, and which therefore breaks the pervasion relationships expressed by R².

Madhusūdana analyses how the example of the silver superimposed on mother-of-pearl shows that existence/nonexistence cannot pervade each other’s absences. Using P (x, y) to mean “x pervades y”, R² expresses the following pervasion relationships (where e refers to “existence” and n to “nonexistence”):

Madhusūdana picks on (2) to show why the argument fails. In (2), nonexistence is the pervading-property (vyāpaka) and the absence of existence is the pervaded-property (vyāpya). The pervasion itself could be expressed as: “Whatever has the absence of existence has nonexistence”. If we accept Madhusūdana’s definitions of existence/nonexistence, then the silver becomes the site of a deviation (vyabhicāra) between these two properties. A deviation occurs when the (putative) pervaded-property (vyāpya) is present in a location from which the (putative) pervading-property (vyāpaka) is absent. In the case at hand, the deviation would occur if the absence of existence is present in a location from which nonexistence is absent. The silver certainly possesses the pervaded-property/vyāpya: it is liable to sublation, and so it has the absence of existence defined as “non-sublatability”. However, it also lacks the pervading-property/vyāpaka: we do indeed have a cognition of the “silver” as though it exists, and as such the silver lacks nonexistence. So the pervasion “Whatever has the absence of nonexistence, has existence” is broken, because the “silver” has both the “absence of existence” and the “absence of nonexistence”.³¹

6.7 What is nonexistence? Some arguments from the Nyāyāmr̥ta

Madhusūdana’s solution to the problem of contradiction is to argue that existence and nonexistence are mutually exclusive, but not jointly exhaustive, properties. Existence consists in nothing more than omni-temporal non-sublatability (traikā-likābādhyatvam). Nonexistence, on the other hand, consists in the fact that something cannot be cognised as though it existed in any substrate. Vyāsatīrtha’s Mādhva followers critiqued these arguments carefully in their commentaries on the Nyāyā-mr̥ta. Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka did not try to challenge the underlying logic of Madhusūdana’s definitions. Rather, they tried to argue that Madhusūdana’s definition of nonexistence itself is faulty.

The responses of these early Mādhva commentators to Madhusūdana’s arguments are translated in Chapter 9 of this book. However, their case against Madhusūdana is largely based on arguments that Vyāsatīrtha himself had already made in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Vyāsatīrtha was already aware of the definition of nonexistence that Madhusūdana defends in the Advaitasiddhi when he wrote the Nyāyāmr̥ta. He critiqued the definition in an early section of the text, which is known in modern editions as the “Refutation of the Second Definition of Illusoriness” (Dvitīyamithyā-tvabhaṅga). For the remainder of this chapter, I will discuss the arguments Vyāsatīrtha made against this definition of nonexistence in this section of the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

Vyāsatīrtha attributes the second definition of illusoriness to Prakāśātman in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. I have already discussed this definition several times above,³² but I will present it again for clarity. According to Prakāśātman’s definition, to say that something is “illusory” is to say that that thing:

is the counterpositive of an omni-temporal absence in what was taken to be [its own] substrate (pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam).

The problem that draws Vyāsatīrtha into Madhusūdana’s definition of nonexistence is how this definition marks a distinction between “illusory” entities and “nonexistent” ones. According to Prakāśātman’s definition, something is “illusory” (mithyā) if it is permanently absent from the very thing that was falsely taken to be its substrate. The counterpositive of this absence is the illusory entity itself. For instance, the “silver” is permanently absent from the location where we seem to see it; that is, the mother-of-pearl itself. The main purpose of a defining characteristic (lakṣaṇa) is to differentiate the subject of the definition (lakṣya) from all other entities, so this definition of illusoriness should differentiate illusory entities from both existent entities and nonexistent entities. However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that, upon analysis, Prakāśātman’s definition of illusoriness really fails to distinguish illusory entities from nonexistent ones. He begins his argument as follows:

Moreover [it is impossible to hold that the “silver” and so on are by nature the counterpositives of the omni-temporal absence] because it would follow that [they] are simply nonexistent. For, since [you] accept that the cloth and so on do not exist in any other locus [than their own, i.e. the threads etc.], in your view saying of them that they “are the counterpositive of an omni-temporal absence in what was taken to be [their own] locus” amounts to nothing other than saying that they are the counterpositives of an omni-temporal negation everywhere. For, otherwise, it would follow that [the cloth and so on] exist elsewhere [than in the location in which they are cognised to exist]. And you [that is, Citsukha,] yourself have said [in the Tattvapradī-pikā]: “For it is impossible that they should exist anywhere else”. So how can it not but follow that [the silver superimposed on mother-of-pearl etc., to which the definition is supposed to apply,] are nonexistent? For, [nonexistent entities such as] the hare’s horn and so on have no other “nonexistence” but this one.³³

In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha alludes to Citsukha’s definition of illusoriness. As I have discussed above in Chapter 4, Citsukha’s definition is essentially the same as Prakāśātman’s. Like Prakāśātman, Citsukha says that to say that something is “illusory” is to say that that thing is permanently absent from the very thing that was taken to be its substrate. Vyāsatīrtha points out in this passage that Citsukha himself admitted that this definition amounts to the claim that an indeterminate thing is absent from all locations in reality.³⁴ Where else could something exist but in its own substrate? So to claim that something is permanently absent from its own substrate is to claim that that thing is the counterpositive of a constant absence everywhere. This being so, what exactly is it that differentiates things which are “illusory” from things that are “nonexistent”? After all, this seems to apply equally to hares’ horns and sky-flowers: they too are absent from every possible location in reality. The Advaitin is obliged to show that there is some characteristic that distinguishes illusory entities from nonexistent ones, and that this is somehow implied in the definitions of Prakāśātman and Citsukha.

What could it be that distinguishes illusory entities from nonexistent ones in this case? As a Mādhva, of course, Vyāsatīrtha rejects the idea that there is a separate “illusory” state of being. From his point of view, there is no meaningful distinction to be drawn between the words “illusory”/“nonexistent”; ultimately, they mean one and the same thing. However, he realises that there are many ways the Advaitin might try to draw this distinction, and he devotes a large part of his critique of Prakāśātman’s definition of illusoriness to proving that none of them actually work. This draws him into a discussion of the very definition of “nonexistence” that Madhusūdana defends in his refutation of the charge of contradiction.

In the “Refutation of the Second Definition of Illusoriness”, Vyāsatīrtha anticipates that the Advaitin might try to define nonexistence in three different ways:

–

D¹: “being uncognisable”/“being undenotable” (nirupākhyatvam)

–

D²: “not being experienced immediately” (aparokṣato ’pratīyamānatvam)

–

D³: “Not being cognised as though it exists in some substrate or other” (kva cid apy upādhau sattvenāpratīyamānatvam).

D³ on this list is the same as the definition of nonexistence that Madhusūdana defends in the Advaitasiddhi. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha cycles through these definitions in turn, attempting to show that they are all untenable. He presses his argument thus:

Nor can the nonexistence which pertains to [the hare’s horn and so on] consist in (D¹) “being ineffable/uncognisable” (nirupākhyatva).³⁵ For, [the hare’s horn and other nonexistent things] are referred to by the term “ineffable” (nirupākhya) itself ! Moreover [the nonexistence pertaining to the hare’s horn and so on cannot consist in “being ineffable/uncognisable”] because if there cannot be an experience of what is nonexistent, then the cognition of the state of being different from what does not exist, the refutation of the [possibility of] the experience of what does not exist, and the usage of the word “nonexistent”[, all of which are done by Advaitin philosophers in their defence of indeterminacy,] would be impossible.

Nor can nonexistence consist in (D²) “not being the object of immediate experience”, because [that property] also belongs to [existent] entities that are permanently beyond the senses [e.g. the ether], and so the definition would apply to something which it should not.³⁶

Vyāsatīrtha first considers D¹, which is an attempt to define nonexistence based on linguistic and/or cognitive eligibility. According to this definition, the difference between illusory and nonexistent entities consists in the fact that nonexistent things are nirupākhya, whereas illusory things are not. Vyāsatīrtha’s commentator Śrīnivāsatīrtha suggests that the term nirupākhya yields a double sense. The first is linguistic, and it denies that something can become the object of the denotive power of words (padaśakti). In this sense, nirupākhya might be translated as “ineffable”. The second sense is cognitive: nirupākhya under this understanding denies the capacity of an entity to become an object of experience, and could thus be translated as “uncognisable”. According to Śrīnivāsatīrtha, Vyāsatīrtha’s next two objections respond to these different senses of the term nirupākhya separately.

Vyāsatīrtha’s case against D¹ largely follows the pattern of the arguments Madhva made against indeterminacy in the Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya. The assertion that nonexistent things like hares’ horns cannot become the object of language seems to be self-contradictory. Someone who claims, “Nothing may be asserted of something-or-other”, seems herself to be making a claim about that thing. Moreover, we clearly ascribe numerous other properties to nonexistent things in our everyday discourse; we seem to be able to meaningfully say of hares’ horns that they “do not exist”, that they are “not blue”, and so on. If by asserting that they are nirupākhya the Advaitin means to claim that nonexistent things are somehow beyond the reach of language, the argument seems to be both self-contradictory and inconsistent with the facts of our experience.

Vyāsatīrtha next assumes a cognitive interpretation of the term nirupākhya. Under this explanation, nonexistent things are distinguished from illusory ones because they cannot become the object of mental states of awareness, whereas illusory ones can. Vyāsatīrtha again draws on Madhva’s arguments against indeterminacy. When arguing in favour of indeterminacy, Advaitin philosophers claim that indeterminate things have the quality of “being different from what is nonexistent” (asadvailakṣaṇya). Yet how can the Advaitins refer to the quality of being “different from what is nonexistent” unless they have already had a cognition of what is nonexistent? The fact that they are able to use the words “different from what is nonexistent” intelligently demonstrates that they must have already somehow cognised what is nonexistent.³⁷ The underlying problem is that the Advaitins themselves make meaningful statements about nonexistent things in arguing for their own position, so it seems the Advaitins’ philosophical arguments themselves show that we can cognise nonexistent things.

Vyāsatīrtha’s response here suffers from the same limitations as Madhva’s arguments against indeterminacy, however. Even if Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments establish that conscious states can be about nonexistent objects, it is still open to the Advaitins to argue that even if we can have some sort of a cognition of nonexistent things, we cannot have direct, perceptual-like cognitions of them. Vyāsatīrtha therefore proposes a second definition (D²) of nonexistence that takes this objection into account. According to this definition, nonexistence is the quality of “not being experienced directly” (aparokṣato ’pratīyamānatvam). However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that this definition applies inappropriately to things that cannot be regarded as nonexistent. Vyāsatīrtha uses the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of the sound-conducting ether as an example to show that this definition fails. Both Mādhva and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers accepted the ether into their ontology as a distinct substance. The Mā-dhvas accept that the ether is directly perceptible. Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, on the other hand, deny that we can ever directly perceive the ether; we can only know that it exists on the basis of inference. According to them, we need to postulate the existence of the ether as a substance because sound-tropes must have some substance that acts as their inherence-cause. So the ether is “eternally beyond the senses”, according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, yet it should still be regarded as a part of reality. Consequently, D² pertains where it should not (it is “overly pervasive” [ativyāpta]), and as such it is not a plausible definition of nonexistence.

6.8 Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Madhusūdana’s definition of nonexistence

Vyāsatīrtha finally turns to the definition that Madhusūdana himself defends in the Advaitasiddhi. Again, the definition (D³) is: “Not being cognised as existent in any substrate whatsoever” (kva cid apy upādhau sattvenāpratīyamānatvam). In the Dvitīyamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha gives a lengthy critique of this definition. His arguments were used by Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka when they responded to Madhusūdana’s arguments. He makes the following case against the definition:

Nor can nonexistence consist in “not being liable to be cognised as existent in any substrate whatsoever”, because, in the nihilistic philosophy (śūnyavāda) too, the property of being different from nonexistence so-defined is present both in the world and in the “silver” [superimposed on] the mother-of-pearl [and hence you have not really differentiated your position from the nihilist’s point of view, as you clearly intended to do when formulating this argument for indeterminacy].

Moreover, [D³ fails] because you yourself must refer some other “nonexistence” that is the reason for the stated absence of [the capacity to be] experienced when you argue that “If it were nonexistent, it could not be experienced”.

Moreover, [D³ fails] because, given that the nonexistence that is nothing more than the absence of experience which is [according to you, the Advaitin,] absent [from the world], then the “existence” that is present in brahman must be nothing more than [brahman’s] being cognised as existent[; for, existence and nonexistence are each identical with the absence of the other].

Moreover, [D³ fails] because if someone is not sure that hares’ horns do not exist, then the statement “There is a hare’s horn” will produce a cognition in that person in just the same way as the statement “There is a cow’s horn” will. [It might be objected that the hare’s horn itself is indeterminate, but that is untenable;] because, in your view, too, even if the existence (astitva) that is superimposed [on the hare’s horn] is indeterminate, the locus [i.e. the hare’s horn itself] is simply nonexistent. And this will be discussed in [my] refutation of indeterminacy [later in the Nyāyāmr̥ta].³⁸

Moreover, [D³ fails because] because according to śruti itself³⁹ (i.e. the passage “Now, on this point some do say ‘In the beginning this world was simply what is nonexistent’”) there is the cognition of what does not exist as existent.⁴⁰

Vyāsatīrtha’s first two arguments in this passage both bear on the Advaitins’ argument for indeterminacy from circumstantial implication. Recall that, according to this argument, if the mother-of-pearl did not exist, it could not be sublated; and if it were nonexistent it could not be cognised. The second part of the argument is implicitly intended to refute the nihilist philosopher who denies the reality of the world altogether. In doing so, it should articulate a meaningful distinction between the Advaitin’s and nihilist’s positions about the metaphysical status of the world.

The first problem cited by Vyāsatīrtha is that if the Advaitin goes on to accept D³ as the definition of nonexistence, then the argument from circumstantial implication does not really demonstrate any difference between the Advaitin and the nihilist on this point. Nihilist philosophers already accept that the world has the absence of nonexistence defined as “not being experienced as existent in any substrate”. For, they accept that we do experience the world as being existent, because, like the Advaitins, they accept that it has practical/transactional existence. What the nihilist really accepts is that the world does not exist in the sense that it lacks an essential nature (niḥsvarūpatva). So if they intend to refute the nihilist’s position, and to show that their position is truly different from it, the Advaitins must prove that the world has the absence of nonexistence defined as niḥsvarūpatva.⁴¹

In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha claims that there is a further reason that D³ is incompatible with the argument from arthāpatti. He again focuses on the second part of the argument, which states: “If the ‘silver’ were nonexistent, then [it] could not be experienced” (asac cet, na pratīyeta). This part of the argument could be understood as a case of “hypothetical reasoning” (tarka). A tarka is structured as:

where p is the hypothesis and q is its consequent. This relationship holds since q pervades p; that is, q is found wherever p is found. A tarka in this context is essentially a reductio ad absurdum, since q is an untenable consequence. A tarka thus serves to rule out p.

In the tarka under discussion (“If the ‘silver’ were nonexistent, it could not be experienced”), the hypothesis is that the “silver” in this episode of perceptual error is altogether nonexistent. The consequent is that the silver cannot be experienced. However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that in a tarka the consequent must be something different from the hypothesis. In other words, q must contain something that is not already mentioned or implied in p. For example, suppose I make the argument “If this were a cheetah, then it would be fast”. The subject of this tarka is the cheetah, and the consequent clearly states something that is not included in the concept of “being a cheetah”. In the tarka at hand, however, given the Advaitin’s formal definition of nonexistence, the hypothesis must be that the silver is “not subject to the property of being experienced as existent in some substrate” (kva cid apy upādhau sattvenāpratīyamānatvam). The consequent of the tarka is, however, that the silver “would/could not be experienced”. In that case, the alleged consequent surely amounts to nothing more than the hypothesis itself!

Vyāsatīrtha further argues that D³ suffers from the flaw of “under-pervasion” (avyāpti). This means that it fails to apply to at least certain nonexistent things. Let us suppose that there is a young child who is entirely unacquainted with the species hare. The child would not realise that hares never have horns. Accordingly, if someone played a trick on the child and told him that hares sometimes have horns, then the child would cognise “the hare’s horn” as being existent. The child would take the “hare’s horn” to be existent in just the same way that they would take a cow’s horn to exist upon being told that “cows have horns”. According to Śrīnivāsatīrtha, what normally stops us from having a cognition of nonexistent entities is that we are aware of the nonexistence of the object in question. In the child’s case, however, this impediment is absent, and there is no reason why the cognition should not arise.⁴² Vyāsatīrtha strengthens his case by a practical observation. When a person who lacks the knowledge to dismiss a false statement hears one, we often observe that they act upon it. For example, the child who was not aware that hares do not have horns might try to find the nonexistent hare’s horn out in the world.⁴³

Vyāsatīrtha anticipates that the Advaitin could argue that the hare’s horn, in that case, is indeterminate, and not nonexistent. Vyāsatīrtha concedes that the Advaitin could consistently argue that the existence which is falsely superimposed on the hare’s horn when the child believes that the hare’s horn iexists could itself be indeterminate. However, he observes that the Advaitins themselves are committed to the idea that there is a fixed domain of things that we term “nonexistent”, which can be distinguished from illusory ones. If we start accepting that things we usually label “nonexistent” are in fact “illusory”, then what exactly is it that we are distinguishing illusory things from? If the Advaitin takes up this line of argument, he risks collapsing the distinction between these two domains, but this is a distinction that Advaitin philosophers must accept.

For all of these reasons, Vyāsatīrtha argues that we cannot accept that nonexistence is “not being cognised as though existent in some location or other”. This is ultimately the definition of nonexistence that Madhusūdana will accept in the Advaitasiddhi when defending indeterminacy against the charge of contradiction. In arguing against this definition of nonexistence, Vyāsatīrtha thus laid the basis for his Mādhva commentators’ response to Madhusūdana in their work on the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga. Many of the relevant passages are found in the translation of this portion of the Nyāyāmr̥ta given in Chapter 9.

6.9 Conclusion

This chapter and the previous one have sketched some of the main points of Vyā-satīrtha’s arguments against Ānandabodha’s inferences to prove that the world is an illusion. This chapter has focused more closely on Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of indeterminacy. According to Vyāsatīrtha, indeterminacy fails because the main argument Advaitin philosophers used to defend it has an inadmissible premise. Advaitin philosophers argue that we cannot conclude that the “silver” we mistake mother-of-pearl for is nonexistent, because we cannot experience nonexistent things. Vyāsatīrtha, following Jayatīrtha, argues that we can have perception-like experiences of things that do not exist. In the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion, for instance, a flawed sense-faculty which is really in connection with the mother-of-pearl misrepresents its object as being “silver”. It is true that the false perception of “silver” is assisted by a mental impression of a piece of silver we have experienced at some other time and place, but this remotely existing piece of silver is not the object of the illusion, as some Naiyāyikas suggest. Rather, the “silver” that appears in our cognition is simply nonexistent.

Moreover, Vyāsatīrtha follows Madhva, Jayatīrtha, and Viṣṇudāsācārya in arguing that indeterminacy is a disguised contradiction. Vyāsatīrtha holds that existence and nonexistence are fully contradictory properties because each is identical with the absence of the other. Proving of a thing that it has the absence of both existence and nonexistence is just the same as proving that it both exists and does not exist. In response, Madhusūdana rejected Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions of existence and nonexistence. Existence and nonexistence, he argued, are mutually exclusive, but not jointly exhaustive, properties. Proving that the world has the absence of both is no more contradictory than claiming that a camel is neither a cow nor a horse. Vyāsatīrtha was already aware of this definition in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, and he had sought to refute it. To say that nonexistent things cannot be cognised as though they were existent does not allow us to draw a meaningful distinction between “existent”/“illusory” entities. Under certain conditions we take “hares’ horns” to be existent things, so there is no real distinction between the “silver” we mistake mother-of-pearl for or the flower that grows in the sky. Both are simply nonexistent, and the words “illusory” (mithyā) and “nonexistent” (asat) mean one and the same thing.

The next chapter of this volume gives the background of the numerous technical inferential flaws that Vyāsatīrtha cites in the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga against the doctrine of indeterminacy. His text draws strongly on the arguments made by Gaṅgeśa in the chapter of the Tattvacintāmaṇi dealing with the universal-negative inference (the Kevalavyatirekivāda).

7 Vyāsatīrtha and Navya-Nyāya philosophy

The previous two chapters focused on the debate between Vyāsatīrtha and his Advaitin opponents about the nature of existence, nonexistence, and indeterminacy. Advaitin philosophers grounded their theory of indeterminacy in familiar cases of perceptual illusion, but Vyāsatīrtha argued that perceptual illusions are not “indeterminate”, as the Advaitins claim. Illusions such as the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion present no mystery to philosophy; we can explain them simply by assuming that the object they seem to present to us does not exist as part of reality. In fact, perception itself tells us that its objects exist, and the truth of this insight is detected by the witness, the very essence of the conscious self. Moreover, indeterminacy is an inherently contradictory concept. Existence and nonexistence are by their very nature jointly-exhaustive properties, and asserting that one and the same thing lacks both is nothing more than a contradiction.

Vyāsatīrtha presses a number of other charges against indeterminacy in the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga. He clearly models his critique of indeterminacy on Madhva’s arguments. In his Mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana, Madhva used a stock of formal inferential fallacies accepted by Nyāya philosophers to show that indeterminacy is by its very nature not a property that can be inferred from the world. Madhva’s arguments were developed considerably by Jayatīrtha in his Nyāyasudhā and Vādāvalī. Neither Madhva nor Jayatīrtha was influenced by Gaṅgeśa and the Navya-Naiyāyikas, however. One of Vyāsatīrtha’s most important contributions to the Mādhva/Advaitin debate was to show that Madhva and Jayatīrtha’s case against Ānandabodha could be vindicated in the light of Gaṅgeśa’s new arguments.

In this chapter, I will focus on Vyāsatīrtha’s encounter with Gaṅgeśa in the Nyā-yāmr̥ta and the Tarkatāṇḍava. I will begin by giving a historical overview of the engagement of Mādhva thinkers with Navya-Nyāya philosophy, which began with Vyāsatīrtha’s own study of Gaṅgeśa in the sixteenth century. I then explore how Gaṅgeśa’s ideas shaped Vyāsatīrtha’s work, contrasting the ways in which Vyāsatīrtha uses Gaṅgeśa’s ideas in the Nyāyāmr̥ta and the Tarkatāṇḍava. The remainder of this chapter is concerned with Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of Gaṅgeśa’s theory of a particular type of reasoning known as “universal-negative” inference (kevalavyatirekyanumāna). Gaṅgeśa himself gave a detailed analysis of this type of inference in the Tattvacintāmaṇi. In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha, in turn, made extensive use of Gaṅgeśa’s analysis to critique Ānandabodha’s formal inferences.

7.1 The role of Gaṅgeśa in Vyāsatīrtha’s thought

Gaṅgeśa and his followers exerted a complex influence over Vyāsatīrtha, and we see him adopt different stances towards Navya-Nyāya philosophy in his works. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha’s main objective is to refute the philosophy of the Advaita school of Vedānta. In that text, he is therefore more concerned with using Navya-Nyāya theories and terminology to help evaluate the arguments of his Advaitin opponents. It is clear that Vyāsatīrtha often tacitly assumes various Navya-Nyāya epistemological theories in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, even if they directly conflict with his own Mādhva ideas about epistemology. In the Tarkatāṇḍava, by contrast, Gaṅgeśa and the Mithila Navya-Naiyāyikas are Vyāsatīrtha’s central opponents, and Vyāsatīrtha’s main objective is to show that Mādhva theories about knowledge and ontology can be vindicated in the light of their arguments. Consequently, in the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha rejects the Navya-Nyāya theory of knowledge and sometimes ends up arguing directly against Navya-Nyāya theories he had assumed in the course of debating with the Advaitins in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

The Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga and other opening sections of the Nyāyāmr̥ta provide clear evidence of Vyāsatīrtha’s approach toward Gaṅgeśa in that text. In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha repeatedly refers to the “universal-negative” (kevalavyatirekin) mode of inference accepted by the Navya-Naiyāyikas. As a Mādhva, Vyāsatīrtha ultimately denies that this really constitutes a separate type of inference, and, as I will discuss in this chapter, he devotes a lengthy section of the Tarkatāṇḍava to refuting it. Yet, in the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha clearly accepts particular aspects of Gaṅgeśa’s justification of this type of inference, whereas he directly refutes these very same arguments in the Tarkatāṇḍava.

A particularly clear example of the differing roles of Gaṅgeśa’s philosophy in the Nyāyāmr̥ta and Tarkatāṇḍava is found in Vyāsatīrtha’s attitude towards the problem of inferences where the probandum is an unestablished/unexampled (aprasiddha) term like “sky-flower” or “son of a barren woman”. The Naiyāyikas argued that inferences involving unestablished properties are intrinsically faulty; we simply cannot make inferences to the prove that “There is a hare’s horn on this patch of earth”, for instance. They applied the flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā (“[the subject’s] having an unestablished qualifier/probandum”) to such “inferences”. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha argues that the flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā does apply to Ānandabodha’s inferences to establish that the world is indeterminate. He argues that indeterminacy itself (here defined as “the absence of nonexistence coupled with the absence of existence”) is an unestablished entity, because perceptual illusions are not indeterminate.¹ Vyāsatīrtha’s explanation in this passage of the Nyāyāmr̥ta of why we are unable to admit unestablished entities into our inferences follows the explanation of the Navya-Naiyāyikas. If we could make inferences that involve such unestablished terms, he argues, then we might as well infer that a patch of earth has been scratched by a hare’s horn because the components of the probandum (horns, hares, and scratch marks) are separately established before the inference is made.

Yet, in the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha clearly says that aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā is not a flaw. This is entirely consistent with his Mādhva epistemology. Unlike the Naiyāyikas, the Mādhvas do not dismiss inferences as invalid purely because they contain empty terms. Vyāsatīrtha argues elsewhere in the Tarkatāṇḍava that we can make inferences such as “The son of a barren woman is mute, because it is insentient”. This position is closely connected with the Mādhvas’ refutation of the Advaitins’ doctrine of indeterminacy, and it led the Mādhvas to the position that there are “location-free” properties (asadāśrayadharmas): properties such as nonexistence, insentience, and so on that can somehow feature in reality without being contained in an existent thing.

In fact, in this section of the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha cites what is essentially a simplified version of Ānandabodha’s inference, and argues that aprasiddhaviśe-ṣaṇatā does not apply to it, because aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā is not a flaw at all. (Obviously, he still believes that the inference is fatally flawed because it suffers from other defects such as proving a contradictory property, and so on.) In this he is directly contradicting his words in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, where he accepts that aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā is a flaw and applies it to Ānandabodha’s inferences. So on this point, Vyāsatīrtha, in his two works, clearly shows different attitudes towards Gaṅgeśa’s theory of inference.

We get a further clue as to Vyāsatīrtha’s attitude towards Gaṅgeśa very early on in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, when Vyāsatīrtha gives a “statement of the disagreement” (vipratipatti-vākya). Vyāsatīrtha here attempts to give a precise formulation of the philosophical dispute between Mādhva and Advaitin philosophers. The form in which he gives the vipratipattivākya is the same as is found, for instance, in the Prāmāṇyavāda of Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi. However, having just given the statement in this way, Vyāsatīrtha immediately goes on to argue that it is quite pointless and unnecessary to begin a debate:

The disagreement is elucidated here only in accordance with the practice of the Naiyāyikas, and not because it is the correct method. For, even according to the Naiyāyikas, the only result of stating the disagreement in this way is the apprehension of the subject of the inference. Now, that could be accomplished by (1) a statement on the part of one of the debaters, either in Sanskrit or in a vernacular (e.g., “I will prove that the world has illusoriness”), according to everyday practice outside of debate, by virtue of which it would not be liable to censure. Or, it could be accomplished by [the participants’] accepting a topic prescribed by an arbitrator (e.g., “You must prove that the world has illusoriness”). And hence, it follows that a statement of the disagreement, separate from the statement of the thesis, which is liable to the aforementioned faults, is purposeless. …

Nor can it be argued that [the elucidation of the vipratipatti] has the purpose of bringing about the doubt which is the cause of subjectness. For, since both the debater and his opponent, along with the arbitrators, are certain about the matter at hand, that would serve no purpose. … Moreover, subjectness in the form of the absence of conviction of proof as accompanied by the absence of the desire to prove [that the probandum is present in the subject]² is possible even in the absence of [such] doubt.³

Vyāsatīrtha here seems to indicate that he is adopting a particular part of Gaṅgeśa’s philosophical methodology even though it conflicts with his own point of view. At this early point in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, he gives a precise statement of the disagreement between the Mādhvas and the Advaitins in an identical format to the one used by Gaṅgeśa in the Tattvacintāmaṇi; however, Vyāsatīrtha subsequently argues that the statement is really unnecessary, since the same effect could also be achieved by other means.⁴

From these passages it is clear that although in the Nyāyāmr̥ta Vyāsatīrtha is content to use arguments and techniques from Gaṅgeśa’s works, he does not really agree with them. He articulates his true position in the Tarkatāṇḍava, where he clearly refutes Gaṅgeśa’s arguments. It is certain that Vyāsatīrtha wrote the Tarkatāṇḍava after the Nyāyāmr̥ta,⁵ but the shift in Vyāsatīrtha’s focus was clearly not due to development in his thought. Vyāsatīrtha was always a committed Mādhva who would have always accepted the epistemology he defends in the Tarkatāṇḍava. It is rather due to the identity of Vyāsatīrtha’s opponent in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. There, Vyāsatīrtha’s provisional acceptance of Gaṅgeśa’s philosophical arguments is for the sake of debating with the Advaitins. The Advaitins would obviously have never accepted the tenets of Mādhva epistemology, and Advaitin thinkers like Madhusūdana and Brahmānanda were deeply trained in Navya-Nyāya ideas. So, when critiquing the Advaitins, Gaṅgeśa’s epistemology could act as a sort of “middle ground”, supplying a point of reference that allowed the traditions to debate with one another.

This use of the Tattvacintāmaṇi as a text to help mediate disputes between competing intellectual traditions is also reflected in Somanātha Kavi’s Vyāsayogicarita. In this work, Somanātha seems to indicate that by the early sixteenth century Gaṅgeśa’s text had become an authority on matters of inferential theory among philosophers in South India.⁶ Indeed, Vyāsatīrtha’s use of Gaṅgeśa’s text is legalistic. He employs particular judgments made by Gaṅgeśa in the Tattvacintāmaṇi as a precedent to decide the controversial philosophical points being addressed in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

7.2 The Nyāya-Vaśeṣika theory of inference

Despite Vyāsatīrtha’s differing approaches towards Gaṅgeśa in the Nyāyāmr̥ta and the Tarkatāṇḍava, the influence of the Tattvacintāmaṇi runs deep in both texts. The Tattvacintāmaṇi was divided into four separate books, each focussing on one of the means of knowledge (pramāṇas) accepted by the Navya-Naiyāyikas. In the early portions of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha focuses mainly on the second book of the Tattvacintāmaṇi, which deals with inference (anumāna). The theory of inference was always the centrepiece of Navya-Nyāya epistemological analysis, and it was primarily in discussing the various aspects of inferential knowledge that the Navya-Naiyāyikas refined their logical techniques and technical language.

In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha refers frequently to the section of the Tattvacintāmaṇi where Gaṅgeśa deals specifically with the “universal-negative” (kevalavyatirekin) mode of inference (the Kevalavyatirekivāda). One cannot, therefore, understand the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga and its commentaries without understanding this part of Gaṅgeśa’s text. Stephen Phillips (2016) has translated Gaṅgeśa’s Kevalavyatirekivāda into English with a commentary. In the remainder of this chapter, I will discuss Gaṅgeśa’s solutions in the Tattvacintāmaṇi to the problem of universal-negative inference by translating Vyāsatīrtha’s response in the Tarkatāṇḍava to Gaṅgeśa’s arguments. This will supply a backdrop for the translation of the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga in the next chapter, and give insight into some of the debates between Mādhva and Nyāya thinkers on the subject of inference.

According to Navya-Nyāya philosophers, “knowledge” (pramā) is a special type of cognition. They regard “cognitions”/“awarenesses” (jñāna, buddhi, pratyaya, etc.) as tropes that occur, under specific conditions, in individual souls (ātman). According to the Naiyāyikas, there are four types of valid knowledge: perceptual knowledge (pratyakṣa), inferential knowledge (anumiti), identificational knowledge (upamiti),⁷ and verbal knowledge (śābdabodha). One of Gaṅgeśa’s central concerns in the Tattvacintāmaṇi is to identify the particular factors that cause these cognitive episodes to occur. Each of the types of knowledge recognised by the Naiyāyikas is produced by a distinct means of knowledge (pramāṇa). Nyāya philosophers generally accepted that there are four instruments that produce knowledge: perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna), comparison (upamāna), and verbal testimony (śabda).

The term that I translate as “inference” (anumāna) refers specifically to the means that produce episodes of inferential knowledge. According to the Nyāya model, an inference seeks to establish that some property (the “thing-to-be-established” or “probandum” [sādhya]) is somehow located in a particular location (the inferential subject, or pakṣa), because the inferential subject possesses a further property, the reason (hetu, sādhana). A standard example of an inference is: “The mountain has fire, because [it has] smoke; just like the oven”. According to Gaṅgeśa, inferential knowledge arises from “the cognition that [the reason] is a property of a subject combined with pervasion” (vyāptiviśiṣṭapakṣadharmatājñāna). In other words, we attain an inferential knowledge once we know both (1) that the reason is present in the inferential subject, and (2) that the probandum is invariably concomitant with the reason (that the probandum “pervades” the reason). Put simply, to say that the probandum “pervades” the reason is to say that it is present in every location where the reason is present.⁸

The Nyāyasiddhāntamuktāvalī, a seventeenth century manual of Nyāya-Vaiśe-ṣika epistemology and metaphysics, gives an explanation of how inferential knowledge comes about using the standard example of inferring fire from smoke:

A certain person apprehends the pervasion of smoke by fire in, for instance, an oven. Later, the very same person sees a plume of smoke directly originating from a mountain, for instance. Thereafter, [the same person] recalls the pervasion in the form “smoke is pervaded by fire”. After that, [the person] has the cognition “this [mountain] has smoke, which is pervaded by fire”. It is this that is called “reflection” (parāmarśa). After that has occurred, the inferential knowledge “the mountain has fire” arises.⁹

This is an account of “private inference” or “inference-for-one’s-self” (svārthānumāna), which consists in a series of cognitive events (perceiving, recollecting) taking place in a single conscious subject over an indefinite period of time. A “public inference” or an “inference-for-another” (parārthānumāna) consists in a set of speech acts that induce inferential knowledge in a beneficiary. Gaṅgeśa recognised that there are three main subtypes of inference, and he devoted a large section of the Tattvacintāmaṇi to discussing them. His typology of inference is based on the distinction between two types of property: “universal-positive” (kevalānvayin) properties and (so-called) “universal-negative” (kevalavyatirekin) properties.

The Navya-Naiyāyikas accept that universal-positive properties are present in every possible location. For instance, Gaṅgeśa accepts that the properties “knowability” (jñeyatva) and “nameability” (abhidheyatva) are universal-positive properties, because everything can be an object of knowledge and can be referred to in language.¹⁰ Gaṅgeśa defines a universal-positive property as a property “that is not the counterpositive of a constant absence that occurs [somewhere]” (vr̥ttimadatyantā-bhāvāpratiyogitvam).¹¹ One might expect, therefore, that “universal-negative” properties are properties that fail to occur in any location whatsoever. However, this is not the case. According to Gaṅgeśa, universal-negative qualities can, in fact, occur as part of reality. They are referred to as “universal-negative” qualities because they are not (yet) known to occur anywhere from the point of view of some observer. (It is thus slightly misleading to think of them as being the “opposite” or “counter-correlate” of universal-positive properties.)

In the Tattvacintāmaṇi, Gaṅgeśa argues that inference can be subdivided into three types corresponding to the distinction between these types of property: there is universal-positive inference, universal-negative inference, and both-negative-and-positive inference. A universal-positive inference is an inference where the probandum is a universal-positive property. Gaṅgeśa (ACN: 552) accordingly defines it as an inference “where there is no heterologue (vipakṣa)”, that is, an inference where there is no location known to have the absence of the probandum. By contrast, universal-negative inferences are ones where the probandum is a universal-negative property, that is, the person making/hearing the inference has not encountered the probandum in a location other than the subject prior to the inference. Gaṅgeśa defines these as inferences where there is no homologue (sapakṣa), that is, no location that is known to possess the probandum.¹²

7.3 Gaṅgeśa’s analytic account of universal-negative inference

The fact that Gaṅgeśa accepted these different types of inference presented serious challenges to his theory of pervasion/invariable concomitance (vyāpti). Pervasion was the most extensively discussed concept in Navya-Nyāya, and the quest to give a perfect definition of it helped stimulate the Naiyāyikas to develop powerful analytic techniques. A pervasion consists of a universal relationship between the reason and the probandum in an inference. For instance, in the inference “there is fire on the mountain, because there is smoke on the mountain”, we are able to infer the presence of fire on the mountain on the basis of smoke because we know that “wherever there is smoke, there is fire”. A rough definition of pervasion is thus: “the co-occurrence (sāmānādhikaraṇya) of one thing (B) with another thing (A), when A is never absent from any location where B is present”.¹³ In this relationship, A is the “pervader” (vyāpaka) and B is the “thing-pervaded” (vyāpya). In modern formal logic, the relationship “A pervades B” could thus be expressed with the formula:

So in the case of the inference where we infer fire from smoke, for instance, we infer as follows:

(where “H” and “S” refer to the reason and the probandum respectively).

The fact that Gaṅgeśa admits inferences containing universal-positive properties such as “knowability” and “nameability” complicates the task of defining pervasion considerably for him. A universal-positive property is one that is always present in every location; consequently, its absence must be an empty/unestablished (aprasiddha) term that is found nowhere in reality. The “absence of knowability” (jñeyatvābhāva), for instance, is simply an empty term, like “hare’s horn”. The Naiyāyikas refused on principle to perform logical operations on empty terms. This includes referring to them in definitions. The problem is that many of the traditional definitions of pervasion that Gaṅgeśa considers in the Tattvacintāmaṇi end up inadvertently referring to unestablished terms when they are applied to universal-positive inference. For instance, suppose we define pervasion as “[the reason’s] not occurring in something that possesses the absence of the probandum” (sādhyābhāvavadavr̥ttitvam).¹⁴ Even if this definition could apply to cases of inferences such as “There is fire on the mountain, because there is smoke on the mountain”, it would fail in the case of universal-positive inferences (e.g., “This is nameable because it is knowable”), where the absence of the probandum (the “absence of nameability”) is necessarily an unestablished term.

Besides the universal-positive inferences, Gaṅgeśa also accepts another mode of inference, which he calls “universal-negative inference” (kevalavyatirekyanumā-na). This type of inference is extremely important for the Naiyāyikas because it explains how we can give definitions of terms. According to the Navya-Naiyāyikas, a defining characteristic/property (lakṣaṇa) is a property that occurs in all cases of the thing that is being defined, and no more. It is, in other words, an exclusive property, one which distinguishes the thing being defined from all other things. One way to think about the process of giving a definition is as an inference where we infer that the defined term is different from all other things because it possesses the defining property. As Ingalls (1951: 89) points out, the following inference will thus always be true for valid definitions:

The thing-to-be-defined is different from everything else, because [it has] a defining characteristic of that sort (lakṣya itarabhedavān, tādr̥śalakṣaṇāt).

The most frequent example of this type of inference found in the Navya-Nyāya literature is based on the definition of the substance earth. In Vaiśeṣika ontology, earth is one of the five atomic substances. It is, according to the Vaiśeṣikas, the only substance that smells, because it is the only substance that possesses smell-tropes. As such, one could give a definition of earth as follows: “The defining property (lakṣaṇa) of earth is the state of possessing smell” (gandhavattvaṃ pr̥thivyāḥ lakṣaṇam).¹⁵ The process of defining earth using this property could be analysed as the following inference:

Earth is different from everything else, because [it] possesses smell (pr̥thivītarebhyo bhidyate, gandhavattvāt).

Here the defined term (“earth”) is the subject, the defining property (the “quality of possessing-smell”) is the reason, and the probandum is “the state of being differentiated from all other things”.

Gaṅgeśa argued that to explain such reasoning we need to accept universal-negative inference as a separate type of inference. The point is that the probandum in this inference to define earth is present only in the subject of the inference— earth—and nothing else. Of course, it could be said of everything that it has the property of being “different from everything else” (itarabhinnatva), but this is not a recurrent property. Nothing else has the particular combination of differences possessed by earth that collectively render it different from everything besides itself. So, given that the probandum is an exclusive property that is present only in the subject, the inferer cannot have experienced it anywhere else before the inference is made. The probandum must, therefore, be an unestablished term until the inference is made.¹⁶ This creates a serious bind for Gaṅgeśa. It is fundamental to his Nyāya philosophy that such unestablished terms cannot appear in inferences, yet the universal-negative type of inference seems by definition to preclude the possibility that the probandum is established somewhere else before the inference is made. The acceptance of universal-negative inference seems to entail that we can make inferences involving even unestablished terms, something that Gaṅgeśa, as a Naiyāyika, cannot accept.

Gaṅgeśa analyses universal-negative inference in detail in the Tattvacintāmaṇi. In the inference to define earth, we end up proving that earth is “different from everything else” on the basis that it possesses smell tropes. But what exactly does the quality of “being different from everything else” (itarabhinnatva) consist in, in this case? As Gaṅgeśa points out, from the point of view of Vaiśeṣika metaphysics, the property entails that earth is different from all the individuals that belong to the eight other types of substance, as well as from all the individuals belonging to the categories apart from substance. He therefore analyses the probandum as consisting of thirteen separate mutual absences or differences. To say that “Earth is different from all other things” is to say that earth is different from the eight other substances (water, fire, wind, the ether, time, space, the self, and the internal faculty) and the remaining five categories apart from substance (trope, motion, universal, ultimate particulariser, and inherence). Curiously, Gaṅgeśa does not include absence in this list, even though he clearly accepts it as a separate category. Vyāsatīrtha follows him in this respect in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.¹⁷

Thus the probandum (itarabhinnatva) in the earth inference is actually a compound property that consists of mutual absences from the following things: (1) water, (2) fire, (3) wind, (4) ether, (5) time, (6) space, (7) self, (8) the internal faculty, (9) trope, (10) motion, (11) universal, (12) ultimate particulariser, and (13) inherence.

The full form of the inference to define earth is as follows:

–

Thesis: Earth is different from the other substances and categories;

–

Reason: Because it possesses smell;

–

Example: That which is not differentiated from the other substances and categories does not possess smell, as in the case of water;

–

Application: And earth does not not have the quality of possessing smell;

–

Conclusion: Therefore, it is not not differentiated from the other substances and categories.

The “example” (udāharaṇa) component of this inference expresses a pervasion relationship between the reason and the probandum. However, this pervasion relationship is of a different sort to the one that holds between, say, smoke and fire in the standard example of inference. In the case of the inference “There is fire on the mountain, because there is smoke on the mountain”, we are able to make the inference from smoke to fire because we know that fire pervades smoke; that is, fire is never absent from a location that has smoke. According to Gaṅgeśa, however, there are two types of pervasion: (1) positive (anvaya) and negative (vyatireka). As noted above, “positive pervasion” can be written in PPL as:

Negative-pervasion is the contraposition of this:

Gaṅgeśa himself expresses this relationship elegantly by means of the compound sādhyābhāvavyāpakābhāvapratiyogitvam: “[the reason’s] being the counterpositive of an absence that pervades the absence of the probandum”.¹⁸

In the inference to define earth, we know that the absence of the reason (that is, the absence of the quality of possessing smell [gandhavattvābhāva]) pervades the absence of the particular combination of thirteen mutual absences that distinguish earth from all the other substances and categories. For, everything that we know of that lacks the particular combination of thirteen absences in question (water, fire, etc.), also lacks smell. We also know that earth has the quality of possessing smell. Hence we can conclude that earth has the quality of being different from the remaining substances and categories. In PPL:

7.4 Vyāsatīrtha’s use of Gaṅgeśa’s theory of universal-negative inference in the Nyāyāmr̥ta

Universal-negative inference presented many different problems to Gaṅgeśa, and he endorsed several solutions in the Tattvacintāmaṇi. In his Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha argues that Gaṅgeśa’s defence of universal-negative inference in the Tattvacintāmaṇi is untenable. In the passages of the Nyāyāmr̥ta translated in the next chapter of this book, by contrast, he actually makes use of many of Gaṅgeśa’s key arguments, and applies Gaṅgeśa’s positions to Ānandabodha’s inferences to prove that the world is indeterminate. I will here outline how Vyāsatīrtha uses Gaṅgeśa’s arguments about universal-negative inference in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

The main objections that Vyāsatīrtha levels against Ānandabodha in the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga go back to the works of Madhva himself. In the first of the inferences Vyāsatīrtha ascribes to Ānandabodha in the Nyāyamr̥ta, Ānandabodha attempts to infer that the empirical world is “illusory” because it is “perceptible”. Early on in his Mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍaṇa, Madhva argued that the flaws of “proving something that is already established” (siddhasādhana) and “[the subject’s] having an unestablished qualifier/probandum” (aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā) both apply to this inference. The Mādhvas are realists who accept that the world is existent by its very essence. Consequently, while they do not accept that the world lacks the property of existence, the Mādhvas do accept that it lacks the property of nonexistence. So Ānandabodha’s inference to prove that the world is “neither existent nor nonexistent” fails because it proves, at least in part, something that the Mādhvas already accept.

The flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā also applies to Ānandabodha’s attempts to prove the indeterminacy of the world because, from the Mādhvas’ point of view, indeterminacy is an unestablished property. According to the Advaitins, indeterminacy is established in perceptual illusions like the mother-of-pearl/silver illusion before the inference takes place. However, Mādhva philosophers believe that perceptual illusions can be explained in a determinate/bivalent ontology. As such, from their point of view “indeterminacy” is simply a dubious unexampled property, like a hare’s horn or a rose that grows in the sky.¹⁹

Like the probandum in the inference to define earth (“being different from the other substances and categories”), the Advaitin’s property of “indeterminacy” is a property that is made up of component parts that can be observed separately in different locations. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha accepts that indeterminacy is “being the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence” (sadasattvānadhikaraṇatva). In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, he analyses this definition further. Indeterminacy could be said to be:

–

D¹ a pair of qualities: (a) the constant absence of existence and (b) the constant absence of nonexistence;

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D² a compound entity, namely, the state of having the constant absence of nonexistence qualified by the state of having the constant absence of existence.

In other words, we can think about “indeterminacy” either synthetically or analytically. We can think of it as consisting of two separate properties (the “constant absence of existence” and the “constant absence of nonexistence”) which happen to be ascribed to the same substrate, or we can think about it as the compound/conjunction of those two things—“the constant absence of existence combined with the constant absence of nonexistence”. This distinction may sound trivial, but for Vyāsatīrtha it makes an important difference about how we evaluate Ānandabodha’s inferences.

In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha tries to stay true to Madhva’s arguments. He tries to catch the Advaitin in a bind by citing the same charges of siddhasādhana and aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā pressed by Madhva. According to Vyāsatīrtha, in the act of choosing to define “indeterminacy” as either D¹ or D², the Advaitin impales himself on one horn of a dilemma, but he absolves himself of another charge. If he selects D¹, opting to make indeterminacy a pair of separate qualities, the Advaitin’s inference proves to the Mādhva something that the Mādhva already accepts (the flaw of siddhasādhana).²⁰ This is because the Mādhva already accepts that the world is existent and, in doing so, accepts that it has the constant absence of nonexistence. On the other hand, Vyāsatīrtha, following Gaṅgeśa, concedes that adopting D¹ as the definition of indeterminacy absolves the inference of the flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā. As in the inference to define earth, the two properties— the constant absence of existence and the constant absence of nonexistence—could be said to be established separately before the inference takes place: we perceive the constant absence of nonexistence in what exists and, vice versa, the constant absence of existence in what does not exist. The inference simply establishes that these two separate properties are present in the same subject.

According to Vyāsatīrtha, if the Advaitin opts for D² and treats indeterminacy as a compound entity, then the inference does not suffer from the flaw of siddhasādhana. The Mādhva clearly does not accept that the world has the absence of existence compounded with the absence of nonexistence, so the Advaitin is proving something that the Mādhvas genuinely do not accept. Nevertheless, D², Vyāsatīrtha argues, suffers from aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā: the probandum—indeterminacy— is under this analysis something that is unestablished. This is because, as a Mādhva, Vyāsatīrtha believes that indeterminacy is not established in cases of perceptual illusion. The obvious retort is that we are still aware of the components of the compound thing separately before the inference takes place; why cannot the inference simply unite them in a single thing? Vyāsatīrtha answers this as a Naiyāyika would: were we to accept that a qualified/compound probandum is well-established just because its parts are established separately, then we would have to accept the validity of the absurd inference “The floor is scratched by the hare’s horn”, simply because we are aware of hares and horns separately before the “inference” takes place.

7.5 Gaṅgeśa’s first solution to the problem of universal-negative inference

This is roughly the structure of Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in the Prathamamithyā-tvabhaṅga. For the remainder of this chapter, I will sketch how Gaṅgeśa himself proposed to solve these problems with universal-negative inference, and show how Vyāsatīrtha refutes Gaṅgeśa’s arguments in the Tarkatāṇḍava. From Gaṅgeśa’s point of view, the problem with universal-negative inferences such as the earth inference is that they seem by their very essence to conflict with the requirement that all the terms involved in an inference are established (prasiddha) before the inference takes place. In the inference to define earth, for instance, we infer that earth has a property—“being different from everything else” (itarabhinnatva)— that nothing else in reality possesses. If this is a unique, distinguishing property, present only in earth, then how could we have experienced it before making the inference? The property is not epistemically available anywhere other than the subject, and so it must be unestablished before the inference occurs. From this point of view, the property seems to belong to the same class of “unestablished” things that the Mādhvas claim the property of “indeterminacy” does. As a Naiyāyika, Gaṅgeśa cannot accept that we can make inferences involving such entities, yet he is also committed to the validity of universal-negative inference.

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha states the problem with universal-negative inference as follows:

Moreover, universal-negative inference is not tenable. For, in your view [as a Naiyāyika] the probandum [in an inference] must be established in order that: (1) there can be the apprehension of the pervasion [of the reason by the probandum], (2) the [unacceptable contingency that] the statement of the thesis [in public inference] does not communicate [anything] can be averted, and (3) [your] rule that the cognition of the qualified thing (viśiṣṭa) is invariably preceded by the cognition of the qualifier (viśeṣaṇa) can be maintained. However, [the probandum] is not [established] in universal-negative inference.

In [universal-negative inference], the probandum cannot be established in the inferential subject, since [in that case] universal-negative inference would be pointless [because we would already know that the probandum is present in the subject, which is exactly what the inference should prove to us]. Nor can [the probandum] be established in a location other [than the subject]. For, if the reason is present in that location, it would follow that it has a positive correlation [with the probandum]; if[, on the other hand,] the reason is absent from that location, it follows that it is a pseudo-reason of the “uncommon” variety [because it is absent from all locations where the probandum is known to be present].²¹

In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha gives an explanation of why, from the point of view of the Navya-Naiyāyikas, inferences cannot contain unestablished entities. According to the Naiyāyikas, an inferential knowledge (anumiti) is the product of a series of causally related cognitive events that occur over time in a single individual. The individual in question needs to have a stock of cognitions in order to have an inferential knowledge. She needs to know, for instance, that the probandum is present wherever the reason is present (that the reason pervades the probandum), but how could she know this if she has never experienced the probandum in the first place?

Moreover, in the case of public inference, if the beneficiary of the inference has never encountered the probandum before the inference, then how can the thesis-statement, “The earth is different from everything else”, communicate anything to them? If someone has never experienced the particular property of “being different from the remaining substances/categories” involved in the inference, then how can a speech-act that involves this term generate a definite cognition in their minds? For all these reasons, universal-negative inference by its very nature seems to be incompatible with the Naiyāyikas’ strict requirement that the probandum in any inference not be an unestablished term.

This problem can be analysed as follows. A universal-negative inference has the requirement (1) that there are no known instances in which the probandum is present and the reason is absent. However, it also has the requirement (2) that the person making the inference is aware of no positive concomitance between the probandum and the reason. There is also the further requirement (3), applicable to all types of inference, that the probandum must be an established (prasiddha) property. Requirement (3) entails that the person making the inference must be aware that the probandum is present in some location before the inference takes place, yet where can they have encountered the probandum?

The inferer cannot already be aware that the probandum is present in the subject of the inference, since then the inference itself would prove something that they already know. Nor can they have encountered the probandum in a location other than the subject. The location in question would in that case qualify as a homologue (sapakṣa), a location that is known to possess the probandum. Since a location must either be subject to the presence of any property or its absence, either the reason is present in this homologue or it is absent from it. If it is absent, then there is a deviation (vyabhicāra) and the inferential cognition cannot arise because it is now known that the probandum no longer pervades the reason. On the other hand, if the reason is present in the location where the probandum is known to be present, then it follows that the reason is not of the universal-negative sort, but of the anvayavyatirekin variety; that is, it is known to have both a positive and negative concomitance with the probandum.²²

So Gaṅgeśa is in a bind. He must accept that we have encountered the probandum somehow before the inference takes place, yet universal-negative inference, by definition, entails that the probandum has not been encountered before the inference. It seems that Gaṅgeśa must either abandon his requirement that the terms involved in inferences are always well-established, or else abandon his commitment to the universal-negative form of inference. And, as a Naiyāyika, neither of these alternatives are acceptable to him.

7.6 Gaṅgeśa’s first explanation of universal-negative inference

In the Kevalavyatirekivāda of the Tattvacintāmaṇi, Gaṅgeśa anticipates that there are at least two ways out of the conundrum just outlined. According to Gaṅgeśa’s first solution, the probandum in the inference to define earth is, in fact, perceptually available in the subject prior to the inference, but only in one part of it. The subject of the inference—earth itself—comprises all the things in reality that are earth atoms or are composed of them. A particular earthen pot is composed of earth atoms, and is thus part of a subject. According to Gaṅgeśa’s first solution, the person making the inference could have perceived that the pot in question is different from the thirteen remaining substances and categories besides earth before the inference takes place. We can perceive that the earthen pot is different from the substances other than earth, and also from the individuals belonging to categories other than substance. We could already have perceived that the pot is “different from water”, “different from fire”, “different from wind”, and so on.²³ We could thus have had a perception of the probandum (“being different from the other substances and categories” [itarabhinnatva]) before making the inference to define earth.

The obvious problem with this solution is that it seems to render the inference partially pointless, because the inference is now proving, in part, something that we already know (aṃśataḥ siddhasādhana). If we already know that “A pot is different from the other substances and categories”, why would we include the pot in the inference at all? In response to this objection, Gaṅgeśa pointed out that the inference could still be said to have the purpose of generalising the specific observation we made about the pot to the entire class of things that make up the substance earth.²⁴ In the inference to define earth, earth is a partite thing, comprising the vast multitude of things that possess the universal earthness. The goal of the earth inference is to move from the particular observation that a pot is “different from all the other substances and categories” to the generalisation that everything that has earthness also has this particular combination of differences.

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha presents Gaṅgeśa’s argument as follows, before dismissing it for several reasons:

Objection (Gaṅgeśa): [The probandum in the inference to define earth is established] in one spot of the subject, hence [the reason is not a pseudo-reason] of the “uncommon” variety, since [the probandum] is not established in a location other than the subject. Nor is universal-negative inference [in that case] pointless, because it has the purpose of [giving rise to] the judgment that the probandum is present in the whole subject [and not just one part of it].

Reply (Vyāsatīrtha): [You] cannot argue as such! For, even though there is “one spot” in the case of the subject [(= earth)] in the inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories]”, there is [no “one spot” to speak of] in the case of the [subject (= the ether) in the inference] “The ether is different from the remaining [substances and categories”. For, unlike the earth, the ether is, in your view, a singular, and not a partite, thing].

Moreover, [if you accept the solution that the probandum is established in one part of the subject before the inference to define “earth” takes place,] then [the inference] is proving, in one part [of the subject], something that is already established [because the part of the subject in question is already known to have the probandum].

Moreover, [if you accept the solution that the probandum is established in one part of the subject before the inference to define earth takes place,] then [that inference] loses its status as a universal-negative inference. For, it is possible that the “one spot” of the probandum actually serves as an example (dr̥ṣṭānta), since it has been ascertained to have the probandum, just like the inference [that proves that one thing is] non-different [from another].²⁵

Vyāsatīrtha’s first argument against Gaṅgeśa in this passage is that this solution is inconsistent with other Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika metaphysical positions. “Earth” is certainly a partite subject since it comprises a multitude of distinct individuals that are made up of earth atoms. However, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers accept the existence of other substances that are not partite in this way. They accept that the sound-conducting ether, for instance, is a singular, eternal substance that only appears to be divided into smaller fragments by external “conditioning adjuncts” (upādhis). Likewise, they accept that space and time are singular substances that are only apparently divided into discrete parts through their proximity to other conditioning factors. So, we cannot really speak of “one part” of the ether in the same way that we speak about “one part” of the earth, for instance. Consequently, if we would like to make an inference to define the ether (e.g., “The ether is different from the remaining substances and categories, because it possesses sound-tropes”), then there is no “one spot” in the subject where the particular combination of differences that render the ether “distinct from everything else” could be established before the inference takes place. So even if Gaṅgeśa’s solution works for the case of substances like earth, it fails in inferences to define singular substances like the ether, space, and time.

Vyāsatīrtha’s second argument here is that if we assume that the probandum is established in one part of the subject before the inference takes place, then the inference must still be proving in part something that is already known. If the inference to define earth proves that the probandum is present throughout the class of things that collectively constitute “earth”, then surely in doing so it must also prove that the probandum is present in the very pot that it has already been perceived in? The inference may prove many new things to us, but it still proves something that we already know to be the case, and so it is partly redundant.

A final problem with Gaṅgeśa’s solution is that universal-negative inferences in that case do not seem to be universal-negative inferences at all. If we know that the probandum is present in the pot prior to the inference, would not the pot in question function as an example (dr̥ṣṭānta) where we can perceive a positive concomitance between the reason and the probandum? The pot, after all, has both the reason and the probandum—it has earthness, and it is “different from the other substances and categories”. So why should we not apprehend that the probandum pervades the reason there?

Vyāsatīrtha continues his critique of Gaṅgeśa’s first solution to the problem of universal-negative inference by considering an argument made by Gaṅgeśa to avoid the charge of partial-siddhasādhana. Vyāsatīrtha refers to this very argument in the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga:²⁶

Objection (Gaṅgeśa): It is only [in an inference] where multiple properties determine subject-hood (e.g., in the inference “Speech and mind are non-eternal”), that there can be the flaw of proving, in one part [of the probandum], something that is already established; in the case at hand [(i.e. the inference to define earth)], by contrast, there is only one determiner of [subject-hood, i.e. earthness (pr̥thivītva)].

Gaṅgeśa argues that whether the flaw of partially proving something which is already established applies to an attempted inference depends on the quantity of the properties determining subjecthood in that inference. In the inference to define earth, there is only one determiner of subjecthood—the universal earthness. The inference, as such, establishes that the class of things that are united by this universal are unique/distinguished from all other things. By contrast, we can imagine inferences where there is more than one determiner of subjecthood. If, for instance, we wish to prove that “Speech and mind are not eternal, because they are effects”, then subjecthood here is determined by two different properties: speechness (vāktva) and mindness (manastva). In this inference, if we are persuaded that the probandum is present in one of the two classes of things referred to in the subject (e.g., if we are already certain that “Speech is noneternal”), then there is clearly the flaw of proving, in part, something that is already established. The goal of the inference is at least in part to prove that the property of noneternality is present in the whole class of things we refer to as “speech”. Since one part of the inference is already established to the beneficiary of the inference, proving it again is quite redundant.

In the case of the inference to define earth, by contrast, only one property determines subjecthood—earthness. The person making the inference may have already proven that a part of earth (the pot) has the property of “being different from the other substances and categories”, but they are not yet certain that this property is present in earth as a class of things. Consequently, Gaṅgeśa argues, the thing that the inference seeks to prove is not yet established.²⁷

In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, Vyāsatīrtha actually accepts this argument of Gaṅgeśa’s when weighing Ānandabodha’s inferences to prove that the world is indeterminate.²⁸ If we interpret indeterminacy to consist of just one property—“the absence of nonexistence combined with the absence of existence”—then there is only a single determiner of probandumhood. Consequently, by analogy, Vyāsatīrtha accepts that the flaw of siddhasādhana does not necessarily apply to the inference in this case, although he argues that indeterminacy is now an unestablished property.

In this passage of the Tarkatāṇḍava, by contrast, Vyāsatīrtha rules out this line of reasoning altogether. What really matters from the point of view of applying siddhasādhana to an inference, he argues, is whether the mental judgment the inference seeks to produce has already come about in the beneficiary of that inference. The question of whether probandumhood is determined by multiple properties is merely an “auxiliary rule” (paribhāṣā):

Reply (Vyāsatīrtha): [You] cannot argue as such! For, since the deciding factor (tantra) that determines whether siddhasādhana applies or does not apply [to an inference] is whether or not the thing that [that inference] seeks to give rise to has, or has not, already been established, [the consideration of whether there are multiple or single determiners of subjecthood] is merely an auxiliary rule (paribhāṣā).²⁹

Gaṅgeśa can obviously reply at this point that the judgment which the inference seeks to generate (“Earth in general is different from the other substances and categories”) is not established before the inference takes place. The person making the inference to define earth might know that the individual pot is “different from everything else” insofar as it is a pot, but they are not aware that it has this property insofar as it is an instance of the substance “earth”. So, argues Gaṅgeśa, the inference does indeed tell us something that we do not already know about the pot, because it tells us that the probandum is present in the pot under a different mode. Consequently, there is no real ground for citing the flaw of partial siddhasādhana.

Vyāsatīrtha considers this argument in the Tarkatāṇḍava and dismisses it on several grounds:

Objection (Gaṅgeśa): In that case, [the inference to define earth] is not proving, in part, something that is already established. For, the objective of the inference—[to produce] a cognition of difference from the other [substance and categories] determined by earthness—is not present in the part [of the subject in question, i.e., the pot].

Reply: (Vyāsatīrtha) [You] cannot argue as such! For, since it is ascertained to have the probandum, the “one part” [of the subject in which the probandum is already established, here, the pot] can be subject neither to doubt, nor a desire to prove [that the probandum] is present there; hence, under your, view [the pot] cannot have subjecthood.

Objection (Gaṅgeśa): Even if [one] is certain that the pot is different from the other [substances and members of the remaining categories] insofar as [it is] a pot (ghaṭatvena), nevertheless [one] can still doubt whether [it is different from the other substances and members of the remaining categories] insofar as it is earth (pr̥thivītvena).

Reply: (Vyāsatīrtha) [You] cannot argue as such! For, when there is certainty that [something] is different from [all] other things from the point of view of the particular, the doubt that it is as such from the point of view of the class [to which the particular belongs] must have for its object some particular that is other than [the aforementioned] particular. Otherwise, even though [one] is certain that [a particular mountain] possesses fire by virtue of being “this [particular] mountain” (etat-parvatatvena), it would follow that [the same person could] doubt about [whether fire is or is not] on the mountain by virtue of its being a mountain [in general] (parvatatvena). As such, the person who seeks fire would not display resolute activity in respect of that mountain[; however, we know that they would].³⁰

In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha argues that if we know the probandum is already present in the pot, then it cannot really become part of the inferential subject. As Gaṅgeśa defines subjecthood (pakṣatā) in the Tattvacintāmaṇi, something can only become the subject of an inference if we are in a sufficient state of doubt about it to motivate us to prove that the probandum is present there. If we are already certain that the probandum is present in the pot, why would we want to make an inference about it at all? What would motivate us to go to the mental effort of proving that the probandum is present in the pot, if we are already certain that it is present there?

As Vyāsatīrtha presents it in this passage, Gaṅgeśa’s solution to this problem is to argue that while we might be certain that the pot possesses the property of being differentiated from all other things insofar as it is a pot, we can still be in a state of doubt as to whether it possesses this property insofar as it is an earthen substance. We can still be unsure about whether the pot possesses the probandum (itarabhinnatva) insofar as it possesses the more general quality of earthness, even though we are certain that it possesses the probandum from the more specific point of view of its being a pot.

Vyāsatīrtha responds to this argument by citing an objection that was raised by Gaṅgeśa’s commentator Yajñapati Upādhyāya (fl. 1460). Following Yajñapati, Vyāsatīrtha argues that if we are already certain that something (x) possesses a certain quality (p) insofar as it possesses another quality (q), then we cannot simultaneously doubt that x possesses p from the point of view of its possessing some quality that is more general in scope than q. So if we are already certain that a pot is “different from the other substances and categories” insofar as it is a pot, then we cannot simultaneously doubt that it lacks that quality insofar as it is an earthen substance.

Vyāsatīrtha argues that refusing to accept this principle would make it impossible to explain how valid inference in general can lead us to certainty. For instance, let us assume that someone has inferred that a particular mountain they are looking at has fire because it has smoke. Let us also assume that, for some reason, the person making the inference is only certain that the mountain possesses fire insofar as it is “this (particular) mountain” (etat-parvatatvena). If we adopt Gaṅgeśa’s line of argument, it is possible that the person in question could still be in a state of doubt about whether the mountain has fire insofar as it is a mountain in general (that is, insofar as it has the more general universal mountainhood [parvatatvena]). If this were the case, the doubtful awareness would block resolute action, but we must assume that the person in question would act in any case. They are, after all, still certain that the probandum (the fire) is present on the mountain. Vyāsatīrtha’s point is that the mode they cognise the fire to be present under is entirely irrelevant to whether or not they feel certain that it is present on the mountain. In the end, all that matters is that the inference has persuaded them that fire is present on the mountain before them.

Similarly, if we know that the pot has the property of “being different from everything else” insofar as it is a pot, then we cannot somehow be in a state of doubt about whether it has that property from the point of view of its being an earthen substance. Whether we cognise the quality of “being different from everything else” under the mode of potness or earthness, we still are certain that it is present in the subject. Hence the pot cannot become subject to the kind of doubt that would lead us to try to infer that it possesses the probandum. Thus Vyāsatīrtha’s objection stands.

7.7 Gaṅgeśa’s analytical solution to universal-negative inference

Gaṅgeśa’s first solution to the problem of universal-negative inference was to argue that the probandum is perceptually available before the inference takes place, but only in one part of the subject—some particular pot, for instance. So far as Vyāsatīrtha is concerned in the Tarkatāṇḍava, Gaṅgeśa’s first solution is a complete failure. However, Gaṅgeśa offers several other solutions in the Kevalavyatirekivāda. The first of these argues that the probandum can in fact be established outside of earth before the inference takes place.

As I outlined above, the probandum in the inference “Earth is different from the other [substances and categories], because [it] possesses smell” could be interpreted as a complex/partite quality made up of the thirteen mutual absences that collectively differentiate earth from the remaining Vaiśeṣika substances and categories. The Naiyāyikas, with their anyathākhyāti theory of illusion, tended to explain perceptual errors as cases where different parts of reality become fused together in our mental judgments. For example, my erroneous judgment that a length of rope is a snake can be explained by my misattributing a universal (“snakeness”) to a length of rope that does not really possess that quality. The road is open to Gaṅgeśa to take a similar analytical approach to the probandum in the earth inference. He could argue that even though the entire collection of absences constituting the probandum is not established before the inference takes place, the individual components of that probandum are established separately in different locations at that point. The inference simply draws these individual things together to assert that a single, complex quality is present in the subject.

The thirteen mutual absences that make up the probandum clearly cannot be established in a single location, because nothing else can be different from exactly the same collection of things that earth is different from. The second of the Vaiśeṣika substances, water, for instance, will have twelve of the mutual absences (from: fire, wind, the ether, time, space, the self, the internal faculty, trope, motion, universal, ultimate particulariser, and inherence), but it obviously cannot be different from itself. So while we can perceive twelve of the requisite mutual absences in water, we cannot perceive the difference from water itself.

Gaṅgeśa therefore accepts that we can perceive all the requisite mutual absences separately, in the various different components of the Vaiśeṣika universe; the inference simply serves to bring them together by establishing that they are all present in one and the same location—earth. In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga,³¹ Vyāsatīrtha himself seems to accept (at least for the sake of argument) this explanation of Gaṅgeśa’s when building his case against Ānandabodha’s attempts to infer the indeterminacy of the world. Like the probandum in the earth inference (itarabhinnatva), indeterminacy can be interpreted as a partite quality. If “indeterminacy” is interpreted as being two separate properties (“the constant absence of existence” and “the constant absence of nonexistence”), then one could say that the constant absences in question are established separately, in different locations, before the inference takes place; the inference simply attributes them to the inferential subject, i.e., the world.

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, by contrast, Vyāsatīrtha completely rejects this line of reasoning. He responds to Gaṅgeśa’s arguments as follows:

Objection (Gaṅgeśa): In that case, the thirteen differences [from the remaining substances and categories that constitute the probandum] are well-established—that is, ascertained [to be present]—separately in the thirteen [remaining substances and categories themselves], which are indeed “somewhere other than the subject”; hence the flaw of “[the inferential subject’s] having-an-unestablished-qualifier” (aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatva)[, the reason’s being a pseudo-reason of the “uncommon” variety], and so on, do not apply [to the inference].

Reply (Vyāsatīrtha): You cannot argue as such! For the stated solution does not work in [universal-negative inferences that you yourself accept to be valid,] such as “The aggregate of living bodies has a self[, because the bodies that make it up have breath and so on]”, where the probandum is not a partite thing.

Moreover, [your argument fails] because if the probandum is well-established in the thirteen [remaining substances and categories, one] cannot apprehend the negative-pervasion [i.e. that the absence of the reason pervades the absence of the probandum] in those thirteen [substances and categories], since the absence of the probandum is not present there.³²

Vyāsatīrtha’s first point here is that even if Gaṅgeśa’s analytical solution did work for cases like the inference to define earth where multiple components make up the probandum, it does not work in other widely accepted cases of universal-negative inference where the probandum is a non-composite, singular thing. Vyāsatīrtha gives the example of an inference that might be voiced by a Naiyāyika to prove the existence of the self to a Buddhist who doubts its existence as a distinct substance:

The multitude of living bodies has a self, because [all living bodies] possess breath (jīvaccharīrajātam sātmakam, prāṇamattvāt).

This is a widely accepted example of a universal-negative inference. As in the inference to define earth, the subject of the inference comprises an entire class of things, the aggregate of living bodies. The probandum (“having-a-self”) only occurs in the aggregate of living bodies; as such, it cannot be established elsewhere before the inference takes place. However, unlike in the earth-inference, the probandum here—“having-a-self”—is not made up of different properties that can exist separately, so Vyāsatīrtha argues that Gaṅgeśa’s analytical solution cannot be applied to this inference.

The second problem that Vyāsatīrtha cites here has to do with how we can perceive the pervasion relationship that lies at the heart of the inference if we accept this explanation of universal-negative inference. According to Gaṅgeśa, universal-negative inferences are cases where we ultimately infer that something has the probandum because we know that “the absence of the reason pervades the absence of the probandum”. In the case of the inference to define earth, we know that the reason (“possessing smell”) is absent wherever the probandum (“being different from the remaining substances and categories”) is absent; so, given that earth has the reason, we can conclude that it also has the probandum.

Vyāsatīrtha argues that if we accept Gaṅgeśa’s analytical solution to the problem, then we cannot apprehend the negative pervasion “the absence of the reason pervades the absence of the probandum”. Just where could we apprehend this negative concomitance? In order to apprehend the pervasion, we must surely be aware of at least one case where both the probandum and the reason are jointly absent. The only possible location seems to be the thirteen substances and categories other than earth. However, in order to ensure that the probandum is perceptually available before the inference, Gaṅgeśa has just argued that the probandum is in some sense established in the thirteen substances and categories other than earth. So how can we apprehend the aforementioned negative pervasion there? Gaṅgeśa cannot have it both ways: the probandum is either present in the remaining substances and categories, or it is absent from them.

Vyāsatīrtha anticipates another problem with pervasion in this inference. If the probandum is made up of thirteen distinct mutual absences, then how can we become aware of the pervasion relationship between them and the probandum before the inference takes place? Vyāsatīrtha argues that Gaṅgeśa’s theory implies that each of the differences is individually a probandum in the inferences:

Moreover, even though the thirteen differences [of earth from the remaining substances and categories] are established once by just a single reason, [that is, the quality of possessing smell (gandhavattva),] they must in fact be established by thirteen [different] pervasions described (nirūpita) by each [of the thirteen differences] individually, and not by a single pervasion described by the collection [of the thirteen differences, i.e., “Where there is the absence of the thirteen mutual absences, there is the absence of earthness”].³³ For, given that the collection [of thirteen mutual absences] is unestablished, there is no cognition of [a single pervasion described by the collection of the thirteen mutual absences]. And so, probandumhood is exhausted (viśrānta) in each [difference/mutual absence individually]. Hence, since water and [the remaining substances and categories], which each possess the probandum in the form of an individual difference, are homologues (sapakṣas), the reason [(earthness)], which is absent from [those locations], is a pseudo-reason of the “uncommon” variety [because it is known to be absent from all locations where the probandum is known to be present].³⁴

Vyāsatīrtha’s point in this passage is that by Gaṅgeśa’s own admission we cannot have a knowledge of the thirteen mutual absences that comprise the probandum collected together before the inference takes place, because otherwise the inference would cease to be a universal-negative one. So, the thirteen mutual absences must be proved on the basis of thirteen different pervasions that each establish that whatever lacks the mutual absence in question also lacks the reason (possessing-smell). This being so, Vyāsatīrtha argues that it follows that each one of the differences is individually the probandum; or, as Vyāsatīrtha expresses it, that probandumhood (sādhyatā) is “exhausted”/“completely present” (viśrānta) in each one of the differences. Consequently, each of the locations other than earth can be said to be a “homologue” (sapakṣa), that is, a location that is known to possess the probandum. Since the reason is absent from all of these locations, there could be said to be a deviation (vyabhicāra) between the reason and the probandum. More specifically, the reason is an “uncommon” (asādhāraṇa) one because it is known to be absent from every homologue. Hence there are several locations that have the reason but not the probandum, and there is a known deviation, so the inference cannot take place.

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha thus concludes that Gaṅgeśa’s second, analytical, solution to the problem of universal-negative inference is a failure. It fails because it does not apply to cases of universal-negative inference where the subject is a singular/non-composite thing, and because it does not account for how we can apprehend the negative-pervasion relationship that lies at the heart of this sort of inference. So, while he accepts Gaṅgeśa’s arguments for debating with the Advaitins in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, in the Tarkatāṇḍava Vyāsatīrtha concludes that neither of Gaṅgeśa’s solutions to the problem of universal-negative inference work. If Gaṅgeśa tries to explain how we can be acquainted with the probandum before the inference takes place by arguing that the probandum is established in the subject itself, then he is proving, at least in part, something that is already well-known. On the other hand, if he tries to argue that the probandum is established elsewhere than the subject, then the reason deviates from the probandum, and becomes a pseudo-reason. In either case, the inference fails.

7.8 The Mādhva theory of universal-negative inference and empty terms

These complex discussions about universal-negative inference form the backdrop to much of Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of indeterminacy in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Gaṅgeśa’s intricate discussion about how to apply the flaws of siddhasādhana and aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā to inferences that try to establish complex/partite properties in their subjects proved a very useful resource to weigh anew Ānandabodha’s attempts to prove that the world is indeterminate. For the remainder of this chapter, I will turn to the Mādhva theory of inference itself. In particular, I will focus on their treatment of universal-negative inference and their approach to empty terms in inference. This will bring us to Vyāsatīrtha’s theory of “location-free” properties, and thus round up nicely this volume’s discussion of the Mādhva theory of nonexistence and empty terms.

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha clearly rejects the idea that there is a special type of universal-negative inference. This does not mean, however, that he rejects the underlying logical principles of universal-negative inference altogether. While Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha rejected the Naiyāyikas’ claim that there is a special universal-negative mode of inference, they neither rejected the validity of the stock examples of universal-negative inference, or claimed that a “negative-pervasion” could play no role in successful inferences. What they doubted, rather, was whether it played a direct role in bringing about an episode of inferential knowledge, or whether it was an ancillary component in the inferential process. Jayatīrtha, for instance, accepted that a negative pervasion can, in certain cases, be useful indirectly because it can be used to establish a positive pervasion, which in turn serves as the basis for inference. In the Pramāṇapaddhati, after giving an explanation of universal-negative inference, he argued that universal-negative pervasion can play a role in valid inferences:

So why is it that śāstra refers to universal-negative [inference]? For this reason: [In the inference “All living bodies have a soul, since they have breath and so on”,] the pervasion is of the form: “Whatever has breath and so on has a soul”. However, since the only place where the pervasion might be apprehended is the subject of the disagreement, the pervasion cannot be perceived. So, a negative pervasion is used in an inference to establish [the positive pervasion]. When it is inferred that “[The living body has a soul,] because it has breath and so on”, one wishes to know how it is that [the reason] is pervaded [by the probandum. Then, it is inferred that] the quality of possessing breath and so on is pervaded by the quality of having a soul. For, [the state of possessing breath and so on] is the counterpositive of an absence that pervades the absence of [the quality of having a soul]. Whatever is the counterpositive of an absence that pervades something is pervaded by that thing, just as the state of possessing smoke [is pervaded] by the quality of possessing fire.³⁵

Only a positive pervasion is directly operative in producing an inferential knowledge. However, in certain cases, this pervasion itself needs to be established via a further inference. In this passage, Jayatīrtha refers to the same inference that Vyā-satīrtha discussed in the Tarkatāṇḍava: “The whole class of living bodies has a self, because [they] possess breath” (jīvaccharīrajātam sātmakam, prāṇamattvāt). In this inference, we infer that all living bodies must be connected with a soul/self, because they have vital breaths. Here, because we are proving that a whole class of things (the “aggregate of living bodies”) possesses a certain characteristic, the subject of the inference exhausts all possible locations where we could perceive a positive pervasion relationship between the probandum and the reason. However, we can still infer this positive pervasion from a negative one. Jayatīrtha is aware, in other words, that we can infer a positive pervasion (A pervades B) from its contraposition (¬B pervades ¬A). In PPL, he is aware that we can infer

from

Consequently, while negative pervasion might not play a direct role in the inferential process, it can certainly support it indirectly, by helping us to establish the positive pervasion which forms the basis of certain inferences. There is no need for a special sub-type of “universal-negative” inferences as the Naiyāyikas claim, yet this does not mean that negative-pervasion has no role to play in inference.

In any case, from the Mādhva perspective, many of the problems that Gaṅgeśa discusses about universal-negative inference in the Tattvacintāmaṇi are moot. When defending universal-negative inference, Gaṅgeśa is concerned to demonstrate that the probandum is an unestablished term by showing that it is somehow perceptually available before the inference takes place. The Mādhvas have no such qualms about inference. As we saw above in Chapters 3 and 6, the Mādhvas and the Naiyāyikas have fundamentally different attitudes toward empty terms such as “hare’s horn” and the “son of a barren woman”. Unlike the Naiyāyikas, the Mā-dhvas accept that we can have perception-like cognitions that are, in some sense, of nonexistent things. From their point of view, the fact that an inference contains empty terms need not in itself render the inference invalid.

According to Vyāsatīrtha, at least certain inferences involving empty terms can be valid. This leads him on to a discussion of how we can make statements about nonexistent things in language. How is it possible for statements that ascribe properties to nonexistent things to be true? How can negative-existential statements about empty terms (“The son of a barren woman does not exist”) be true, for instance? In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha goes on to elaborate a theory that was already sketched by Jayatīrtha in his Tattvoddyotaṭīkā and Nyāyasudhā. According to Jayatīrtha and Vyāsatīrtha, certain statements that ascribe properties to nonexistent things are true because certain properties can be part of reality without being instantiated in an existent thing. Vyāsatīrtha calls these “location-free” properties (asad-āśraya-dharmas).

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha explains his position on this point most clearly when critiquing Gaṅgeśa’s definition of the inferential fallacy known as “[the reason’s] having an unestablished substrate” (āśrayāsiddhi). This fallacy is taken to apply when the subject of an inference (the putative substrate of the reason) is an unestablished term. An example of such an inference given by Vyāsatīrtha is “The son of a barren woman cannot speak, because [it is] insentient” (vandhyāsutaḥ na vaktā, acetanatvāt). According to Gaṅgeśa and the Navya-Naiyāyikas, this is not a valid inference because its subject—the “son of a barren woman”—is an unestablished entity. Vyāsatīrtha argues against Gaṅgeśa and the Naiyāyikas that this is, in fact, a valid inference. Why should we regard this inference as invalid? One reason is that we need to have a cognition of something before we make an inference about it—how can we ascribe or deny properties to something we have never experienced? However, as a Mādhva, Vyāsatīrtha believes that we can have cognitions of nonexistent things and so, from his point of view, the “son of a barren woman” can be cognised somehow before the inference takes place.

Another reason that a Navya-Naiyāyika might give to prove that we cannot make inferences about unestablished entities is that such nonexistent things cannot have properties (dharma) in the same way that existent things can. In an inference, we want to prove that some subject has a property because it has another property. If nonexistent things cannot have properties at all, then how can we make inferences about them? In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha responds to this second objection. He argues that it is actually contradictory to attempt to prove that something “has no properties”. For, in attempting to prove this, the Naiyāyikas themselves seem to be making an inference that ascribes properties to nonexistent things. They are effectively inferring that “What is nonexistent can be the locus of neither the probandum or the reason, since it lacks properties”; however, in doing this they are themselves ascribing properties to what does not exist. The very act of denying that we can make inferences about nonexistent things itself seems to be an argument that ascribes properties to nonexistent things!³⁶

So Vyāsatīrtha believes that we can make statements/inferences that ascribe properties to nonexistent things. Following Jayatīrtha, he also claims that we can make inferences in which the property we want to prove (the probandum) is a nonexistent thing. At the beginning of the relevant chapter of the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha challenges the Naiyāyikas to explain why exactly it is that the fact that the probandum in an inference is unestablished constitutes a fatal flaw. He anticipates five separate reasons that the Naiyāyika might give:

[Just as the fact that the substrate/subject of an inference is not established does not constitute a flaw in an inference], so too does the fact that [its] probandum is unestablished not make [an inference] faulty. To explain—[Do you regard it] as a flaw because[, (1) if it were not accepted as a flaw, then] even [invalid inferences, such as “This patch of earth has a hare’s horn, because it is this patch of earth”,] could be considered as valid inferences?

Or [must it be a flaw] because, (2) if the probandum is unestablished, there cannot be doubt [about whether it is present in the subject or not], and as such there can be no pakṣadharmatā,³⁷ which includes [that doubt]?

Or is it because (3) it undermines the pervasion[, since if the probandum is unestablished, one cannot grasp the pervasion in which it is a term]?³⁸

Or is it because (4) it leads to the untenable consequence that the statement of the thesis [in an inference-for-another] could not communicate anything, since it includes an entity that has not previously been known?

Or is it because (5) in the absence of [its] cause—i.e. the cognition of the qualifier [(= the probandum)]—the effect—the cognition of the [subject] as qualified [by the probandum]— cannot arise?³⁹

Vyāsatīrtha goes on to respond to each of these lines of explanation, but I will here focus on his response to the first explanation of why inferences can only involve established terms:

… (1) is not tenable because there it is not the case that [if aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā were not accepted as a flaw, then] even [invalid inferences, such as “This patch of earth has a hare’s horn, because it is this patch of earth”] could be considered as valid inferences. For, inferences that [we, the Mādhvas and the Naiyāyikas,] agree are invalid are flawed by another defect. The [Advaitins’] inference “The disputed entity is different both from what exists and what does not exist, because [it is] sublatable” is flawed by contradiction[, proving what is already established, and so on,] which is accepted [by the both of us to apply to them].

Similarly, if the inference “This patch of earth possesses a hare’s horn, because [it is] this patch of earth” is meant to prove [that the patch of earth in question has] a [hare’s] horn that is fit to be perceived, then it is flawed by the defects of failure to perceive what is fit to be perceived. Or, if it is meant to prove that [the patch of earth in question has] a [hare’s] horn, which is not fit to be perceived, then it is flawed by the defects of proving what is already established (siddhasādhana) and so on.⁴⁰

By contrast, inferences that [we both, the Mādhvas and the Naiyāyikas,] agree are valid, e.g., “All living bodies have souls, because they possess breath and so on”, are valid by virtue of being devoid of any flaw other [than aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā].⁴¹

In this passage, Vyāsatīrtha considers the argument that if we do not accept the position that aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā is a flaw, then a host of inferences agreed upon as invalid by the Mādhvas and Naiyāyikas could no longer be ruled as being invalid. These inferences include one that is very similar to the inferences made by Ānandabodha to prove that the world is indeterminate: “The subject of dispute [i.e. the world] is different from both what exists and what does not exist, because it is sublatable.” In the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga,⁴² Vyāsatīrtha argued that this inference is undermined by the fact that its probandum (“being different both from what exists and what does not exist”) is (so far as he is concerned) an unestablished property. Here, by contrast, he clearly rejects this position, arguing that the inference does not suffer from the flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā. Obviously, he does not accept that the inference is valid; he argues that this inference can be shown to be invalidated by some other defect. Similarly, the inference “This patch of earth has a hare’s horn on it, because it is this patch of earth” is flawed because the probandum is ruled out because we fail to perceive something that we would expect to perceive, or because it proves something that is already established to us.

So Vyāsatīrtha’s answer to the Naiyāyika is that we do not need the flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā to rule out these invalid inferences, because they are ruled out by alternative flaws in each case. Accepting that we are able to make inferences where the probandum is an unestablished term does not, in itself, lead us to the untenable position that these are valid inferences, because they can always be shown to be invalidated by a number of other flaws. Vyāsatīrtha goes on to give a lengthy critique of Gaṅgeśa’s arguments in favour of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of empty terms in order to defend his Mādhva philosophy. It should be noted that here, Vyāsatīrtha directly contradicts what he said in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, he argued that aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā is in fact a flaw. Here, by contrast, he argues that it is not a flaw and that it does not apply to the sorts of inferences formulated by Ānandabodha to prove that the world is indeterminate. This is, of course, Vyāsatīrtha’s true position as a Mādhva.

7.9 Location-free properties

Philosophically, Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments against Gaṅgeśa in these chapters of the Tarkatāṇḍava still leave us with two questions: How can we make meaningful true/false statements about nonexistent things like sky-flowers, and how can we make inferences that involve them? Vyāsatīrtha argues in essence that it is demonstrable that we can make true/false statements ascribing certain properties to nonexistent things, and that the best way to explain this is to assume that there are “location-free” properties which somehow exist as part of reality without being located in an existent thing. We can make inferences like “The son of a barren woman cannot speak, because [it is] insentient”, because “the son of a barren woman” can have negative properties even though it does not exist as part of reality. Vyāsatīrtha explains this theory as follows in the Tarkatāṇḍava:

For, there are different sorts of quality. Some are located in a substrate, such as colour tropes and so on. Yet others are located in one thing, while they affect something else, such as cognition and so on[, which are located in the self or manas but affect] pots and so on. Some are substrate-free, like non-existence and so on, because [we have] the uncontradicted judgment“The horn of a hare is nonexistent”. For, otherwise, the nonexistence of such entities could not be established.⁴³

According to the theory outlined by Vyāsatīrtha here, some properties, like colour tropes, velocity, sentience, etc., can only be present in positive substrates; nonexistent things clearly cannot have colours or be sentient, for instance. Nevertheless, nonexistent things can have other sorts of properties. For instance, we can truly say of the “son of a barren woman” that it “cannot speak” or that it is “insentient”, so we can ascribe negative properties to it. Moreover, (so far as the Mādhvas are concerned,) we do speak of nonexistent things as being absent from locations (“There is never a hare’s horn on this table”), so a hare’s horn must be the counterpositive (pratiyogin) of an absence. Consequently counterpositiveness itself (pratiyogitā) must be a “location-free” property. We can also make true negative-existential statements about nonexistent things (“The sky-flower does not exist”) and so the list of “location-free” properties must also include nonexistence (asattva) itself. All of these properties are a part of reality, and they serve to make statements about nonexistent entities either true or false.

7.10 Conclusion

Vyāsatīrtha’s engagement with Gaṅgeśa’s ideas was pivotal to the development of his work and the work of all subsequent Mādhva philosophers. The Tarkatāṇḍava contains one of the most detailed critiques of the Navya-Nyāya system ever written by an outsider to the tradition in the history of Indian philosophy. The Nyāyāmr̥ta literature in turn provides a leading case where Navya-Nyāya theories and language were applied to the philosophical literature of another school. Vyāsatīrtha’s work on Navya-Nyāya influenced all the leading philosophers of the Mādhva tradition in the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, even though the Mādhvas’ arguments do not seem to have garnered a response from the Navya-Naiyāyikas.

The Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta shows the importance of Gaṅgeśa’s work for Vyāsatīrtha. Madhva and Jayatīrtha had argued that “indeterminacy” is either an unestablished property which should not, perhaps, be allowed to enter into formal inferences, or that Ānandabodha’s inferences to prove that the world is indeterminate are partly redundant from their point of view. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha largely uses Gaṅgeśa’s arguments on universal-negative inference to give new substance to these old arguments. He carefully applies Gaṅgeśa’s judgments about the epistemological problems surrounding universal-negative inference in particular to show that, however the concept is interpreted, Ānandabodha’s inferences cannot prove to us that the world is “indeterminate”. In the Nyāyāmr̥ta he follows this reasoning for the sake of debating with the Advaitins, although he refutes the very same line of argument in the Tarkatāṇḍava.

8 Introduction to the translation of the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga

Chapter 9 contains a translation of the complete text of the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga (“Refutation of the First Definition of Illusoriness”, PMBh) chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, along with translations from some of its most important commentaries. The PMBh is found directly after the Advaita pūrvapakṣa, and thus marks the beginning of Vyāsatīrtha’s long critique of Advaita philosophy in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. In the PMBh, Vyāsatīrtha’s main objective is to prove that “indeterminacy” is not fit to be taken as the probandum in the three inferences he ascribed to Ānandabodha in the pūrvapakṣa section of the text. Once again, these inferences are:

“The world is illusory, because [it is] perceptible; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, dr̥śyatvāt; śuktirūpyavat);

“The world is illusory, because [it is] finite; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, paricchinnatvāt; śuktirūpyavat);

“The world is illusory, because [it is] insentient; just like the silver [superimposed] on mother-of-pearl” (jagan mithyā, jaḍatvāt; suktirūpyavat).

The first definition of “illusoriness” that Vyāsatīrtha considers in his critique of Advaita in the Nyāyāmr̥ta is “indeterminacy”. Again, in the Nyāyāmr̥ta Vyāsatīrtha follows Citsukha in defining “indeterminacy” as sadasattvānadhikaraṇatvam—“the state of being the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence”. The structure of the PMBh is simple. Vyāsatīrtha begins by setting out three possible analyses of Citsukha’s compound (M[ithyātva]¹–M³) which differ from one another in subtle ways. He then cycles through these definitions, substituting each of them in turn for the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences. Vyāsatīrtha concludes that adopting each analysis of “indeterminacy” as the probandum in the inferences leads to unacceptable problems; thus the “illusoriness” that the Advaitin wants to prove about the world through these inferences cannot consist in indeterminacy. After concluding the PMBh, Vyāsatīrtha goes on to refute the four remaining definitions of mithyātva that he takes seriously in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, before setting out a case against the concept of illusoriness in general and critiquing the different reasons put forward by the Advaitins in their inferences.

In addition to the full translation of the PMBh, I have further translated Madhusūdana’s response to this chapter of the Nyāyāmr̥ta in the Advaitasiddhi as well as selections from three Mādhva commentaries: Rāmācārya’s Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka’s Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra, and Śrīnivāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmr̥-taprakāśa. In the footnotes, I occasionally translate extracts from Balabhadra’s Advaitasiddhivyākhyā, Brahmānanda’s Laghucandrikā, and Bagchi’s Bālabodhinī commentary on the Advaitasiddhi.

8.1 Notes on the translation and Navya-Nyāya technical terms

Translating texts such as the Nyāyāmr̥ta and its commentaries is a challenging task. Vyāsatīrtha’s work and its commentaries were written for an elite audience who would have already been deeply familiar with the theories and technical terms used by their authors, including the works of the classical Advaitins and the Tattvacintā-maṇi. One consequence of this is that these works are highly elliptical in character, and crucial premises of arguments are frequently omitted from the text. Like Gaṅgeśa, Vyāsatīrtha often combines complex chains of reasoning into long, elaborate sentences where crucial premises are sometimes tucked away as seemingly inconsequential adjectives. Another feature of these texts which makes them particularly difficult to translate is their highly legalistic style. Typically, when critiquing some argument, Vyāsatīrtha adduces a long list of definitions of the key terms of that argument, then examines each in turn, showing that they somehow lead to unacceptable consequences. The reasons adduced to show why each definition fails usually consist in technical terms drawn from works of logical theory, which condense complex chains of reasoning into a single word or compound.

These features alone make texts like the Nyāyāmr̥ta formidably difficult to translate into clear English; an overly-literal approach would probably do little to make their meaning clear to modern audiences. My strategy has been to make the translations as explicit as possible by supplying a lot of additions in square brackets. In the translation, I have frequently divided up what appear as single sentences in the Sanskrit text into shorter ones for the sake of making Vyāsatīrtha’s complex chains of reasoning easier to follow. After the translation of each section of the Nyā-yāmr̥ta, Advaitasiddhi, and Taraṅginī, I have attempted to reconstruct the passage’s argument in plain(er) English, explaining the various technical terms that are used by the authors, giving the wider philosophical background to their arguments, and reconstructing the complex arguments which are expressed using so few Sanskrit words.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the translation, however, lies in rendering into English the Navya-Nyāya technical language which Vyāsatīrtha and his commentators use throughout their writing. Navya-Nyāya provided these philosophers a rich toolbox of technical terms to deploy in various contexts to express their arguments more precisely than would be possible in normal Sanskrit. While various aspects of this terminology are found in the Nyāyāmr̥ta itself, the commentarial literature becomes progressively more technical in this regard. The various Mādhva and Advaitin commentators increasingly looked to Navya-Nyāya as they analysed their critiques of one another. Among the early commentators, Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka in particular both make extensive use of Navya-Nyāya language, primarily to help prove that the formal inferential fallacies Vyāsatīrtha cites against the Advaitins in the PMBh really do apply to their inferences.

Before translating the PMBh and its commentaries, I will give some explanation of how I have translated the main Navya-Nyāya terms of art that appear in the Nyā-yāmr̥ta and its literature. Ingalls (1951), Goekoop (1967), Matilal (1968), Wada (2007), and Ganeri (2011) have all given detailed accounts of the Navya-Nyāya technical language. One of the main technical terms used by Vyāsatīrtha and his commentators is avacchedaka. I have translated this term as “determiner” throughout this volume, although it has also been translated as “limiter”¹ and “specifier”² by modern scholars. According to Ingalls (1951: 44), the term is primarily used in Navya-Nyāya in connection with what he referred to as “relational abstracts”. These are abstract properties that appear adventitiously in individuals and connect them to different parts of reality. Such abstract properties are frequently marked with the suffixes tā/tva in philosophical literature. They include, for instance, “causeness” (kāraṇatā), “effectness” (kāryatā), “counterpositiveness” (pratiyogitā), and “objectness” (viṣayatva). Such properties explain why we judge things to stand in a certain relation to something else—“x is the cause of y”, “x is an effect of y”, etc. According to the Navya-Naiyāyikas, these relational abstracts are not repeatable qualities/universals; they are rather “imposed properties” (upādhis) that are unique in every case (Matilal, 1968: 73).

In itself, a relational abstract like “causeness” is a very vague thing. What exactly possesses this instance of causeness? And why? What quality of the numerous ones that the cause in question possesses determines the fact that it is a cause? And what is that thing the cause of ? The Navya-Naiyāyikas make use of the terms avacchedaka/avacchinna (“determiner”/“determined”) and nirūpaka/nirūpita (“describer”/“described”) to specify relational abstracts by indicating their extension and connection with other relational properties. From one point of view, a “determiner” simply specifies the mode under which a thing enters into relations with other things in reality. A very common usage of the term avacchedaka in the Nyā-yāmr̥ta literature is to specify the relational abstracts that appear in things as they become involved in the process of making inferences. The Navya-Naiyāyikas take it that properties like “subjecthood” (pakṣatā), “probandumhood” (sādhyatā), and “reasonhood” (hetutā) are particular instances of relational properties that appear in individuals as they become the object of certain sorts of mental judgment.

In the standard inference where fire is inferred from the presence of smoke, for example, we can say that:

–

Determiner of probandumhood (sādhyatā-avacchedaka) = fireness (vahnitā),

–

Determiner of subjecthood (pakṣatā-avacchedaka) = mountainness (parvatatva),

–

Determiner of reasonhood (hetutā-avacchedaka) = smokeness (dhūmatva).

The determiners in this example (“mountainness” and so on) are all universals. They comprise the underlying qualities that, of the numerous qualities present in fire, mountain, and smoke, serve to specify the relational abstracts “probandumhood”, etc., in those individuals. However, relational abstracts are also determined by the different types of relators (sambandha) accepted by the Navya-Naiyāyikas. For instance, in the case where we infer that there is fire on some mountain because we see smoke there, the fire is present on that mountain through the relationship of “contact” (saṃyoga), and not, say, inherence. Thus, we could further specify the particular probandumhood in the fire/smoke inference by referring to the “probandumhood that is determined by [both] the contact relator and by the property of fireness” (soṃyoga-sambandha-avacchinna-vahnitva-avacchinna-sādhyatā).

As discussed by Vyāsatīrtha and his commentators in the PMBh, it is possible for relational abstracts to be determined by multiple qualities. For instance, the inference that “Speech and mind are noneternal, because they are effects” ascribes a single probandum (noneternality) to two different subjects—speech and mind. In this case, one could say that the subjecthood in this inference is determined by both speechness and mindness. Similarly, when the Advaitins claim that “The world lacks both existence and nonexistence”, the probandum could be interpreted analytically, in which case the inference could be taken to ascribe two distinct properties (the constant absences of existence and nonexistence) to the world. In this case, we would say probandumhood is determined by two separate qualities—“the state of being the constant absence of existence” and “the state of being the constant absence of nonexistence”.

The Advaitins’ claim about the world could also be interpreted synthetically, as one that ascribes the compound of these two separate qualities to the world. To show this, Vyāsatīrtha makes use of the term viśiṣṭa. As Ingalls (1951: 69, fn. 137) points out, this term is frequently used in philosophical works to mean that something is “distinguished” or “qualified” by something else, for instance as a blue pot is distinguished/qualified by potness and the colour blue. (It is worth noting that the term avacchinna itself is frequently used in this sense of viśiṣṭa by the commentators on the Nyāyāmr̥ta.³) However, Ingalls points out that the term viśiṣṭa can simply mean “accompanied by”/“coupled with”, or “an accompanied/compound thing”. It is frequently used in this sense by Vyāsatīrtha and his commentators in the PMBh.⁴ This sense of the term is often expressed using locative absolute constructions. Thus Vyāsatīrtha expresses his third analysis of “indeterminacy” as follows:

sattva-atyanta-abhāvavattve saty asattva-atyanta-abhāvavattvam (“The state of possessing the constant absence of nonexistence while possessing the constant absence of existence”).

This is equivalent to:

sattva-atyanta-abhāvavattva-viśiṣṭa-asattva-atyanta-abhāvavattvam (“The state of possessing the constant absence of nonexistence qualified by/combined with the constant absence of existence”).

Another approach to a seemingly “partite” probandum which is demonstrated in the commentarial literature on the PMBh is to say that the quality of probandumhood is determined by a “collectively present” (vyāsajyavr̥tti) quality. This type of property is closely connected with the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of numbers. With the exception of the number one, numbers are considered to be collectively present qualities by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers. The Nyāyakośa⁵ explains that such qualities are produced in objects through “enumerative judgments”. An enumerative judgment is one that aggregates different things together, for instance: “This is one pot, this is another pot; together there are two pots”. Numbers greater than one are regarded as tropes which are produced in the substances that become the object of such judgments. Such numbers are not entirely present (paryāpti) in any one of their loci; rather, they are only completely present in their loci taken collectively. Hence they are said to be “collectively present” qualities. Relational abstracts are often said to be determined by such qualities according the Navya-Naiyāyikas, as opposed to being determined by multiple distinct qualities. Rāmācārya makes use of this approach when defending the inference to define earth against the charge that its reason is “uncommon”, for instance.⁶

The Mādhvas, Advaitins, and Naiyāyikas all had different positions on the ontological status of the viśiṣṭa, and the commentators sometimes allude to this debate. At the end of his commentary on the PMBh,⁷ Rāmācārya references the debate about the ontological status of the viśiṣṭa as an entity over and above the sum of its parts. The Mādhvas and Advaitins both agree that the viśiṣṭa is a whole above the sum of its parts, whereas the Naiyāyikas take a reductionist stance and argue that it is nothing but the combination of the parts that constitute it—the qualifier (viśeṣaṇa), the qualificandum (viśeṣya), and their relationship (sambandha). Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka⁸ further discuss the theory regarding the different circumstances under which a qualified thing can be absent from its locus.

Determiners can also be used to quantify relational abstracts in their generic form (Ingalls, 1951: 48). They might be used to help clarify the meaning of the statement “Pot-maker is cause of pot” (kulālo ghaṭakāraṇam), for example. The Navya-Naiyāyikas would say that when a potter fabricates a pot from clay, a relational abstract “causeness” appears in “potter” and another relational abstract, “effectness”, appears in “pot”. The term nirūpita (“described [by]”) is used to indicate that these relational abstracts are connected to/correlated with one another. Thus, on one level of analysis, the statement kulālo ghaṭakāraṇam says that there is a relational abstract causeness that is “located in potter” and is “described by” an effectness that is “located in pot” (ghaṭa-niṣṭha-kāryatā-nirūpita-kulāla-niṣṭha-kāraṇatā).

However, without further parsing, it is not completely clear what is being said when one refers to “the causeness located in potter described by the effectness located in pot”. The statement could be interpreted as a singular statement that a particular potter is a cause of a particular pot. Then again, it could be interpreted as a universal statement: that pots in general are brought into being by pot-makers. The terms avacchedaka/avacchinna can help to make this distinction clear. According to the explanation of the nineteenth-century Navya-Nyāya scholar Maheśacandra, to say that a relational abstract is “determined” by some property in such cases means to say that the relational abstract is present wherever the property in question is present.

In his introduction to the Navya-Nyāya language, the Navyanyāyabhāṣāpradīpa, Maheśacandra explains that the primary purpose of a determiner is to delineate/restrict the “location-range” of the relational property, that is, to circumscribe the precise scope of the things in which it is present. The avacchedaka is thus said to act as the “restrictor” (niyāmaka) of the relational property, and that property is thus said to be “restricted” (niyata) by its determiner. Thus, to speak of “effectness determined by potness” (ghaṭatva-avacchinna-kāryatā) means to speak of an effectness that is present in all pots; it is to speak of pots in general as being an effect of something-or-other. Thus we can say that “pots in general are created by pot-makers” by the following expression: ghaṭatva-avacchinna-kāryatā-nirūpita-kulālatva-avacchinna-kāraṇatā (“the causeness that is determined by potmakerhood, and which is described by the effectness that is determined by potness”).

A closely related expression which is used frequently by the Navya-Naiyāyikas is the term -avacchedena, which is contrasted with its counterpart -sāmānādhikaraṇyena. Both expressions appear frequently in the commentaries on the PMBh of Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka, where they are generally used at the end of compounds. Maheśacandra provides a clear explanation of the distinction they draw:

[…] And the predicate (vidheya) is sometimes predicated as sharing a common locus with the determiner of qualificandumhood (viśeṣyatā-avacchedaka-sāmānādhikaraṇyena), and sometimes as determined by the determiner of qualificandumhood (viśeṣyatā-avacchedakaavacchedena). Where [the predicate is predicated] to some single case of the qualificandum, then it is predicated as sharing a common locus with the determiner of qualificandumhood—it is postulated as occurring in one locus that is common to the determiner of qualificandumhood. For instance, in the statement “Brahmin is wise”, it is not stated that all brahmins are wise, but rather that wisdom is present in some of the locations where the quality brahminhood is present.

The postulation [of the predicate] as belonging to the entire qualificandum—in every qualificandum—that is, wherever the determiner of qualificandumhood is present, is the postulation [of the predicate] as determined by the determiner of qualificandumhood; in other words, as pervading the determiner of qualificandumhood. For instance, in the statement “Man is mortal”, “mortality” is not postulated of just some men, but of each and every man. Mortality is postulated as pervading manhood, that is, as being present in each and every man.⁹

In this passage, Maheśacandra contrasts two expressions:

1. “Brahmin [is] wise” (brāhmaṇo vidvān),

and

2. “Man [is] mortal” (manuṣyo maraṇaśīlaḥ).

Without further parsing, the meaning of these statements in Sanskrit is highly ambiguous. It is not immediately clear in either case whether the statement is a universal or a particular statement. Does the statement “Brahmin [is] wise” mean that “All brahmins are wise”, “Some Brahmins are wise”, or “The Brahmin is wise”? Similarly, it is not clear as such whether the statement “Man [is] mortal” attributes the property of mortality to a single man, some men, or all men.

Maheśacandra takes (1) as an example of a particular statement, effectively with the sense “At least one brahmin is wise”, or what as Matilal (1968: pp. 77–78) points out would be represented in PPL as:

(where the predicates B and W represent “is a brahmin” and “is wise” respectively).

The second is a standard example of a universal statement, that is, “All men are mortal”, or what would be represented in PPL as:

(where the predicates H and M mean “is human” and “is mortal” respectively).¹⁰

These expressions are frequently used to specify what type of judgment an inference produces about its subject. Following Matilal, in this chapter I have translated the contrasting statements (1) pakṣatāvacchedakāvacchedena sādhyasiddhiḥ and (2) pakṣatāvacchedakasāmānādhikaraṇyena sādhyasiddhiḥ as:

1. “Establishment of the probandum as being determined by the/a determiner of subjecthood”,

and,

2. “Establishment of the reason as sharing a common locus with the/a determiner of probandumhood”.

8.2 Notes on the Sanskrit Text

For the translation, I have divided the PMBh into ten separate texts, each accompanied by translations and explanations of the selected commentaries on the text. All punctuation found in Sanskrit texts is my own. Reasons presented by Vyāsatīrtha and his commentators in favour of their claims are always given following a comma. I have marked formal inferences and fragments of formal inferences in the Sanskrit text by placing them in inverted commas. Vyāsatīrtha’s Mādhva commentators themselves coordinate their remarks on the Nyāyāmr̥ta by giving brief extracts from the root text (pratīkas). I have indicated the pratīkas found in the works of these commentators using inverted commas, placing the Sanskrit text of the pratīka after its translation to help the reader locate the relevant part of the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

The texts of the Nyāyāmr̥ta and its commentaries have been derived from the various printed editions available to me. While I am obviously not attempting to make a critical edition of the various works translated here, I have also collected variant readings from these editions. I present these variants simply for the sake of showing what is currently known about the transmission of these texts. Any variant readings are listed just after the text in which they occur. The readings are coordinated with the root text by the use of corresponding superscript numbers. The full bibliographical details for the editions used are given in the Bibliography.

Additionally, I provide readings from a manuscript of the Advaitasiddhi that was made available to me by the Nepalese-German Manuscript Cataloguing Project (Acc No. 5/5599; Inventory No. 1066). The manuscript was written on paper by a single hand in Devanagari script, with occasional marginal glosses added by a second hand. The text starts from the beginning of the Advaitasiddhi and runs continuously until it stops abruptly on folio 52v, at the beginning of the section in which Madhusūdana responds to Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments to prove that only truly existent things can have causal efficacy (Advaitasiddhi, NAB, 1:569). There are no obvious clues in the manuscript that would allow us to ascribe it a definite date.

Tab. 8.1:Editions consulted

Siglum | Text(s) | Editor | Location | Year
ASMu | Advaitasiddhi, Siddhivyākhyā, Gauḍabrahmānandī, Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāyī | Anantakrishna Sastri | Mumbai | 1917
ASMy | Advaitasiddhi, Gurucandrikā | D. Srinivasachar & G. Venkatanarasimha Sastri | Mysuru | 1933
ASV | Advaitasiddhi, Bālabodhinī | Yogendranath Bagchi | Varanasi | 1971
NAB | Nyāyāmr̥ta et. al. | Krishna Tatacharya Pandurangi | Bengaluru | 1994
NAMu | Nyāyāmr̥ta, Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa | T. R. Krishnacharya | Mumbai | 1908
NAK | Nyāyāmr̥ta et. al. | Anantakrishna Sastri | Kolkata | 1934
NATMu | Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī | T. R Krishnacharya | Mumbai | 1910
NAPB | Nyāyāmr̥ta, Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa | A. Haridāsa Bhatta | Bengaluru | 2008

9 Text, translation, and commentary of the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga

9.1 TEXT 1: Defining “illusoriness” (mithyātva).

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

ucyate—mithyātvaṃ hi tvayaiva pakṣāntaraniṣedhena pañcadhā niruktam. tatrādye kiṃ sattve saty asattvarūpaviśiṣṭasyābhāvo ’bhipretaḥ? kiṃ vā sattvātyantābhāvāsattvātyantābhāvarūpadharmadvayam? yad vā sattvātyantābhāvavattve saty asattvātyantābhāvavattvarūpaṃ viśiṣṭam? (NAB: 53.)¹

Translation

[In response to the Advaita pūrvapakṣa just outlined, the following] is said: You yourself have defined “illusoriness” (mithyātva) in five different ways by refuting another position. With regard to the first of those [definitions of “illusoriness”, that is, “indeterminacy” in the form of “being the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence” (sadasattvānadhikaraṇatva)], do [you] mean:

–

M¹: the absence of a qualified entity (viśiṣṭa), namely “nonexistence qualified by existence”;

–

or M²: a pair of [distinct] properties, namely (a) the constant absence of existence and (b) the constant absence of nonexistence;

–

or M³: a qualified entity in the form of “the state of possessing the constant absence of nonexistence qualified by the state of possessing the constant absence of existence”?

Comments

The “other view” (pakṣāntara) Vyāsatīrtha refers to here is the preliminary position that he has established for his Advaitin opponent in the “Analysis of Illusoriness” (Mithyātvanirvacana) portion of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. In that part of the text, Vyāsatīrtha considered thirteen definitions of the term mithyātva, but he only accepted five of those as being worthy of deeper analysis. “Indeterminacy” is the first of those five definitions.

Vyāsatīrtha here presents three analyses of Citsukha’s definition of “indeterminacy” as sadasattvānadhikaraṇatvam. The differences between them may seem subtle, but they have a substantial impact on the arguments Vyāsatīrtha makes against each definition in the PMBh. Madhusūdana will argue² that the three analyses Vyā-satīrtha proposes in this passage do not exhaust all possible interpretations of Citsukha’s definition of “indeterminacy”, since we could also interpret the term anadhikaraṇatva (“not being the locus of …”) as referring to mutual, rather than relational, absences.

For the most part, Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in the PMBh are directed against M² and M³. In both cases, Vyāsatīrtha interprets the term “not being the locus of …” (anadhikaraṇatva) as referring to constant absences. However, whereas M² consists of two distinct absences, M³ is a single, qualified/compound entity (viśiṣṭa) made up of the two constant absences of existence/nonexistence. According to Vyāsatīrtha, this has important logical implications for the Advaitin’s case. M² consists of two separate things and, if the Advaitin uses it as their definition of “illusoriness”, then the probandumhood in his inferences is determined by two separate properties. If, on the other hand, the Advaitin accepts M³, then only one property will determine probandumhood in the inferences.

Vyāsatīrtha argues that adopting these definitions leads the Advaitin into different problems in either case, and so the majority of the PMBh is structured as a dilemma. If the Advaitin uses M² as the probandum in his inferences, Vyāsatīrtha argues that he will be guilty of trying to prove something that his Mādhva opponent already accepts, at least in one part of his conclusion (aṃśe siddhasādhana). If, on the other hand, the Advaitin favours M³, then the probandum in his inferences will be an “unestablished” entity (the flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā). Both amount to fatal flaws for the inferences. Vyāsatīrtha further argues that both analyses lead to a common set of flaws. Both are contradictory (vyāhati), both ultimately fall short of proving what the Advaitin philosopher needs to prove (arthāntara), and, under both analyses, the Advaitin’s example (the fake “silver”) would lack the probandum (sādhyavaikalya).

Sanskrit text (Advaitasiddhi)

nanu kim idaṃ mithyātvaṃ sādhyate? na tāvan mithyāśabdo ’nirvacanīyatāvacana iti pañcapādikāvacanāt [1]sadasattvānadhikaraṇatvarūpam[1] [2]anirvācyatvam[2]. tad dhi kim [3]asattvaviśiṣṭasattvābhāvaḥ[3]? uta sattvātyantābhāvāsattvātyantā-bhāvarūpaṃ dharmadvayam? āho svit [4]sattvātyantābhāvavattve[4] saty asattvā-tyantābhāvarūpaṃ viśiṣṭam? (NAB: 53–54.)³

sadasadanadhikaraṇatvam ASMu, ASMy

anirvacanīyatvam KD

sattvaviśiṣṭāsattvābhāvaḥ ASV, NAK (vl.)⁴

sattvātyantābhāvatve ASMy (vl.)

Translation

Objection (Vyāsatīrtha): Just what is this “illusoriness” (mithyātva), which you seek to prove [is present in the world]? In the first place, [“illusoriness” cannot be] “indeterminacy” in the form of “being the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence”, [which definition is] based on the words of Padmapāda’s Pañcapādikā, which says: “The word ‘illusory’ refers to indeterminacy.” For, is [this “indeterminacy”]:

–

M¹: the absence of existence-qualified-by-nonexistence;

–

or M²: a pair of properties, namely (a) the constant absence of existence and (b) the constant absence of nonexistence;

–

or M³: a qualified entity in the form of “the constant absence of nonexistence qualified by the state of possessing the constant absence of existence”?

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī)

siddhāntābhidhānaṃ pratijānīte—ucyata iti.

pañcadheti. sadasattvānadhikaraṇatvaṃ vā? sarvasmin pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvaṃ vā? jñānatvena jñānanivartyatvaṃ vā? svātyantā-bhāvādhikaraṇa eva pratīyamānatvaṃ vā? sadrūpatvābhāvo vā? iti pañcaprakā-rair mithyātvaṃ lakṣitam ity arthaḥ.

tatrādya iti. sadasattvānadhikaraṇatvam ity atra sacchabdaḥ sattvaparaḥ. tatra sattvaṃ kim asattvaviśeṣaṇaṃ vā? sattvāsattve pratyekam anadhikaraṇatvasya vi-śeṣaṇaṃ vā? sacchabdāt parato ’nadhikaraṇatvaśabdarūpamadhyamapadalopisa-māsāśrayaṇena sattvānadhikaraṇatvasya viśeṣaṇaṃ vābhipretam iti praśnavākyā-rthaḥ. (NAB: 55.)⁵

Translation

[Vyāsatīrtha] introduces [his] statement of the final position (siddhānta)—“It is said …” (ucyate).

“Fivefold …” (pañcadhā). What [Vyāsatīrtha] means is that “illusoriness” is defined in five different ways. Is [“illusoriness”]:

–

1. “Being the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence”;

–

or 2. [Something’s] “being the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence in every substrate where [it] was taken [to exist]”;

–

or 3. “Being liable to be cancelled by a cognition by virtue of the fact that [the cancelling cognition] is a cognition”;

–

or 4. [Something’s] “being experienced in the very locus of its own constant absence”;

–

or 5. “The absence of the quality of being existent by essence”?

“In regard to the first of those [definitions] …” (tatrādye). In the compound “being the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence” (sadasattvānadhikaraṇatva), the word sat (“existent/what is existent”) means “existence” (sat-tva). In regard to this [definition of “indeterminacy”], is existence the qualifier of nonexistence? Or are existence and nonexistence individually the qualifiers of the state of “not being a locus …” (anadhikaraṇatva)? Or is the quality of not being the locus of existence understood to be the qualifier [of the quality of not being the locus of nonexistence], by taking the [whole] compound to have an elided medial word, namely the word “not being the locus of …” (anadhikaraṇatva), which would occur just after the word “existent” (sat)? This is the meaning of [Vyāsatīrtha’s] question.

Comments

In definitions (2), (4), and (5) of “illusoriness” here, Rāmācārya gives slightly different definitions to the ones that Vyāsatīrtha himself refers to in the Advaita pūrvapakṣa of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. These modifications are all based on Vyāsatīrtha’s analyses in the early chapters of the text, however. Rāmācārya goes on to give some grammatical explanation of how Vyāsatīrtha derives the three interpretations of the compound sadasattvānadhikaraṇatvam presented at the beginning of the PMBh.

9.2 TEXT 2: The charge of siddhasādhana.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

nādyaḥ, manmate sadekasvabhāve jagati tasya siddhatvāt. (NAB: 53.)⁶

Translation

M¹ is not tenable, because, in my view, [the absence of nonexistence-qualified-by-existence] is [already] established in the world, which is[, so far as I am concerned,] purely existent by essence.

Comments

Vyāsatīrtha dismisses M¹ summarily. A means of knowledge such as inference must reveal to us something that we do not already know. However, if the Advaitin accepts M¹ as his analysis of “illusoriness”, then he is really proving something that his Mādhva opponent already accepts. According to Vyāsatīrtha and the Mādhvas, the world is, by its very essence, existent. Consequently, Vyāsatīrtha already accepts that the world has the absence of “nonexistence-qualified-by-existence”, and so the Advaitin is proving something that is already well-established to his opponent.

Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka analyse this argument using the principles of the Navya-Nyāya theory about the conditions under which the absence of a qualified/compound entity (viśiṣṭa) occurs in some location. The Nyāyakośa explains that the absence of (1) the qualifier, (2) the qualificandum, or (3) the entire qualified entity itself all occasion the absence of the compound entity in question. Take, for instance, some location (L) and the qualified entity “b qualified by/compounded with⁷ a”, where a is the qualifier (viśeṣaṇa), and b is the qualificandum (viśeṣya). According to the Navya-Naiyāyikas, the absence of the entire compound entity from L can be occasioned by either (1) the absence of a from L, (2) the absence of b from L, or (3) the absence of both a and b from L.⁸

Following this principle, we can say that any one of the following could occasion the absence of “nonexistence-qualified-by-existence” from the world:

the absence of the qualifier, i.e. existence; or

the absence of the qualificandum, i.e. nonexistence;

the absence of the compound entity, i.e. “nonexistence-qualified-by-existence”.

The Mādhva, who accepts that the world is by its very essence existent, necessarily accepts (2), i.e. that the world has the absence of nonexistence. Hence he logically accepts that the world has the absence of the entire qualified entity, and thus the Advaitin is guilty of proving something that his Mādhva opponent already accepts. Madhusūdana makes no attempt to defend M¹ against this argument, and instead focuses on M² and M³ in his defence of indeterminacy.

Sanskrit text (Advaitasiddhi)

nādyaḥ, sattvamātrādhāre jagaty [1]asattvaviśiṣṭasattvānabhyupagamāt[1], viśiṣṭā-bhāvasādhane siddhasādhanāt.

na dvitīyaḥ, sattvāsattvayor ekābhāve ’parasattvāvaśyakatvena vyāghātāt. nirdharmakabrahmavat [2]sattvarāhitye[2] ’pi sadrūpatvenāmithyātvopapattyārthā-ntarāc ca.

śuktirūpye ’bādhyatvarūpasattva[3]virahe ’pi[3] bādhyatvarūpāsattvasya vyatirekāsiddhyā sādhyavaikalyāc ca.

ata eva na tr̥tīyaḥ; pūrvavad vyāghātāt, [4]arthāntarāt[4], sādhyavaikalyāc ceti cet; maivam, sattvātyantābhāvāsattvātyantābhāvarūpadharmadvayavivakṣāyāṃ doṣābhāvāt. … (NAB: 54.)⁹

sattvaviśiṣṭāsattvānabhyupagamāt ASV

sattvāsattvarāhitye ASMu, ASMy

vyatirekasya sattvena Σ(–KD, ASV); vyatirekasya sattve ’pi ASV

arthāntaratvāt KD

Translation

Objection (Vyāsatīrtha): M¹ is not tenable. For, [I] do not accept that the world, which [for me] is the locus of existence alone, has [the compound property of] “existence-qualified-by-nonexistence”. Hence if [you, the Advaitin,] prove [that the world has] the absence of [this] compound entity, it follows that you are proving something that is already established [for me].

M² is [also] untenable. For, if one or the other of existence or nonexistence is absent [from some location], the other must be present [in that same location]; hence it is contradictory [to prove that the world has the constant absences of both existence and nonexistence]. Moreover, [M² is not tenable] because [if you adopt it as the definition of “illusoriness” in your inferences,] then you are failing to prove what you intended to prove (arthāntara). For, even if [the world] lacks [the quality of] existence, it is [still] possible that [it] lacks “illusoriness” [defined as such]. For, even though [the world] lacks the quality of existence, it could nevertheless be existent by essence, just as in the case of [your] quality-free brahman[, which, according to you Advaitins is existent by essence, despite lacking the quality of existence].

Further, [M² is not tenable] because [if you adopt it as the probandum in your inferences, then your example] lacks the probandum. For, even though the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl lacks “existence” in the form of “nonsublatability”, it is not established that [the “silver”] has the [other component of the probandum, that is,] the absence of “nonexistence” in the form of “sublatability”[, because the silver clearly is liable to sublation].

For the very same reasons [the probandum in your inferences cannot be] M³. For, just as in the case of the previous definition [(M²)], there would be a contradiction, [your inferences would] fail to prove what you intended to prove (arthāntara), and [your example would] lack the probandum.

Reply (Madhusūdana): This is all wrong! For, there is no flaw if what is meant [by “indeterminacy”] is [M², i.e.] “a pair of properties in the form of the constant absence of existence and the constant absence of nonexistence”. …

Comments

Madhusūdana here repeats Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of the Advaitins’ position before going on to indicate that he regards M² as an acceptable definition of “illusoriness”. Madhusūdana begins his defence of M² in TEXT 3, below, by defending it against the charge of contradiction.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī)

manmata iti. viśeṣyābhāvāyatto viśiṣṭābhāvo ’stīty arthaḥ. (NAB: 55.)¹⁰

Translation

“In my view …” (manmate). What [Vyāsatīrtha] means is that [the world has] the absence of the qualified entity (viśiṣṭa)[, i.e. “nonexistence-qualified-by-existence”], which is occasioned by the absence of the qualificandum (viśeṣya) [i.e. nonexistence].

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra)

manmata iti. asattvarūpaviśeṣyābhāvāpannasya viśiṣṭābhāvasya siddhatvena siddhasādhanam iti bhāvaḥ. (NAB: 60.)

Translation

“In my view …” (manmata). Since it is [already] established [to us Mādhvas that the world] has the absence of the compound entity[, i.e. “nonexistence-compounded-with-existence”], which absence is occasioned by the absence of the qualificandum in the form of nonexistence, [you] are proving something that is already established [to your opponent]. This is the idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s words].

9.3 TEXT 3: The charge of contradiction.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

na dvitīyaḥ, vyāhateḥ. (NAB: 53.)¹¹

Translation

M² is untenable, because [it leads to a] contradiction.

Comments

See above, Chapter 6, pp. 162–173, for a detailed discussion of Vyāsatīrtha’s case that indeterminacy is a disguised contradiction in the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

Sanskrit text (Advaitasiddhi)

… na ca vyāhatiḥ. sā hi sattvāsattvayoḥ parasparaviraharūpatayā vā? [1]parasparavirahavyāpakatayā[1] vā? parasparavirahavyāpyatayā vā?

[2]nādyaḥ[2], tadanaṅgīkārāt. tathā hi—atra trikālābādhyatvarūpasattvavyatireko nāsattvam, kiṃ tu kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratīyamānatvānadhikaraṇatvam; tadvyatirekaś ca sādhyatvena vivakṣitaḥ. tathā ca trikālābādhyavilakṣaṇatve sati kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratīyamānatvarūpaṃ sādhyaṃ paryavasitam.

evaṃ ca sati [3]na śuktirūpye[3] sādhyavaikalyam api, bādhyatvarūpāsattvavyatirekasya sādhyāpraveśāt. nāpi vyāghātaḥ, parasparaviraharūpatvābhāvāt.

ata eva na dvitīyo ’pi, sattvābhāvavati śuktirūpye vivakṣitāsattvavyatirekasya vidyamānatvena vyabhicārāt.

nāpi tr̥tīyaḥ, tasya vyāghātāprayojakatvāt; gotvāśvatvayoḥ parasparavirahavyāpyatve ’pi tadabhāvayor uṣṭrādāv ekatra sahopalambhāt. (NAB: 54.)¹²

parasparavirahaṃ vyāpakatayā KD

tatra nādyaḥ Σ(–ASV, KD)

śuktirūpye na KD

Translation

Nor does [M² lead to] contradiction. For, does [this contradiction] follow because:

–

Reason (R)¹: existence and nonexistence are each essentially identical with the absence of the other?

–

R²: existence and nonexistence each pervade the absence of the other?

–

R³: existence and nonexistence are each pervaded by the other’s absence?¹³

R¹ is not tenable, because [I] do not accept [that existence and nonexistence are each identical with the absence of the other]. To explain—[In this definition of “indeterminacy”], nonexistence does not consist in the absence of existence in the form of “omnitemporal non-sublatability”. Rather, [nonexistence] consists in the quality of “not being the locus of the state of being experienced¹⁴ as existent in some substrate¹⁵ or other”; and, [we] mean to say that the absence of [nonexistence so-defined,] is [part of] the probandum. Hence the probandum amounts to: “being cognised as existent in some substrate, while being different from what is not liable to sublation in all three times.”¹⁶

This being so, the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl[, which is the example in Ānandabodha’s inferences], does not lack the probandum [as you, Vyāsatīrtha, have claimed]. For, the absence of nonexistence in the form of “being liable to sublation” is not inserted into the probandum. Nor is there contradiction, since [existence and nonexistence so-defined] are not each identical with the other’s absence.

For this very same reason, R² is untenable. For, since the absence of nonexistence in the way [we] have defined it is found in the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl, which is devoid of existence, it follows that there is a deviation [between existence and the absence of nonexistence because the thing that was taken to be pervaded—the absence of existence—is found together with the absence of nonexistence, which nonexistence was taken to pervade it].

Nor is R³ tenable, because it does not lead to a contradiction. For, even though cowness and horseness[, for instance,] are each pervaded by the absence of the other, their respective absences are observed to be present in a single location, e.g., a camel.

Comments

See above, Chapter 6, pp. 167–173, for a detailed discussion of Madhusūdana’s arguments in this passage.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 1)

…¹⁷ iti cet, maivam. asac cet, na pratīyeteti vadatā tvayā uktāpratītiṃ prati prayojakasya pratītyanupādhikasya sattvavirodhino ’sattvasya vaktavyatvāt; asattvābhā-vaḥ sattvena pratīyamānatve paryavasanna iti tatsādhanasya vyarthatvāt.

na cāsadvailakṣaṇyasiddhyarthaṃ tatsādhanam iti vācyam, pratīyamānatvasyāsatsādhāraṇatvāt. tad dhaika āhur asad evedam agra āsīd ity asataḥ sattvena pratīteḥ śrutyānūditatvāt.

na cāsata iva pratīter anuvādo na pratītisattām āpādayatīti vācyam, asataḥ sattvena [1]pratītimanta[1] eka iti asatpratīteḥ sattvasyaivokteḥ.

na ca tad dhaika āhur iti śrutyā sad eva [2]somyedam[2] agra āsīd iti śrutyarthasyābhāva eva pratipādyate niṣedhāyeti vācyam, sad eva [3]somyedam[3] iti śrutyarthābhāvasyāsattvenāsataḥ sattvapratītyanivāraṇāt. (NAB: 55–56.)¹⁸

pratītimata NAB, NAK

saumya NAB, NAK

saumyedam NAK

Translation

If [it is argued, as Madhusūdana does, that the charge of contradiction does not apply to M²], then this is wrong. For, if [you, the Advaitin,] argue [in favour of the indeterminacy of the “silver”] that, “If [the ‘silver’] were nonexistent, [it] would not be experienced”, then [you] must refer to a “nonexistence” that is characterised by the absence of experience, which is the reason for the stated failure to experience [the “silver”], and which stands in contradiction to existence. For, if [nonexistence is taken to be “not being experienced as existent in some substrate” then] “the absence of nonexistence” resolves into “being experienced as existent”, and proving that [the silver lacks “nonexistence”] is pointless [since it is already clear that we experience the “silver” as being existent].

Objection (Advaitin): Our purpose in proving [that the silver has the absence of nonexistence understood as Madhusūdana has defined it] is to show that [it] has the quality of being different from what is nonexistent. Reply: Do not argue as such! For the quality of being an object of experience belongs to what is nonexistent too. For, śruti [itself] recounts the experience of what is nonexistent as existent when it says, “As they say, this was nonexistent alone in the beginning …” (ChU 6.2.1).

Objection (Advaitin): The recounting [in this passage of the Chāndogya Upani-ṣad] of the experience of [what is nonexistent as being existent] does not confirm that this experience [of what is nonexistent] really took place, any more than it confirms that [in the beginning there was only] what is nonexistent. Reply: Do not argue as such! For, the passage does state the reality of the experience of what is nonexistent when it refers to “some …” who have an experience of what is nonexistent as existent.

Objection: The śruti passage, “As they say, [this was nonexistent alone in the beginning]” (ChU 6.2.1), merely communicates the negation of the sense of the [preceding] passage of śruti, “There was being alone in the beginning, son,” in order that [the passage that states that there was nonexistence alone in the beginning] should be denied [by the subsequent words of the text].¹⁹ Reply: Do not argue as such! For the negation of the sense [of the previous śruti passage] by the [subsequent] śruti passage, “This was being alone in the beginning, son,” does not rule out the fact that what is nonexistent was experienced as existent.

Comments

Rāmācārya now responds to Madhusūdana’s attempt to solve the problem of contradiction. Madhusūdana argued that the charge of contradiction fails because “nonexistence” is nothing more than “not being experienced as existent in some substrate or other”. Rāmācārya’s first argument is that it is quite pointless to prove that the “silver” has the absence of the property of nonexistence as Madhusūdana has defined it. If “nonexistence” is simply “not being experienced as existent”, then the “absence nonexistence” must consist in “being experienced as existent”. However, it is surely clear from the experience itself that the “silver” is experienced as existent. No one doubts that the victim of the illusion mistakenly takes the “silver” to be an existent object. So what is the point in proving that the silver has that quality?

Moreover, Rāmācārya argues that Madhusūdana’s definition fails to truly articulate a distinction between what is “nonexistent” and what is “illusory”, because nonexistent things too can be falsely taken to exist. He finds evidence for this in a famous passage from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. In this passage, Uddālaka Āruṇi tells his son Śvetaketu that the world originated in existence. He then goes on to report the views of other thinkers who argue that the world originated in nonexistence, but rejects this view as absurd and reasserts his own claim that the world originated in existence. Rāmācārya’s point is that in reporting this misconception about the original state of the universe, the Upaniṣad is confirming that what is nonexistent was (mistakenly) taken to exist. The obvious retort is that this is a false view that the Upaniṣad adduces merely so that it can subsequently be refuted. However, the claim that this judgment is false does not imply that it never took place. The fact that the Upaniṣad reports and denies it seems to imply that some people did indeed take what is nonexistent to exist.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra, 1)

yad uktam, kva cid apy upādhau sattvenāpratīyamānatvam asattvaṃ vivakṣitam iti parasparavirahārūpatayā na vyāghāta iti, tan na. etādr̥śe ’sattve ’ṅgīkriyamāṇa etādr̥śasya bauddhena prapañce ’naṅgīkāreṇa bauddhena saha vivādo na syāt.

kiṃ ca yady uktarūpam asattvam, tarhy asac cet, na pratīyeteti prayojyaprayojakabhāvo na syāt; abhedāt. api ca brahmaṇy aṅgīkr̥tasattvavirodhina evāsattvasya vaktavyatvenaitādr̥śāsattvasyāvaktavyatvāt. (NAB: 62.)

Translation

Objection (Madhusūdana): What is meant by “nonexistence” is “the state of not being experienced as though existent in some substrate or other”, and so [existence and nonexistence] are not each identical with the absence of the other. Hence there is no contradiction [in proving that the world has neither existence nor nonexistence]. Reply: This is wrong! If [you] accept nonexistence defined as such, then, since [even] the [nihilistic-]Buddhist does not accept that [that sort of “nonexistence”] is present in the world, there would be no disagreement [between you] and [those] Buddhists[, and yet you claim there is such a disagreement].

Moreover, if nonexistence is of the form [you] have stated it to be, when you make the argument, “If [the ‘silver’] were nonexistent, it could not be experienced”, [the two terms involved in the argument, i.e., “not-being-experienced” and “nonexistence”] could not stand in relation to each other as consequent and reason [respectively], since there would be no difference [between “nonexistence” and “not being experienced”]. Moreover, since [in making this argument you yourself] must refer to a “nonexistence” that stands in contradiction to the “existence” that [you] accept is present in brahman[, i.e., “omnitemporal non-sublatability”, you yourself] cannot refer to “nonexistence” in the form of [“not being experienced as though existing in some substrate or other”].

Comments

Most of these arguments are drawn from the Nyāyāmr̥ta itself, particularly the Dvitīyamithyātvabhaṅga. See above, Chapter 6, pp. 173–184, for a discussion of the relevant passages. The “Bauddha” that Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka has in mind is, of course, the “nihilist” (śūnyavādin) who holds that the world is completely nonexistent, insofar as it is altogether lacking in essence (niḥsvarūpa).

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra, 2)

kva cid apy upādhāv ity atropādheḥ sattvaṃ vivakṣitam, na vā? ādye brahmaṇo ’pi sadrūpopādhau sattvenāpratīyamānatvenāsattvāpātaḥ, śuktirūpye ’tivyāptiś ca.

dvitīye yatkiñcidupādhau śaśaviṣāṇāder api śaśaviṣāṇam astīti vākyābhāsā-dinā tad dhaika āhur asad evedam agra āsīd ity ādiśrutyā ca sattvena pratītisadbhāvād asambhavaḥ. (NAB: 62.)

Translation

[In your definition of nonexistence as “not being cognised as though existent in some substrate or other”,] do you accept that the substrate [referred to] in the phrase “in some substrate or other” (kva cid apy upādhau) is existent, or not? If [you accept that the substrate does exist, then], since brahman itself is[, according to you,] not cognised as though it exists in a substrate that is existent by essence, it follows that [brahman] too must be “nonexistent”! Moreover, the [definition of nonexistence] would[, in that case,] apply inappropriately to the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl [because the “silver” too is not cognised as existent in some existent location, since you hold that the mother-of-pearl itself is “illusory” and therefore not existent].

If [you accept that the “substrate” referred to in this definition does not exist,] then [your definition of “nonexistence”] fails to apply to any nonexistent thing (asambhava). For, we can have the cognition of a hare’s horn, etc., as existent in some location or other by means of a false statement such as, “There is a hare’s horn”, or even by scripture itself which states, “As they say, this was nonexistent alone in the beginning” (ChU 6.2.1).

Comments

Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka now draws on Vyāsatīrtha’s own arguments in the Nyāyāmr̥ta to respond to Madhusūdana’s attempts to define nonexistence. He contends that Madhusūdana’s definition of “nonexistence” is simply inapplicable (asambhava) to nonexistent things. Like Vyāsatīrtha, he points out that certain speech acts such as lies, for instance, can induce cognitions that nonexistent things are real. If, for instance, a young child who is unaware that hares never have horns were to be told that they do, there would be nothing to stop her from having a cognition such as “There is a hare with a horn in such and such a place”.

9.4 TEXT 4: The charge of arthāntara.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

nirdharmakabrahmavat sattvarāhitye ’pi sadrūpatvenāmithyātvopapattyārthāntarāc ca. (NAB: 53.)²⁰

Translation

Moreover, [M² is not a tenable definition of “illusoriness”] because [if you adopt it as the probandum in your inferences, then those inferences would] fail to prove what you really intend to prove (arthāntara). For, even though [the world] might lack the quality of existence (sat-tva), [it could] still be existent by essence, and hence devoid of “illusoriness” [defined as M²], just as [you, the Advaitin, accept that] brahman is free from all qualities[, yet is existent by essence].

Comments

Vyāsatīrtha now argues that M² suffers from the flaw of arthāntara, a charge that he will claim also applies to M³ (TEXT 7). In the classical debate manuals, arthāntara is technically a “defeater” or “clincher” (nigrahasthāna). In the way that Vyāsatīrtha uses the term, it applies when an inferential argument falls short of proving the conclusion that the person making that argument really wants to prove. In the inference at hand, it applies because even if the Advaitin successfully proves that the world has M² (“the constant absence of existence and the constant absence of nonexistence”), he has still not conclusively proved that the world does not exist. For, it is still possible that the world is “existent” by its very essence, without having the property of existence.

Vyāsatīrtha points out that the Advaitins themselves accept a case where something may lack the quality of existence but nevertheless still be said to “exist”: brahman itself. Although the Advaitins argue that brahman is really free from qualities, including existence, they still accept that it is existent by essence. Could not the same be said for the world? Can we not say that the world lacks both the qualities of existence and nonexistence, but is, nevertheless, essentially existent, as Vyāsatīrtha has already indicated he accepts?²¹ In themselves, Ānandabodha’s inferences fail to rule out this contingency, and thus fail to prove conclusively that the world is “indeterminate”.

Sanskrit text (Advaitasiddhi)

[1]yac ca[1] [2]nirdharmakasya brahmaṇaḥ[2] sattvarāhitye ’pi [3]sadrūpavat[3] prapañ-casya sadrūpatvenāmithyātvopapattyārthāntaram uktam, tan na. ekenaiva sarvā-nugatena [4]sarvatra[4] satpratītyupapattau brahmavat [5]pratyekaṃ prapañcasya[5] satsvabhāvatākalpane mānābhāvāt, anugatavyavahārābhāvaprasaṅgāc ca.

satpratiyogikāsatpratiyogikabhedadvayaṃ vā sādhyam. tathā cobhayātmakatve ’nyatarātmakatve vā tādr̥gbhedāsambhavena tābhyām arthāntarānavakāśaḥ. (NAB: 54.)²²

yat tu NAK

nirdharmakabrahmaṇaḥ KD

sadrūpatvavat ASV, NAK

sattvena sarvatra ASV (vl.), KD

prapañcasya pratyekaṃ ASMu, ASMy, NAK

Translation

[Vyāsatīrtha] has argued that just as [for us Advaitins] the quality-free brahman is existent by essence even though it lacks the quality of existence, the world too could be existent by essence [despite lacking the quality of existence], and would thus lack “illusoriness” [defined as M²]. This is wrong! For, it is possible to explain the cognitions we have that each thing in the world is existent by [postulating] just a single consecutive (anugata) thing[, i.e. the existent brahman, which is the substrate upon which those things are superimposed]. Hence there is no reason to postulate that, like brahman, each thing in the world is, individually, existent by essence. Moreover, [Vyāsatīrtha’s argument is wrong because were we to assume that each and every thing in the world is existent by essence,] it would follow that there could be no consecutive discourse (anugatavyavahāra) [which groups together distinct individuals as being “existent”].

Alternatively, let the probandum [in Ānandabodha’s inferences] consist in a pair of differences: the difference from what is existent, and the difference from what is nonexistent. Thus, if [the world] were essentially identical with both [what is existent and what is nonexistent], or with either one of [them], it could not have the relevant differences. Hence, there would be no scope for applying the flaw of arthāntara.

Comments

Vyāsatīrtha has claimed that the Advaitins’ inferences fail to conclusively prove that the world is illusory/indeterminate. Even if the Advaitin succeeds in proving that the world has the absences of the qualities of existence and nonexistence, it might still be existent by its very essence, and thus not “indeterminate” as the Advaitin wants to prove. Madhusūdana responds to this objection by arguing that the claim that the world is “existent by essence” is not plausible, since this theory is simply unable to account for the fact of “consecutive discourse” (anugatavyavahāra).²³ “Consecutive discourse” refers to the fact that we frequently seem to attribute the same quality to numerically distinct individuals. According to Bagchi’s analysis in the Bālabodhinī, such discourse consists in a group of statements that attribute the same qualifier to different qualificanda through the same relationship. In other words, consecutive discourse consists in a group of statements of the form:

x (qualificandum) is F (qualifier) by R (relationship).

The qualificandum (x) is variable in each case: we can attribute the same qualifier to any number of different individuals (we can say that “the pot exists”, “the cloth exists”, and so on). However, Bagchi suggests that two things must remain constant in each case: (1) the qualifier itself (F) and (2) the relator that relates the qualifier to the qualificandum (R).

Why do we attribute the same property of “existence” to distinct individuals in this way? Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers explain this fact by claiming that “existence” (sattā) is a single universal (jāti) that is instantiated in these various individuals. We speak about substances, tropes, and motions all as being “existent” because they all instantiate the self-same property of existence. According to the Advaitins’ explanation, on the other hand, brahman itself, being essentially existent, is the singular existent thing that accounts for the fact that we cognise distinct individuals in the empirical world as existent. We speak of these individuals as being “existent” because they are superimposed on this substrate of pure being.

The Mādhvas reject both of these theories. According to them, we speak of the things in the world around us as “existent” not because they possess a singular universal property, or because they are somehow superimposed on brahman. The Mā-dhva theory is rather a pluralistic claim that each and every thing in the world is, individually, existent by its very essence. We speak of them all as being “existent” because of the innate similarity between them in this respect.

According to Madhusūdana, there is no real proof in favour of the Mādhva theory, and it is directly contradicted by the facts about how we speak and think. The Mādhva theory lacks proof because it is cumbersome in comparison to the Advaitins’ monistic stance. In explaining why we have the cognitions “the pot exists” (ghaṭaḥ san), “the cloth exists” (paṭaḥ san), and so on, the theory that brahman is existent by essence entails that we only need to postulate the existence of a single thing. By contrast, the theory that each and every thing in the world is, individually, existent means that we must postulate the existence of an incalculably large number of entities. Consequently, the Advaitins’ theory seems to have the advantage of parsimony over the Mādhvas’.

In fact, Madhusūdana believes that the Mādhva theory completely fails to account for the phenomenon of consecutive discourse. In theorising that each and every thing in the world is, individually, existent by essence, the Mādhva is effectively claiming that in each and every case where we refer to something as “existent”, the qualifier is a distinct property. How can this explain the fact that we refer to all of these diverse things as “existent”? Why should we group together numerically distinct individuals that share no common property? The Mādhvas’ pluralistic theory simply cannot account for our propensity to ascribe the property of “existence” to so many distinct individuals.

The upshot of all of this is that the charge of arthāntara cannot apply to Ānandabodha’s inferences. What Vyāsatīrtha cites as a “contingency” which the inference fails to rule out is no contingency at all. The pluralistic claim that the individuals in the world are by their very essence existent is incompatible with the facts of our speech and thought and is superseded by the Advaitins’ more parsimonious account of why this occurs.

Madhusūdana has a further line of argument against Vyāsatīrtha. In all three of his analyses of the compound sadasattvānadhikaraṇatva, Vyāsatīrtha has assumed that the word anadhikaraṇa should be interpreted as referring to constant absences (atyantābhāva). However, the term could also be interpreted to refer to mutual absences/differences (anyonyābhāva/bheda). Something may lack the quality x-ness and still “be” x; brahman, for instance, can lack the quality of existence (sattva) but nevertheless be existent by essence. However, something cannot be essentially the same as x and be different from x—something cannot be identical with something else and simultaneously have the mutual absence from that thing. Hence, if it is interpreted to refer to mutual absences/differences, the probandum does rule out the contingency that the world is existent by essence. Hence, argues Madhusūdana, Vyāsatīrtha is wrong to apply the flaw of arthāntara to Ānandabodha’s inferences in this way.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī)

nirdharmaketi. ubhayābhāvasādhane ’pi brahmavat sadrūpatvānupamardād ity arthaḥ.

nanv ekenaiva sarvānugatena sarvatra satpratītyupapattau brahmavat pratyekaṃ prapañcasya satsvabhāvatākalpane mānābhāvāt, anugatavyavahārābhā-vaprasaṅgāc ca. satpratiyogikāsatpratiyogikabhedadvayaṃ vā sādhyam. tathā cobhayātmakatve ’nyatarātmakatve vā tādr̥gbhedābhāvena tābhyām arthāntarānavakāśa iti [1]cet[1].

maivam; rajataṃ vināpi śuktau rajatapratītivyavahārādidarśanāt. satpadārthaṃ vināpi satpratītyāder upapattāv atilāghavam iti brahmāpi sadrūpaṃ na sidhyet. pramitatvād brahma sadrūpam iti tu jagaty api tulyam.

etenānekasatkalpanarūpabādhakatarkasahakr̥tasattvābhāvānumānam eva sadrūpatvābhāve ’pi paryavasyatīti, na sadrūpatvenārthāntaram iti nirastam; tarkasya pramitasadrūpatvānapavādakatvāt. anyathā sattvābhāvānumānasya lāghavena prātītikasattvābhāve ’pi [2]paryavasānena[2] jagat śūnyam eva syād iti sādhūktam, arthāntarāc ceti.

sadasadubhayānyonyābhāvasya sādhyatāyāṃ tu vyāhatisādhyavaikalyādir doṣo ’sty eva. (NAB: 56–57.)²⁴

om. NAMu

paryavasāne NAK

Translation

“Free from qualities …” (nirdharmaka). For, even if [the Advaitin] establishes that [the world has] the absences of both [existence and nonexistence, he would not] have ruled out [the possibility that the world is,] like brahman, existent by essence. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means.

Objection (Madhusūdana): It is possible to explain the cognitions we have that each thing in the world is existent by [postulating] just a single consecutive (anugata) thing[, i.e. brahman itself], and hence there is no reason to postulate that, like brahman, each thing in the world is, individually, existent by essence. Moreover, [Vyāsatīrtha’s argument is wrong, because were we to assume that each and every thing in the world is existent by essence,] it would follow that there would not be consecutive discourse (anugatavyavahāra). Or, let the probandum [in Ānandabodha’s inferences] consist in a pair of differences: the difference from what is existent, and the difference from what is nonexistent. Thus, if [the world] were essentially identical with both [what is existent and what is nonexistent], or with either one of [them], it could not have the relevant differences. Hence, there is no scope for the flaw of arthāntara.

Reply: Wrong! For, [we] observe that even though there is no silver present in the mother-of-pearl, we still have a cognition of “silver”, as well as talking about [the “silver”, reaching to pick it up,] and so on. Since we can experience [and talk about] what is “existent” even in the absence of an existent thing, by stringent application of the principle of parsimony it would not even be established that brahman [itself] is existent by essence! If [you claim] that brahman is existent by essence because [it is] an object of knowledge, then the same could [be said] of the world [which is an object of knowledge, so far as we Mādhvas are concerned].

This same [reasoning] refutes the following argument—“There is no flaw of arthāntara on the ground that [the world] might be existent by essence. For, the inference to establish that [the world] lacks [the property of] existence—insofar as [that inference] is assisted by the hypothetical reasoning (tarka) that rules out [the conclusion that the world is existent by essence, since that would entail] the postulation of numerous existent entities—ends up establishing that [the world] is not existent by essence too.” For, this hypothetical reasoning cannot show that something which is an object of knowledge is not existent by essence. If it could, then since the inference that proves that [the world has] the absence of existence would, on the basis of parsimony, end up proving that [the world] lacks practical (prātītika) existence as well, it would follow that the world is simply void[, as the nihilistic Buddhists claim]! Therefore, it was proper [of Vyāsatīrtha] to say, “… and because [you are] guilty of failing to prove what you intended to prove” (arthāntarāc ca).

On the other hand, if[, as Madhusūdana has argued,] the probandum [can] consist in the mutual absences from both what is existent and what is nonexistent, then the flaws of contradiction, [the example’s] lacking-the-probandum, and so on still apply [to the inference].

Comments

Rāmācārya here considers Madhusūdana’s response to Vyāsatīrtha’s charge of arthāntara. Madhusūdana’s response to Vyāsatīrtha was that the principle of parsimony rules out the Mādhva theory that the things that make up the empirical world are individually existent by essence. It is simply more parsimonious to assume that there is a single, existent substrate—brahman itself—that explains why we judge all the things in the world around us to be “existent”.

Rāmācārya responds to Madhusūdana’s argument with a reductio ad absurdum. A rigorous application of the principle of parsimony does not favour the Advaitins’ monistic position; it actually favours out-and-out nihilism! It seems to be a fact that we sometimes judge things to be present even where no such thing exists. So far as Mādhva philosophers are concerned, the case of the silver/mother-of-pearl confusion shows us that we can think and talk about “silver” even though no such object exists before our eyes. So, pushing the principle of parsimony to its logical conclusion, why should we assume that even brahman itself is existent by essence? Would it not be more parsimonious to assume that the various things in the world around us appear as existent even in the absence of an existent substrate? Parsimony thus seems to open the door to the nihilism of the śūnyavādin.

Rāmācārya shows how this objection applies to a more formal presentation of Madhusūdana’s argument. In themselves, Ānandabodha’s inferences simply prove that the world lacks the quality of “existence”. However, this inference is assisted by the further consideration that it is more parsimonious to explain our diverse perceptions of existence by postulating the existence of a single underlying property than it is to assume that the innumerable things that make up the world are each “existent by essence”. Aided by this hypothetical reasoning, the inference ends up proving not just that the world lacks the quality of existence, but that it cannot be existent by essence either.

Rāmācārya argues that this formal presentation of the argument is also liable to the reductio ad absurdum just outlined. If Madhusūdana claims that hypothetical reasoning on the basis of parsimony could rule out the existence of something that is an object of knowledge, then Ānandabodha’s inferences must surely end up proving the nihilist philosopher’s position, not the Advaitins’. If we apply the principle of parsimony rigorously, then an inference to prove that the world lacks the quality of existence would ultimately end up proving that it lacks even the provisional, “practical” existence that the Advaitins ascribe to it. No entities are, after all, fewer than one!

Finally, Rāmācārya considers Madhusūdana’s argument (above, TEXT 4) that “indeterminacy” could be interpreted to consist in mutual absences/differences rather than relational absences. He does not try to argue that arthāntara would apply in this case, but simply refers his Advaitin opponents to the range of other flaws that Vyāsatīrtha has cited against the inferences in the PMBh.

9.5 TEXT 5: The Advaitin’s conclusion is already established.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

“pr̥thivī itarabhinnā, pr̥thivītvāt” ity atra trayodaśānyonyābhāvānām ivātrāpi [1]sattvāsattvātyantābhāvayoḥ[1] pratyekaṃ prasiddhatvena kathaṃ cid aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvābhāve ’py asattvātyantābhāvāṃśe siddhasādhanāc ca. na hi siddham asiddhena [2]sahoccaritam[2] asiddhaṃ bhavati.

“pr̥thivī itarabhinnā …” ity atra tu jalādyekaikānyonyābhāvo ’pi na pr̥thivītvopahite siddhaḥ. (NAB: 53.)²⁵

sattvātyantābhāvāsattvātyantābhāvayoḥ NAK

sahocyamānam NAMu (vl.)

Translation

Let it be that, somehow, [adopting M² as the definition of “illusoriness”] does not lead to [the subject in Ānandabodha’s inferences] having an unestablished qualifier[/probandum] (aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā). For, in those [inferences], the constant absences of existence and nonexistence could [already] be established separately [in what is nonexistent and what is existent, respectively], just as in the case of the [universal-negative] inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories], because [it has] earthness”, where the thirteen mutual absences [of earth from the remaining substances and categories are established in different locations before the inference is made]. Nevertheless, [M² is not tenable as a definition of “illusoriness”] because [if you adopt it as the probandum in your inferences, then you are] proving something that is already established [to me, the Mādhva,] in that part [of the probandum] that consists in the constant absence of nonexistence[, since I already accept that the world lacks nonexistence]. For, what is established does not become unestablished simply because it is mentioned alongside something that is unestablished!²⁶

[It might be objected that, in that case, the same flaw of partial-siddhasādhana would apply to the earth-inference also, since the thirteen mutual absences that make up its probandum could be established in one part of the subject—an earthen pot, for instance—prior to the inference being made.] However, unlike [in Ānandabodha’s inferences], in the case of the inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]”, each individual mutual absence from water and so on is not established in something that possesses earthness [before the inference takes place, and hence the flaw of siddhasādhana does not apply to the inference].

Comments

Although Vyāsatīrtha believes that M² and M³ suffer from a common set of flaws, he also believes they individually suffer from the flaws of “proving something that is already established” (siddhasādhana), and “[the subject’s] having-an-unestablishedqualifier/probandum” (aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā), respectively. Vyāsatīrtha now argues that if the Advaitin adopts M² as his analysis of “indeterminacy”/“illusoriness”, then Ānandabodha’s inferences prove, in part, something that the Mādhvas already accept.

Vyāsatīrtha assumes, arguendo, that if M² is adopted as the analysis of “indeterminacy”, then indeterminacy is not an “unestablished” (aprasiddha) property. He finds precedent for this judgment in Gaṅgeśa’s analysis of the universal-negative inference “Earth is different from the remaining substances and categories, since it has earthness”. The inference establishes that the substance earth is different from all the remaining substances and categories accepted in Vaiśeṣika ontology, because it possesses the natural kind “earthness”. The probandum (“being different from the rest” [itarabhinnatva]) therefore consists in thirteen differences/mutual absences from the substances other than earth, and the remaining categories besides substance.

Like the probandum in the earth-inference, M² is a “partite”/complex probandum. It consists of two distinct qualities which can exist separately from one another: the constant absence of existence, and the constant absence of nonexistence. Vyāsatīrtha here accepts that the probandum in the earth-inference is not an unestablished property. It is true that the thirteen mutual absences comprising the probandum in the earth-inference cannot be established in a single location prior to the inference, because nothing apart from earth can have that particular combination of absences that render earth “different from everything else”. However, each of the mutual absences that make up the probandum could be individually established among the substances and categories besides earth before the inference takes place. Thus, it follows that the probandum can be established prior to the inference being made.

Similarly, one could argue that the two absences making up M² can be individually established before the inference is made. As Śrīnivāsatīrtha points out, the constant absence of nonexistence is established in things that exist and, vice versa, the constant absence of existence is established in nonexistent things. Thus one could argue that the probandum is established before the inference takes place, even if both of its parts have not been apprehended as sharing a common locus. Ānandabodha’s inferences might not, therefore, suffer from the flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā. Nevertheless, Vyāsatīrtha argues that the inferences would still partially prove something that the Mādhvas accept. As realists, the Mādhvas already accept that the world lacks nonexistence. Hence, one part of the Advaitin’s probandum is quite superfluous: he is trying to persuade the Mādhva of something he already accepts.

One objection to this argument is that the earth-inference, which Vyāsatīrtha accepts as valid throughout this chapter, could also be said to suffer from the flaw of partial siddhasādhana if this reasoning is accepted. If the thirteen mutual absences that make up the probandum in that inference are already established prior to the inference’s being made, then why is the Naiyāyika not guilty of proving something that is already established? Vyāsatīrtha argues that this is not an apt comparison. In Ānandabodha’s inference, the constant absence of nonexistence is already established for the Mādhva in the world; in the case of the earth-inference, the thirteen absences are only established in the substances/categories apart from earth. There is thus no need for them to be established in something that possesses the universal earthness (a pot for instance) before the inference is made.

Sanskrit text (Advaitasiddhi)

na cāsattvavyatirekāṃśasyāsadbhedasya ca prapañce siddhatvenāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam iti vācyam.

“guṇādikam guṇyādinā bhinnābhinnam, samānādhikr̥tatvāt” iti bhedābhedavādiprayoge tārkikādyaṅgīkr̥tasya bhinnatvasya siddhāv apy uddeśyapratīty*asiddher yathā na siddhasādhanam, tathā prakr̥te ’pi militapratīter uddeśyatvān na siddhasādhanam.

[1]yathā[1] [2]tattvābhede[2] ghaṭaḥ kumbha iti sāmānādhikaraṇyapratīter* adar-śanena militasiddhir uddeśyā, tathā prakr̥te ’pi sattvarahite tucche dr̥śyatvādarśanena militasya tatprayojakatayā militasiddhir uddeśyeti samānam. (NAB: 54.)²⁷

yathā ca ASV, NAK

tatrābhede ASV

* Portion missing from KD

Translation

Objection (Vyāsatīrtha): Since it is already established [to me] that the world has both [(a)] the part [of the probandum] consisting in the absence of nonexistence and [(b)] the difference from what is nonexistent[, your inferences] prove, in part, something that [I] already accept.

Reply: [You] cannot argue as such! Take, for instance, the inference: “Tropes and [other properties] are both different and non-different from things that possesses tropes and [other properties], since [they are] placed in grammatical apposition [with the things that possess them”.²⁸ This inference] is employed by the [Mīmāṃsakas, Mādhvas, and other] proponents of the doctrine that [tropes/other properties, on the one hand, and their substrates, on the other,] are both different and non-different from one another[, against the Naiyāyika, who accepts that they are entirely different from each other. In that inference], even though the state of “being-different” (bhinnatva) [belonging to tropes and the things that possess them], being accepted by the Naiyāyikas, is already established [for them], the flaw of proving[, in part,] something that is already established is not applicable. For, the judgment that the [inference] is intended to give rise to has not [already] been brought about [on the part of the Naiyāyikas]. Similarly, in the case at hand[, i.e. Ānandabodha’s inferences], since the objective [of the inferences] is to produce a judgment that a compound entity (milita) [consisting of the compound of the absences of existence and nonexistence is present in the subject], the flaw of proving[, in part,] something that is already established is not applicable.

[In the case of the bhedābheda-inference,] the objective is to establish a compound entity[, i.e. “difference-combined-with-non-difference”], because [we] observe no judgment involving grammatical apposition in cases of things that are not different from one another, e.g., [we do not say,] “Pot (ghaṭa) is pot (kalaśa)”. The same is the case in the present [inference to prove that the world is illusory because it is perceptible]. For, since [the reason in this inference,] “perceptibility”, is absent from everything that is absolutely nonexistent, it is the compound entity [consisting of the combination of the absences of existence and nonexistence] that determines [the reason, i.e. perceptibility]. Hence, the goal [of the inference] is to establish [that this] compound entity [is present in the world].

Comments

Madhusūdana now responds to Vyāsatīrtha’s argument that Ānandabodha’s inferences partly prove something that is already established to the Mādhvas. Madhusū-dana employs a line of argument which Vyāsatīrtha will explore later in the PMBh (see below, TEXT 9). Madhusūdana’s argument is essentially that while the probandum (M²) in the inferences is a partite one and consists of two separate qualities, the cognition that the inferences seek to give rise to is, by contrast, one that has a compound entity (milita) for its object. He uses the following inference as precedent here:

“Tropes and [other properties] are both different and non-different from the things that possess tropes and [other properties], since [tropes and other properties are] placed in grammatical apposition [with the things that possess them]” (guṇādikaṃ guṇyādinā bhinnābhinnam, samānādhikr̥tatvāt).

This inference can be analysed as follows:

–

Subject: “Tropes and [other properties]” (guṇādikam);

–

Probandum: “Both different and non-different from the things that possess tropes and [other properties]” (guṇyādinā bhinnābhinnam);

–

Reason: “Since [tropes and other properties] are placed in grammatical apposition [with the things that possess them]” (samānādhikr̥tatvāt).

This inference captures a controversy between the Buddhists, Sāṅkhyas, Vaiyākara-ṇas, and Mīmāṃsakas on the one hand, and the Naiyāyikas on the other. The question is whether entities that inhere in their substrates (for the Naiyāyikas tropes, motions, and natural kinds) are different or non-different from those substrates. Whereas the Naiyāyikas maintained that such properties are completely different (bhinna) from their substrates, the Mīmāṃsakas and others²⁹ argued that the fact that we place them in grammatical apposition (sāmānādhikaraṇya) to one another when speaking about them demonstrates that properties and their substrates are both different and non-different from one another. Importantly for Madhusū-dana’s argument, the Mādhvas themselves are committed to the standpoint of the Mīmāṃsakas et al., and Mādhva philosophers employed this very inference in their own works to prove their position against the Naiyāyikas.

Consider the judgment, “Pot is dark blue” (nīlo ghaṭaḥ). The property here is the colour-trope “dark blue”, and the substance that possesses this trope is some pot. In the judgment, the dark blue colour and the pot are placed in grammatical apposition to one another. “Grammatical apposition” usually refers to the placing of two or more words in the same case ending (samānavibhakti). According to bhedābhedavādins like the Mīmāṃsakas, the fact that we refer to them using this grammatical structure demonstrates that the dark blue trope and the pot can be neither identical with, nor totally different from, one another. We do not employ grammatical apposition in cases of words that refer to the same thing (we do not say, for example, that, “Pot is pot [ghaṭaḥ kalaśaḥ]”). Nor do we employ such a construction in the case of two things that are completely different from one another; we do not say, for instance, “Cow is horse” (gaur aśvaḥ). We only employ this grammatical construction in the case of things that are both different and non-different from one another.

The Naiyāyikas, who accept that tropes and so on are simply different from the substrates in which they inhere, already accept one component of the probandum in this inference. However, they do not accept the complete conclusion of the inference, and so the cognition that the inference is employed to produce (the uddeśyapratīti) has not already been brought about before the inference takes place. The Naiyāyika does not accept that tropes are both different and non-different from one another; hence there is no reason why their prior acceptance that tropes and their substrates are differentiated from one another should block the inference. The Mādhvas themselves, as bhedābhedavādins, must surely accept the validity of this inference.

The same can be said of Ānandabodha’s inferences to prove that the world is indeterminate, Madhusūdana argues. The Advaitin’s goal in making these inferences is to produce a cognition of a “compound thing” (milita), consisting of the constant absence of nonexistence combined with the constant absence of existence. Consequently, as in the case of the bhedābedavādin’s inference, the fact that his Mādhva opponent already accepts one part of the probandum should not serve to stop the inference from proving to them that the world is indeterminate.

Vyāsatīrtha himself notes later in this chapter (TEXT 9) that there might be a different reason that the bhedābhedavādin’s inference must seek to give rise to a cognition of a compound entity. Madhusūdana reproduces Vyāsatīrtha’s argument in the present passage of the Advaitasiddhi. Let us suppose that the probandum in the bhedābheda inference were simply “non-differentiatedness” (abhinnatva). In that case, the inference would read:

Tropes and [other properties] are non-different from the things that possess tropes and [other properties], since [tropes and other properties are] placed in grammatical apposition [with the things that possess them] (guṇādikaṃ guṇyādinābhinnam, samānādhikr̥tatvāt).

In this case, the probandum (“non-differentiatedness”) would no longer pervade the reason (the quality of being placed in grammatical apposition); Madhusūdana says that the probandum would no longer “be determinative” (prayojakatā) of the reason. For, we do not employ grammatical apposition in respect of things that are identical to one another. We do not say, for instance, “Pot (ghaṭa) is pot (kalaśa)”. Hence, to ensure that the inference is valid, the bhedābhedavādin has to add the state of “being differentiated” (bhinnava) to the probandum, even though the beneficiary of the inference (the Naiyāyika) already accepts this part of the proof.

Madhusūdana argues in the present passage that the same can be said of the mithyātva-inference. The Advaitin accepts that absolutely nonexistent things (the “hare’s horn” and the like) can never be an object of cognition. Consequently, if the probandum consisted simply in the constant absence of existence (sattvātyantābhā-va), the probandum would no longer pervade the reason and the inference would be defective. Madhusūdana argues that like the bhedābhedavādin, the Advaitin thus has no choice but to establish a compound entity consisting of the constant absences of both existence and nonexistence, even though the Mādhva might already accept that the world has the latter property.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 1)

trayodaśeti. abhāvam anantarbhāvya trayodaśatvaṃ bodhyam. kathaṃ cid iti. anumitiviṣayasyobhayābhāvarūpasya sādhyasyaikasminn adhikaraṇe prasiddhyabhāve ’pi pratyekādhikaraṇa ubhayābhāvaprasiddhir ity arthaḥ.

asattvātyantābhāvāṃśa iti. yathā pakṣatāvacchedakanānātve kva cid adhikaraṇe pakṣatāvacchedakāvacchedena sādhyasiddher jātatvāt tatpakṣāṃśe siddhasā-dhanam, tathā sādhyatāvacchedakanānātve ’pi siddhasādhyāṃśe siddhasādhanameva; sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnasya pakṣatāvacchedakāvacchedena siddhirūpasya siddhasādhanabījasyobhayatrāpi tulyatvād ity arthaḥ. (NAB: 57.)³⁰

Translation

“Thirteen …” (trayodaśa). It should be understood that there are thirteen [substances and categories] not including [the category of] absence. “Somehow …” (kathaṃ cit). What [Vyāsatīrtha] means is that even though the probandum, comprising the absences of both [existence and nonexistence], which is the object of the inferential awareness [that Ānandabodha’s inferences seek to generate], is not established in a single location [before the inferences take place], both absences are established to exist in separate locations [prior to the inference].

“In the part [of the probandum] comprising the constant absence of nonexistence …” (asattvātyantābhāvāṃśa). What [Vyāsatīrtha] means is as follows: If more than one [property] determines subjecthood [in an inference], then if it has already been established that the probandum [in that inference] is determined by a determiner of subjecthood in some locus or other, then [that inference] proves something that is already established [to its beneficiary] concerning that part of the subject. Likewise, if more than one property determines probandumhood [in an inference], then [that inference] is proving something that is already established in respect of that part of the probandum that is [already] established. For, the root of the flaw of “proving something that is already established” (siddhasādhana)—the fact that something that is qualified by a determiner of probandumhood has [already] been established to be determined by a determiner of subjecthood—is equally present in both cases.

Comments

Rāmācārya here gives a technical discussion of under what circumstances the flaw of siddhasādhana can be applied to an inference. He finds precedent in the fact that the flaw applies to an inference where subjecthood (pakṣatā) is determined by multiple properties. An example of such an inference which Vyāsatīrtha himself will give below (TEXT 8) is the inference “Speech and mind are noneternal, because they are products”. The beneficiary of this inference is presumably a Naiyāyika who is already persuaded that “speech is noneternal”, but who is not convinced that “mind is noneternal”.

In this inference, there is more than one property that determines subjecthood. The inference asserts something of both speech and mind, so probandumhood could be said to be determined by both “speechness” and “mindness”. In this case, it is already known to the beneficiary of the inference (the Naiyāyika) that “Speech, in general, is noneternal”. This could be expressed by saying that the probandum (noneternality) has been established as being “determined by a determiner of subjecthood (i.e. speechness)”. So, when the inference is adduced, it ends up proving something that is already established for the Naiyāyika, at least in connection with that part of the probandum.

Rāmācārya reasons by analogy that the same flaw applies to an attempted inference if there are multiple properties that determine probandumhood as opposed to subjecthood in that inference. If the Advaitin adopts M² as the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences, then one part of the probandum is already established to be determined by a determiner of subjecthood. For, as a realist, the Mādhva already accepts that the entire domain referred to as “the world” lacks the quality of being nonexistent.

Rāmācārya concludes that in both of the inferences under consideration, siddhasādhana applies because something that is qualified by a determiner of probandumhood has already been established as being determined by a determiner of subjecthood. From the Naiyāyika’s perspective, “noneternality” is established to be present in everything that has speechness, and, from the Mādhva’s perspective, the “constant absence of nonexistence” is established to be present in the world in its entirety. So both inferences are proving, at least partially, something that is already established to the party who is meant to benefit from them, and they are thus invalid.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 2)

nanu sādhyatāvacchedakanānātve ’py ubhayābhāvagocarasamūhālambanarūpaikānumity[1]uddeśe[1] nāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam, asattvātyantābhāvāṃśe ’py udde-śyāyāḥ samūhālambanarūpāyāḥ siddher ajātatvāt. anumitidvayoddeśe ca siddhasādhanam eva, nāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam. na caivaṃ pakṣatāvacchedakanānātve ’py uktavidhayā nāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam iti vācyam, iṣṭāpatter iti cet;

satyam. samūhālambanānumityuddeśyatva eva tasyā asattvābhāvāṃśe pakṣatāvacchedakāvacchedena siddhaṃ yat [2]sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinna[2]sādhyam, tad[3]viṣayaka[3]siddhirūpatvena siddhasādhanatvābhidhānam ity adoṣaḥ. (NAB: 57.)³¹

uddeśena NAB, NAK

2. sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnaṃ NAK

viṣaya NATMu

Translation

Objection (Advaitin): Even if more than one property determines probandumhood [in Ānandabodha’s inferences], since the objective [of the inferences] is to produce an inferential awareness in the form of a collective cognition that has the absences of both [existence and nonexistence] for its object, there is not the flaw of proving, in part, something that is already established [to you, the Mādhva]. For, the collective cognition that [the inferences] seek to generate has not already been brought about [on the part of the Mādhva], even from the point of view of that part [of the probandum] that consists in the constant absence of nonexistence. And, if the objective [of Ānandabodha’s inferences] is to produce two [separate] inferential awarenesses, then [those inferences] are simply proving something that is already established, and not proving in part something that is already established[, since one of those two inferential awarenesses—i.e. the one that concludes that the world has the constant absence of nonexistence—is already established to us Mādhvas]. And do not argue that if [one] accepts this reasoning then the flaw of proving, in part, something that is already established would not apply even if multiple properties determine subjecthood [in an inference]. For, [we] welcome this consequence!

Reply: It is true [that the flaw of partial-siddhasādhana does not apply if Ānandabodha’s inferences seek to produce two separate inferential awarenesses]. However, there is no fault [in Vyāsatīrtha’s claim that Ānandabodha’s inferences prove, in part, something that is already established]. For, what [Vyāsatīrtha] is claiming is that siddhasādhana [applies to Ānandabodha’s inferences] because [they establish] that the probandum qualified by a determiner of probandumhood is [already] established to be determined by the determiner of subjecthood in respect of the part [of the probandum] comprising the absence of nonexistence, only if the objective [of those inferences] is to produce a collective inferential awareness [that encompasses both the absences of existence and nonexistence].

Comments

Rāmācārya now considers a potential objection to Vyāsatīrtha’s charge of siddhasādhana. The Advaitin objector here believes that the Mādhvas are caught in a dilemma. Just what type of cognition is it that Ānandabodha’s inferences are supposed to bring about on the part of the realist philosopher? On the one hand, we might assume that the mental event these inferences are intended to produce is a “collective” (samūhālambana) cognition, which aggregates the two components of the probandum (M²)—the constant absence of existence and the constant absence of nonexistence—in a single mental judgment. On the other hand, we could conclude that the inferences seek to generate two separate inferential awarenesses, which judge the world to lack existence and nonexistence, respectively.

In the first case, it might be argued that siddhasādhana does not apply. The Mā-dhvas already believe that the world has the constant absence of nonexistence, but they have not arrived at this judgment as part of a collective cognition that attributes that property to the world together with the constant absence of nonexistence. On the other hand, if the inference is taken to produce two separate inferential awarenesses, then the inference is simply proving something that has already been established to the Mādhva, and there is no reason to speak about “partial” siddhasādhana as Vyāsatīrtha has done. For, in that case the Mādhva is already convinced of the truth of the full contents of one of those awarenesses, i.e. the one that judges the world to lack nonexistence.

Rāmācārya does not try to respond to the latter alternative here. He appears to concede that if the inferences seek to give rise to two separate inferential awarenesses, then the flaw of partial-siddhasādhana cannot apply. However, Rāmācārya insists that (partial) siddhasādhana does apply if the inferences seek to produce a collective cognition, and he claims that in the Nyāyāmr̥ta Vyāsatīrtha only applies the flaw under this assumption. Assuming that the inferences seek to produce a single, collective judgment, then there are two parts to that judgment: the part comprising the absence of existence, and the part comprising the absence of nonexistence. In the part of the probandum comprising the absence of nonexistence, it is already established to the Mādhva that the constant absence of nonexistence is determined by the determiner of subjecthood. That is, it is established to the Mādhva that the constant absence of nonexistence is present throughout the domain that is referred to as the “world”. Thus the inferential awareness, which has that part of the probandum for its object, is proving in part something that is already established to Mādhva philosophers.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 3)

nanv apekṣābuddhiviṣayatvāder vyāsajyavr̥ttidharmasya sādhyatāvacchedakatā-yāṃ nāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam. ata evānupadam eva vakṣyati—sādhyatāvacchedakaikyān nāṃśe siddhasādhanam itīti cet, satyam. tatra vyāhatyādir eva doṣo bodhyaḥ.

nanu sādhyakoṭiniviṣṭasyāsattvātyantābhāvasya pakṣe [1]siddhau[1] yadi siddhasādhanam, tadā “pr̥thivītarabhinnā” ity atra trayodaśānyonyābhāvānām api ghaṭo na jalādir iti [2]pr̥thivītvavati[2] pratītyā ghaṭādau siddheḥ sutarāṃ siddhasā-dhanaṃ syād ity ata āha—[3]pr̥thivīti[3].

pr̥thivītvopahita iti. ghaṭādibhinnapr̥thivītvopahita ity arthaḥ. yathāśrute trayodaśānyonyābhāvānāṃ pr̥thivītvasāmānādhikaraṇyasyāpi ghaṭādau siddhyoktadoṣatādavasthyāt. (NAB: 57.)³²

siddhyā NAK

om. NAK, NATMu

om. NAK

Translation

Objection: If a single collectively-present (vyāsajyavr̥tti) property—“being the object of an aggregating cognition” (apekṣābuddhiviṣayatva), for instance—is the property that determines subjecthood, then [Ānandabodha’s inferences] do not prove, in part, something that is already established [to the Mādhva]. Thus will [Vyāsatīrtha himself] say word-for-word—“Since there is only a single determiner of probandumhood, there is not the flaw of proving, in part, something that is already established”. Reply: True enough! In that case, pay mind to the [other faults cited by Vyāsatīrtha against M² in this chapter], that is, contradiction and so on.

Objection: Let us assume that [Ānandabodha’s inferences can be said] to prove something that is already established [simply] on the ground that the constant absence of nonexistence, which is added on to the end of the probandum, is [already] established in the subject [from the Mādhva’s point of view]. In that case, the inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]”, must a fortiori prove something that is already established [for its beneficiary]. For, [before the inference takes place] the thirteen mutual absences [from the substances and categories apart from earth] are established in the pot, etc., which possesses earthness, on the basis of cognitions such as, “Pot is not water [or any of the remaining twelve categories and substances]”. In response to this objection, Vyāsatīrtha says—“Earth …”.

“In what possesses earthness …” (pr̥thivītvopahita). What [Vyāsatīrtha] means by this expression is: “In [some] locus of earthness that is different from a pot and so on”. For, if [Vyāsatīrtha’s expression] were taken literally, then since it is established in the pot and so on that the thirteen mutual absences share a common locus with earthness, the stated flaw [of proving, in part, something that is already established,] would still apply [to the earth-inference].

Comments

The arguments that Rāmācārya has so far considered in connection with M² in this part of the Taraṅginī all assume that if we treat “indeterminacy” as a pair of separate properties, then the probandumhood in Ānandabodha’s inferences must be determined by multiple properties. That is, the properties “being the constant absence of existence” (sattvātyantābhāvatva) and “being the constant absence of nonexistence” (asattvātyantābhāvatva) both determine probandumhood. One could argue, however, that probandumhood here is determined by a single property that is present in both of these things. One could say, for instance, that the absences of existence and nonexistence only become the probandum when they are grasped in a single collective cognition that apprehends them both at the same time. In that case, the determiner of probandumhood could be said to be the quality of “being grasped in a single aggregating cognition” (apekṣābuddhiviṣayatva).

The quality of being an object of such a cognition is considered by Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers to be a “collectively-present” quality: it is connected with multiple distinct individuals, but it is not completely present in any single one of them. It is only completely present in the aggregate of those individuals. The problem with all of this is that Vyāsatīrtha himself will go on to concede (see below, TEXT 8) that if the probandumhood in an inference is determined by only one property, then partial siddhasādhana cannot apply to it. Rāmācārya does not try to dispute this objection, but simply points out that the various other flaws Vyāsatīrtha has cited would still apply to the inference in that case.

The final problem that Rāmācārya considers here is that if we accept that siddhasādhana applies to Ānandabodha’s inferences for the reasons outlined, then it follows that the earth-inference might be taken to be invalid based on the very same reasoning. Vyāsatīrtha has argued that because a single one of the absences that make up the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences is established before the inference takes place, the inferences must be dismissed as proving something that is already established. In the earth-inference, however, it might be argued that the entire set of mutual absences that make up the probandum are established in at least some members of the class of things we call “earth” before the inference takes place. We might observe in the case of some individual substance composed of earth atoms—an earthen pot, for instance—that it is different from the various other substances before the inference takes place.

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha simply says, without further explanation, that the absences making up the probandum in the earth-inference cannot be established in any locus of earthness before the inference takes place. Rāmācārya argues here that we must interpret Vyāsatīrtha’s expression elliptically, as claiming that those absences are not established to be present in any part of earth besides the earthen pot before the inference takes place. Rāmācārya is not particularly clear about what he means by this interpretation. Presumably, he means to argue that the fact that the probandum is already established in one part of the subject before the earth-inference takes place should not stop the inference from proving that earth in general has the individual absences that comprise its probandum.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra, 1)

kathaṃ cid aprasiddheti. abhāvadvayasyaikasminn adhikaraṇe prasiddhyabhāve ’pi bhinnāśraye prasiddhatvād ity āśayena kathaṃ cid ity uktam iti bhāvaḥ.

asattvātyantābhāvāṃśa iti. nanu pakṣatāvacchedakāvacchedenoddeśyasiddhau hi siddhasādhanatā. evaṃ ca prakr̥ta ubhayābhāvagocarasamūhālambanā-numiter uddeśyatvena nāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam, uddeśyāyāḥ samūhālambanānumiter ajātatvāt. anumitidvayoddeśyatve ca siddhasādhanam eva, nāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam. tathā cāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanodbhāvam ayuktam. … (NAB: 61.)

Translation

“Somehow unestablished …” (kathaṃ cid aprasiddha). For, even though the pair of absences [comprising the constant absence of existence and the constant absence of nonexistence] are not established in any one location [prior to the inference’s taking place], they are [already] established in separate locations. With this in mind [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Somehow …” (kathaṃ cit). This is the idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s words here].

“In the part [of the probandum] comprising the constant absence of nonexistence …” (asattvātyantābhāvāṃśe). Objection: The flaw of proving something that is already established applies only when the thing that [the inference in question] seeks to prove is [already] established to be determined by the determiner of subjecthood [from the point of view of the beneficiary of the inference]. And so, in the case at hand, since the objective [of Ānandabodha’s inferences] is [to produce] a collective (samūhālambana) inferential knowledge that has the absences of both [existence and nonexistence] for its object, there is not the flaw of proving, in part, something that is already established [to you Mādhvas]. For, the thing that [the inference] seeks to give rise to—the [aforementioned] collective inferential knowledge— has not been produced [prior to the inference’s taking place]. And, if the objective [of the inference is to produce] two separate inferential awarenesses, then there is simply the flaw of proving what is already established, and not the flaw of proving in part what is already established. Thus it is wrong to apply the charge of proving, in part, something that is already established [to Ānandabodha’s inferences]. …

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra, 2)

… iti maivam. sādhyatāvacchedakanānātvena sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnasyaikasya sādhyasya pakṣatāvacchedakāvacchedena siddhau siddhasādhanaṃ syād eva.

na ca samūhālambanānumiter uddeśyatvāt, uddeśyāsiddhau kathaṃ siddhasādhanam iti vācyam. pratyekānumiter uddeśyatvena samūhālambanānumiter uddeśyatvābhāvāt.

na ca tathātve sampūrṇasiddhasādhanasyaiva sambhavena katham aṃśataḥ siddhasādhanābhidhānam iti vācyam. sādhyadvaya ekasādhyasya siddhatvābhiprāyeṇa tathābhidhānāt. (NAB: 61.)

Translation

… Reply: This is wrong! For, [if M² is the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences,] then multiple properties determine probandumhood [because the qualities of sattvātyantābhāvatva and asattvātyantābhāvatva both determine it]. Hence, if one [of the two] probanda, being qualified by a determiner of probandumhood, is established to be determined by the determiner of subjecthood, then the flaw of proving what is already established does indeed apply.

Objection: Since the inferences seek to produce a collective awareness [that attributes both the constant absence of existence and the constant absence of nonexistence to the world], and since this has not been established [prior to the inferences’ taking place], how can [the inferences] prove something that is already established? Reply: Do not argue as such! For, since [the inferences] seek to bring about [two distinct] inferential awarenesses that separately [ascribe the two probanda to the subject, those inferences] do not seek to bring about a collective cognition [which ascribes both of those properties to the world].

Objection: If that is so, then the flaw of proving something that is already established in full [and not in part] would apply [to Ānandabodha’s inferences]. So why do you claim that the flaw of proving in part something that is already established applies? Reply: This is wrong! For this claim was made on the ground that a single probandum out of a pair of probanda is already established [to us Mādhvas].

Comments

In these two texts, Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka responds to essentially the same argument against the charge of siddhasādhana that Rāmācarya considered in the corresponding part of the Taraṅginī (above, NAT 2). According to this argument, the flaw of siddhasādhana cannot be applied to Ānandabodha’s inferences, since they seek to generate a collective awareness that the world is both existence and nonexistent. The Mādhva has not already arrived at this conclusion, so how could the inferences prove something that is already established to him? Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka insists in these passages that the objective of Ānandabodha’s inferences cannot be to produce a collective inferential knowledge. Rather, the inferences must produce two separate inferential awarenesses which ascribe each absence to the world separately. This of course leaves him with the problem of explaining why Vyāsatīrtha cited the flaw of proving in part something that is already established (aṃśataḥ siddhasā-dhana) rather than full-blown siddhasādhana. His response is to argue that the term aṃśataḥ should be taken to refer to a single member of a pair of probanda, rather than one component of a partite probandum.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra, 3)

yat tv aṃśe siddasādhanaparihārārtham uktam, “guṇādikaṃ guṇyādinā bhinnā-bhinnam” iti atreva viśiṣṭapratīter uddeśyatvān nāṃśe siddhasādhanam iti, tan na. tatrābhede sāmānādhikaraṇyābhāvena viśiṣṭapratīter uddeśyatvasambhavāt. prakr̥te ca sattvābhāvavati tucche dr̥śyatvasya vidyamānatvena taduddeśyatvābhāvāt.

na ca tucche dr̥śyatvam eva neti vācyam. jñānaviṣayatvarūpadr̥śyatvasya tucche ’sattve ’sadvailakṣaṇyajñānādyanupapatter mūla eva uktatvena tucche dr̥śyatvasyāvaśyakatvāt; dr̥śyatvāntarasya hetūkaraṇāsambhavasyāgre ’bhidhāsyamā-natvāt. tasmād aṃśataḥ siddhasādhanaṃ durvāram. (NAB: 62.)

Translation

Objection: Now, [Madhusūdana] has said the following to avert the flaw of proving in part something that is already established: “Just like in the inference ‘Tropes and so on are both different and non-different from the things that possess tropes and so on[, since tropes are placed in grammatical apposition with the things that possess them]’, the goal [of Ānandabodha’s inferences] is to produce a cognition of a qualified entity [i.e. the “constant absence of nonexistence qualified by the constant absence of existence”]. Hence the flaw of partial-siddhasādhana does not apply [to our inferences]”.

Reply: This is wrong! In [the inference to prove that tropes are both different and non-different from their substrates,] the objective must be to produce a cognition of a qualified entity, since [the reason]—“being placed in grammatical apposition”—is absent in the case of [things that are] non-different [from one another; we do not say “Pot (ghaṭaḥ) is pot (kalaśaḥ)”, for instance]. In the inference at hand, however, since [the reason]—perceptibility—is present in what is absolutely nonexistent, which is devoid of existence [(which is the second component of the probandum)], it follows that the inference cannot seek to produce [a cognition of the absence of nonexistence qualified by existence].

Nor can it be argued that perceptibility is not present in what is absolutely nonexistent. For, [Vyāsatīrtha] has said in the root text [i.e. the Nyāyāmr̥ta itself] that if perceptibility—defined as “being the object of a cognition”—is not present in what is nonexistent, then it follows that the cognition of the state of being different from what is nonexistent and so on are impossible[, yet you yourself refer to such things in your arguments in favour of indeterminacy]. And [Vyāsatīrtha] will demonstrate later on [in the Nyāyāmr̥ta] that no other sort of “perceptibility” can be the reason [in the first of Ānandabodha’s inferences].³³ Therefore, the flaw of partial-siddhasādhana cannot be refuted.

Comments

In the corresponding passage of the Advaitasiddhi, Madhusūdana claimed, by analogy to the inference pressed against the Naiyāyikas to prove that tropes are both different and non-different from their substrates, that Ānandabodha’s inferences must seek to prove that the world has the absence of existence coupled with the absence of nonexistence. For, assuming that Ānandabodha’s inference was formulated as follows:

“The world is not existent, since [it is] perceptible” (jagad asat, dr̥śyatvāt),

then the probandum would be present somewhere where the reason is absent. For, the probandum (the absence of existence) is present in nonexistent things like the hare’s horn, which, according to the Advaitins, is not perceptible and thus lacks the reason. Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka here simply points out that the assumption which this argument rests on is moot. In making this argument, Madhusūdana is of course assuming that nonexistent things are not perceptible, but Mādhva philosophers have long since argued that such things can indeed become the object of cognitive states.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 1)

nanu “pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atra jalāditrayodaśānyonyābhāvānām aikādhikaraṇyenāprasiddhāv api tejaḥprabhr̥tiṣu [1]pratyekaṃ[1] prasiddhyāprasiddhiparihāravat, atrāpi sattvātyantābhāvāsattvātyantābhāvayor aikādhikaraṇyenāprasiddhāv api saty asattvātyantābhāvasyāsati ca sattvātyantābhāvasya ca pretyekaṃ prasiddhyāprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvābhāvād iti cet; satyam. aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvā-bhāve ’py asattvātyantābhāvarūpāṃśasya siddhatvena siddhasādhanatā syād ity āha pr̥thivīty ādinā. (NAB: 64.)³⁴

pratyekaṃ pratyekaṃ NAMu

Translation

Objection: In the inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]”, even though the thirteen mutual absences from water and so on are not established to share a single location [before the inference takes place], the non-establishment [of the probandum] is averted because the [thirteen mutual absences from water and so on] are established individually in fire, etc. [before the inference takes place]. Likewise, even though the constant absence of existence and the constant absence of nonexistence are not established as being present in a single location [before Ānandabodha’s inferences are made], since the constant absence of nonexistence is established in what is existent, and the constant absence of existence is established in what is nonexistent, [indeterminacy itself could be said to be well-established, and the subject in Ānandabodha’s inferences] would not have an unestablished qualifier.

Reply: True enough. However, even if it is the case that [the subject in Ānandabodha’s inferences] does not have an unestablished qualifier, nevertheless, since the part [of the probandum] comprising the constant absence of nonexistence is already established [in the subject prior to the inference, Ānandabodha’s inferences] would prove something that is already established [to us Mādhvas]. With this in mind [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Earth …” (pr̥thivī), and so on.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 2)

abhāvam anantarbhāvya trayodaśatvaṃ bodhyam.

pratyekam iti. saty asati cety arthaḥ. aikādhikaraṇyāvacchedena sādhyasiddher uddeśyatvenātraikādhikaraṇyāvacchedena sādhyaprasiddher abhāvād aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā syād evety āśayena kathaṃ cid ity uktam.

nanu kevalasyāsattvātyantābhāvasya siddhatve ’py asiddhena sattvātyantā-bhāvena sahocyamānatvād asiddhatvam eveti nāṃśe siddhasādhanatety āha—na hīti. tathātve “parvataḥ vahnimān pāṣāṇavāṃś ca” ity atrāpi siddhasādhanatā nodbhāvyeteti bhāvaḥ. (NAB: 64.)³⁵

Translation

It should be understood that there are thirteen [substances and categories] not including [the category of] absence.

“Separately …” (pratyekam). What [Vyāsatīrtha] means is that [the constant absences of nonexistence and existence] are established in what exists and what does not exist[, respectively]. Since the objective [of Ānandabodha’s inferences] is to establish the probandum as determined by the property of “sharing a common locus”, and since [in Ānandabodha’s inferences] the probandum is not established insofar as it is determined by the property of sharing a common locus [before the inference takes place], it might still be the case that [the subject in the inference] has an unestablished qualifier. With this in mind [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Somehow …” (kathaṃ cit).

Objection: The constant absence of nonexistence, uncompounded [with any further property], is established [to the Mādhva as being present in the world before the inferences are formulated]. Nevertheless, since [we Advaitins] are speaking of [the constant absence of nonexistence] alongside the constant absence of existence, which is unestablished, [the constant absence of nonexistence] is itself unestablished, and hence the inferences do not prove in part something that is already established. In response to this [objection, Vyāsatīrtha] says: “For it is not …” (na hi). If it were the case [that something that is established becomes unestablished simply by virtue of being asserted alongside something that is unestablished], then the flaw of proving something that is already established could not be applied to the case of the [fallacious] inference “The mountain possesses both fire and stone …”[, where that inference is made for the benefit of someone who already knows that the mountain has stone on it]. This is the idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s argument].

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 3)

nanv evam “pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atrāpi jalāditrayodaśānyonyābhāvānāṃ sā-dhyatvāt, jalādyekaikānyonyābhāvānām api ghaṭo na jalādir iti pratītyā ghaṭatvā-vacchedena siddhatvāt, aṃśe siddhasādhanatāpattir ity anumānaṃ duṣṭaṃ syād ity ata āha—pr̥thivīti.

jalādyekaikānyonyābhāvasya ghaṭe ghaṭatvāvacchedena siddhāv api pakṣatāvacchedakībhūtapr̥thivītvāvacchedena ghaṭe na siddhiḥ, ato nāṃśe siddhasā-dhanatety arthaḥ. pakṣatāvacchedakasāmānādhikaraṇyenaiva sādhyasiddher uddeśyatvāt, tasyāś cājātatvād iti bhāvaḥ.

pr̥thivītvopahite. ghaṭa iti śeṣaḥ. prakr̥te ca pakṣatāvacchedakasāmānādhikaraṇyenanaivāsadvailakṣaṇyasya siddhatvāt siddhasādhanateti draṣṭavyam. (NAB: 64–65.)³⁶

Translation

Objection: If [the above argument to prove that siddhasādhana applies to Ānandabodha’s inferences were valid], then [the valid inference] “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]” would [also] be flawed. For, [in this inference] the probandum consists of the thirteen mutual absences from water and [the remaining substances and categories apart from earth. And], since each individual absence from water and so on is established to be determined by potness by the judgment “Pot is not water, etc.”, it would follow that [this] inference [too] is flawed because it proves in one part [of the subject, i.e. the pot,] something that is already established. Thus does Vyāsatīrtha say: “Earth …” (pr̥thivī).

Even though the individual mutual absences from water and so on are established in a pot as determined by potness [before the formulation of the inference,] they are not established in a pot as determined by earthness, which is the property that determines subjecthood [in the earth-inference], and therefore the flaw of proving in part something that is already established does not apply [to the earth-inference]. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means. For, the objective [of the earth-inference] is to establish the probandum insofar as it shares a common location with the determiner of subjecthood [i.e. earthness], and that has not come about [before the inference is made]. This is the idea [behind what Vyāsatīrtha says].

“In something that possesses earthness …” (pr̥thivītvopahite). “In a pot” needs to be supplied. Observe that in the present case [of Ānandabodha’s inferences], by contrast, since the state of being different from what is nonexistent is already established to share a common locus with the determiner of subjecthood [because the Mādhva already accepts that the world lacks nonexistence], the flaw of siddhasā-dhana applies.

9.6 TEXT 6: The flaw of the “example’s lacking the probandum”. Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

dr̥ṣṭāntasya sādhyavaikalyāc ca. pr̥thivītvahetus tu kevalavyatirekī. trayodaśānyonyābhāvarūpasādhyasya vyatirekanirūpaṇaṃ tu bhinnāśritānām api trayodaśā-nyonyābhāvānāṃ samūhālambanaikajñānopārūḍhatvamātreṇa yuktam. (NAB: 53.)³⁷

Translation

Moreover, [M² is not tenable] because[, if it is adopted as the definition of “illusoriness”,] then the example [in Ānanabodha’s inferences (the “silver”)] would lack the probandum[, since I do not accept that the silver has the constant absence of nonexistence]. The reason [in the earth-inference]—earthness—on the other hand, is a universal-negative reason [and so, unlike Ānandabodha’s inferences, that inference does not require an example. It might be objected that in the absence of an example, the probandum in the earth-inference could not be established before the inference takes place.] However [in the earth-inference] the cognition of the absence of the probandum, which [probandum] consists in the thirteen mutual absences [from the remaining substances and categories apart from earth], is only possible since, even though the thirteen mutual absences each occupy different locations, they are grasped in a single collective cognition [before the inference is made].

Comments

For Madhusūdana’s answer to the charge that the example lacks the probandum (sādhyavaikalya), see the translation of the Advaitasiddhi above, TEXT 3.

Vyāsatīrtha now argues that if the Advaitins adopt M² as the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences, then those inferences must suffer from the flaw known as “[the example’s] lacking-the-probandum” ([dr̥ṣṭāntasya] sādhyavaikalyam). The example in an inference should be a familiar, non-controversial case that possesses both the probandum and the reason. Unlike the Advaitins, the Mādhvas accept that the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl is completely nonexistent, like the hare’s horn. Hence, while the Mādhvas accept that the fake silver has the constant absence of existence, they do not accept that it further has the constant absence of nonexistence. From their perspective, the example therefore lacks the probandum understood as these two separate properties.

Vyāsatīrtha anticipates an objection to this argument. If we accept that the fact that one component of the probandum is missing from an “example” means that the inference is invalidated, then would not the Naiyāyikas’ inference to define earth also suffer from this flaw? Rāmācārya explains this objection as follows. Like Ānandabodha’s inferences to establish that the world is “indeterminate”, the earth-inference seemingly involves a “partite” probandum. In the case of the Advaitin’s inferences, the probandum consists of two separate absences: the constant absence of existence, and the constant absence of nonexistence. In the case of the earth-inference, the probandum consists of the thirteen mutual absences/differences from the substances and categories apart from earth.

The problem is that in the earth-inference there is no single individual that can serve as the example insofar as it possesses all thirteen mutual absences. While each of the substances/categories apart from earth contain twelve of the mutual absences that make up the probandum, they must all lack one of the thirteen mutual absences, because they cannot be different from themselves. Fire, for instance, may be different from water and the remaining substances and categories, but it cannot be different from itself. Vyāsatīrtha has claimed that if an example in an inference lacks a single one of the qualities that make up the probandum, then the flaw of “lacking the probandum” applies. So if none of the substances/categories apart from earth can have all of the qualities that together comprise the probandum, then does not this inference suffer from sādhyavaikalya too? Vyāsatīrtha therefore reminds his Advaitin opponent that the reason in the earth-inference is a universal-negative (kevalavyatirekin) one. As such, the inference does not depend on an example in the same way that inferences that depend on a positive pervasion relationship between the probandum and the reason do. In a universal-negative inference, there can be no example, since the probandum only exists within the subject.

Vyāsatīrtha’s answer begs a further question, however. If there is no example, then how can the probandum in the earth-inference be known before the inference is formulated? The probandum in an inference must be somehow established before the inference takes place, but to claim that there is no positive example is, in effect, to claim that we know of no other single instance where the probandum is present prior to the inference. In response, Vyāsatīrtha says that we can have a cognition of the probandum in the earth-inference since we apprehend each absence in a different location before the inference brings them together in a single, collective cognition. Hence the probandum can be established prior to the inference, even though its components have not already been judged to be present in one single location.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 1)

dr̥ṣṭāntasyeti. asattvābhāvasya sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnasya śuktirūpyādāv abhāvād ity arthaḥ.

nanu bādhyatvarūpāsattvavyatirekasya tatrābhāve ’pi kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratīyamānatvānadhikaraṇatvarūpāsattvavyatireko rūpyādāv apy asty eva, tasya tattvena pratīyamānatvāt.

maivam. sattvena pratīyamānatvarūpasyāsattvavyatirekasya sādhanaṃ vyartham ity uktatvena bādhyatvarūpāsattvavyatirekasyaiva sādhayitum ucitatvena sā-dhyavaikalyāparihārāt. (NAB: 58.)³⁸

Translation

“Of the example …” (dr̥ṣṭāntasya). For, the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl and [other objects that appear in perceptual illusions] lack the absence of nonexistence, which [absence of nonexistence] is qualified by a determiner of probandumhood. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means.

Objection (Madhusūdana): Even though the absence of “nonexistence” in the form of “sublatability” might be absent from [the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl], nevertheless the absence of “nonexistence” in the form of “not being the locus of the property of being cognised as though existent in some substrate or other” is present even in the “silver” and [other objects of perceptual illusions]. For, [the “silver”] is cognised as though it were existent. [Hence the example cannot be said to lack the probandum, since it does have the absence of “nonexistence”].

Reply: This is untenable! For, [earlier in this text,³⁹ I] have stated that proving [that the “silver” has] the absence of nonexistence, insofar as that absence takes the form of “being cognised as existent [in some substrate or other]”, is pointless[, since it is already well-established that the “silver” is mistakenly cognised as existing in some substrate]. Hence it follows that it is proper [for you] only to prove the absence of “nonexistence” in the form of “sublatability”, and so [you] have failed to refute the charge that [the example] lacks the probandum.

Comments

In the Advaitasiddhi, Madhusūdana has argued that the charge of sādhyavaikalya does not apply to Ānandabodha’s inferences on the ground that his own definition of “nonexistence” makes this charge inapplicable. If “existence” means “non-sublatability”, and “nonexistence” is taken to be the opposite of this (i.e. “sublatability”), then it is clearly impossible to claim that the silver in question has the “absence of nonexistence”. The claim in that case would be that the silver “lacks sublatability”, but it is clear that the silver does stand to be sublated by subsequent veridical judgments about the mother-of-pearl.

However, Madhusūdana’s attempt to define nonexistence seems to render the charge inapplicable. According to Madhusūdana’s definition, to say that something is nonexistent simply means to say that that thing is “not cognised as existing in some substrate”. The absence of nonexistence defined as such amounts to the quality of “being cognised as existing in some substrate”. The Mādhva must surely agree with the Advaitin that the “silver” is cognised as existing in some substrate, and so they must surely agree that the “silver” has the absence of “nonexistence” as Madhusūdana has defined it.

Rāmācārya here dismisses Madhusūdana’s argument on the basis of the arguments he has already made against Madhusūdana’s attempts to define nonexistence earlier in the Taraṅginī (see above, TEXT 3). Advaitin philosophers try to prove through circumstantial implication (arthāpatti) that the “silver” lacks nonexistence. However, if “nonexistence” consists in something’s “not being an object of cognition as existing in some substrate”, then their efforts are pointless. For, it is already established through experience that the “silver” in question is mistakenly cognised as existing where there is really mother-of-pearl. What Madhusūdana should really try to prove, says Rāmācārya, is that the “silver” has the absence of nonexistence defined as “sublatability”, but clearly the silver does have the property of sublatability.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 2)

nanv abhāvadvayasya sādhyatāyāṃ rūpye sattvābhāvasya sattve ’pi asattvābhāvā-bhāvena yadi sādhyavaikalyam, tarhi “pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atra jale tejaḥprabhr̥tidvādaśabhedānāṃ sattve ’pi jalabhedasyābhāvena sādhyavaikalyam. evaṃ tejaḥprabhr̥tiṣv api svasvetarapratiyogikadvādaśabhedasattve ’pi svasvabhedābhā-vāt sādhyavaikalyam eva syād ity āśaṅkyāha—pr̥thivītvahetus tu kevalavyatirekīti.

tathā ca na tatra dr̥ṣṭāntāpekṣeti na tatprayuktasādhyavaikalyādidoṣāvakāśa iti bhāvaḥ.

nanu pr̥thivītvahetau dr̥ṣṭāntānapekṣaṇe sādhyaprasiddhyabhāvena sādhyavyatirekanirūpaṇaṃ na syād ity ata āha—trayodaśeti. sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnānāṃ trayodaśānyonyābhāvānāṃ svasvādhikaraṇe vidyamānānāṃ jñāne sati sādhyavyatirekanirūpaṇaṃ syād ity arthaḥ. (NAB: 58.)⁴⁰

Translation

Objection: Let us assume that[, as Vyāsatīrtha has claimed, the example in Ānandabodha’s inferences] lacks the probandum on the ground that—the probandum consisting in the pair of absences [of existence and nonexistence]—the silver, though it possesses the absence of existence, lacks the absence of nonexistence. In that case, it follows that [the example also] lacks the probandum in the case of the [valid] inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]”. For, even though twelve of the differences [that make up the probandum]—the differences from fire and [the eleven remaining substances and categories apart from earth]—are present in water[, for instance,] water cannot be different from water[, that is, from itself]. Likewise, even though fire [and the remaining substances and categories] possess twelve differences that have for their counterpositives [the twelve substances and categories] that are other than themselves, they cannot each be different from themselves. Hence [the example in the (valid) earth-inference] would lack the probandum, just as [you claim the example in Ānandabodha’s inferences does].

With this doubt in mind [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “By contrast, the reason—earthness— is a universal-negative one …” (pr̥thivītvahetus tu kevalavyatirekī). The idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s words] is that[, since it has a universal-negative reason, the earth-inference] does not depend on an example, and hence there is no scope for the application of the flaw of [the example’s] “lacking the probandum” and [the example’s “lacking the reason”], which only apply [if the inference has an example to lack those properties in the first place].

Objection: If the reason [in the earth-inference]—earthness—does not depend on an example, then the probandum must be unestablished, and thus the absence of the probandum could not be cognised [before the inference takes place]. With this in mind, [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Thirteen …” (trayodaśa). Provided that [one has] a cognition of the thirteen mutual absences, each qualified by a determiner of probandumhood, and each existing in their own locus, [one] can cognise the absence of the probandum.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 3)

nanv evam ekaikānyonyābhāvādhikaraṇasyāpi sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnasā-dhyādhikaraṇatayā tadvyāvr̥ttasya hetor asādhāraṇyaṃ syād ity āśaṅkāparihārā-yoktam—samūhālambanaikajñānopārūḍhatvamātreṇeti. ekaikānyonyābhāvasya na sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnatvam, sādhyatāvacchedakasya samūhālambanaikajñānopārūḍhatvasya vyāsajyavr̥tter dharmasya pratyekābhāveṣv aparyāpteḥ. tathā ca pratyekābhāvādhikaraṇasya na sapakṣatvam, sādhyatāvacchedakā-vacchinnasādhyarahitatvāt.

tad uktam, tāvadabhāvayogī hy atra sapakṣo bhavati, na tu tadekadeśakatipayābhāvavān, sādhyatāyās tāvaty [1]aparyāpter[1] iti. sattvātyantābhāvādes tu pratyekaṃ sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnatve ’pi nāsādhāraṇyam, dr̥ṣṭāntasya sattvād iti bhāvaḥ. (NAB: 58.)⁴¹

NAB, NAK, and NATMu all read paryāpter here. I have emended this to read with the editions of the Tattvacintāmaṇi, which is the text that Rāmācārya is quoting here.

Translation

Objection: In that case, the locus of each of the individual mutual absences [that comprise the probandum in the earth-inference] must be a locus of the probandum qualified by a determiner of probandumhood. Hence the reason[—earthness—], which is absent from [each of those individuals], would be an “uncommon” pseudo-reason[, because it is absent from something that is known to possess the probandum qualified by a determiner of probandumhood]. In order to assuage this doubt, [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Only by virtue of being grasped in a single collective cognition …” (samūhālambanaikajñānopārūḍhatvamātreṇa). Each individual mutual absence is not qualified by a determiner of probandumhood. For, the determiner of probandumhood—the quality of “being grasped in a single collective cognition”— is a “collectively present” (vyāsajyavr̥tti) property, and is therefore not completely present (aparyāpti) in each [of the locations that contain the thirteen mutual absences] taken individually. And so, the locus of each [mutual] absence is not a homologue (sapakṣa), since it lacks the probandum as qualified by the determiner of probandumhood.

As it is said [by Gaṅgeśa in the Kevalavyatirekivāda of the Tattvacintāmaṇi]: “[The reason in the earth inference is not “uncommon”]. For, only that which has these absences in their entirety qualifies as a homologue in this instance, and not something that possesses some of the absences in a certain part, because probandumhood is not completely present (aparyāpteḥ) in just that much.”⁴² Even though the constant absences of existence and [nonexistence] are, by contrast [to the absences that make up the probandum in the earth-inference], individually qualified by a determiner of probandumhood, the [reasons in Ānandabodha’s inferences are not] pseudo-reasons of the “uncommon” variety, because[, unlike the earth-inference,] there is an example [in these inferences, i.e. the “silver”]. This is the idea [behind what Vyāsatīrtha says here].

Comments

Rāmācārya here considers the objection that the reason in the earth-inference could be said to be defective given the stance Vyāsatīrtha takes on it in this part of the Nyā-yāmr̥ta. An “uncommon” pseudo-reason is one that fails to occur in some location that is known to possess the probandum. Let us imagine that each of the thirteen mutual absences that make up the probandum in that inference are each established in a separate location—the absence of fire is established in water, the absence of water in fire, and so on. In this case, each of the things that make up the probandum could be considered a homologue (sapakṣa), that is, a location where the probandum is known to be present. For, each could be said to possess “a probandum as qualified by a determiner of probandumhood” by possessing just one of the thirteen mutual absences in question. What Rāmācārya seems to have in mind here is that the abstract properties belonging to the individual absences—“the state of being the mutual absence of water” (jalānyonyābhāvatva), and so on—all determine probandumhood individually.

In response, Rāmācārya says that by the expression “only by virtue of being grasped in a single, collective cognition” (samūhālambanaikajñānopārūḍhatvamātreṇa), Vyāsatīrtha is indicating the property that determines probandumhood in the earth-inference. The thirteen separate mutual absences make up the probandum only insofar as they are grasped together in such a cognition. More technically: probandumhood is determined not by the thirteen separate qualities belonging to the individual absences, but by a single, collectively present (vyāsajyavr̥tti) quality that is only completely present in all thirteen absences taken collectively. Hence, while each component of the probandum is known to be present in some location other than earth before the inference takes place, the locus of each individual absence cannot qualify as a homologue, since it lacks the probandum as qualified by the determiner of probandumhood. As a severally present quality, the state of “being the object of a collective cognition” cannot be completely present in any of those absences; hence they cannot be said to be individually “qualified by the determiner of probandumhood”. To support this position, Rāmācārya cites the Kevalavyatirekivāda of Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi, where Gaṅgeśa seems to endorse this line of reasoning.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 1)

dr̥ṣṭāntasyeti. dharmadvayasya sādhyatvān manmate śuktirūpye sattvātyantābhā-vasya sattve ’py asattvasyaiva sattvena tadatyantābhāvasya tatrābhāvāt sādhyavaikalyam ity arthaḥ.

nanv evaṃ tarhi “pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atrāpi trayodaśabhedānāṃ sādhyatvāj jalādau tejaḥprabhr̥tidvādaśabhedānāṃ sattve ’pi jalabhedasyābhāvāt sādhyavaikalyam. evaṃ tejaḥprabhr̥tiṣv api svasveterapratiyogikadvādaśabhedasattve ’pi svasvabhedābhāvāt sādhyavaikalyam eva syād ity ata āha—pr̥thivītveti. yatretaratvam, tatra pr̥thivītvābhāva iti vyatireke jalādir dr̥ṣṭānta iti bhāvaḥ. (NAB: 65.)⁴³

Translation

“Of the example …” (dr̥ṣṭāntasya). For, the probandum [defined as M²] consists in a pair of qualities [i.e. the constant absences of existence and nonexistence]; and, in my view, the silver superimposed on mother-of-pearl lacks the constant absence of nonexistence, since it possesses nonexistence despite lacking existence. Hence [the example in Ānandabodha’s inferences] lacks the probandum. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means.

Objection: In that case, [the example] in the inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]” would [also] lack the probandum. For, [in that inference] the probandum consists of thirteen mutual absences[/differences]. Hence, even though the twelve differences from fire and so on are present in water and so on, the difference from water [itself] would not be present there. Likewise, even though the twelve differences that have as their counterpositive each and every thing different from [water and so on] themselves would be present in fire and so on, the difference [of each substance/category] from itself could not be present there. With this [objection] in mind [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Earthness …” (pr̥thivītva). The idea behind [Vyāsatīrtha’s words here is that] water and so on serve as the example for the negative-pervasion “Where there is the property of being other than [earth], there is the absence of earthness”.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 2)

nanu pr̥thivītvahetau vyatirekiṇi dr̥ṣṭāntābhāve trayodaśānyonyābhāvānāṃ sā-dhyabhūtānāṃ prasiddhyabhāvena sādhyavyatirekanirūpaṇaṃ na syād ity ata āha—trayodaśeti. jalāditrayodaśānyonyābhāvānāṃ tejaḥprabhr̥tiṣu pratyekaṃ pratyekaṃ jñānānantaram ete trayodaśānyonyābhāvā iti samūhālambanarūpaikajñānopārūḍhānāṃ prasiddhisambhavena vyatirekanirūpaṇaṃ sambhavatīti bhāvaḥ. (NAB: 65.)⁴⁴

Translation

Objection: Since there is no example in the case of the universal-negative reason “earthness”, it follows that the thirteen mutual absences that comprise the probandum cannot be established [before the inference takes place]; hence there cannot be the cognition of the absence of the probandum. With this in mind [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Thirteen …” (trayodaśa). The thirteen mutual absences of water [and the remaining substances and categories apart from earth] can be established insofar as they are grasped in a single, collective cognition (“These are the thirteen mutual absences”), which occurs after they are each cognised individually in fire [and the remaining substances and categories apart from earth]. Hence there can be the cognition of the absence of the probandum. This is the idea [behind what Vyāsatīrtha says here].

9.7 TEXT 7: Extension of the above flaws to the third definition.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

ata eva na tr̥tīyaḥ; vyāhateḥ, arthāntarāt, [1]sādhyavaikalyāc[1] ca. (NAB: 53.)⁴⁵

dr̥ṣṭānte sādhyavaikalyāc NAB (vl.), NAMu (vl.)

Translation

For these very reasons is M³ not tenable—because of contradiction, because [it would] fail to prove what [you, the Advaitins,] intend to prove, and because [your putative example] lacks the probandum.

Comments

Vyāsatīrtha now begins his critique of M³. He claims that three of the charges that were levelled against M² apply equally to M³.

Rāmācārya anticipates an objection to the claim that M³ suffers leads to a contradiction in the same way that M² does. In M², the probandum is taken to be a pair of distinct qualities—the constant absence of existence, and the constant absence of nonexistence. In M³, by contrast, these qualities are compounded into a single “qualified”/compound thing—“the property of possessing the constant absence of nonexistence qualified by the property of possessing the constant absence of existence”. Given this distinction, can the charge of contradiction really be applied in the same way to M³ as it was to M²? Rāmācārya argues that this is not a significant distinction from the point of view of the charge of contradiction. Two things can only be related as qualifier and qualified if they share a common locus; hence proving that M³ is present in some locus necessarily entails proving that the constant absences of existence and nonexistence are present there, and this must surely amount to a contradiction.

According to Vyāsatīrtha, M³ further leads to the flaw of arthāntara, because, like M², it fails to establish what the Advaitin really wants to establish. Like M², M³ proves that the world has the “constant absence of existence”. However, as Vyāsatīrtha has argued (in TEXT 4), it is always possible that the world—like the Advaitin’s brahman—is existent by its very essence, even though it lacks the property of existence. In themselves, neither M² nor M³ rule out this possibility. Moreover, in case M³ is adopted as the probandum, the Advaitins’ example—the “silver”—still lacks the probandum from the Mādhva’s point of view. “Illusoriness” still consists in part in the “constant absence of nonexistence”, and the Mādhvas, who accept that the “silver” is simply nonexistent, do not accept that the silver possesses such an absence.

So far, Vyāsatīrtha has claimed that the following flaws apply to M¹–M³:

–

M¹: Proving something that is already established (siddhasādhana).

–

M²: Contradiction (vyāhati); failing to prove what one intends to prove (arthāntara); proving something that is already established (siddhasādhana); the example’s lacking the probandum (dr̥ṣṭāntasya sādhyavaikalya).

–

M³: Contradiction (vyāhati); failing to prove what one intends to prove (arthāntara); the example’s lacking the probandum (dr̥ṣṭāntasya sādhyavaikalya).

In the remaining portion of the PMBh, Vyāsatīrtha will argue that while M³ does not lead to siddhasādhana, it still leads to the flaw of “[the subject’s] having-an-unestablished-qualifier” (aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā).

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī)

nanv ata evety atidiṣṭā vyāhatir anupapannā. ekatra viruddhobhayapratiyogikā-tyantābhāvasādhane hi sā syāt; na cātrobhayātyantābhāvau sādhyāv ity ata āha— vyāhater iti. ubhayātyantābhāvayoḥ sāmānādhikaraṇyoktau vyāhativad ubhayā-tyantābhāvayoḥ sāmānādhikaraṇyena sambandhena viśeṣaṇaviśeṣyabhāvoktāv api vyāhatir ity arthaḥ. (NAB: 58.)⁴⁶

Translation

Objection: It is unreasonable [for Vyāsatīrtha] to further apply contradiction [to M³ as well as M², as he does when he says,] “For these very same reasons [is M³ not tenable] …”. For, [contradiction] would ensue only if [we Advaitins] proved that the constant absences that have two contradictory [properties—existence and nonexistence—]for their counterpositives, are present in one and the same location. But, in the case at hand [(M³)] the constant absences of both [existence and nonexistence] are not both probanda.

Reply: To this objection [Vyāsatīrtha] responds: “Because of contradiction …” (vyāhateḥ). Just as a contradiction ensues if [you] state that the constant absences of both [existence and nonexistence] share a common locus, if [you] assert that the constant absences of both [existence and nonexistence] are, as a result of their being connected as sharing a common locus, related as qualifier and qualified, there is still a contradiction. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means.

9.8 TEXT 8: Siddhasādhana might not apply to the third definition.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

kiṃ ca yathā “anitye vāṅmanasī”⁴⁷ ity atra [1]pakṣatāvacchedakanānātvenāṃśe[1] siddhasādhanatve ’pi, “pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atra pakṣatāvacchedakaikyān [2]nā-ṃśe[2] siddhasādhanam; tathehāpi yady api kathaṃ cit sādhyatāvacchedakaikyān nāṃśe siddhasādhanatvam … (NAB: 53.)⁴⁸

pakṣatāvacchedakanānātvenāṃśataḥ NAMu (vl.)

2. nāṃśataḥ NAMu (vl.)

Translation

Moreover, let it be that, somehow, in case [you adopt M³ as the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences,] then [those inferences] do not prove, in part, something that is already established [to me, the Mādhva]. For, the inference “Speech and mind are noneternal[, because they are products]” does prove in part something that is already established [to the Naiyāyika who is supposed to benefit from it,] since more than one property determines subjecthood [in that inference]. By contrast, the inference “Earth is different [from the remaining substances and categories, because it has earthness]” does not prove in part something that is already established, since there is only one property that determines subjecthood [in that inference, i.e. earthness]. Likewise [in Ānandabodha’s inferences, if M³ is adopted as the probandum,] then there is only one property [(“the quality of possessing the constant absence of nonexistence qualified by the quality of possessing the constant absence of existence”)] that determines subjecthood[; hence the inference does not prove something that is already established]. …

Comments

In TEXT 5, Vyāsatīrtha argued that M² proves, in part, something that is already established to him as a realist, because he already accepts that the world has the “constant absence of nonexistence”. Vyāsatīrtha now tentatively concedes that if M³ is taken to be the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences, then those inferences might not prove something that he already accepts. Both M² and M³ ultimately amount to the claim that something lacks both existence and nonexistence. However, M² treats them as two distinct properties, whereas M³ compounds them together, as a single “qualified” property. Thus, if M³ is adopted as the probandum, there is only one determiner of probandumhood. This has important implications for evaluating this definition of indeterminacy/illusoriness.

Vyāsatīrtha cites the inference “Speech and mind are noneternal, because they are products” as precedent in this matter. Gaṅgeśa, who uses this example in the Kevalavyatirekivāda of the Tattvacintāmaṇi, argued that the flaw of partial siddhasādhana only applies in this inference because there is more than one property that determines subjecthood.⁴⁹ The subject in the inference is a partite one, consisting of two separate entities: speech and mind. Consequently, both speechness (vāktva) and mindness (manastva) determine subjecthood. According to Śrīnivāsatīrtha, the flaw of siddhasādhana applies, since it is already established to the Naiyāyika that speech is noneternal. Vyāsatīrtha reasons on the basis of this example that the same does apply if multiple properties determine probandumhood in an inference, but does not if there is just one property determining probandumhood. Unlike M², M³ consists in a single compound entity. Consequently, by analogy, it cannot be said to suffer from the flaw of partial siddhasādhana.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī)

kiṃ ceti. yady api nāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam, nāpi vyarthaviśeṣyatvam; tathāpy aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvam ity anvayaḥ.

pakṣatāvacchedakanānatveneti. yady api pakṣatāvacchedakanānātve ’py uktavidhayā nāṃśtaḥ siddhasādhanam, tathāpi matāntareṇedaṃ bodhyam.

pakṣatāvacchedakaikyād iti. pakṣatāvacchedakaikye ’ṃśataḥ siddhasādhanaṃ na bhavaty eva. tathā hi—pakṣatāvacchedakadharmasāmānādhikaraṇyena sādhyasiddhau hi siddhasādhanam eva, nāṃśataḥ siddhasādhanam; tādr̥śasiddher evānumānasādhyatvāt. tadasiddhau ca tacchaṅkaiva nāsti. na hi pakṣe sādhyasiddhimātreṇa tat, kiṃ tu pakṣatāvacchedakadharmasāmānādhikaraṇyena sādhyasiddhyā. anyathā dhūmavattvena parvate vahniniścaye ’pi siddhasādhanaprasaṅgād ity arthaḥ.

sādhyatāvacchedakaikyād iti. sādhyatāvacchedakāvacchinnasādhyasiddher abhāvād ity arthaḥ. (NAB: 58–59.)⁵⁰

Translation

“Moreover …” (kiṃ ca). The connection [between this passage and TEXT 10 of the Nyāyāmr̥ta] is as follows: “Even though[, if M³ is adopted as the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences, those inferences] do not prove in part something that is already established, and [their probandum] does not have a purposeless qualificandum […] nevertheless, [their subject] has an unestablished qualifier[/probandum]”.

“Since multiple properties determine subjecthood …” (pakṣatāvacchedakanā-nātvena). Even though [when M³ is adopted as their probandum, Ānandabodha’s inferences] might not prove in part something that is already established in the way described [by Vyāsatīrtha earlier in this text],⁵¹ nevertheless if [one] were of a different persuasion, [one] might conclude [that the inferences do in fact suffer from siddhasādhana in this way].

“Because there is only one property that determines subjecthood …” (pakṣatā-vacchedakaikyāt). If there is only a single determiner of subjecthood [in an inference], then [that inference] cannot prove in part something that is already established. To explain: If it is already established that the probandum shares a common locus with the property that determines subjecthood [in such an inference], then [that inference] is simply proving something that is already established, and not proving in part something that is already established. For, it is precisely the fact that [the probandum shares a common locus with the property that determines subjecthood] that an inference seeks to establish. And if it is not [already] established [that the probandum shares a common locus with the property that determines subjecthood], then there cannot be the slightest doubt [that the inference suffers from siddhasādhana]. For, [an inference does not prove something that is already established] simply because [its] probandum is established to be present in the subject, but because the probandum is established to share a common locus with the property that determines subjecthood. Otherwise, it would follow that if [one] were already certain that fire was present on a mountain [merely] insofar as [the mountain] is something that possesses smoke, [an inference to prove that there is fire on the mountain insofar as it is a mountain] would be proving something that is already established[, yet this is wrong, for it would clearly tell us something new].

“Because there is only one determiner of probandumhood …” (sādhyatāvacchedakaikyāt). Because it has not [yet] been established that the probandum qualified by the determiner of probandumhood [is present in the subject]. This is what [Vyā-satīrtha] means.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 1)

viśiṣṭasādhanapakṣe ’ṃśe siddhasādhanātideśaḥ kuto na kriyata iti śaṅkāyām asmin pakṣe ’ṃśe siddhasādhanasyānavakāśaṃ vadan, tathā vyartha[1]viśeṣyatvarū-paṃ[1] doṣāntaraṃ ca nāstīti vadan, aprasiddha[2]viśeṣaṇatvākhyaṃ[2] doṣāntaram āha—kiṃ cety ādinā. kiṃ cāprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvam ity anvayaḥ.

pakṣatāvacchedakanānātveneti. tathā ca vāktvāvacchedenānityatvasya siddhatvād iti bhāvaḥ.

pakṣatāvacchedakaikyād iti. pakṣatāvacchedakaikye hi pakṣatāvacchedakasā-mānādhikaraṇyena sādhyasya siddhatvāt sampūrṇasiddhasādhanam eva, nāṃ-śataḥ siddhasādhanam. “pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atra tu pr̥thivītvarūpapakṣatāvacchedakasāmānādhikaraṇyena sādhyasiddhirūpoddeśyapratīter asiddhatvenāṃśe siddhasādhanānavakāśād ity arthaḥ. (NAB: 65.)⁵²

viśeṣyatvākhyaṃ NAMu (vl.)

viśeṣaṇatvarūpaṃ NAMu (vl.)

Translation

“Why have you not extended the charge of proving in part something that is already established to the view that [Ānandabodha’s inferences] prove that a qualified entity [i.e. M³ is present in the world]?” In [response] to this doubt[, Vyāsatīrtha] states that according to the view that [“indeterminacy” is a qualified entity,] there is no scope for the flaw of proving in part something that is already established. Likewise, he states that there is not another flaw, namely, having a purposeless qualificandum (vyarthaviśeṣyatva). [Nevertheless, Vyāsatīrtha] states that another flaw—[the subject’s] having an unestablished qualifier—applies [to the inferences in this case]: “Moreover …” (kiṃ ca). “Moreover […] there is the flaw of [the subject’s] having-an-unestablished-qualifier”: this is the connection [between this passage and the subsequent one].⁵³

“Because more than one property determines subjecthood … ” (pakṣatāvacchedakanānātvena). For, noneternality is established to be determined by [one of the properties that determines subjecthood, i.e.] speechness. This is the idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s words here].

“Because only one property determines subjecthood … ” (pakṣatāvacchedakaikyāt). For, when only one property determines subjecthood, if the probandum is established as sharing a common locus with the determiner of subjecthood, then the flaw of proving in toto something that is already established applies, and not proving in part something that is already established. In the inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]” on the other hand, the flaw of proving in part something that is already established is not applicable. For, the cognition that [the inference] seeks to produce—the proof that the probandum shares a common locus with the determiner of subjecthood (i.e. earthness)—has not already taken place [in the beneficiary of the inference before the inference is formulated]. This is the idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s words here].

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 2)

sādhyatāvacchedaketi. pakṣatāvacchedakanānātva evāṃśe siddhasādhanavat sā-dhyatāvacchedakanānātva evāṃśe siddhasādhanatā. ata eva dharmadvayasādhanapakṣe ’ṃśe siddhasādhanatoktā. pakṣatāvacchedakaikye ’ṃśe siddhasādhanatvābhāvavat sādhyatāvacchedakaikye ’pi nāṃśe siddhasādhanaṃ. evaṃ ca prakr̥te viśiṣṭasyaikasya sādhyatvena sādhyatāvacchedakaikyena tadavacchinnasādhyasyāsiddhatvān nāṃśe siddhasādhanāvakāśa ity arthaḥ.

viśiṣṭaṃ viśeṣaṇādyātmakam iti pakṣe sādhyatāvacchedakaikyaṃ nāsty evety āśayena kathaṃ cid ity uktam. (NAB: 65.)⁵⁴

Translation

“The property that determines probandumhood …” (sādhyatāvacchedaka). The flaw of partial siddhasādhana applies only if more than one property determines subjecthood [in an inference]. In the same way, that flaw only applies if more than one property determines probandumhood [in an inference]. It is for this very reason that [Vyāsatīrtha] stated [earlier in this chapter] that the flaw of partial siddhasā-dhana applies to [Ānandabodha’s inferences if one takes] the stance that [those inferences] prove that [the world has] a pair of properties [i.e. the constant absence of existence, and the constant absence of nonexistence]. Just as the flaw of partial siddhasādhana does not apply [to an inference if only one property determines subjecthood], likewise does it fail to apply if only one property determines probandumhood. Hence, in the [inferences] at hand, since the probandum is a single qualified entity [i.e. M³], it follows that only one property determines probandumhood. Thus, since the probandum qualified by [the single determiner of probandumhood] has not been established [to be present in the subject], the flaw of siddhasādhana is inapplicable. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means.

“According to the view that a qualified entity consists of [nothing more than its parts, i.e.] the qualifier, [the qualificandum, and the relationship between the two, if M³ is taken as the probandum, then] there is not just one property that determines probandumhood[, since in that case probandumhood is determined by the three components of the qualified thing]”. It is with this [doubt] in mind that [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Somehow …” (kathaṃ cit).

9.9 TEXT 9: The third definition does not have a purposeless qualificandum.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

… nāpi vyarthaviśeṣyatvam. “vimatam upādānāparokṣajñapticikīrṣākr̥timajjanyam …” ity atra kr̥tigrahaṇenaiveśvarasiddhāv api cikīrṣāder iva, “guṇādikam guṇyādinā bhinnābhinnam, samānādhikr̥tatvāt” ity atra tārkikāṅgīkr̥tabhinnatvasyeva ca, vyāpakaviśeṣaṇānām uddeśyapratītyarthatvāt; iha [1]tu[1] sadvilakṣaṇatve saty asadvilakṣaṇam iti pratīter uddeśyatvāt.

yadi cābhede saty api ghaṭaḥ kalaśa iti sāmānādhikaraṇyādarśanād aprayojakatvanirāsāya viśiṣṭadhīs tatroddeśyā, tarhi tucche sadvailakṣaṇye saty api dr̥śyatvādarśanād ihāpi soddeśyeti samam …. (NAB: 53.)⁵⁵

ca NAMu

Translation

… And, [if we adopt M³ as the definition of “illusoriness”, then the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences] would not have a pointless qualificandum[, i.e. “the constant absence of nonexistence”]. For, qualifiers attached to the property that pervades [the reason] can have the purpose of [giving rise to] the judgment that [the inference] is intended to produce (uddeśyapratīti). This is so, for instance, in the case of [the qualifiers] “a desire to make” (cikīrṣā) and [“an immediate knowledge of the material cause” (upādāna-aparokṣa-jñapti)], in the [Naiyāyikas’] inference [to prove the existence of god],

“The object of [our] dispute [i.e. the world] is produced by one who has an immediate knowledge of [its] material causes, a desire to make, and effort [itself] …”,

where the existence of god could be established simply by stating that [he possesses] effort. Likewise is this the case for the [qualifier] “being different” (bhinnatva) in the [probandum of the inference],

“Tropes and [other properties] are both different and non-different from the things that possess tropes and [other properties], since [tropes and other properties are] placed in grammatical apposition [with the things that possess them]”,

which is [already] accepted by the Naiyāyikas [who accept that tropes, etc., and their substrates are simply different from one another]. For, in the present case [of Ānandabodha’s inferences], the objective [of the inferences is to produce] a cognition of the form: “[The world is] different from what is nonexistent, while being different from what is existent”.

On the other hand, it might be held that the [bhedābheda-inference] seeks to generate a cognition of a qualified entity in order to ensure that its [reason] determines [its probandum]. For, we do not observe that grammatical apposition is employed when [two things] are [simply] non-different from each other, as in the expression, “Pot (ghaṭa) is pot (kalaśa)”, for instance. In that case, it could also be said of [Ānandabodha’s inferences] that they seek to generate a cognition [of a qualified entity] for the same reason. For, even though the state of being different from what is existent is present in what is absolutely nonexistent, we observe that [the reason]—perceptibility—is not present there [so far as the Advaitin is concerned].

Comments

In the preceding text, Vyāsatīrtha has conceded that if we adopt M³ as the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences, then those inferences cannot be charged with proving something that is already established. Still, the probandum might be subject to a further flaw. In M³, the constant absence of existence is the qualifier, and the constant absence of nonexistence is the qualificandum. Since the Mādhva accepts that the constant absence of nonexistence is present in the world, it could be argued that the qualificandum serves no purpose. However, Vyāsatīrtha argues that this flaw does not apply here. He finds precedent in two inferences. The first is the inference of the Naiyāyikas to prove that all effects in the world around us are created by a god (īśvara). More specifically, Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers argued that inference can establish that the various effects in the world are created by a being who has three qualities: (1) a direct knowledge of the stuff out of which the world is to be formed (upādāna-aparokṣa-jñapti); (2) a desire to create (cikīrṣā) the world; and (3) the creative effort (kr̥ti) itself.

Vyāsatīrtha assumes that the Naiyāyika could prove that there is a god if the probandum in the inference were simply kr̥timajjanyam: “produced by one who possesses effort”. It would suffice for someone seeking to prove the existence of a creator to say that the effects in the world are produced by a being who possesses creative effort, without further mention of that being’s awareness of the material cause out of which the world is to be fashioned or desire to create. Nevertheless, these extra qualifiers might still serve a purpose in the inference. The person who employs the inference does so in order to produce a particular judgment (the “target-cognition” [uddeśyapratīti]) on the part of the person to whom the inference is directed. Vyāsatīrtha concedes that since the qualifiers are enlisted specifically for the purpose of giving rise to this cognition, they might not be regarded as pointless.

Vyāsatīrtha argues that this reasoning might also apply to another well-known inference. This is the inference that attempts to establish that properties such as tropes (guṇa), motions (karman), and universals (jāti) are both different and non-different from the substrates in which they inhere. This inference has already been discussed above (Advaitasiddhi, TEXT 5), since Madhusūdana himself adopted much of Vyāsatīrtha’s reasoning in his defence of Ānandabodha’s inferences. Again, the inference would be directed against a Naiyāyika by members of one of the many schools (including the Mādhvas) who accept that properties are both different and non-different from their substrates. Since the Naiyāyika already accepts that these properties are different from their substrates, it might be argued that the qualifier in the inference (“being different”) is pointless. However, it might also be argued in this case that the extra qualifier has the purpose of giving rise to the specific judgment that the person making the inference against the Naiyāyika wishes to produce in them. It is the product of a definite intention to produce a particular cognitive result.

However, Vyāsatīrtha realises that there might be a different reason for adding the non-controversial part to the probandum in the bhedābheda inference. Let us assume that we abandoned the part of the probandum that the Naiyāyika already accepts (“differentiatedness”, bhinnatva). In that case the inference would read as follows:

“Tropes and [other properties] are non-different from the things that possess tropes and [other properties], since [tropes and other properties are] placed in grammatical apposition [with the things that possess them]” (guṇādikaṃ guṇyādinābhinnam, samānādhikr̥tatvāt).

This inference is faulty, because the probandum no longer pervades the reason. Words that refer to identical things are not placed in grammatical apposition with one another; again, we do not say, “Pot (ghaṭa) is pot (kalaśa)”, for instance. Hence the reason (“being placed in grammatical apposition”) would be absent from something that possesses the probandum.

So Vyāsatīrtha says that it is necessary to qualify non-difference with difference in the probandum in order that the quality of “being placed in grammatical apposition” should be a “determiner” (prayojaka) of the probandum. Rāmācārya and Śrīnivāsatīrtha both explain that the term prayojaka is used in a special sense here. The word usually entails that the reason can only be present if accompanied by the probandum. If this is not the case, then the reason is said to be “inconclusive” (aprayojaka) in the sense that it cannot definitively prove that the inferential subject has the probandum. However, according to these commentators, Vyāsatīrtha is using the term to mean that the reason is absent even though the probandum is present. In other words, the reason as it stands (“being placed in grammatical apposition”) is absent from something that possesses the probandum (“being non-different”), that is, the case of synonymous words.⁵⁶ So adding the non-controversial quality of “differentiatedness” to the inference seems to have a purpose beyond merely that of giving rise to the particular cognition that the person making the inference has in mind.

In this case, how can the bhedābheda-inference serve as precedent for Vyāsatīrtha’s judgment that Ānandabodha’s inferences need not suffer from vyarthaviśeṣyatva if we adopt M³ as their probandum? Vyāsatīrtha responds to this concern by noting that the same reason might hold for adding the non-controversial “possessing the constant absence of nonexistence” (asattvātyantābhāvavattvam) quality to the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences. Things that are nonexistent (the hare’s horns and the like) lack perceptibility, at least according to the Advaitins. Consequently, it is necessary for the Advaitins to add the noncontroversial component—“the constant absence of nonexistence”—to the controversial component—“the constant absence of existence”—in order to ensure that cognisability should function as a valid reason for proving that the world is illusory.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 1)

nāpi vyarthaviśeṣyatvam iti. yatheśvarānumāne kr̥timajjanyam iti sādhyakaraṇamātreṇāpīśvarasiddhāv api cikīrṣāder viśeṣaṇasya na vaiyarthyam, vyāpakaviśe-ṣaṇānām uddeśyapratītyarthatvāt.

yathā bhedābhedavādinā tārkikaṃ prati prayukte bhinnābhinnam iti sādhye bhinnatvaviśeṣaṇasya tārkikāṅgīkr̥tatve ’pi na vaiyarthyam, tatpratīter uddeśyatvāt; tathehāpi sadvilakṣaṇatve saty asadvilakṣaṇatvam iti pratīter uddeśyatvān na vyarthaviśeṣyatvam ity arthaḥ.

samānādhikr̥tatvād iti. śuklaḥ paṭa iti sāmānādhikaraṇyavattvād ity arthaḥ. (NAB: 59.)⁵⁷

Translation

“[If we adopt M³ as the definition of “illusoriness”, then the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences] would not have a pointless qualificandum …” (nāpi vyarthavi-śeṣyatvam). In the [Naiyāyikas’] inference [to prove the existence] of god, even though the existence of god could be established if the probandum were merely stated to be “produced by one who possesses effort” (kr̥timat-janyam), the qualifiers “[possessing] a desire to make” (cikīrṣā) and [“having an immediate cognition of the material cause” (upādāna-aparokṣa-jñapti)] are not without purpose. For, the qualifiers attached to the thing that pervades [the reason (i.e. “effort”)] are there to give rise to the judgment that [the inference] is intended to produce.

[Or,] take [the inference] where one who believes that [tropes and so on] are both different and non-different [from the substrates in which they inhere] uses the probandum “both different and non-different” (bhinnābhinna) to persuade the Naiyāyika [of their position]. Here, even though the qualifier [in the probandum]— “differentiatedness” (bhinnatva)—is [already] accepted by the Naiyāyika [who accepts that tropes and other properties are simply different from the substrates in which they inhere, that qualifier] is not without purpose. For, [the inference] seeks to bring about that cognition [(i.e. a cognition of difference compounded with non-difference)]. Likewise, in the present case of [Ānandabodha’s inferences], since [the inferences] aim to produce the judgment “[The world has] the quality of being different from what is nonexistent qualified by the quality of being different from what is existent”, it cannot be objected that the qualificandum portion [of M³] is without purpose.

“Because [tropes and so on] are placed in grammatical apposition [with their substrates] …” (samānādhikr̥tatvāt). [Vyāsatīrtha] means: “Because [tropes and their substrates] possess the quality of being placed in grammatical apposition, as in the statement ‘The cloth is white’”.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 2)

nanv īśvarānumāne jñānādighaṭitaṃ sādhyatrayam evābhipretam iti na tad dr̥-ṣṭāntaḥ. bhedābhedānumāne tv aprayojakatvaparihārāya bhinnatvaviśeṣaṇasyoddeśyatety āśaṅkya prakr̥te ’pi tathety āha yadi ceti.

“guṇādikaṃ guṇyādinābhinnam, samānādhikr̥tatvāt” ity eva kr̥te ’bhedarūpasādhyavaty api ghaṭakalaśādāv avidyamānasya samānādhikr̥tatvasyābhedarūpasādhyaṃ praty aprayojakatvaṃ syāt. tad uktam—tasmin saty abhavataḥ, tena vināpi bhavataḥ, tadaprayojakatvād iti. ato ’prayojakatvam ity arthaḥ. (NAB: 59.)⁵⁸

Translation

Objection: In the [Naiyāyika’s] inference [to prove that the world is created by] god, what is really meant is that there are three separate probanda—a [direct] cognition [of the material cause, a desire to create, and effort itself]. Hence, that inference cannot serve as precedent [for showing that the qualificandum in M³ is without purpose]. In the case of the inference to prove that [tropes and so on] are both different and non-different [from their substrates], on the other hand, it might be supposed that the qualifier “differentiatedness” [is inserted into the probandum] in order to avert the contingency that [otherwise the reason] would not determine [the probandum]. Acknowledging that the same could be said in the present case [of the Advaitins’ inferences, Vyāsatīrtha] says: “And if …” (yadi ca).

Let us assume that the inference [pressed against the Naiyāyikas] was simply “Tropes and [other properties] are non-different from the things that possess tropes and [other properties], since [tropes and other properties are] placed in grammatical apposition [with the things that possess them]”. In that case, the reason (“being-placed-in-grammatical-apposition”) would not be determinative of the probandum (“being non-different”), since [the quality of being placed in grammatical apposition] is absent from the case of “pot (ghaṭa) and pot (kalaśa)”, even though they possess the probandum in the form of being non-different [from one another]. As it is said: “Something (y) is not determinative of something else (x) if y is absent when x is present [or] y is present even when x is absent”. Therefore, [the reason] would not be determinative [of the probandum if the reason simply consisted in “non-difference”]. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means.

9.10 TEXT 10: The flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥ta)

… tathāpy aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvam. “pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atra tv anekadharmasādhanapakṣa eva pratyekaprasiddhyā sādhyaprasiddhir uktā. anyathā śaśādīnāṃ pratyekaṃ prasiddhyā śaśaśr̥ṅgollikhitatvasyāpi sā syāt. (NAB: 53.)⁵⁹

Translation

… Nevertheless, [if we adopt M³ as the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences, then the subject of those inferences] has an unestablished qualifier/probandum (aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā). In the case of the inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]”, on the other hand, it is only according to the view that [that inference] proves multiple, distinct qualities [to be present in the substance earth] that [I] accept that the probandum is established on the ground that [each of the absences that comprise it] are established separately. Otherwise, since hare[, horn, and the quality of “being-scratched”] are individually established, it would follow that the state of “being scratched by a hare’s horn” would be equally [well-established, and hence we could make inferences involving hares’ horns and other nonexistent entities].

Comments

This text marks the end of Vyāsatīrtha’s concessions about M³, and concludes the long argument begun above in TEXT 7. Vyāsatīrtha has tentatively conceded in TEXT 8 and TEXT 9 that if the Advaitin adopts M³ as their preferred analysis of “indeterminacy”, then Ānandabodha’s inferences might not be accused of proving something that is already established (siddhasādhana). He has also conceded that the qualificandum in M³ (“possessing the constant absence of nonexistence”) is not pointless. Nevertheless, he argues that even if these flaws do not apply, M³ is an unestablished quality, and, as such, it cannot serve as the probandum in Ānandabodha’s inferences. Mādhva philosophers accept that we can, in fact, make inferences involving empty terms. However, Vyāsatīrtha here seems to adopt the stance of the Naiyāyikas and assume that such inferences can never be valid.

The Advaitin might argue that the constant absences of existence and nonexistence can be established separately, as distinct qualities in different locations prior to the inferences’ being made. This might be true, but they are not established as qualifier/qualificandum in a single location. The fact that they are individually established is beside the point so far as M³ is concerned. Advaitin philosophers of course argue that the qualified property in question is established in the silver superimposed on mother-of-pearl, but Vyāsatīrtha and the Mādhvas deny that this is so.

Vyāsatīrtha anticipates an objection to this argument, based on the inference to define earth. When discussing this inference in TEXT 6, Vyāsatīrtha assumed that the probandum in the inference consists of thirteen separate mutual absences. He concluded that the entire probandum could still be said to be established if all of these absences were established individually, in different substrates, before the inference takes place. However, as Śrīnivāsatīrtha points out, the probandum in the earth-inference could also be interpreted as a compound/qualified entity. Instead of assuming that the probandum is composed of thirteen distinct qualities (the difference from water and the other substances and categories besides earth/substance), we might say that the probandum consists in the difference from inherence (the final category on the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika list of categories, excepting absence), qualified by the aggregate of differences from the twelve remaining substances and categories. In other words the probandum would be the qualified entity “b qualified by a”, where:

a = the mutual absence of water, fire, wind, etc.

b = the mutual absence of inherence.

The problem is that under this analysis the probandum in the earth-inference seems

to be an unestablished quality. None of the tropes/categories apart from earth could contain such a compound of properties. Water, for instance, might be said to be different from all substances and categories apart from itself, but water obviously cannot be different from water/itself. The same is true of all the remaining substances and categories—none will have the complete combination of differences that together render earth “different from the remaining substances and categories”.

Vyāsatīrtha’s solution to this problem is simply to emphasise that from his point of view, the earth-inference is valid if, and only if, we interpret the probandum to consist of several distinct properties, rather than a qualified entity. This is consistent with what he has already said about the earth-inference when analysing M² (see above, Nyāyāmr̥ta, TEXT 6).

Vyāsatīrtha strengthens his argument with a reductio ad absurdum. If we accept that a qualified/compound entity is established provided its individual components are established, then we open the door to all sorts of absurd inferences. Śrīnivāsatīrtha gives the example of the inference “The earth is scratched by a hare’s horn, because it possesses earthness”. This is an example of an invalid inference, which explains a part of reality by asserting the existence of an unexampled/nonexistent thing. However, if we assume that the probandum consists in a qualified entity, it could be argued that since the components which make up the probandum (the hare, horn, etc.) are separately established prior to the inference, the compound of those things is also established. Hence a clearly unacceptable inference could be regarded as valid if we accept that qualified/compound entities are established simply because their components are individually established.

Sanskrit text (Advaitasiddhi)

ata eva sattvātyantābhāvavattve saty asattvātyantābhāvarūpaṃ viśiṣṭaṃ sādhyam ity api sādhu.

na ca militasya viśiṣṭasya vā sādhyatve tasya kutrāpy aprasiddhyāprasiddhavi-śeṣaṇatvam. pratyekaṃ [1]prasiddhyā[1] militasya viśiṣṭasya vā sādhane [2]śaśaśr̥ṅ-gayoḥ pratyekaṃ prasiddhyā[2] [3]śaśīyaśr̥ṅga[3]sādhanam api syād iti vācyam. tathāvidhaprasiddheḥ śuktirūpya evoktatvāt.

na ca nirdharmakatvād brahmaṇaḥ sattvāsattvarūpadharmadvayaśūnyatvena tatrātivyāptiḥ. sadrūpatvena brahmaṇas tadatyantābhāvānadhikaraṇatvāt, nirdharmakatvenaivābhāvarūpadharmānadhikaraṇatvāc ceti dik. (NAB: 55.)⁶⁰

siddhyā ASMu, ASMy

om. KD

śaśaśr̥ṅga KD

Translation

The very reasons [so far outlined in defence of M²] also show that there is no problem with the claim that the probandum is a qualified/compound entity in the form of “[possessing] the constant absence of nonexistence while possessing the constant absence of existence” [i.e. M³].

Objection (Vyāsatīrtha): If the probandum [in Ānandabodha’s inferences] were a compound (milita) or a qualified entity (viśiṣṭa), then, since [the probandum] would be unestablished in any location [before the inferences take place, the subject in the inferences] would have an unestablished qualifier. For, if we could establish a compound or qualified entity provided that each of its components were individually established, it would follow that since hare and horn are both established individually, we could infer the existence of a horn belonging to a hare!

Reply: Do not argue as such! For, we have already pointed out that [the probandum] defined as such is already established in the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl.

Objection: [If “illusoriness” is defined as M3, then] it applies inappropriately to brahman. For[, in your view,] brahman is free from qualities. It therefore must lack the pair of qualities “existence” and “nonexistence” [and thus must possess M³, which consists in the compound of the absences of these two qualities].

Reply: This is wrong! For, since brahman is[, in our view,] existent by essence, it does not have the constant absence [of existence]. And, the very fact that [brahman] is free of qualities means that it cannot have a negative quality [any more than it can have a positive one, and hence it cannot possess the constant absences of existence and nonexistence]. This is the direction of [my thought].

Comments

In his answer to the first objection in this passage, Madhusūdana is referring to his response to the charge of sādhyavaikalya in TEXT 8. Recall that Madhusūdana has defined nonexistence as “not being the locus of the state of being cognised as existent in some substrate” (kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratīyamānatvānadhikaraṇatvam). Madhusūdana therefore argued that “indeterminacy” consists in: “Being cognised as existent in some location while being different from what is not sublatable in all three times” (trikālābādhyavilakṣaṇatve sati kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratīyamānatvam). The Mādhvas do not claim that the “silver” in question lacks the first part of the probandum defined in this way, because they agree that it lacks omnitemporal non-sublatability. Moreover, the Mādhvas cannot deny that this “silver” has the second part of the probandum. They clearly cannot deny that the “silver” is falsely taken to exist in the mother-of-pearl by the victim of the illusion. Consequently, the flaw of sādhyavaikalya evaporates, and with it Vyāsatīrtha’s objection.

Madhusūdana takes up one final problem before the end of this chapter of the Advaitasiddhi. If brahman lacks qualities, it must lack the qualities of existence and nonexistence. This being so, could it not be said that brahman has the “constant absence of nonexistence qualified by the constant absence of existence” and, therefore, that it too must possess Vyāsatīrtha’s third analysis of “illusoriness”? In response, Madhusūdana points out that the fact that the Advaitins accept that brahman is existent by essence surely implies that it cannot have the “constant absence of existence”. He sketches a further response to this line of argument. Absences are properties, just like “existence” and “nonexistence”. If brahman cannot possess “existence” and “nonexistence” because they are qualities, it cannot possess the absences of those qualities either. Consequently, it cannot have the absences of existence and nonexistence, and it cannot be said to possess “indeterminacy”, however that term is interpreted.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 1)

tathāpy aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvam iti. viśiṣṭasādhyasya saty asati cāprasiddhatvād ity arthaḥ. na ca suktirūpya evobhayābhāvaprasiddhir astīti vācyam, tatra sattvena pratīyamānatvānadhikaraṇatvarūpāsattvasyābhāve vidyamāne ’pi bādhyatvarū-pasyāsattvasya vyatireko nāstīti prāg avocāma. (NAB: 59.)⁶¹

Translation

“Nevertheless, [if “illusoriness” is interpreted as M³, then the subject in Ānandabodha’s inferences] has an unestablished qualifier/probandum …” (tathāpy aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvam). For, the qualified thing that constitutes the probandum [(M³)] is established neither in what is existent nor in what is nonexistent[, since each has only the constant absence of the state of being the other]. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means. Do not argue that both absences are established in the “silver” superimposed on mother-of-pearl. For, as I have said earlier [in my commentary on the PMBh], even though the absence of nonexistence in the form of “not being the locus of the quality of being experienced as existent” is absent [from the “silver”], nevertheless [the silver] does not have the absence of nonexistence in the form of “sublatability”[; and this is the “nonexistence” that you, the Advaitin, must be committed to proving of the world].

Comments

The earlier passage that Rāmācārya refers to here is his response to Madhusū-dana’s arguments against the charge of contradiction, which is translated above (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, TEXT 3).

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 2)

nanu yadi sattvābhāvaviśeṣitāsattvābhāvarūpaviśiṣṭasādhyāprasiddhyāprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvam, tadā jalādidvādaśānyonyābhāvaviśeṣitasamavāyānyonyābhāvarū-paviśiṣṭasādhyasyāpy aprasiddhatvena pratyekānyonyābhāvānāṃ prasiddhyā sā-dhyaprasiddhyupavarṇanaṃ virudhyetety ata āha—pr̥thivīti.

“pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atra jalādidvādaśabhedaviśeṣitasamavāyabhedarū-paṃ viśiṣṭaṃ na sādhyam, na vā trayodaśabhedānām aikādhikaraṇyaṃ sādhyatāvacchedakam, yenāprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvaṃ syāt. kiṃ tu svasvādhikaraṇe vidyamānānāṃ trayodaśānyonyābhāvānām apekṣābuddhiviṣayatvasamūhālamabanaikajñānopārūḍhatvādirūpavyāsajyavr̥ttidharmāvacchinnasādhyatākānāṃ sādhyatvam. tathā ca nāprasiddhiḥ, na vāsādhāraṇyam ity uktam iti bhāvaḥ. (NAB: 59.)⁶²

Translation

Objection: If [one accepts that the] subject [in Ānandabodha’s inferences] has an unestablished qualifier simply because the probandum, which is a qualified entity in the form of “the absence of nonexistence qualified by the absence of existence”, is unestablished, then [Vyāsatīrtha] would be contradicting [his earlier] claim that the probandum [in the earth-inference] is established because the [thirteen] mutual absences are individually established [in different locations prior to the inference’s being made]. For, the probandum [in the earth-inference], which is a qualified entity in the form of the “mutual absence of inherence qualified by the twelve mutual absences of water [and the remaining substances and categories apart from earth and inherence]” is unestablished[, since it cannot exist in any location apart from earth]. In response [to this objection], Vyāsatīrtha says—“Earth …” (pr̥thivī).

In the [inference], “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]”, the probandum is not a qualified entity consisting in the difference from inherence qualified by the twelve differences from water and [the remaining substances and categories apart from earth and inherence]. Nor is the state of sharing a common locus that belongs to the thirteen differences the determiner of probandumhood, by virtue of which the [subject] would have an unestablished qualifier/probandum. No, probandumhood belongs to the thirteen mutual absences each existing in their respective locus, and each possessing probandumhood determined by a collectively present property in the form of “being the object of an aggregating cognition”, [or] “being grasped in a single collective cognition”, etc. Thus it is said that [the probandum in the earth-inference] is not unestablished, nor is [its] reason[—earthness—]a pseudo-reason of the “uncommon” variety. This is the idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s words here].

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, 3)

nanu sattvābhāvāsattvābhāvayor viśeṣaṇaviśeṣyayoḥ prasiddhyā tad viśiṣṭam api prasiddham eva. viśiṣṭasya viśeṣaṇaviśeṣyābhyām anatirekāt; anyathā kṣaṇikatvā-patter ity ata āha—anyatheti. pratyekaprasiddhyā yadi viśiṣṭaprasiddhiḥ, tadety arthaḥ. viśiṣṭaṃ tu tvanmate ’py atiriktam eveti bhāvaḥ. (NAB: 59–60.)⁶³

Translation

Objection: Since the absences of existence and nonexistence, which are, respectively, the qualifier and the qualificandum [in M³], are [individually] well-established, it follows that the qualified entity [comprising them] must be well-established too. For, a qualified entity is nothing more than [its] qualifier and qualificandum. Otherwise, it would follow that [everything] is momentary [as Buddhist philosophers claim]! With this [objection] in mind, Vyāsatīrtha says: “Otherwise …” (anyathā). What [Vyā-satīrtha] means is: “If the qualified thing is well-established because the [qualifier and the qualificandum are,] individually, well-established, then [invalid inferences like the one to prove that the earth is scratched by a hare’s horn would have to be considered as valid]”.

Comments

Rāmācārya’s final comment in this chapter reflects a debate about the ontological status of the “qualified entity” (viśiṣṭa). Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers take a reductionist stance and argue that the viśiṣṭa is nothing over and above the combination of the qualifier, the qualificandum, and the relationship between the two. Mādhva philosophers, by contrast, recognise the viśiṣṭa as a separate entity, a whole over and above the sum of its parts.⁶⁴ Rāmācārya frames Vyāsatīrtha’s argument as a response to a line of argument assuming the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory to be correct. If, as Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers claim, the viśiṣṭa is nothing but the sum of its components, then surely the viśiṣṭa should be established if those components are individually established?

Rāmācārya responds that taking this position seems to lead to the absurd consequence that Vyāsatīrtha points out in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Why should we not conclude that the “hare’s horn” is established simply because we are familiar with hares and horns separately? Rāmācārya points out, moreover, that this argument would be inconsistent with the Advaitins’ own ontological positions. According to Rāmācārya, the Advaitins themselves reject the reductionist stance of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers and hold, like the Mādhvas, that the viśiṣṭa is an entity over and above the sum of its parts.

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 1)

nanu yadi sattvātyantābhāvavattve saty asattvātyantābhāvarūpaviśiṣṭasādhane ’prasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvam, tadā “pr̥thivī itarabhinnā” ity atrāpi jalādidvādaśānyonyābhāvavattve sati samavāyānyonyābhāvarūpaviśiṣṭasyaiva sādhyatvam aṅgīkr̥-tya tasya kutrāpy aprasiddhatvenāprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvaṃ tatrāpi syāt. tathā ca trayodaśānyonyābhāvānāṃ pratyekaṃ prasiddhyā sādhyaprasiddhivyutpādanaṃ vyāhataṃ syād ity ata āha—pr̥thivīti. (NAB: 66.)⁶⁵

Translation

Objection: Let us assume that [the subject in Ānandabodha’s inferences] has an unestablished qualifier/probandum on the grounds that what is established [by those inferences is “indeterminacy” interpreted as] a qualified entity in the form of “the constant absence of nonexistence qualified by the state of possessing the constant absence of existence”. In that case, if we accept that the probandum in the inference “Earth is different from the remaining [substances and categories, because it has earthness]” is simply a compound entity in the form of the mutual absence of inherence qualified by the state of possessing the [remaining] twelve mutual absences from water and so on, then it follows that since that [compound entity] is not established in any locus [before the inference takes place], the flaw of [the subject’s] having-an-unestablished-qualifier applies equally [to the (valid) earth-inference]. And so [Vyāsatīrtha’s earlier] statement that the probandum [in the earth-inference] is established since the thirteen mutual absences are established separately [before the inference takes place] would be contradicted. For this reason does [Vyāsatīrtha] say: “Earth …” (pr̥thivī).⁶⁶

Sanskrit text (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, 2)

sādhanapakṣa eveti. noktarītyā viśiṣṭasādhanapakṣa iti vākyaśeṣaḥ. viśiṣṭasya sā-dhyatāpakṣe tu samudāyālambanarūpaikajñānopārūḍhatvam ādāya na sādhyaprasiddhisampādanaṃ sambhavatīti draṣṭavyam.

nanu viśiṣṭasya sādhyatve ’pi nāprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvam, sadvailakṣaṇyādī-nāṃ viśakalitānāṃ prasiddhisambhavād ity ata āha—anyatheti. “bhūḥ śaśaviṣā-ṇollikhitā, bhūtvāt” ity atrāpy aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvaṃ sarvasammataṃ na syāt. tatrāpi śaśādīnāṃ viśakalitānāṃ prasiddhisambhavād iti bhāvaḥ. (NAB: 66.)⁶⁷

Translation

“Only according to the view that [the earth-inference proves that earth has multiple, distinct qualities] …” (sādhanapakṣa eva). What needs to be added to [Vyāsatīrtha’s] statement is: “… [and] not according to the view that what is established is a compound entity, in the way [I] have just outlined”. It should be observed that if we do accept that the probandum is a qualified entity, then it cannot be established insofar as [its individual components] are grasped in a single, collective cognition.

Objection: Even if the probandum [in the Advaitin’s inferences] is a compound entity, it does not follow that the flaw of aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā applies, because the states of being different from what is existent [and of being different from what is nonexistent] can be established separately[, in different locations, before the inference takes place]. In response to this, [Vyāsatīrtha] says: “Otherwise …” (anyathā). In the inference “The earth has been scratched by a hare’s horn, because [it has] earthness”, there would not be universal agreement that the flaw of aprasiddhavi-śeṣaṇatā applies. For, [in this inference] too, the hare [and the horn] might be individually well-established [in different locations before the inference takes place]. This is the idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s words here].

10 Conclusion

This book has analysed only a tiny fragment of the Nyāyāmr̥ta and its commentaries. The literature generated by Vyāsatīrtha’s work sprawled over three centuries, and its philosophical contents and historical influence are only just beginning to be appreciated by modern scholarship. Only a small amount of this literature has been published, and barely a fraction of it has been translated into a modern language. Nevertheless, the new interest among modern scholars in the early-modern period in India in which Vyāsatīrtha wrote and the history of the Vijayanagara Empire itself have ensured that Vyāsatīrtha’s work has increasingly become a subject of research in the last years.

The Nyāyāmr̥ta and its literature touch upon virtually every topic discussed by Indian philosophers, but in the opening chapters of the text the discussion repeatedly comes back to issues surrounding the nature of existence/nonexistence and empty terms. While these topics had already been discussed extensively by the Naiyāyikas in their debates with Buddhist philosophers, the Advaitins’ doctrine of indeterminacy brought them to the forefront of philosophical discussion among Vedānta traditions in the early modern period. The Mādhva theory of nonexistence/empty terms, which has been discussed extensively in this book, is one of their most controversial philosophical positions. In “seizing the hare by the horns” and concluding that the objects we seem to see in perceptual errors simply do not exist, Vyāsatīrtha went against the grain of Indian philosophical thought. The Advaitins’ arguments for indeterminacy trade on a deep scepticism about the idea of object-free cognitions among Indian philosophers, who widely assumed that such cognitions could not arise at all, or at least found it impossible to account for how they could have the character of perceptual awarenesses. Traditions like the Naiyāyikas and the Prābhākaras thus argued that we must somehow correlate all the contents of erroneous cognitions with parts of the real world, a move which was also designed to neutralise the challenge that such episodes seem to pose to their realist metaphysical positions.

Vyāsatīrtha sees little advantage, in the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion, in attempting to ascribe to the silver component of the illusion any sort of object-correlate in the real world. Nevertheless, on inspection his explanation of how the illusion occurs is not that different from the Naiyāyikas’. As Vyāsatīrtha makes clear in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, while he accepts that cognitions can lack an object, this does not mean he believes that they can arise in the absence of objects altogether. His explanation of the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion still requires that our faculties are connected with external objects, either directly or by means of memory impressions. The perceptual character of the “silver” part of the cognition can only be explained by postulating that the judgment is partly produced by contact with an object that actually exists in the immediate objective situation that gives rise to the illusion, i.e. the mother-of-pearl. Similarly, the “silver” part of the judgment can only be explained by reference to a memory impression of a piece of silver existing in some other part of the world that serves as the “prototype” inspiring the fake silver fused into the erroneous perception. So, for Vyāsatīrtha, while our cognition of “silver” strictly lacks an object, it certainly does not present an example of an awareness that arises in the absence of objects altogether.

Vyāsatīrtha thus argues that it is his Mādhva explanation that strikes the best balance in explaining the mother-of-pearl/silver confusion. On the one hand, it captures what Vyāsatīrtha takes to be our intuition that the “silver” simply does not exist; on the other hand, it explains how such perception-like cognitions can arise from a synthesis of our previous experiences with perceptual processes, ruling out the possibility that cognitions can arise without the influence of objects. From Vyāsatīrtha’s perspective, his theory thus presents an intuitive but powerful explanation of perceptual error which can give a satisfactory answer to the Advaitins’ claims that perceptual illusions are inexplicable without opening the back door to the dreaded nihilist/śūnyavādin.

In the Refutation of the First Definition of Illusoriness, Vyāsatīrtha breathes new life into the old charge that indeterminacy is actually a disguised contradiction. His main contribution to this issue is to explain this objection to indeterminacy by grounding it in his definitions of existence and nonexistence themselves. Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions, which explain existence/nonexistence in terms of spatio-temporal instantiation, render them jointly-exhaustive states and thus provide a substantial basis to the claim of earlier philosophers that denying them both of the same thing leads to a contradiction. His arguments prompted Madhusūdana to reappraise the classical Advaitins’ defence of indeterminacy against this charge. According to Madhusūdana, there is no contradiction in indeterminacy, because existence and nonexistence are simply not jointly exhaustive states. Contrary to Vyāsatīrtha, Madhusūdana claims that existence is simply the quality of not being liable to sublation, and nonexistence is nothing more than the incapacity to be mistaken for an existent object. So claiming that the silver—which is both liable to future sublation and appears to us as existent—lacks these properties does not lead to a contradiction.

Yet again, the Mādhva response to these arguments of Madhusūdana turns on how “nonexistence” should be understood. In the Mādhva literature after Vyāsatīrtha, we can trace two lines of attack against Madhusūdana’s position on contradiction. The first is that his definition of nonexistence is incompatible with key aspects of Advaita philosophy. In the first place, Madhusūdana’s case seems to reduce part of the argument for indeterminacy from circumstantial implication (“If the silver were nonexistent, we could not experience it”) to a mere tautology. Secondly, it is not clear in that case whether or not the argument truly articulates a difference of the Advaitins with the nihilistic Buddhists, who were taken by Brahmanical philosophers to claim that the world is “nonexistent” in the sense that it is altogether lacking in essence (niḥsvarūpa). Mādhva philosophers also argued that Madhusūdana’s case is simply an inadequate definition of nonexistence. At least certain things that would usually be labelled “nonexistent” do seem to be falsely taken to exist. Why should not a naive child, for instance, be duped into believing that hares really have horns? One solution for the Advaitin would be to classify such terms as indeterminate in that case, but they then risk collapsing the seemingly rigid line they draw between the states of indeterminacy and nonexistence.

As this volume has shown, these debates about nonexistent entities/empty terms were further bound up closely with questions about the nature and limits of inferential knowledge. In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha presents a detailed challenge to the Naiyāyikas’ belief that we need to exclude empty terms from formal inferences. He argues that we can correctly ascribe qualities to nonexistent things, and that we can even make certain valid inferences about them. His argument for this in the Tarkatāṇḍava is not only that such judgments/inferences are intuitively true, but that it is impossible to coherently argue that we are unable to make them. How could one argue in favour of the stance that empty terms cannot have properties, for instance, without oneself making a kind of inference that ascribes properties to them? Just like the Advaitins, who are apparently forced to speak of nonexistent things even as they denied we can experience them, Vyāsatīrtha argues that the Naiyāyikas are drawn ineluctably into making inferences about nonexistent things that contradict the very thesis they are trying to prove. According to Vyāsatīrtha, if we are to explain such judgments and inferences, we are forced to accept that there are “location-free qualities” which, unlike colours, universals, and so on, do not require an existent locus. While the silver or the sky-flower may be a fabrication of our sense faculties, the qualities of nonexistence, “counterpositiveness”, and so on, which we correctly ascribe to them, are qualities that exist as part of the real world.

These questions about perception, existence, and nonexistence continued to be debated in the centuries following Vyāsatīrtha’s death by leading thinkers from the Mādhva and Advaita traditions. The Nyāyāmr̥ta literature was clearly Vyāsatīrtha’s most enduring influence over the Advaita tradition and his work shaped the contours of a debate which came to dominate interactions between the two traditions for the next three hundred years. The recent work of scholars like McCrea and Duquette, which has largely been driven by interest in Vyāsatīrtha’s influence over the Advaitins, has shown how he tacitly came to influence their thought for centuries after his death, even as leading Advaitin philosophers publicly poured scorn on his school.

This volume has given glimpses into the impact that Vyāsatīrtha had on Madhusūdana and his commentators in particular. One of the obvious effects of Madhusūdana’s encounter with Vyāsatīrtha’s work was to help draw Madhusūdana into the world of Navya-Nyāya learning. Vyāsatīrtha’s engagement with Gaṅgeśa’s thought was probably one of the factors that made his work attractive and challenging to philosophers like Madhusūdana and Appayya in the first place. While Madhusūdana seems to have studied Navya-Nyāya independently at Navadvipa, it is clear that Vyāsatīrtha’s work helped shape his intellectual engagement with Navya-Nyāya since it challenged him to articulate the philosophy of the classical Advaitins using the new ideas and terminology of the Navya-Naiyāyikas. It is clear from the passages of the Advaitasiddhi discussed in this volume that Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments prompted a reappraisal of the work of the classical Advaitins on the part of Madhusūdana and his commentators. The Refutation of the First Definition of Illusoriness itself shows how Vyāsatīrtha’s work prompted Madhusūdana to rethink his defence of Ānandabodha’s inferences as he followed Vyāsatīrtha in using Gaṅgeśa’s work on universal-negative inference in particular to defend their validity. Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments also clearly led Madhusūdana to rethink the Advaitins’ solution to the charge of contradiction, prompting him to re-frame the philosophical questions surrounding existence in the language of Navya-Nyāya and Vyāsatīrtha’s work.

A central theme of this volume has been the complex influence that Gaṅgeśa exerted over Vyāsatīrtha’s work itself. Besides being influenced by the style and technical vocabulary of Gaṅgeśa’s writing, he was also influenced by Gaṅgeśa’s intricate defence of the Nyāya theory of inference in the Tattvacintāmaṇi. By carefully applying Gaṅgeśa’s work on universal-negative inference in the Refutation of the First Definition of Illusoriness, Vyāsatīrtha intended to show with legalistic precision that Madhva and Jayatīrtha’s arguments against Ānandabodha’s inferences were still valid in the light of Gaṅgeśa’s new arguments.

Yet Gaṅgeśa’s work also presented a direct challenge to the Mādhva philosophy that Vyāsatīrtha was committed to defending. Despite the disinterest in responding to Vyāsatīrtha’s work on the part of the Naiyāyikas, the Tarkatāṇḍava presents one of the most thoroughgoing critiques of Navya-Nyāya written by a philosopher outside the tradition. Indeed, the philosophical debate between the Mādhvas and the Naiyāyikas was perhaps one of the greatest philosophical showdowns that never took place in India’s intellectual history. The recent publications of the Dvaita Vedānta Saṃśodhana Mandiram show that Mādhva commentators on the Nyāyāmr̥ta continued to study and respond to Navya-Nyāya works well into eighteenth century. These works, which were often deeply influenced by the thought of Raghunātha and Gadādhara Bhaṭṭa (fl. 1660), allow us to trace the continuing engagement of the Mādhvas with the Navya-Nyāya tradition during this period. The works of Vyāsatīrtha and his commentators from Puntamba, as well as Satyanātha, Rāghavendra, and Mannāri Kr̥ṣṇācārya provide an extensive cache of quotes from Navya-Nyāya works of the Mithila and Bengal schools which could aid the philological study of Navya-Nyāya texts.

In contrast to those who have dismissed this period as one where old ideas were dressed in new garb, these texts were intellectually creative and sometimes radical in their reappraisals of established philosophical doctrines. Satyanātha’s Abhinavatāṇḍava is perhaps the most outstanding work in the Mādhva tradition in this regard. In contrast to Vyāsatīrtha, who generally plays down the innovative character of his work, Satyanātha was a self-consciously original and iconoclastic thinker who was as unafraid to rethink Mādhva philosophy as he was to challenge the luminaries of the Navya-Nyāya tradition. The use of the word abhinava (“neo-”) in the title of Satyanātha’s work itself echoes the language of the Bengali Navya-Nyāya tradition, suggesting an inclination to innovation and original thought. Moreover, Satyanātha frames his work as a direct commentary on the Brahmatarka, a work ascribed by the Mādhvas to Viṣṇu incarnated as Veda-Vyāsa himself. The majority of Mādhva texts from this period remain unpublished, including particularly the remaining commentaries on the Tarkatāṇḍava, especially that of Kr̥ṣṇācārya, and the volumes of works on the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Some of these manuscripts have been documented by Western scholarship, yet many remain unknown, preserved only in private Mādhva collections. These new philosophical avenues can thus only be explored through careful philological work and cooperation with traditional scholars.

Bibliography

Primary sources in Sanskrit

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Nyāyakusumāñjali of Udayana, ed. by Padmaprasāda Upādhyāya and Dhuṇḍhirāja Śāstri. (Varanasi: Caukamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1957.) [NKM] 

Nyāyamakaranda, Pramāṇamālā, and Nyāyadīpāvalī of Ānandabodha, ed. by Swāmi Bālarāma Udasren Māndālikā. (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Book Depot, 1907.) [NM] 

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Nyāyasiddhāntamuktāvalī of Viśvanātha Paṃcānana Bhaṭṭācārya, ed. with the Dinakarīya of Mahādeva Bhaṭṭa and Dinakara Bhaṭṭa, and the Rāmarudrīya of Rāmarudra by Harirāma Śukla Sastri. (Varanasi: Chaukhambha Prakashan, 1989.) [NSM] 

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Vidyādhīśavijaya of Janārdana Sūri, ed. by S. R. Pāṇḍuraṅgi. (Bengaluru: Dvaita Vedānta Saṃśodhana Pratiṣṭhānam, 2004.) [ViV] 

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Index of English terms

Alexius Meinong1

analytic philosophy1, 2

analytic theology1

apperception (anuvyavasāya)1

atom (paramāṇu)1, 2, 3

Bertrand Russell1

Buddhist philosophy1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Calvinism1

category (padārtha)1, 2, 3

circumstantial implication (arthāpatti)1, 2, 3, 4, 5

constant absence (atyantābhāva)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

contact (saṃyoga)1, 2, 3

contradiction (vyāhati)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

contradictory qualities1, 2

contrary qualities1, 2

cosmogony1, 2

counterpositive (pratiyogin)1, 2

dependency (paratantratā)1, 2

determiner (avacchedaka)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

difference (bheda)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

disjunction (vibhāga)1

dualism1, 2

empty terms1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

epistemic fault (doṣa)1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5

ether (ākāśa)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

example (dr̥ṣṭānta)1, 2, 3

extrinsicist theory of validity (parataḥprāmāṇyavāda)1

god1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

grammatical apposition (sāmānādhikaraṇya)1, 2

hypothetical reasoning (tarka)1, 2

illusory (mithyā)1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9

indeterminacy (anirvacanīyatā)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19, 20, 20, 21, 21, 22, 23, 24, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35

inference

– to prove the existence of god1

– to prove the world is illusory1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

inference (anumāna)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

inherence (samavāya)1, 2, 3, 4

internal faculty (manas)1, 2, 3, 4

intrinsicist theory of veridicality (svataḥprāmāṇyavāda)1, 2

Jainism1

John Calvin1

knowledge (pramā)1, 2

law of excluded middle (LEM)1, 2

law of non-contradiction (LNC)1

liberation (mokṣa)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9

location-free property (asadāśrayadharma)1

material nature (prakr̥ti)1, 2

means of knowledge (pramāṇa)1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

motion (kriyā)1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

natural kind1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

nescience (avidyā)1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7

non-conceptual perception (nirvikalpakapratyakṣa)1

non-dualism1

non-realism1, 2

nonexistence (asattva)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 25, 26, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

object-correspondence (yathārthatva)1, 2

perception (pratyakṣa)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 16, 17, 18, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23

perceptual error1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14

perceptual knowledge (pratyakṣa)1, 2

pervasion (vyāpti)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 12

pluralism1

practical (vyāvahārika)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

predestination (Calvinist doctrine)1

probandum (sādhya)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

rational theology1

realism1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

reason (hetu)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

relational abstract1, 2, 3

renunciation1

sense-faculty (indriya)1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4

similarity (sādr̥śya)1, 2, 3

subject of an inference (pakṣa)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

sublation (bādha)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 16

theodicy1

theology1

time1

transmigratory existence1

trope (guṇa)1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

trope-theory1

ultimate differentiator (viśeṣa)1

ultimate reality (pāramārthikasat)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6

universal (jāti)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14, 15, 16

universal-negative inference (kevalavyatirekyanumāna)1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14

verbal testimony (śabda)1, 2, 3, 4

veridicality (prāmāṇya)1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7

Vijayanagara (empire)1, 2

witness (sākṣin)1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7

Index of Sanskrit terms

abādhyatva (non-sublatability)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

adhyāsa (superimposition)1, 2

agrahāra (brahmin settlement)1

ajñāna (ignorance)1, 2

anirvacanīyatā (indeterminacy)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19, 20, 20, 21, 21, 22, 23, 24, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35

antaḥkaraṇapariṇāma (modification of the inner-faculty)1

anugatavyavahāra (consecutive discourse)1, 2

anumiti (inferential knowledge)1, 2, 3, 4

anumāna (inference)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 18, 19, 20, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33

anupramāṇa1

anuvyavasāya (apperception)1

anvaya (syntactical connection)1

anyathākhyāti (misidentification theory of error)1, 2, 3

anyonyābhāva (mutual absence)1, 2

aparokṣajñāna (immediate awareness)1

apauruṣeya (impersonal [testimony])1

aprasiddha (unestablished)1, 2, 3

aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatā (having-an-unestablished qualifier/probandum)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

arthakriyākāritva (practical efficacy)1, 2

arthāntara (failing to prove what is intended)1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5

arthāpatti (circumstantial implication)1, 2, 3, 4, 5

asadāśrayadharma (location-free property)1, 2, 3, 4

asatkhyātivāda1

asattva (nonexistence)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 25, 26, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

astitva (existence)1, 2, 3

atyantābhāva (constant absence)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

atyantāsattva (complete nonexistence)1, 2, 3

avacchedaka (determiner)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

avastha (state [of time])1, 2

avatāra (earthly incarnation)1, 2, 3

avidyā (nescience)1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7

avyāpti (under-pervasion of a definition)1

avācya (ineffable)1

Ājīvika (school of philosophy)1

āgama (verbal testimony)1

ākuñcana (contraction)1

ākāra (form of a cognition)1

ākāśa (ether)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

ākāṅkṣā (expectancy)1

ālambana (objective basis)1

ātmaviśeṣaguṇa (distinguishing quality of the self)1

āśrayāsiddhi (non-establishment of substrate)1, 2

Badarikāsrama1

bhakti (loving devotion)1

bheda (difference)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Bhāgavatasampradāya1

Bhāmatī (sub-school of Advaita)1

brahman1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 26, 27

bādha (contradiction [inferential fallacy])1

bādha (sublation)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 16

bādhyatva (sublatability)1

caturvarṇāśramadharma (four castes and life-stages)1

daitya1

dhvaṃsa (posterior absence)1

doṣa (epistemic fault)1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5

dravyatva (substancehood)1

dr̥śyatva (perceptibility)1, 2, 3, 4, 5

dr̥ṣṭānta (example)1, 2, 3

dvyaṇuka (atomic-dyad)1

dīkṣāguru (consecration-preceptor)1, 2

Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism1

gopīcandana1

guṇa (trope)1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

haituka (rationalist)1

Haridāsa movement1, 2

hetu (reason)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

hetvābhāsa (pseudo-reason)1, 2

hiraṇyagarbha (primordial egg)1

Hoysaḷa Empire1

indriya (sense-faculty)1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4

jaḍatva (insentience)1, 2, 3

jāti (universal)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14, 15, 16

jīva (individual soul)1, 2

kevalapramāṇa1

kevalatarka (pure reasoning)1

kevalavyatirekyanumāna (universal-negative inference)1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14

kevalānumāna (pure inference)1

kevalānvayin (universal-positive property)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

kriyā (motion)1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

kr̥ti (mental exertion)1, 2

kṣaṇikatva (momentariness)1, 2

Lakṣmī1, 2

manas (internal faculty)1, 2, 3, 4, 5

maṅgalaśloka (benedictory verse)1

milita (compound entity)1, 2

mithyā (illusory)1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9

mithyāvabhāsa (illusory appearance)1

mokṣa (liberation)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9

Mura (Daitya)1

mānasapratyakṣa (perception of the inner-faculty)1, 2

māyā (illusion)1, 2, 2, 3, 4

māyāvāda (illusionism)1

māyāvādin (illusionist)1, 2

nirguṇa (free from qualities)1

nirvikalapakapratyakṣa (non-conceptual perception)1

nirūpaka (describer)1

nivartyatva (being liable to cancellation)1, 2, 3, 4

nivr̥tta (cancelled)1

nivr̥tti (destruction)1

niyama (governance)1

niyāmaka (restrictor)1

niṣedha (negation)1, 2, 3

padārtha (category)1, 2, 3

padārthatva (categoriness)1

padārthāntara (separate category)1

pakṣa (subject of an inference)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

pakṣadharmatā (the reason’s being an attribute of the inferential subject)1

paramāṇu (atom)1, 2, 3

paratantratā (dependency)1, 2

parataḥprāmāṇyavāda (doctrine of extrinsic validity)1, 2

paribhāṣā (auxiliary rule)1

paricchinnatva (finitude)1, 2, 3

pariṇāma (transformation)1, 2

parokṣa (indirect)1

pañcabhedavāda (doctrine of five kinds of difference)1

piśāca1

pracchannabauddha (Buddhist in disguise)1, 2

prakr̥ti (material nature)1, 2, 3

pramā (knowledge)1, 2, 3

pramāṇa (means of knowledge)1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

prasiddha (established)1

prasāraṇa (expansion)1

pratiyogin (counterpositive)1, 2

pratiyogitā (counterpositiveness)1, 2, 3, 4, 5

pratyakṣa (perception)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 16, 17, 18, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23

pratyakṣa (perceptual knowledge)1, 2, 3

prāgabhāva (prior absence)1

prāmāṇya (veridicality)1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7

pāramārthikasat (ultimate reality)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7

pāribhāṣikasat1

Pāñcarātra1, 2, 3

rākṣasa1

sadābhāva (constant absence)1

samatva (equanimity)1, 2

samavāya (inherence)1, 2, 3, 4

sapakṣa (homologue)1, 2, 3

saprakārakajñāna (qualificative cognition)1, 2, 3

sattā (existence, understood as a universal)1, 2, 3, 4, 5

saṃsāra (transmigratory existence)1

saṃyoga (contact)1, 2, 3

saṃśaya (doubt)1, 2

Saṅgama (dynasty of Vijayanagara Empire)1

siddhasādhana (proving something that is already established)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13

svabhāva (inherent nature of the individual soul)1

svarūpa (form, essence)1, 2

svarūpendriya (essential faculty)1

svatantra (independent)1, 2

svataḥprāmāṇyavāda (intrinsicist theory of veridicality)1, 2

svayamprakāśa (self-manifesting)1

sādhya (probandum)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

sādhyavaikalya (lacking the probandum)1, 2

sādr̥śya (similarity)1, 2, 3, 4

sākṣin (witness)1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7

sāmānya (universal)1, 2

sāmānādhikaraṇya (co-occurrence)1

sāmānādhikaraṇya (grammatical apposition)1, 2, 3

sāṃsargikābhāva (relational absence)1, 2

Sāṅkhya1, 2, 3, 4

Śiva1

Śivaḷḷi brahmins1

Śrīnivāsa (form of Viṣṇu)1

śabda (verbal testimony)1, 2, 3, 4

śakti (potency)1

śakti (potentiality, category of the Mādhvas)1

śābdabodha (verbal knowledge)1, 2, 3

śūnyavādin (Buddhist nihilist)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

tarka (hypothetical reasoning)1, 2, 3

tattva (reality)1

tattvavāda1

truṭi (particle)1

Tuḷuva (dynasty of the Vijayanagara Empire)1

tādātmya (essential identity)1

tādātmyābhāva (identity absence)1

upamiti (identificational knowledge)1

upamāna (comparison)1, 2

upādhi (imposed property)1

upādānakāraṇa (material cause)1

varṇa (syllable)1, 2

vastu (real thing)1

Veda1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Veda-Vyāsa1, 2

vibhāga (disjunction)1

vidyāguru (intellectual preceptor)1, 2

Vijayanagara (city)1, 2, 3

Vijayanagara (empire)1, 2, 3, 4, 5

vimata (object of dispute)1

vipakṣa (heterologue)1, 2

vipratipattivākya (statement of disagreement)1, 2, 3, 4

Vivaraṇa (Advaita tradition)1, 2

vivarta (apparent transformation)1

viśeṣa (distinguisher, category of Mādhva philosophy)1

viśeṣa (ultimate differentiator)1, 2, 3, 4

viśiṣṭa (accompanied by/coupled with)1

viśiṣṭa (qualified thing, category of the Mādhvas)1

Viśiṣṭādvaita (philosophy)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

vyabhicāra (fallacy of deviation)1, 2

vyavahāra (practical activity)1, 2, 3

vyāhati (contradiction)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

vyākaraṇaśāstra (grammatical science)1, 2

vyāpti (pervasion)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 12

vyāsajyavr̥ttidharma (collectively present quality)1, 2, 3

vyāvahārika (practical)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

vyāvahārikasat (practical reality)1, 2, 3

Vāyu (wind god)1

yathārthatva (object-correspondence)1, 2

yoga1

yogin1, 2

yogyatā (consistency)1

Yogācāra (school of Buddhism)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Yādava dynasty1

Index of Sanskrit texts and authors

Abhinavatāṇḍava1, 2, 3, 4

Acyutaprekṣa1, 2, 3

Advaitasiddhi1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14, 15, 16

Advaitasiddhibālabodhinī1

Advaitasiddhivyākhyā1, 2

Akṣobhyatīrtha1, 2

Anubhūti Svarūpācārya1

Anuvyākhyāna1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10

Appayya Dīkṣita1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Atharvaveda1

Avyayātman1

Aṇumadhvacarita1

Aṣṭamaṭhas (temples in Uḍupi)1

Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Ānandabodha Yati1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32

Ānandapūrṇa Vidyāsāgara1

Ātmatattvaviveka1

Balabhadra1, 2

Ballaṇṇa Sumati1

Bhagavadgītā1

Bhaviṣyatparvan1

Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita1

Bhedojjīvana1

Bhāgavatapurāṇa1, 2

Bhāgavatatātparyanirṇaya1, 2

Bhāmatī (commentary on the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya)1, 2

Bhāsarvajña1, 2

Bhāskara1, 2, 3, 4

Bhāvaprakāśikā1, 2

Brahmasiddhi1, 2

Brahmasūtra1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (of Madhva)1, 2, 3, 4

Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (of Śaṅkara)1, 2, 3

Brahmatarka1, 2, 3, 4

Brahmaṇya Tīrtha1, 2, 3, 4

Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa1

Br̥hadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad1

Br̥hadāraṇyakopaniṣadbhāṣyavārttika1, 2

Bukka Rāya1

Candramati1

Cennu Bhaṭṭa1

Chāndogya Upaniṣad1, 2, 3

Citsukha(-Ācārya)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

Daśapadārthaśāstra1

Daśaprakaraṇas1, 2

Dharmakīrti1, 2, 3, 4

Dhoṇḍo Pant Raghunāth (name of Jayatīrtha before renunciation)1

Gadādhara Bhaṭṭa1, 2, 3

Gauḍa Brahmānanda1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Gauḍapāda1

Gaṅgeśa Upādhyāya1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19, 20, 21, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

Gurucandrikā1

Harihara1

Iṣṭasiddhi1, 2, 2, 3

Janārdana Bhaṭṭa1

Jayadeva Pakṣadhara1, 2, 2

Jayanta Bhaṭṭa1

Jayarāma Nyāyapañcānana1, 2

Jayatīrthavijaya1

Jñānaghana1

Jñānottama1

Kanakadāsa1

Kaṇādarahasya1

Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍanakhādya1, 2, 3

Kiraṇāvalī1, 2

Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya1, 2

Kumārila Bhaṭṭa1

Kūrma Narahari Ācārya1

Laghucandrikā1, 2, 3, 4

Lakṣaṇamālā1

Lakṣaṇāvalī1, 2

Madhusūdana Sarasvatī1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19, 20, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Mahābhārata1, 2, 3, 4

Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya1, 2

Mandāramañjarī1

Mannāri Kr̥ṣṇācārya1, 2

Mathurānātha Tarkavāgīśa1

Maṇḍana Miśra1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana1, 2

Mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍanaṭīkā1

Māyāvādakhaṇḍana1, 2, 3

Māyāvādakhaṇḍanaṭīkā1

Narahari Upādhyāya1

Naraharitīrtha1, 2

Narasa Nāyaka1

Navyanyāyabhāṣāpradīpa1

Nayanaprasādinī1, 2

Nimbārka1

Nr̥siṃhāśrama1

Nyāyadīpa1, 2, 3

Nyāyadīpāvalī1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Nyāyakalpalatā1

Nyāyakusumāñjalī1, 2, 3

Nyāyakusumāñjalīprakāśa1

Nyāyalīlāvatī1, 2

Nyāyamakaranda1, 2, 3, 4

Nyāyasiddhāntamuktāvalī1

Nyāyasudhā1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14

Nyāyasūtra1

Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra1, 2, 2

Nyāyāmr̥tamādhūrī1

Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Nyāyāmr̥tasaugandhya1

Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Nyāyāmr̥tāmoda1, 2

Nārāyaṇa Paṇḍitācārya1, 2, 3

Padmanābha Tīrtha1

Padmapāda1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Padmatīrtha1, 2

Padārthadharmasaṅgraha1, 2

Padārthasaṅgraha1

Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa1, 2, 3

Parimala1

Pañcapādikā1, 2

Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Prabhākara1

Pragalbha1, 2

Prakāśātman1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 15

Pramāṇalakṣaṇa1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Pramāṇalakṣaṇaṭīkā1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Pramāṇamālā1, 2

Pramāṇapaddhati1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5

Pramāṇavārttikakārikā1

Prapañcamithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana1

Pratyagrūpa1, 2, 3

Praśastapāda1, 2, 2

Purandaradāsa1

Purāṇas1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Puṇḍarīka Pūrī (Advaitin philosopher named in the Sumadhvavijaya)1, 2

Pāñcarātrasaṃhitās1, 2

Raghunātha Tīrtha1

Raghunātha Śiromaṇi1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Raghunātha Śāstri Pārvate1

Raghūttama Tīrtha1

Raṅgoji Bhaṭṭa1

Rucidatta1, 2

Rāghavendra Tīrtha1, 2, 3

Rāmādvaya1

Rāmānuja1, 2, 3, 4

Rāmāyaṇa1, 2

Rāṣṭrauḍhavaṃśamahākāvya1

Saptapadārthī1

Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha1

Sarvajñātman1, 2

Sattarkavilāsa1

Satyanātha Tīrtha1, 2, 3, 3

Saṅkṣepaśarīraka1

Sevappa Nāyaka1

Siddhāntabindu1

Somanātha Kavi1, 2, 3

Sondaḍa Upādhyāya1

Sumadhvavijaya1, 2, 2, 3

Sureśvara1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Svarṇavarṇa Tīrtha1

Sāmaveda1

Sāḷuva Narasiṃha I1

Śatadūṣaṇī1, 2

Śaṅkara Miśra1, 2, 3, 4

Śaṅkara(-Ācārya)1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Śaṅkarapādabhūṣaṇa1

Śivāditya1, 2, 3

Śrībhāṣya1, 2

Śrīdhara1

Śrīharṣa1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Śrīnivāsatīrtha1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Śrīpādarāja (= Lakṣmīnārāyaṇatīrtha)1, 2, 3, 4

Śrīpādarājāṣṭaka1

Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad1

Śālikanātha1

Tantrasārasaṅgraha1

Tarkasaṅgrahadīpikāsarasva1

Tarkatāṇḍava1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14, 15, 16, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 27, 28, 28, 29

Tattvacintāmaṇi1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Tattvacintāmaṇiprabhā1

Tattvacintāmaṇyāloka1

Tattvapradīpa1

Tattvapradīpikā1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Tattvaprakāśikā1

Tattvasaṅkhyāna1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6

Tattvasaṅkhyānaṭīkā1, 2

Tattvaviveka1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Tattvaśuddhi1

Tattvoddyota1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5

Tattvoddyotaṭīkā1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Tattvoddyotaṭīkāṭippaṇī1

Trivikramapaṇḍitācārya1

Tuḷuva (dynasty of the Vijayanagara Empire)1, 2

Tātparyacandrikā1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7

Tātparyapariśuddhi1

Udayana1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6

Uddyotakara1

Upaniṣads1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Upādhikhaṇḍana1, 2

Upādhikhaṇḍanaṭīkā1, 2

Vaiśeṣikasūtra1

Vaiśeṣikasūtropaskāra1

Vallabha (Vaiśeṣika philosopher)1, 2, 3

Vallabha(-Ācārya)1

Vanamālī Miśra1, 2

Varadaguru1

Vardhamāna Upādhyāya1, 2

Vardhamānendu1

Veda-Vyāsa1, 2

Vedeśatīrtha1

Vedāntakaumudī (of Rāmādvaya)1

Veṅkaṭanātha (= Vedānta Deśika)1, 2, 3

Veṇīdatta1, 2

Vidyādhara Pātra1

Vidyādhīśa Tīrtha1, 2, 3

Vidyādhīśavijaya1

Vidyānivāsa Bhaṭṭācārya1

Vidyāraṇya1

Vijayanagara (city)1

Vijayanagara (empire)1, 2, 3

Vijayīndra Tīrtha1, 2, 2

Vijayīndraparājaya1

Vimuktātman1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8

Vivaraṇa (work by Prakāśātman)1

Viṣṇudāsācārya1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5

Viṣṇupurāṇa1

Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāya1, 2, 3

Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāyī1, 2

Vyomaśiva1

Vyāsa Rāmācārya1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Vyāsatraya1

Vyāsayogicarita1, 2, 3, 3, 4

Vācaspati Miśra1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Vācaspati Miśra (II)1

Vādaratnāvalī1, 2

Vādāvalī1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Vākyārthacandrikā1

Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma1, 2

Vīranarasiṃharāya1, 2

Yajurveda1

Yajñapati Upādhyāya1, 2, 3, 4

Yatiliṅgasamarthana1

Yogācāra (school of Buddhism)1

Yāmunācārya1, 2

Notes

1

Unless stated otherwise, dates for Navya-Nyāya and Advaita philosophers in this book are drawn from the online version of Volume 1 of Karl H. Potter’s Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Bibliography: http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/ (accessed February 6, 2022). Dates for Mādhva philosophers are mostly drawn from Sharma (1981).

2

See Phillips (2020a: 2–3) for a recent discussion of Gaṅgeśa’s dates.

3

A recently published special edition of the Journal of Indian Philosophy (David and Duquette, 2021) deals with the impact of Navya-Nyāya on different intellectual traditions in South India, including the Mādhvas and the Advaitins.

1

See below, Chapter 3, p. 47, for a translation of the benedictory verses to the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

2

Madhva’s birth was traditionally dated to 1199 based on a verse found in his own Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya. However, a biography of Madhva known as the Aṇumadhvacarita gives Madhva’s birth date as 1239. Sharma and other scholars of the Mādhva tradition favoured the latter date based on inscriptions alluding to Naraharitīrtha, a leading figure in the Mādhva tradition after Madhva’s death. See Sharma (1961: 77).

3

See Sharma (1933) for a detailed discussion of Trivikrama’s life. Trivikrama (fl. 1300) was, like Madhva, a Śivaḷḷi brahmin. He identifies himself as a member of the Likuca kula of that group. His native village seems to have been Kāvugoḷi. His life is detailed extensively by his son in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth chapters of the Sumadhvavijaya. Madhva’s initial meeting with Trivikrama was mediated by a local ruler named Jayasiṃha, according to the Sumadhvavijaya. Trivikrama’s most important work is his Tattvapradīpa, the most influential commentary on Madhva’s Brahmasūtrabhāṣya written before the time of Jayatīrtha. Sharma (1933: 210) notes that Trivikrama’s descendents living in the early part of the twentieth century no longer followed Madhva’s religion.

4

Sharma (1933: 210–211) discusses the religion of Madhva’s ancestors. He says that Madhva’s parents followed the Bhāgavatasampradāya. He describes this tradition as follows: “The followers of this Bhāgavata-sampradāya are not all of them Advaitins. Their main creed is the bhakti cult. They honor Viṣṇu and Śiva as equals in which they differ from the Mādhvas; but, like the latter, wear the twelve ‘tracings’ of Gopīcandana on their bodies (dvādaśapuṇḍras) and believe in the survival of Bhakti even in the state of release and in the reality of the Divine Form—a position advocated not only by Madhva but also by the famous Śrīdharasvāmin in his commentary on the Śrībhāgavata”.

5

yady advaitaṃ karkaśair gauṇatarkai ruddhaṃ sādhyaṃ naiva bhāty astu tāvat / ṣaṭkarmajñair divyamantrauṣadhāḍhyair etair guptān no na jetā hi ko ’pi // (SMV, 2:181; verse 12.20.) In his auto-commentary on the Sumadhvavijaya, the Bhāvaprakāśikā, Nārāyaṇa Paṇḍitācārya says that the six magic arts (ṣaṭkarmas) referred to in this verse are: defending what is one’s own, subjugating another, turning another to stone, exciting enmity, inducing another to quit his profession, and killing another (pālana-vaśīkaraṇa-sthambhana-vidveṣaṇa-uccāṭana-māraṇāni).

6

pāramparyeṇāgataṃ tattvaśāstraṃ hantotsannaṃ nūtanenety udīrya / teṣāṃ doṣā varṇanīyā vidagdhaiḥ santo ’santo vāpi madhyasthaloke // (SMV, 2:184; verse 12.22.)

7

bhraṣṭā bhāṭṭā na prabhākr̥tprabhābhūt trastā māhāyānikādyāś ca yatra / durgaṃ māyāvā-dasatraṃ didhakṣur nopekṣyā nas tattvavādāgnijihvā // (SMV, 2:170; verse 12.8.) Cf. BhG 11.30.

8

The Tattvoddyota, which is also known simply as “The Debate” (Vāda), is taken by the Mādhva tradition to be a record of an actual encounter that took place between Madhva and one of his Advaitin opponents. See Sharma (1981: 143–147) for a discussion of this text and its standing in the Mādhva tradition. At the end of his commentary on the Tattvoddyota, Jayatīrtha states that Madhva’s text records the events of a debate that was supposed to take place between Madhva and an Advaitin named by Jayatīrtha simply as Puṇḍarīka. According to Jayatīrtha, Puṇḍarīka was so overawed by Madhva’s formidable physical strength that he fled in fear before the debate could even begin. The contents of the Tattvoddyota are taken to represent the devastating monologue that Madhva delivered against Advaita philosophy after his Advaitin opponent had fled. The Mādhva tradition connects this text with a story related in the twelfth book of the Sumadhvavijaya. According to this story, two Advaitin philosophers known as Puṇḍarīka Pūrī and Padmatīrtha led an underhanded campaign by Advaitin philosophers to undermine Madhva. Nārāyaṇa Paṇḍitācārya gives the names of these two Advaitins in his auto-commentary on the Sumadhvavijaya, the Bhāvaprakāśikā (SMV, 2:164). He says that Padmatīrtha originated from the Chola country, but gives no other details about the two Advaitins. The names of these philosophers are not known from any sources outside the Mādhva tradition. The Sumadhvavijaya (2:203–206) describes the incident where Puṇḍarīka Pūrī challenged Madhva to a debate. According to this account, Puṇḍarīka Pūrī was humiliated after he was left unable to explain the meaning of a passage from the Veda. In the same chapter, the Sumadhvavijaya narrates the infamous story in which Padmatīrtha stole Madhva’s library. Madhva and a companion quickly caught up with him, whereupon Madhva ridiculed him and again delivered a withering critique of Advaita philosophy.

9

See below, Chapter 4, p. 109, fn. 41, for a discussion of the argument for Bhāsarvajña’s influence over Madhva.

10

See Hiriyanna (IS: xii—xiv) and Schmücker (2001: 21–25) for discussions of Vimuktātman’s dates. Vimuktātman was known already by Rāmānuja, who wrote in the eleventh/twelfth centuries. According to Schmücker, the terminus a quo for Vimuktātman seems to lie in the middle of the ninth century since he quotes Sureśvara’s Vārttika. His terminus ad quem is taken to lie near the middle of the tenth century, since he is quoted by the Viśiṣṭādvaitin intellectual Yāmunācārya, whose birth date is recorded in an inscription as lying in 966–967 CE. Schmücker concludes that Vimuktātman must have lived in the first half of the tenth century. Vimuktātman refers to his own teacher as one Avyayātman. Vimuktātman’s work was quoted by Ānandabodha (see below, fn. 16).

11

The Sumadhvavijaya narrates the episode in which the young Madhva rejected Vimuktā-tman’s work as follows: guroḥ svaśiṣyaṃ caturaṃ cikīrṣataḥ pracodanāc chrotum ihopacakrame / atheṣṭasiddhiś chalajātivāridhir nirādareṇāpi mahātmanāmunā // tadādyapadyastham avadyamaṇḍalaṃ yadāvadat ṣoḍaśakadvayātmakam / upary apāstaṃ tad iti bruvaty asau gurau tam ūce praṇigadyatām iti // (SMV, 1:201; verses 4.44–45.) “At the behest of his preceptor [Acyutaprekṣa], who wished to sharpen his pupil’s intellect, the great-souled [Madhva] disinterestedly studied [Vimuktātman’s] Iṣṭasiddhi, a veritable ocean of quibbling and cavil. When [Madhva] pointed out that there were no less than thirty-two fallacies in the very first verse [of the Iṣṭasiddhi], his preceptor claimed they would be dealt with later in the text. ‘Please, point [those rebuttals] out!’, responded Madhva.” In his Māyāvādakhaṇḍana (SMG5, 53), Madhva refers to Vimuktātman’s distinctive doctrine of a “fifth level of reality” (pañcamaprakāra). See also Sharma (1981: 123) for a discussion of Madhva’s references to the Iṣṭasiddhi’s discussion of “nescience” (avidyā) in his Anuvyākhyāna.

12

This is the date given for Prakāśātman in Potter’s Bibliography. In her translation of Prakāśātman’s Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, Bina Gupta (2011: 7) dates the composition of the Vivaraṇa between 900–1050 CE. She acknowledges, however, that nothing can be said with complete certainty about Prakāśātman’s life/dates, and that scholars have assigned him different dates ranging from 900–1300 CE. Gupta notes that we can safely conclude that Prakāśātman lived before the time of Rāmānuja, who critically examines the Vivaraṇa in his Śrībhāṣya. According to Gupta, the scholar T. R. Cintāmaṇi says that Prakāśātman lived later than Vācaspati Miśra, who can be dated to around 840 CE. David (2020: 37) dates Prakāśātman from 950–1000, although he indicates doubt about this time-frame.

13

Sharma (1981: 123).

14

Sharma (1981: 123 and 145–146) claims that Madhva directly summarises passages from Sarvajñātman’s Saṅkṣepaśārīraka

15

See Granoff (1978: 2–3) for a discussion of Śrīharṣa’s biographical data. According to Sharma (1981: 141), Madhva critiqued some arguments of Śrīharṣa in his Māyāvādakhaṇḍana and Anuvyākhyāna.

16

As R. Thangaswami (Mahadevan, 1968: 141) notes, Ānandabodha was aware of the views of Prakāśātman (fl. 975), whom he quotes in the Nyāyamakaranda. The Advaitin philosopher Anubhūti Svarūpācārya, who is taken to have flourished between the middle of the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth century, wrote commentaries on all of Ānandabodha’s works. Thangaswami thus concludes that Ānandabodha must have lived between the middle of the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century. Hiriyanna notes that in his Pramāṇamālā, Ānandabodha quotes a verse from Vimuktātman’s Iṣṭasiddhi and refers to Vimuktātman respectfully as “guru”. As Hiriyanna himself acknowledges, it is not absolutely clear from this reference that Ānandabodha was a direct disciple of Vimuktātman. He (IS, xiii—xiv) writes: “There is a book with the title of Pramāṇa-mālā by Ānandabodha, a well-known exponent of the Advaita; and in it he quotes the following half-stanza which is found in the Iṣṭa-siddhi (i. 36), prefacing it with the words etad evoktaṃ gurubhiḥ—nānyatra kāraṇāt kāryaṃ na cet tatra kva tad bhavet. We may deduce from this, though we cannot at all be sure about it, that Ānandabodha was a disciple of Vimuktātman. There is nothing improbable in this, for Ānandabodha was an early writer on the Advaita, and, as shown by his references to the Iṣṭa-siddhi in another of his works, Nyāya-makaranda, he held views in regard to many a detail of advaitic doctrine which are identical with those maintained by Vimuktātman. But as Ānandabodha’s date is not definitely known this conclusion, even if correct, throws no light on the chronological position of the present work”. Schmücker (2001: 23) says that further research is needed to clarify the relationship between Ānandabodha and Vimuktātman. He notes that there are significant similarities between Vimuktātman and Ānandabodha’s doctrines of “bliss”, for instance. He writes: “Inwieweit Ānandabodha Vimuktātmans Lehre vertritt oder beispielsweise seine Annahme des ‘Realitätsgrades’ der Avidyā als pañcamaprakāra weiterführt, bedarf einer eigenen Untersuchung. Dennoch fallen bei Ānandabodhas Ausführungen zur Wonne (ānanda) in der Pramāṇamālā Ähnlichkeiten mit Vimuktātmans Aussagen zur Wonne auf. Ebenso gibt es eine Übereinstimmung mit einer Passage in Jñānottamas Kommentar. Wichtig für die Chronologie dürfte auch sein, daß Prakāśātman vor Ānandabodha liegt”.

17

See Sharma (1981: 246–249) for further details about Jayatīrtha’s life.

18

See Sharma (1981: 250–253) for further discussion of Jayatīrtha’s influences in the Advaita tradition.

19

See David (2020: 30–31) for a recent discussion of what is known about Citsukha’s life. Citsukha has been connected with two lithic inscriptions in Telugu found in the temple of Narasiṃha in the town of Siṃhācalam in modern-day Andhra Pradesh. One of these inscriptions has been dated to 1220, the other to 1284. V. A. Sarma (1974) argues that the former can be taken to refer to Citsukha, the author of the Tattvapradīpikā, but the latter must refer to a different person who happens to have also been called “Citsukha”. Besides these inscriptions, we know that Citsukha was familiar with Śrīharṣa and Ānandabodha since he quotes from them and apparently wrote commentaries on both of their works. A commentary on Ānandabodha’s Nyāyamakaranda is attributed to Citsukha, as well as another on Śrīharṣa’s Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍanakhādya. Citsukha was also familiar with the works of the Vaiśeṣika philosophers Vallabha (fl. 1140) and Śivāditya (fl. 1150). As such, it seems likely that he flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century. Citsukha himself writes that he was a student of one Jñānottama, who came from Bengal. Besides the thinkers listed above, the Tattvapradīpikā contains quotes from Udayana, Uddyotakara, Kumārila, and Śālikanātha, along with many figures from the classical Advaitin tradition. See also Dasgupta (1932: 147–148) for a discussion of Citsukha’s life and work.

20

See Sharma (1981: 241).

21

See Sharma (1981: 250).

22

Jayatīrtha refers to Citsukha by name when refuting the concept of self-luminosity in the Vādā-valī: … avedyatve saty aparokṣavyavahārayogyatvaṃ svaprakāśatvam iti tallakṣaṇam abhidadhatā citsukhenāparokṣavyavahārayogyatāviśeṣaṇakr̥tyābhidhānaprastāve ’bhihitam. na cāvidyātvam ity etāvad evāstu tallakṣaṇam iti vācyam. tathā saty atītānāgatanityānumeyeṣu cātivyapteḥ. phalavyāpyatālakṣaṇavedyatvasya tatrābhāvād iti. (VĀ: 35–36; cf. TP: 10.) Jayatīrtha very rarely refers to other philosophers by name in his works, so it seems likely that he wanted to emphasise Citsukha’s identity to an audience who may not have already been familiar with his works. Jayatīrtha also quotes Citsukha directly when discussing the doctrine of indeterminacy. In this part of the text he quotes a verse that is found in the Tattvapradīpikā: pratyekaṃ sadasattvābhyāṃ vicārapadavīṃ na yat / gāhate tad anirvācyam āhur vedāntavedinaḥ // (VĀ: 4.) This verse is found on TP: 79; see below, Chapter 6, p. 165, for a translation of it.

23

Viṣṇudāsa is absent from the benedictory verses of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, which refer to Madhva, Jayatīrtha, and Vyāsatīrtha’s own direct preceptors. Unlike these figures, Viṣṇudāsa was a lay scholar who apparently never took sannyāsa. See below, Chapter 3, p. 47, for a translation of these verses.

24

The modern Mādhva scholar K. T. Pandurangi (2012: 273–275) has argued that the location of the tombs of the early leaders of the Mādhva religion near Hampi, as well as the fact that the early Vijayanagara rulers provided headquarters to three of the maṭhas of the leaders of the Mādhva tradition, suggests that the early Mādhva leaders held at least some influence at Vijayanagara. Pandurangi concedes that there are no inscriptional or literary references that directly corroborate this. He further argues that Mādhva philosophers occupied leading administrative and military positions in the Yādava and Hoysaḷa dynasties.

25

Mesquita (2000b: 28–29).

26

See Sharma (1981: 229–230) for some discussion of this debate. The dispute, which is said to have taken place in Mulbagal in modern-day Karnataka, is reputed to have been arbitrated by Veṅkaṭanātha. Traditional verses circulated in the Mādhva community claim that Akṣobhya defeated Vidyāraṇya in this dispute. Sharma argues that this tradition is corroborated by the works of Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as well as Mādhva hagiographical writings.

27

According to Sharma (1981: 286–287), Vyāsatīrtha was born in Bannur in 1460. The dates Sharma placed directly under the title of the chapter he devoted to Vyāsatīrtha’s life (“1478–1539”) have sometimes been taken to indicate the dates of Vyāsatīrtha’s birth/death. However, Sharma often gives the dates for Mādhva religious leaders according to the date that they assumed leadership of a maṭha. He is clear that he believes Vyāsatīrtha was born in 1460. Sharma’s date for Vyāsatīrtha’s birth is based on the dates of a great famine that took place towards the end of the fifteenth century. He (1981: 287) writes: “Some time after the great famine of 1475-1476, Brahmaṇya [Tīrtha] died. We may, therefore, assume that Vyāsatīrtha came to the Pīṭha in or about the year 1478 A.D. Assuming that he was about sixteen years old at the time of the demise of his Guru, we may easily fix the date of his birth in or about 1460 A.D.”.

28

According to Sharma (1981: 461), Śrīpādarāja was the head of the Padmanābha Tīrtha Maṭha at Mulbagal. Sharma says that his life is described in the Śrīpādarājāṣṭaka. He was a disciple and successor of Svarṇavarṇa Tīrtha and a cousin of Vyāsatīrtha’s dīkṣāguru Brahmaṇya Tīrtha, who was probably roughly the same age as him. Śrīpādarāja was a contemporary of Raghunātha Tīrtha of the Uttarādi Maṭha. According to the Śrīpādarājāṣṭaka, he wielded considerable influence over Sāḷuva Narasiṃha I, and the emperor himself honoured him after his return from his military campaign in Kalinga in 1476. Sharma (1981: 461) concludes that Śrīpādarāja must have died “some time after the departure of Vyāsatīrtha to Candragiri, about the year 1486-87”.

29

See Stoker (2016: 45–72) for a discussion of the resources granted to Vyāsatīrtha by the emperors of Vijayanagara.

30

See Stoker (2016: 18–19) for a summary of these different views.

31

See Stoker (2016: 73–105) for a discussion of the complex relationship between the Mādhvas and Śrīvaiṣṇavas during this period.

32

Sharma (1981: 297) argues that Vyāsatīrtha must have written a further work in addition to those known to modern scholarship. He says that it was called the Sattarkavilāsa based on what he takes to be a reference to the work in Vyāsatīrtha’s commentary on Jayatīrtha’s Māyāvādakha-ṇḍanaṭīkā. Sharma (1981: 291–292) speculates that the work Vyāsatīrtha refers to here is identical with a work mentioned by Somanātha in the Vyāsayogicarita, which comprised a critical response to an Advaita philosophical work sent to Kr̥ṣṇadevarāya by Vidyādhara Pātra, whom Sharma identifies as a king of Kaliṅga. No manuscripts of the work had been discovered by the time Sharma finished his History of the Dvaita School and its Literature. Sharma’s evidence is the following statement, which is found in Vyāsatīrtha’s commentary on the Māyāvādakhaṇḍanaṭīkā: jīvanmuktasya suṣuptyavasthāyāṃ vr̥ttyabhāvena niḥśeṣāvidyānivr̥ttiprasaṅgād iti. prapañcas tu sattarkavilāse ’smābhiḥ kr̥to draṣṭavyaḥ: “… For, it would follow that nescience in its entirety would come to an end in the state of living liberation, since there are no mental modifications when one is in a state of deep sleep. One should see my elaboration of this point in the Sattarkavilāsa”. (Sharma, 1981: 597.) It might be suggested that this was in fact a reference to one of Vyāsatīrtha’s known works; the Nyā-yāmr̥ta would appear to be the only plausible candidate for this. However, as Sharma points out there is no reason that Vyāsatīrtha should have referred to the Nyāyāmr̥ta by a non-synonymous name in this passage. Moreover, it seems most likely that the Nyāyāmr̥ta was composed after Vyāsatīrtha wrote his commentaries on Jayatīrtha’s ṭīkās. Assuming that Vyāsatīrtha’s commentaries on Jayatīrtha’s ṭīkās were written before his three major works, this Sattarkavilāsa might have been written at a very early point in his career and then faded into obscurity.

33

Vyāsatīrtha’s commentary on Jayatīrtha’s Mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍanaṭīkā was partially translated by Jeffrey J. Lunstead in his PhD thesis at the University of Pennsylvania, 1977.

34

See Sharma (1981: 517) for a discussion of some of Vyāsatīrtha’s Kannada compositions.

35

Vyāsatīrtha refers explicitly to the Nyāyāmr̥ta when discussing Gaṅgeśa’s definition of “universal-positive” (kevalānvayin) properties in the Tarkatāṇḍava. I have translated the relevant passage in this volume; see below, Chapter 7, p. 192, fn. 11. See Sharma (1981: 302, fn. 1) for a discussion of Vyāsatīrtha’s reference to the Nyāyāmr̥ta in the Tātparyacandrikā.

36

See VYC: lxv.

37

Cf . NAB, 1:510 and BS: 157. The verse in the editions of both texts reads: sarvapratyayavedye ca brahmarūpe vyavasthite / prapañcasya pravilayaḥ śabdena pratipādyate //.

38

See NAB, 1:37, and below, p. 85.

39

See NAB, 1:37.

40

See for instance NAB, 1:344, 364, 509, and 585.

41

See NAB, 1:37 and 176.

42

See for instance NAB, 1:417 and 588.

43

See NAB, 1:25. Vyāsatīrtha refers to Citsukha in this way when he quotes the inferences made by Citsukha to prove the illusory status of the world in the Tattvapradīpikā. See below, Chapter 4,pp. 107–108, for a discussion of these inferences and a translation of the relevant passages of the Tattvapradīpikā.

44

See McCrea (2015: 90) and NAB, 3:606.

45

See McCrea (2015: 90) and NAB, 3:606.

46

See McCrea (2015: 91–92) and NAB, 3:622.

47

See McCrea (2015: 90) and NAB, 3:606.

48

Sharma (1981: 306) refers to a reply to the Tātparyacandrikā entitled Śaṅkarapādabhūṣaṇa by a Maharashtrian Advaitin named Raghunātha Śāstri Pārvate. See Sharma (1981: 406–407) for a discussion of the Viśiṣṭādvaitins’ critical replies to the arguments of the Tātparyacandrikā and Vijayīndra’s responses to them. He notes that several Viśiṣṭādvaitin authors wrote critical responses to the Tātparyacandrikā. According to Sharma, Śrīnivāsācārya wrote the Tattvamārtaṇḍa to refute the early portions of the Tātparyacandrikā. Śrīnivāsācārya also wrote a work called Praṇavadarpaṇa which critiqued the Mādhva interpretation of the first Brahmasūtra. Sharma says that a Viśiṣṭādvaitin scholar known as Mahācārya also wrote a critique of Madhva’s interpretation of the Brahmasūtra.Vijayīndra wrote several texts against Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy, including the Siddhāntasārāsāraviveka and the Ānandatāratamyavādārtha, a work defending the Mādhva theory that the individual souls stand in a permanent hierarchy according to their essences. A philosopher whom Sharma refers to as “Tātācārya” responded to Vijayīndra’s arguments in a text called Vijayīndraparājaya, which has still not been published. Sharma argues that this philosopher is identical to the philosopher referred to in an inscription recording a grant made to Vijayīndra by Sevappa Nāyaka in 1580. The text of the grant says that Vijayīndra regularly debated with Appayya Dīkṣita and the Viśiṣṭā-dvaitin philosopher “Tātācārya” in the Nāyaka’s court. In his Bibliography, Potter refers to the author of the Vijayīndraparājaya as “Kumbakonam Tātācārya”, among other names. With reservation, Potter assigns him the dates 1520–1580, although these dates might be too early if he did debate with Vijayīndra in the last decades of the sixteenth century. Sharma (1981: 407), by contrast, says that Tātācārya (i.e. the author of the Vijayīndraparājaya) was a younger contemporary of Vijayīndra, apparently to explain the fact that Vijayīndra did not respond to his criticisms against him in the Vijayīndraparājaya. Dasgupta (1949: 95–100), who summarised the contents of the Vijayīndraparājaya, refers to the author of that text as “Parakāla Yati”.

49

See Sastri (NAK: 85) and McCrea (2015) for some discussion of the Tattvaviveka.

50

Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka (NAB, 1:108) quotes an extensive passage from the Tattvaviveka when defending Vyāsatīrtha’s general critique of mithyātva. The passage of the Tattvaviveka in question contains an analysis and defence of the definition of mithyātva that Vyāsatīrtha attributes to Citsukha in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka refers to Nr̥siṃhāśrama by name in this passage.

51

Potter’s Bibliography dates Madhusūdana to ca. 1570. Other dates given for Madhusūdana have placed him as early as the fourteenth century and as late as the latter part of the seventeenth century. Burnouf and Lassen (Mahadevan, 1968: 259) assigned him to the middle of the fourteenth century. Winternitz (1920: 437, fn. 4) estimated that Madhusūdana lived at the end of the fifteenth/beginning of the sixteenth century, and certainly before 1550. P. M. Modi (1929: 1), who translated Madhusūdana’s Siddhāntabindu, concluded that he lived from 1490 to 1580. P. C. Divanji (SB: xviii–xxv), who gave a particularly detailed discussion of Madhusūdana’s dates, estimated that Madhusūdana lived from 1540 to 1647. According to Sastri (NAK: 85), who assigned him to the middle of the sixteenth century, Madhusūdana is traditionally regarded to have been a contemporary of Nr̥siṃhāśrama and Appayya Dīkṣita. Other scholars have taken Madhusūdana to have lived at a much later time. Sharma (1981: 375) reports that Kuppuswami Sastri, for instance, dated him to the seventeenth century. On the basis of the dates he assigned the Mādhva philosophers who influenced or responded to Madhusūdana’s works, Sharma (1981: 375–378) himself concluded that Madhusū-dana must be dated to 1540–1600. Vyāsatīrtha obviously preceded Madhusūdana, since Madhusū-dana commented on the Nyāyāmr̥ta. The Advaitasiddhi was in turn critiqued by Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka. Sharma surmises that if it is correct that Rāmācārya, who was a student of Raghūttama Tīrtha (1557–1595), wrote his Taraṅginī in around 1590, and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka had written his commentary by 1595, then the Advaitasiddhi must have already existed by about 1585, and Rāmācārya and Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka would have replied to it within a few years. According to Sastri (NAK: 85), Madhusūdana originated from Faridpur in Bengal. According to Mahadevan (1968: 255), he was ordained as a renunciate early on in his life by one Viśveśvarānanda Sarasvatī. Ganeri (2011: 78) say that Madhusūdana probably studied Navya-Nyāya with Vidyānivāsa Bhaṭṭācārya, a nephew of Vāsudeva Sārvabhauma, or one of his contemporaries. See Sanjukta Gupta (2006) and Pellegrini (2015: 282–284) for further discussion of Madhusūdana’s life and education.

52

Sharma (1981: 395–396) maintains that Vijayīndra was a direct disciple of Vyāsatīrtha, yet Vijayīndra does not generally acknowledge Vyāsatīrtha as his guru in his works. Vijayīndra seems to have been favoured by Sevappa Nāyaka (r. 1532–1560), the founder of the Thanjavur Nāyakas (Sharma, 1981: 398–399). Vijayīndra wrote a commentary on the Nyāyāmr̥ta entitled the Nyāyāmr̥-tāmoda. It has still not been published but, according to Sharma (1981: 399), it is available in the manuscript libraries of Thanjavur. Sharma (1981: 401) reports that the scholar R. Nagaraja Sarma cited a reference from that text where Vijayīndra also refers to a longer commentary he wrote on the Nyāyāmr̥ta. However, Sharma reports that he was not able to find this reference and no manuscripts of that work have subsequently been located.

53

The name of the town is sometimes spelled Puntambe, Punatamba, or Punatambe. It is referred to in Sanskrit works as Puṇyastambhapura. In the first chapter of the Vidyādhīśavijaya, it is described as a centre of brahmanical learning and Vedic religion. The town is introduced thus: asti kṣiter bhūṣaṇam abdhikanyāvibhūṣitam bhūṣitarājamārgam / sambhāvitaṃ sādhujanena puṇyastambhābhidhānaṃ nagaraṃ garīyaḥ // (ViV: 8; verse 8.) “There is a town known as Puṇyastambha. The greatest of towns, it is a veritable ornament of the earth, wherein dwells the Lord of Lakṣmī himself. In that town, esteemed by the virtuous, are the king’s roads decked with ornaments.”

54

It is now widely accepted that the Nyāyāmr̥takaṇṭakoddhāra was written by Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka. However, there was for a long time some dispute regarding the author of the text. Sastri (NAK: 1) noted that the Descriptive Catalogue of the Mysore Oriental Library ascribed the text to Vijayīndratīrtha. As pointed out by Sharma (1981: 383), however, the Kaṇṭakoddhāra directly criticises the views of Vijayīndra’s Nyāyāmr̥tāmoda. See Williams (2014: 126–128) for a translation and an analysis of an early passage in the Kaṇṭakoddhāra where Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka refers to Vijayīndra’s work. It is clear that Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka was only aware of Balabhadra’s Advaitasiddhivyākhyā and not Brahmānanda’s works.

55

See Sharma (1981: 463–464) for what is known about Raghūttama’s life.

56

padādividyāṃ bahuvinniṣadyām adhyaiṣi tattvaiṣivarād yato ’ham / namāmi taṃ vyāsakulā-vataṃsaṃ nārāyaṇācāryam athāgrajaṃ me // (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, NAB, 1:2.) “I offer homage to my elder brother, Nārāyaṇācārya, the crest of the Vyāsa family, the greatest of truth-seekers, from whom I learnt the science of words and so on.”

57

Vidyādhīśa is famous partly for his debate with the Advaitin scholar Raṅgoji Bhaṭṭa (a brother of the eminent grammarian Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita) in Ikkeri at the court of the Nāyaka king Veṅkaṭappā. See Deshpande (2011) for an analysis of the conflicting accounts of this debate in traditional sources.

58

Padmanābha Tīrtha was a great logician (Tārkika) originally known as Śobhana Bhaṭṭa whom Madhva converted to his movement. (See SMV, 2:14–15; verses 9.17–19, for a discussion of Śobhana Bhaṭṭa’s initial debate with Madhva.) Padmanābha assumed a prominent role in the Mādhva tradition after Madhva’s death (Sharma, 1981: 223–224). V. Pandurangi (2017: 180) notes that several traditional Mādhva scholars have claimed that Padmanābha was an ancestor of the modern-day Pandurangi family. He claims that Padmanābha’s family originally settled in Puntamba and later moved to Pandharpur with Padmanābha when Madhva died. According to Pandurangi, the earliest known ancestor of the Pandurangi lineage after Padmanābha was one Lakṣmaṇa Bhaṭṭa. Lakṣmaṇa Bhaṭṭa had a son named Trivikrama Bhaṭṭa, who is mentioned in the Vidyādhīśavijaya. Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka is named as one of Trivikrama Bhaṭṭa’s two sons. The text states that Trivikrama was a wealthy and pious brahmin who lived in Puntamba. Pandurangi (2017: 182) recounts the story of how Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka achieved learning with divine assistance. In his youth, Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka neglected his studies. Frustrated with his situation, he relocated to the town of Kolhapur in modern day Maharastra. After Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka propitiated the goddess Mahālakṣmī for twelve years there, she took the form of a snake before him. Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka tried to grasp the snake, touching it with all ten of his fingers, and then managed to touch it once more as it slithered away. According to the story, Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka was accordingly blessed with a lineage that would span eleven generations of great scholars.

59

See V. Pandurangi (2017: 183).

60

The Vidyādhīśavijaya says as follows: nisargagūḍhāñ jayatīrthayogipraṇītamadhvāgamapañcikārthān / āścaryam akliṣṭapadābhir ūrvyāṃ yaṣ ṭippaṇībhiḥ prakaṭīcakāra // (ViV: 15; verse 1.20.) “He [= Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka] achieved the wonderful feat of elucidating with clear-worded glosses (ṭippaṇīs) the meaning of the innately difficult commentaries (pañcikā) written by Jayatīrtha-yogi on Madhva’s scriptures.”

61

V. Pandurangi (2017: 186) notes that the Muslim attack on Puntamba is recorded in the Rāṣṭrauḍhavaṃśamahākāvya. He infers that the Muslim invasion was led by Shahzada Murad Mirza, a son of Akbar. Pandurangi surmises that he must have invaded Puntamba around 1590 or 1595 when he attacked Ahmednagar on his father’s orders.

62

See Sharma (1981: 477–478) for a discussion of the contents of the Vākyārthacandrikā.

63

See VĀ: xxxix for a discussion of Śrīnivāsatīrtha’s biographical details. See also K. T. Pandurangi’s introduction to his 2014 edition of the Nyāyāmr̥ta and its commentaries, p. xv, for some further discussion of his life and work.

64

The final verse of the Siddhāntabindu reads: bahuyācanayā mayāyam alpo balabhadrasya kr̥te kr̥to nibandhaḥ / yad aduṣṭam ihāsti yac ca duṣṭaṃ tad udārāḥ sudhiyo vivecayantu // (SB: 111.) “I wrote this little work for the sake of Balabhadra after much nagging on his part. May the noble and wise discriminate what is at fault and what is right in it.”

65

Sastri (NAK: 81) says that Brahmānanda was a contemporary of the poet and literary critic Jagannātha Paṇḍitarāja, the Mīmāṃsaka Khaṇḍadeva, the Navya-Naiyāyika Gadādhara Bhaṭṭa, and the grammarian Nāgoji Bhaṭṭa. He claims that Brahmānanda was a “class-mate” of Gadādhara in Navadvipa. He thus assigns him to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Sastri (NAK: 90) says that Brahmānanda refers to one Śivarāma Varṇin as his preceptor. He says that Brahmānanda’s pupil was Draviḍācārya, who refers to Brahmānanda in his Vārttika on the Brahmasūtraśāṅkarabhāṣya.

66

Sastri (NAK: 90).

67

See Sastri (NAK: 91) for a discussion of his date based on the evidence of his Taraṅginīyuktisaurabha and Nyāyāmr̥tasaugandhya.

68

See Sharma (1981: 387–388).

69

For some discussion of the titles of such works, see Minkowski (2011).

70

Duquette (2019: 20) concludes his study as follows: “Above all, Appayya’s mode of engagement with the TT shows how stimulating this remarkable Dvaita work would have been for him. Not only did it compel him to elaborate a systematic critique of Dvaita views on an important topic of Mīmāṃsā hermeneutics, a critique which exerted a significant influence of its own; it also catalyzed Appayya’s own engagement with the broader Navya-Nyāya tradition, the development of which he arguably pioneered together with Vyāsatīrtha in South India”.

71

See Williams (2014: 132–133).

72

One Naiyāyika who was based at Vijayanagara was Cennu Bhaṭṭa (also “Cinnam Bhaṭṭa”). Cennu Bhaṭṭa wrote commentaries on two Nyāya texts: Varadarāja’s (fl. 1150) Tārkikarakṣāsārasaṅgraha and Keśava Miśra’s (fl. 1250) Tarkabhāṣā. Cennu Bhaṭṭa himself probably lived towards the beginning of the fourteenth century. However, both of his extant texts are commentaries on prācīna-Nyāya works, and they do not show any influence from Gaṅgeśa. Bhattacharyya and Potter (2011: 368–369) give an overview of scholarship on Cennu Bhaṭṭa’s life.

73

See Stoker (2011) for an analysis of Vyāsatīrtha’s critique of the Viśiṣṭādvaita theory of liberation in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. Vijayīndratīrtha, for instance, is said to have had a dispute with a Vīra-Śaiva guru at Kumbakonam. See Sharma (1981: 399).

74

See Williams (2014: 146, fn. 25) for a discussion of a passage from the Vyāsayogicarita which suggests that Gaṅgeśa’s work was already being used by South Indian philosophers during Vyāsatīrtha’s lifetime.

75

See NAB, 3:704–713. Stoker (2016: 182) discusses one of these references while analysing the relevant part of the Nyāyāmr̥ta.

76

The Mādhva philosopher Satyanātha Tīrtha (fl. 1670), however, emphasises the authority of the Brahmatarka as a text in his work. At the beginning of the Prāmāṇyavāda of the Abhinavatāṇḍava he writes: atha saṃsārakāntāre nipatitān mokṣayogyān kr̥payoddidhīrṣuḥ bhagavān nārāyaṇaḥ pramāṇatattvajñānasya prameyatattvāvadhāraṇasyeva mokṣahetutvāt pramāṇatattvanirṇayāya brahmatarkaśāstram acīkḷpat. tasya śāstrasyedānīṃtanair adhyetum aśakyatvena śrīmadācāryapraṇī-tagranthānusāreṇa mandabodhāya pramāṇatattvam atra vicāryate. (AT: 11.) “Now, Lord Nārāyaṇa,desiring to save the [individual souls] fit for liberation who had fallen into the dense forest of saṃsāra, composed the scientific treatise known as the Brahmatarka in order that [they could] understand the means of knowledge; for, an awareness of the truth about the means of knowledge is an expedient to liberation just as the ascertainment of the truth about the objects of knowledge is. Since this scientific treatise cannot be understood by those belonging to the present [kali] age, in [this treatise,] following the works written by Madhva[-Ācārya, I] deliberate on the truth about the means of knowledge to enlighten the slow-minded [beings living in this kali-yuga].” The Brahmatarka is a controversial text. As Satyanātha indicates here, it is regarded by the Mādhva tradition as being a work authored by god himself to aid sentient beings to obtain mokṣa. However, critics of the Mādhva tradition have long argued that the Brahmatarka, a text unknown outside of Madhva’s works, was composed by Madhva himself to validate his own arguments. See Mesquita (2000b) for this argument.

77

Vyāsatīrtha refers to Gaṅgeśa’s definition of subjecthood (pakṣatā) when giving a statement of disagreement (vipratipatti-vākya) early in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. See below, p. 188, for a discussion of this passage.

78

Vyāsatīrtha refers to Vardhamāna’s commentary on Udayana’s Nyāyakusumāñjali when discussing various proofs for the existence of god offered by Udayana in that text. See TT, 1:359–377.

79

The influence of Jayadeva can be observed throughout the Īśvaravāda of the Tarkatāṇḍava. In the Nyāyadīpa, Rāghavendra alerts us to many instances where Vyāsatīrtha incorporates Jayadeva’s arguments into his analysis of Gaṅgeśa’s position. See for instance TT, 1:289–290, 292, etc. Jayadeva’s arguments and ideas appear regularly throughout the Tarkatāṇḍava, and Rāghavendra is careful to point out these references.

80

I have discussed one passage of the Tarkatāṇḍava where Vyāsatīrtha was clearly influenced by Yajñapati in Chapter 7, fn. 30. Vyāsatīrtha deals with Yajñapati mainly in the section of the Tarkatāṇḍava that discusses veridicality (prāmāṇya), particularly on the question of whether the veridicality of a cognition is apprehended “intrinsically” (svataḥ-prāmāṇyavāda) or “extrinsically” (parataḥ-prāmāṇyavāda). See TT, 1:158–166.

81

Rāghavendra refers to Pragalbha Miśra only infrequently and usually mentions him in connection with Jayadeva. Rāghavendra does seem to ascribe a knowledge of Pragalbha’s work to Vyāsatīrtha when dealing with his ideas about the nature of veridical awareness (pramā) (see, e.g., TT, 1:148 and 166). Rāghavendra also refers sometimes to “Rucidatta and so on” (rucidattādi), although he always seems to mention Rucidatta’s ideas as an aside to the discussion. If Potter’s dates for Rucidatta are accurate, it seems unlikely that Vyāsatīrtha was familiar with his work. However, other scholars have given earlier dates for Rucidatta. For instance, Ramanuja Tatacharya (ACT: 25) dates him to 1450.

82

However, Sharma has cited a number of traditions that suggest that Vyāsatīrtha made a profound impression on contemporary Navya-Naiyāyikas. These include an admiring verse apparently spoken by Jayadeva Pakṣadhara, in which Jayadeva, upon visiting Muḷbāgal in the Vijayanagara Empire, admits to being matched by Vyāsatīrtha. Sharma takes this as evidence that Jayadeva and Vyā-satīrtha met. The verse reads: yad adhītam, tad adhītam; yad anadhītaṃ tad apy adhītam / pakṣadharavipakṣo nāvekṣi vinā navīnavyāsena //. Sharma does not give a source for the verse other than referring to it as a “tradition”. See Sharma (1981: 294).

83

When visiting the library in 2019, I was allowed to see this manuscript, but not to obtain copies. The text is preserved in a lined notebook in Devanagari script. The manuscript only extends for the first few granthas of the text, and covers only the part of Vijayīndra’s commentary that deals with Vyāsatīrtha’s discussion of veridicality. I was informed by the Mādhva scholar Veeranarayana Pandurangi that Prof. D. Prahladachar of the Vyāsarāya Maṭha considered editing the commentary on the basis of this manuscript, but gave up because of the highly corrupt state of the text as it is preserved in the witness.

84

Rāghavendra quotes directly from Narahari, who is taken to have been Yajñapati’s son and a student of Jayadeva; see TT, 1:24. In his commentary on the Īśvaravāda of the Tarkatāṇḍava, Rāghavendra refers twice to one “Ṭhakkura” (see TT, 1:293 and 320). Rāghavendra refers to Raghunātha when analysing Gaṅgeśa’s final definition of pervasion (vyāptisiddhāntalakṣaṇa; see TT, 4:17).

85

A rare edition of this text was prepared by Satyadhyāna Rāmācārya Kaṭṭi and printed by the Uttaradi Matha in Bengaluru in 1988. Several manuscripts of the text are preserved in Thanjavur by the Sarasvati Mahal Library. There is further a manuscript of the text in the private collection of Veeranarayana Pandurangi in Bengaluru.

86

See, for instance, Satyanātha’s discussion of pervasion (AT: 238–239).

87

See Gupta (2006) and Pellegrini (2015) for recent discussions of Madhusūdana’s education.

88

See Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, NAB: 1:266. Rāmācārya refers here to Raghunātha’s commentary on Udayana’s Ātmatattvaviveka (which Rāmācārya refers to as the Bauddhādhikāra). He writes: sahopalambhaḥ sahopalambhaniyamaḥ. etac ca prapañcitaṃ bauddhādhikāre―grāhyagrāhakayor abhede sādhye sahopalambhaniyamo hetutvenopādīyata iti. etac ca vyākhyātaṃ śiroma-ṇinā―sahopalambhaniyamaḥ niyamenaikavittivedyatvam, tadaviṣayakajñānāviṣayatvaṃ vā, teṣāṃ mate jñānasya svaprakāśatvāt, jñānajñeyayor abhede ca jñānajñeyagrāhakābhyāṃ jñeyajñā-nayor api grahaṇān nāsiddhir iti.

89

See K. T. Pandurangi’s 2014 edition of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, vol. 1, p. 55.

90

In his introduction to his 2014 edition of the Nyāyāmr̥ta and its commentaries, p. xvi, K. T. Pandurangi says that Kr̥ṣṇācārya was the grandson of Satyapriyatīrtha (fl. 1740), a Pīṭhādhipati of the Uttarādi Maṭha. However, Sharma gives the date of Satyapriyatīrtha as lying in the middle of the seventeenth century. It must therefore be that the dating of Kr̥ṣṇācārya to the latter half of the seventeenth century is simply a mistake for the latter half of the eighteenth century. According to Pandurangi, Kr̥ṣṇācārya further wrote a commentary on the Tarkatāṇḍava, another on Vyāsatīrtha’s Tātparyacandrikā, and also a work on the Tattvoddyota and its commentaries.

91

A number of commentaries were written on the Nyāyāmr̥ta-literature in the twentieth century. The most outstanding is the Bālabodhinī, a commentary on the Advaitasiddhi by Yogendranath Bagchi. Unfortunately, this commentary was never completed; Sitansukhar explains in his preface to the text that Bagchi died before he could finish the work (na vismartavyam, yad bālabodhinīkāraḥ svakr̥tisamāpteḥ prāg eva vijñānaghane brahmaṇi vilayaṃ gataḥ. [ASV: 3]). The commentary presents a clear explanation of the Advaitasiddhi for less experienced readers by synthesizing the views of the major commentators on the text. The Advaitin scholar Anantakrishna Sastri (NAK) also wrote a brief commentary entitled Saugandhyavimarśa, which he refers to as a “Critical Study of the Nyāyāmr̥tasaugandhya” of Vanamālī Miśra. A notable commentary on the Advaitasiddhi in Hindi is the Advaitasiddhihindīvyākhyā of Svāmi Yogīndrānanda. Yogīndrānanda’s edition contains the text of both the Nyāyāmr̥ta and the Advaitasiddhi, but the commentary was written primarily to explain the Advaitasiddhi.

92

See K. T. Pandurangi’s 2014 edition of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, p. xvi, for a brief discussion of his life and contribution to the Nyāyāmr̥ta debate.

1

nikhilaguṇanikāyaṃ nityanirdhūtaheyaṃ śubhatamamatimeyaṃ śuddhasaukhyāptyupāyam / sakalanigamageyaṃ sarvaśabdābhidheyaṃ navajaladharakāyaṃ naumi lakṣmīsahāyam // vighnaughavāraṇaṃ satyāśeṣaviśvasya kāraṇam / karuṇāsindhum ānandatīrthabandhuṃ hariṃ bhaje // bhramaṃ bhaṅgarahitam ajaḍaṃ vimalaṃ sadā / ānandatīrtham atulaṃ bhaje tāpatrayāpaham // citraiḥ padaiś ca gambhīrair vākyair mānair akhaṇḍitaiḥ / gurubhāvaṃ vyañjayantī bhāti śrījayatīrthavāk // samutsārya tamaḥstomaṃ sanmārgaṃ samprakāśya ca / sadā viṣṇupadāsaktaṃ seve brahmaṇyabhāskaram // jñānavairāgyabhaktyādikalyāṇaguṇaśālinaḥ / lakṣmīnārāyaṇamunīn vande vidyāgurūn mama // śrīmadhvaśāstradugdhābdhiṃ dhīmandaramahībhr̥tā / āmathyoddhriyate nyāyāmr̥taṃ vibudhatr̥ptaye // vikṣiptasaṅgrahāt kvāpi kvāpy uktasyopapādanāt / anuktakathanāt kvāpi saphalo ’yaṃ śramo mama // (NAB, 1:1–2.) Cf. Jayatīrtha’s benedictory verse in the Vādāvalī: namo ’gaṇitakalyāṇaguṇapūrṇāya viṣṇave / satyāśeṣajagajjanmapūrvakartre muradviṣe // (VĀ: 1.) “Homage to Viṣṇu, replete with innumerable auspicious qualities, the enemy of the [Daitya] Mura, who is the agent responsible for the origination and so on of the entire, existent world”. Śrīnivāsatīrtha explains that it is Vyāsatīrtha’s description of the world as “existent” in the second of his benedictory verses that prompts the response from the Advaitin pūrvapakṣin at the beginning of the Nyāyāmr̥ta: satyāśeṣaviśvasya kāraṇam ity upakṣiptaṃ viśvasya satyatvam asahamāno māyāvādī pratyavatiṣṭhate—nanv iti. (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, NAB, 1:20.)

2

See Williams (2014: 123–128) for a discussion of the significance of this verse.

3

Vyāsatīrtha’s commentators offer multiple different interpretations of the meaning of the Sanskrit word mati in this verse. I follow an interpretation of this part of the verse proposed by Śrīnivāsatīrtha. See Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, NAB: 7 for this analysis.

4

NAB, 1:248.

5

According to Mesquita (2016: 34), Madhva himself never uses the term dvaitavāda to refer to his own philosophy, but rather refers to his own thought with the term tattvavāda. The Mādhva philosophers who contributed to the Nyāyāmr̥ta literature usually use this title too.

6

Madhva explains this in the following verses of his Anuvyākhyāna: jīveśvarabhidā caivaṃ jaḍeś-varabhidā tathā / jīvabhedo mithaś caiva jaḍajīvabhidā tathā // mithaś ca jaḍabhedo yaḥ prapañco bhedapañcakaḥ / (Anuvyākhyāna, SMG1: 56; verse 1,4.111.)

7

According to Madhva, Jayatīrtha, and Vyāsatīrtha, inference is inherently incapable of apprehending brahman/god. They argue that, like “proper conduct” (dharma), god is eternally beyond the scope of reasoning/inference. When commenting on Brahmasūtra 1,1.3 (śāstrayonitvāt) for instance, Vyāsatīrtha says that god is inherently beyond the ken of inference; inference is incapable of grasping god, just as one sense modality cannot grasp qualities/tropes that correspond to another sense-modality: cakṣurādi yathāśaktaṃ rasagandhādivastuṣu / anumāpi tathāśaktā dharmabrahmādivastuṣu // (TāC: 256.) “Just as the visual-faculty [and the other external faculties] are not able [to grasp] things such as taste, smell, and so on, so too is inference impotent [to grasp] things like proper conduct (dharma), brahman, and so on”.

8

āgamo dvividhaḥ—apauruṣeyaḥ, pauruṣeyaś ceti. tatrāpauruṣeyo vedaḥ, pauruṣeyo ’nyaḥ. varṇāḥ sarvatra kūṭasthanityāḥ, sarvagatāś ca; padāny api niyatāny eva. teṣāṃ padārthasambandho ’pi svābhāvika eva. tathāpi vākye padānām ānupūrvīviśeṣasya svatantrapuruṣapūrvakatvabhāvābhā-vābhyām ayaṃ bhedaḥ. (PP: 521.) “Testimony is of two sorts—impersonal and personal. Of those, the impersonal is the Veda; [everything] else is personal [testimony]. In all cases [of testimony], the letters (varṇas) are unchanging/eternal and all-pervading; likewise are the words always fixed [in terms of their order]. The relation [of words] to [their] objects too is always natural (svābhā-vika). Nevertheless, the distinction [between personal and impersonal testimony] lies in whether the particular sequence of the words in the statements [contained in the testimony] is, or is not, produced by an independent personal being”. Jayatīrtha’s seventeenth-century commentator Janārdana Bhaṭṭa clarifies that the term “independent” (svatantra) in this passage simply means that the speaker of the text has not learnt it verbatim from another source: anadhītatādr̥śasandarbhavattve sati tatpravaktā svatantrapuruṣaḥ; tādr̥śaś ca laukikavākye kālidāsādiḥ. vedavākye tādr̥śo nāsty eva. pravāhato ’nādyadhyāpakaparamparayā pūrvatanam evedam adhyāpayāma iti vedasyānusandhīyamānatvād iti bhāvaḥ. (Jayatīrthavijaya, PP: 522.)

9

The story of Madhva’s composition of his Brahmasūtrabhāṣya is narrated largely in the fifth chapter of the Sumadhvavijaya. See Sharma (1981: 80) for a discussion of the circumstances under which Madhva is taken to have written his Bhāṣya by the tradition.

10

r̥gādyā bhārataṃ caiva pañcarātram athākhilam / mūlarāmāyaṇaṃ caiva purāṇaṃ caitadātmakam // ye cānuyāyinas tv eṣāṃ sarve te ca sadāgamāḥ / durāgamās tadanye ye tair na jñeyo janārdanaḥ // jñeya etaiḥ sadā yuktair bhaktimadbhiḥ suniṣṭhitaiḥ / na ca kevalatarkeṇa nākṣajena na kena cit // kevalāgamavijñeyo bhaktair eva na cānyathā / (Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya, SMG5: 11.) “The [four Vedas,] the R̥g-[, Yajur-, Sāma-, and Atharva-Veda], as well as the [Mahā-]Bhārata and the Pāñcarātra in its entirety; the original [(= Vālmīki’s Sanskrit)] Rāmāyaṇa, the Purāṇas, and that which consists in them; as well as those texts that are consistent with [the texts just mentioned]—these are all true scriptures. [‘Scriptures’] other than those are false scriptures, and Janārdana [(Viṣṇu)] cannot be known through them. [God] can be known through [these scriptures] by those of steadfast devotion who are permanently integrated (yukta); [he cannot be known] through mere reasoning, not through perception, and not through anything [else]. He can be known through scripture by those devoted [to him], and through no other means.” Madhva ascribes this verse to the Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa.

11

See Stoker (2016: 123–124) for a discussion of how Vyāsatīrtha uses these sources in his arguments on the subject of the hierarchy of spiritual beings in liberation.

12

See below, Chapter 5, p. 130, for a discussion of Dharmakīrti’s definition of existence.

13

In his ṭīkā on the Tattvasaṅkhyāna, Jayatīrtha writes: svarūpapramitipravr̥ttilakṣaṇasattā-traividhye parānapekṣaṃ svatantram; parāpekṣam asvatantram. (Tattvasaṅkhyānaṭīkā, TS/TV: 46.) “That which does not require another being in respect of the triplicity of existence characterised as ‘essence’, ‘knowledge’, or ‘action’ is independent; that which does require another being in that respect is non-independent.” In the Nyāyasudhā, Jayatīrtha sheds more light on his characterisation of dependence/independence when explaining Madhva’s refutation of the theistic Sāṅkhya position: pradhānapuruṣayos tadīyānāṃ śaktīnāṃ ca sattā—svarūpam, pratītayaś ca pramāviṣayatvaṃ ceti yāvat, tās tāḥ sarvāḥ pravr̥ttayaś ca—sarvadā tadadhīneti yojanā. ke cin manyante svarūpam eva vastunaḥ sattvam iti, apare tu pramāṇayogyatvam, anye punar arthakriyāvattvam. tad idaṃ trayam api prakr̥tyādīnāṃ bhagavadadhīnam eveti. (NS, 7:191.) “[This verse of Madhva’s in the Anuvyākhyāna should be] construed as follows: The existence of primary matter (prakr̥ti) and the person (puruṣa) along with their potencies (śakti)—[which existence consists in their] essence, their ‘cognitions’ (i.e. their being an object knowledge), as well as all their various actions—are permanently dependent on [god]. Some believe that the ‘existence’ of something is simply its essence; others believe that it is [that thing’s] being amenable to the means of knowledge; yet others believe that it is [that thing’s] possessing causal efficacy. All of these three things belonging to material nature[, the person, and their potencies] always depend on god.” Jayatīrtha is glossing here the following verse of Madhva’s Anuvyākhyāna (SMG1, 73; verse 2,2.35)—sattā pradhānapuruṣaśaktīnāṃ ca pratītayaḥ / pravr̥ttayaś ca tāḥ sarvā nityaṃ nityātmanā yataḥ //. See also Sarma (2003: 52–53) for some discussion of the concepts of dependence and independence in Madhva’s thought.

14

In his Tattvasaṅkhyānaṭīkā (TS/TV: 237), Jayatīrtha explains the activity of niyama as “instigating [the individual souls] to action” (vyāpāreṣu preraṇam). He says that the words “concealment” (āvr̥tti) and “illumination” (jyoti) refer to “external darkness and illumination” (bāhyatamaprakāśau). See also TSṬ: 30–33 for a translation and discussion of the relevant part of Jayatīrtha’s commentary.

15

sr̥ṣṭiḥ sthitiḥ saṃhr̥tiś ca niyamo ’jñānabodhane / bandho mokṣaḥ sukhaṃ duḥkham āvr̥ttir jyotir eva ca // viṣṇunāsya samastasya samāsavyāsayogataḥ / (Tattvasaṅkhyāna, TS/TV: 236.)

16

Madhva himself sometimes refers to the world as asat in his works, and occasionally identifies the terms “independent” (svatantra) and “dependent” (paratantra) with sattvam and asattvam, respectively. For instance, an untraced verse Madhva attributes to the Mahābhārata in his notes on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa says: sattvaṃ svātantryam uddiṣṭaṃ tac ca kr̥ṣṇe na cāpare / asvātantryāt tadanyeṣām asattvaṃ viddhi bhārata // (SMG3: 742.) “ ‘Existence’ is said to be independence, and that belongs to Kr̥ṣṇa and not to others. Know that beings other than [god] are ‘nonexistent’ because they are not independent, O descendant of Bharata”. It is clear that the words sattva and asattva should not be translated as “existence” and “nonexistence” in passages like these. Rather, they imply the inferiority or total dependency of the world on god. Mesquita (2016: 230–231) observes: “However, it is at end a derived, finite, or unreal being (cañcala / anr̥ta / avastu), which in its core is dependent on Viṣṇu, that is to say, Viṣṇu preserves all finite beings in their existence since He is their abode (adhiṣṭhāna). Without this abode finite beings would be nothing (na santi yadupekṣayā)”.

17

purāṇādiṣu kva cij jagato ’sattvoktir asādhutvāt, nāsatpuruṣam āśrayed ity ādi vat. sadbhāve sādhubhāve ca sad ity etat prayujyata iti, aśraddhayā hutaṃ dattaṃ tapas taptaṃ kr̥taṃ ca yat / asad ity ucyate pārtha na ca tat pretya no iha // iti ca gītokteḥ. sacchabdaḥ sādhuvācaka iti viṣṇupurāṇokteś ca. asvātantryād vā—sattvaṃ svātantryam uddiṣṭaṃ ¹tac¹ ca kr̥ṣṇe na cāpare / asvātantryāt tadanyeṣām asattvaṃ viddhi bhārata // iti bhāratokteḥ. anyathātyantāsattvāpātāt. (NAB, 2:252.) Emendations: (1.) The edition reads na here. I have emended this to read with the text of the verse Vyāsatīrtha is quoting here as it is found in the edition of Madhva’s Bhāgavatatātparyanirṇaya. See below, fn. 16, for the reference to this verse.

18

See Sarma (2003: 61–63) for an overview of the different Sāṅkhya categories that Madhva uses in these works.

19

See Zydenbos (1991) for the argument that this aspect of Mādhva doctrine was influenced by Jaina thought. On the other hand, Basham (1981: 281–282) suggests that it is probable that the Ājīvikas influenced this aspect of Mādhva doctrine. According to Basham, Ājīvikas were still present in South India until the fourteenth century, and there is reason to believe that Ājīvika doctrines may have influenced not just the Mādhvas, but also the Pāñcarātrins.

20

For example, Madhva states in the Tattvasaṅkyāna—duḥkhaspr̥ṣṭaṃ tadaspr̥ṣṭam iti dvedhaiva cetanam / nityāduḥkhā ramānye tu spr̥ṣṭaduḥkhāḥ samastaśaḥ // spr̥ṣṭaduḥkhā vimuktāś ca duḥkhasaṃsthā iti dvidhā / duḥkhasaṃsthā muktiyogyā ayogyā iti ca dvidhā // devarṣipitr̥panarā iti muktās tu pañcadhā / evaṃ vimuktiyogyāś ca tamogāḥ sr̥tisaṃsthitāḥ // iti dvidhāmuktiyogyā daityarakṣaḥpiśācakāḥ / martyā iti caturdhaiva tamoyogyāḥ prakīrtitāḥ // te ca prāptāndhatamasaḥ sr̥tisaṃsthā iti dvidhā / (Tattvasaṅkhyāna, SMG5, 60–61.) “Conscious beings are of two sorts—those who are touched by suffering and those who are not. Ramā [(Lakṣmī)] is permanently free from suffering, but every other [conscious being] is touched [to some degree] by it. Those who are touched by suffering are of two sorts—those already liberated and those who remain in suffering. Those who remain in suffering are [further] of two sorts—those who are elligible for liberation and those who are not. Now liberated [sentient beings] are of five sorts—gods, sages, ancestors, monarchs, and men; those elligible for liberation are also [of those five different sorts of beings]. Those who are not elligible for liberation are of two sorts—those destined for the dark regions, and those who are trapped [permanently] in transmigratory existence. Those who are destined for the dark regions are said to be of four different sorts—Daityas, Rākṣasas, Piśācas, and men. And [those who are destined for the dark regions] are [further] of two sorts—those who have [already] reached the great darkness and those who remain in transmigratory existence.”

21

See Sharma (1986: 289–299) for a discussion of this Mādhva doctrine in relation to Calvinism. See also Buchta (2014) and Williams (2021) for discussions of this issue in the context of the Mādhva theory of agency and theodicy.

22

For instance, in his Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (verse 2,3.42), Madhva attributes the following verses to the Bhaviṣyatparvan: pūrvakarma prayatnaṃ ca saṃskāraṃ cāpy apekṣya tu / īśvaraḥ kārayet sarvaṃ tac ceśvarakr̥taṃ svayam // anāditvād adoṣaś ca pūrṇaśaktitvato hareḥ / (Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, SMG1: 104.) “God would cause [an individual soul] to act only having taken into account (1) [that soul’s] prior actions, and (2) [its] volition, and (3) [its] inherent nature (saṃskāra); and all of those things are caused by god himself. [However,] since there is no beginning to [the chain of actions belonging to the individual souls in saṃsāra], god is not at fault by virtue of being all-powerful.” See Buchta (2014: 262–263) for a discussion of Madhva’s comments on this part of the Brahmasūtra. I follow Buchta (2014: 263) in taking it that the term saṃskāra is understood by Madhva in this passage to mean svabhāva, that is, the inherent-nature or essence of the individual soul. The Bhaviṣyatparvan is a work not known outside of the Mādhva tradition.

23

Unlike the Naiyāyikas, the Mādhvas accept that space (deśa) is actually a type of ākāśa, a term that is usually translated as “ether”. The Mādhvas differentiate between two types of ākāśa. The one that is known as “space” (deśa) is the “unmanifested ether” (avyākr̥tākāśa), which is eternal and non-produced. The second, the “manifest-ether” (vyākr̥ta-/bhūta-ākāśa), is an effect resulting from a transformation of matter that is created in every cosmic era. See Siauve (1968: 142) for a discussion of the Mādhva theory of space.

24

See above, fn. 8, for a translation of a relevant passage of Jayatīrtha’s Pramāṇapaddhati.

25

See Sarma (2003: 60–63) for an overview of Madhva’s account of the emanation of material nature. See also Sharma (1986: 234–236) and Siauve (1968: 124–125) for a discussion of Madhva’s theories about cosmogony.

26

Madhva summarises the various divisions of dependent insentient entities as follows: nityā vedāḥ purāṇādyāḥ kālaḥ prakr̥tir eva ca // nityānityaṃ tridhā proktam anityaṃ dvividhaṃ matam / asaṃsr̥ṣṭaṃ ca saṃsr̥ṣṭam asaṃsr̥ṣṭaṃ mahān aham // buddhir manaḥ khāni daśa mātrā bhūtāni pañca ca / saṃsr̥ṣṭam aṇḍaṃ tadgaṃ ca samastaṃ samprakīrtitam // (Tattvasaṅkhyāna, SMG5, 60–61.) “The Vedas are eternal. That which is both-eternal-and-noneternal is said to be threefold,[ consisting of] the Purāṇas and [the other scriptures created by persons], along with time, as well as material nature. What is noneternal is thought to be of two sorts—that which is not completely generated (asaṃsr̥ṣta) and that which is completely generated (saṃsr̥ṣṭa). That which is not completely generated consists in the great principle (mahat), the ego (ahaṅkāra), the intellect (buddhi), the mind (manas), the ten faculties, and the five subtle/gross elements. That which is completely generated is the primordial egg and everything contained in it.” Jayatīrtha comments: yan na sarvathā kūṭastham, nāpy anityam eva, tad ucyate nityānityam. tasya tisro vidhāḥ sambhavanti— utpattimattve sati vināśābhāvaḥ; ekadeśa utpattivināśau, ekadeśinas tadabhāvaḥ; svarūpeṇotpattyādyabhāve ’py avasthāgamāpāyavattvaṃ ceti. (Tattvasaṅkhyānaṭīkā, TS/TV: 211.) “That which is not completely unchanging, but which is neither simply noneternal, is called ‘both-eternal-andnoneternal’. There can be three sorts of [both-eternal-and-noneternal things]—that which lacks an end while having a beginning; that which comes into being and comes to an end in one place, but which [neither comes into being nor comes to an end] in another place; and [that which], even though it by essence neither comes into being [nor comes to an end], has states (avastha) that ‘come-and-go’.” See also Sarma (2003: 60) for a discussion of this aspect of Madhva’s philosophy.

27

The Sanskrit term guṇa is often translated as “quality”. However, as Karl Potter (1954 and 1957: 13) has pointed out, this is potentially misleading, since the term “quality” is often used to refer to repeatable properties in Western philosophical literature, whereas guṇas are decidedly not repeatable for the Naiyāyikas. Following Potter, I have translated the name of the second category, guṇa, as “trope” throughout this book. This translation reflects the use of the term in modern metaphysics to refer to “non-repeatable property particulars” (a particular shape, colour, weight, texture, etc.). For a recent discussion of the use of this term in “trope-theory” in Western philosophy, see Maurin (2023). There are of course issues with this translation. For instance, trope-theorists in Western philosophy tend to assume that tropes are classified together in thought and language because of their resemblance to one another. For the Naiyāyikas, by contrast, tropes such as “green” or “blue” are classified together because they share a universal (green-ness, blue-ness) which is singular yet instantiated in all of the those individuals. Nevertheless, for the reasons just outlined, the term “quality” is potentially more misleading, and I have deliberately used the more technical term “trope” to help clarify what guṇas are for the reader.

28

guṇakriyājātipūrvā dharmāḥ sarve ’pi vastunaḥ / rūpaṃ eva dvidhaṃ tac ca yāvadvastu ca khaṇḍitam // khaṇḍite bheda aikyaṃ ca yāvadvastu na bhedavat / (Tattvaviveka, SMG5: 64.) I have translated this passage largely following the commentary of Jayatīrtha. See Mesquita (2016: 90–91) for a different interpretation of this passage.

29

guṇā rūpādyāḥ, kriyotkṣepaṇādyāḥ, jātiḥ sattādyāḥ. pūrvapadena śaktisādr̥śyaviśiṣṭādigrahaṇam. vastuno dravyasya. ... yathā bhāvādayo ’tyantabhinnāḥ, na tathā guṇādayaḥ; api tu svāśrayadravyasvarūpabhūtā eva. ato na te pr̥thak kathyante. yadā tu buddhyā vivicyante, tadā viveko ’pi kartavya iti. ... kiṃ cid guṇādikaṃ yāvadvastu—yāvatkālaṃ dravyaṃ bhavati—tāvat tiṣṭhati. kiṃ cit khaṇḍitaṃ—saty api dravye svayaṃ naśyatīty evaṃ dvidham. (Tattvasaṅkhyānaṭīkā, TS/TV: 302–304.)

30

For a recent discussion of the concept of viśeṣas in the Mādhva system in relation to the Vaiśeṣikas, Advaitins, and Viśiṣṭādvaitins, see Okita (2016: 94–100).

31

Zydenbos (1991) and Mesquita (2016: 30–31) have argued that the terms kevala-pramāṇa and anupramāṇa have a different sense in Madhva’s philosophy. My interpretation of Madhva’s theory here largely follows Jayatīrtha’s analysis.

32

According to the analysis of Nagaraja Rao (1976: 14), the word pramāṇa is taken to be formed from the word pramā (“knowledge”, “accurate conception”) with the addition of the lyuṭ suffix (-ana). The suffix can be used without modifying the sense of the term, in which case pramā (“knowledge”) and pramāṇa are synonymous. On the other hand, the suffix can yield the sense of an “instrument”, in which case the word means “an instrument of knowledge”, i.e. an instrument that produces knowledge.

33

yathārthaṃ pramāṇam. ... atra yathāśabdo ’natikrame vartate. arthaśabdaś cāryata iti vyutpattyā jñeyavācī. jñeyam anatikramya vartamānaṃ yathāvasthitam eva jñeyam yad viṣayīkaroti, nānyathā, tat pramāṇam ity arthaḥ. jñeyaviṣayīkāritvaṃ ca sākṣād vā sākṣājjñeyaviṣayīkārisādhanatvena vā vivakṣitam iti nānupramāṇeṣv avyāptiḥ. (PP: 1–2) “Pramāṇa (‘episode of knowledge’/‘means of knowledge’) is what accords to [its own] object. The word ‘accords to’ (yathā) is used in the sense of ‘not going beyond’. The word ‘object’ (artha) refers to what can be known (jñeya) by the derivation, ‘It is known’ (aryata iti). That which, not going beyond the object of knowledge, takes for its object something that can be known exactly as that thing is, and not otherwise, is a pramāṇa (‘episode of knowledge’/‘means of knowledge’). And by ‘the property of taking something that can be known for its object’ is meant ‘either directly or by virtue of being the cause of something that directly takes [some] knowable thing for its object’; hence [the definition] does not fail to apply to the means of knowledge [which do not directly take knowable things for their object].”

34

My interpretation of Madhva’s definition here is based on Jayatīrtha’s explanation in the Pramāṇalakṣaṇaṭīkā. There, Jayatīrtha indicates that the term “flawless” (nirdoṣa) in Madhva’s definition of perception is to be taken both with the term “object” (artha) and “sense-faculty” (indriya): nirdoṣatvam arthendriyayor viśeṣaṇam. arthagrahaṇenākāśādīnāṃ cakṣurādisannikarṣavyudāsaḥ. atra tattadindriyaviṣayo ’rtha ucyate. tannirdoṣatvagrahaṇenātisāmīpyādidoṣayuktārthānām indriyasannikarṣanirāsaḥ. indriyagrahaṇenārthānām evānyonyasannikarṣanirāsaḥ. tannirdoṣatvagrahaṇaṃ mano ’nadhiṣṭhitatvādidoṣavadindriyāṇām arthasannikarṣavyāvr̥ttyartham. (Pramāṇalakṣaṇaṭīkā, PL: 70.) “‘Flawlessness’ is a qualifier of both ‘object’ and ‘sense-faculty’ [in Madhva’s definition of perception]. The term ‘object’ serves to preclude the contact of the visual-faculty with the ether and so on. In [this definition of perception] ‘object’ (artha) refers to the object (viṣaya) of one or the other of the sense-faculties. By stating that [the object must be] flawless, [Madhva] excludes [from the scope of the definition] cases where an object that has a flaw (e.g. being overly-proximate) comes into contact with a sense-faculty. The term ‘sense-faculty’ serves to exclude the contact of objects themselves with one another. [Madhva] specifies that [the sense-faculties too] must be ‘flawless’ in order to exclude cases where sense-faculties that have flaws such as ‘not being present to the mind’, for instance, come into contact with an object.” So according to Jayatīrtha’s gloss, the sense-faculties themselves can suffer from faults, as can the objects they come into contact with.

35

See Amit Chaturvedi (2020) for a recent treatment of Vyāsatīrtha’s refutation of Gaṅgeśa’s theory of nirvikalapaka-pratyakṣa in the Tarkatāṇḍava.

36

nirvikalpakasavikalpakabhedād dvividhaṃ pratyakṣam ity eke. yad dravyaguṇādisvarūpamātrā-vagāhi, na tu tadviśeṣaṇaviśeṣyabhāvaviṣayam, tan nirvikalpakam. yathā yat kiṃ cid etad iti jñā-nasādhanam. prāthamikam. sañjñāguṇakarmajātiviśiṣṭārthaviṣayaṃ savikalpakam; yathā śuklo brāhmaṇo gacchatīti. dvitīyam iti. nirvikalpakam eva pratyakṣam ity apare. tad etad ayuktam. guṇāder dravyeṇātyantabhedasya nirviśeṣābhedasya cābhāvena viśiṣṭabodhasyaiva sākṣisiddhatvāt. (Pramāṇalakṣaṇaṭīkā, PL: 144.) “Some [i.e. the Naiyāyikas] claim that perception is of two kinds, because of the difference between conceptual and non-conceptual [perception. They say that perception] that apprehends only the essence of a substance, quality, or so on, and does not have for its object the relationship of qualifier and qualificandum, is ‘non-conceptual’ [perception]; for instance, the cause of the judgment, ‘This is something or other’. [Non-conceptual cognition] is primary. Conceptual [perception] has for its object something that is qualified by a name, a trope, a motion, or a natural kind; for instance, the cognition, ‘The pale-skinned brahmin is walking’. [Conceptual perception] is secondary. Others [i.e. the Yogācāra Buddhists] opine that there is only non-conceptual perception. This is all wrong. For, [in our view as Mādhvas] tropes [and the other sorts of properties] are not completely different from [their own] substances, yet nor are they non-different [from their substances] without distinction (viśeṣa). Hence only the knowledge of the qualified thing (viśiṣṭa) is established by the witness [and there can be no perception of the bare particular substance].”

37

See PP: 159.

38

viparītaniścayo viparyayaḥ. viparīteti samyaṅniścayavyudāsaḥ. niścaya iti saṃśayajñānasya. sa ca pratyakṣānumānāgamābhāsebhyo jāyate. yathā śuktikāyām idaṃ rajatam ity ādi. (PP: 79.) “Error is the certainty that [something] is contrary [to the way it really is. The word] ‘contrary’ (viparīta) [is inserted into this definition of error] to exclude accurate certainty; [the word] ‘certainty’ has the purpose [of excluding] doubtful cognition [from the scope of the definition]. And [error] is produced by pseudo-perception, pseudo-inference, and pseudo-testimony. An example [of error] is the judgment ‘This is silver’ [made] in respect of a piece of mother-of-pearl.”

39

indriyādimātreṇaiva prāmāṇyaviśiṣṭaṃ jñānam utpadyate. guṇās tv akiñcitkarāḥ. aprāmāṇyaṃ doṣasahakr̥tendriyādibhir utpadyate. tathā jñānaṃ tatprāmāṇyaṃ ca sākṣiṇaiva jñāyate. apramāṇajñānasvarūpamātraṃ sākṣivedyam; tadaprāmāṇyaṃ tv anumeyam ity ācāryāḥ. (PP: 546.)

40

NS, 7:218.

41

Mādhva authors adopt an approach similar to that of Citsukha, who regarded the sākṣin as being the essence of the individual self which apprehends internal states. See V. A. Sharma (1974: 38–39) for a discussion of Citsukha’s treatment of the concept of the sākṣin in the Tattvapradīpikā.

42

In the Tarkatāṇḍava, Vyāsatīrtha explains “veridicality” as follows: yāthārthyarūpasya tattajjñānaprāmāṇyasya grāhyaprāmāṇyavirodhyupasthāpakasāmagryasamavahitagrāhyaprāmāṇyāś-rayatattajjñānaviṣayakasākṣijñānaviṣayatvanaiyatyaṃ svatastvam. tārkikābhimatānuvyavasāya evāsmākaṃ sākṣī. (TT, 1:4–6.) “The ‘intrinsicality’ of the veridicality of some cognition—[which veridicality] is nothing more than [that cognition’s] corresponding to [its] object (yāthārthya)— consists in [that veridicality’s] being invariantly the object of the cognition of the witness, which has [also] the cognition that is the locus of the veridicality that is to be apprehended for its object, provided that the cognition of the witness is not associated with factors [a fault of some kind in the (putative) means of knowledge—doubt, etc.—]that indicate something that rules out the veridicality that is to be grasped [in that cognition].”

43

In the Pramāṇapaddhati, Jayatīrtha argues as follows: indriyaśabdena jñānendriyaṃ gr̥hyate. tad dvividham—pramātr̥svarūpaṃ prākr̥taṃ ceti. tatra svarūpendriyaṃ sākṣīty ucyate. tasya viṣayāḥ—ātmasvarūpam, taddharmāḥ, avidyā, manaḥ, tadvr̥ttayaḥ, bāhyendriyajñānasukhādyāḥ, kālaḥ, avyākr̥tākāśaś cety ādyāḥ. sa ca svarūpajñānam abhivyanakti. (PP: 156.) “By the word ‘faculty’ (indriya) is understood the cognitive-faculty [and not the faculty of action (karmendriya). The cognitive-faculty] is of two sorts—that which is the very essence of the knower (pramātr̥ ) and that which is derived from material nature (prākr̥ta). Of those [two], the faculty that constitutes the very essence [of the knower] is called the ‘witness’. Its objects are the essence of the self; the properties [of the self]; nescience; the internal faculty (manas); the modifications [of the internal faculty]; the external faculties; [the self’s internal states,] cognition, pleasure, and so on; time; the unmanifested ether; and others. And [the witness] makes manifest (abhi-vyañj) essential knowledge[; hence it qualifies as a ‘means of knowledge’].”

44

Jayatīrtha is here referring to an earlier section of the Brahmasūtra beginning with the sūtra “pr̥thag upadeśāt” (“because of being mentioned separately”). This sūtra is number 2,3.27 according to Madhva’s sequence of the sūtras. The commentators on the Nyāyasudhā indicate that Jayatīrtha has in mind here some specific verses from Madhva’s Anuvyākhyāna. See SMG1, 99–100 for the relevant portion of the Anuvyākhyāna.

45

mānase darśane doṣāḥ sambhavantīti sphuṭam; sākṣidarśane na sambhavantīty etat kuta ity ata āha sudr̥ḍha iti—sudr̥ḍho nirṇayo yatra jñeyaṃ tat sākṣidarśanam // sudr̥ḍhaḥ kadāpi bādharahitaḥ. nirṇayo ’vadhāraṇātmakaḥ pratyayaḥ. yatreti nipāto ya ity arthe. idam uktaṃ bhavati— doṣās tāvaj jñānasya ḍolāyamānatādarśanena balavadbādhakopanipātena vā kalpyāḥ. yathoktam— balavatpramāṇataś caiva jñeyā doṣāḥ, na cānyathā. … sākṣidarśanaṃ ca nirṇayātmakam eva bhavati, na ca bādhyata ity upapāditaṃ pr̥thagadhikaraṇe. ataḥ pramāṇābhāvān na tatra doṣaḥ sambhavati. (NS, 11:208.)

46

sākṣisiddhe ’rthe saṃśayo nāstīty uktam; tadanubhavārūḍhaṃ kartuṃ sākṣisiddham arthaṃ tā-vad āha—iccheti. icchā jñānaṃ sukhaṃ duḥkhaṃ bhayābhayakr̥pādayaḥ / sākṣisiddhā na kaś cid dhi tatra saṃśayavān kva cit // ādipadena prayatnadveṣāv etadabhāvāś ca gr̥hyante. tataḥ kim ity ata āha—neti. na jātu mama sukham asti, na veti saṃśayaḥ; nāpi pratīyamānam idaṃ sukhaṃ sat, asad veti saṃśaya iti hiśabdenārthaḥ. (NS, 11:209.)

47

sākṣidarśanam abādhitam eveti na yujyate, śuktirajatādau bādhadarśanāt. na hi pratītisamayamātravartini tatrānyajñānaṃ sambhavatīty ata āha—yad iti. yat kva cid vyabhicāri syād darśanaṃ mānasaṃ hi tat / yad darśanaṃ kva cic chuktirajatādau viṣaye vyabhicāri bādhitaṃ syāt, cakṣurādikaraṇakaṃ manaḥpariṇatirūpam eva, na sākṣidarśanam. kuta etat? mānasadarśanasya bādhyatvāṅgīkāre ’niṣṭābhāvāt; sākṣiṇas tu tathātve sarvavyavahāravilopaprasaṅgasyoktatvāt. (NS, 11:209–210.)

48

In the Nyāyasudhā, Jayatīrtha expands on his argument that the witness must be inerrant in order to explain the fact of practical activity as follows: yadi sākṣī kva cid vyabhicaret, tadā tenāviś-vasanīyena karaṇadoṣādiniścayo na syāt. tadabhāve ca pratyayānāṃ bhramatvādi na niścīyeta; tathā ca vastunirṇayo na syāt; kāraṇābhāve kāryāyogād ity uktam. tatra mā bhūd etat sarvam iti cet, na; tathā sati hānopādānādisarvavyavahāravilopaprasaṅgāt. katham? sarvavyavahārāṇām tatkāryatvāt (NS, 8:603.) “If the witness erred in just one case, then it would not be trustworthy, and we could no longer ascertain by means of it that there is a fault in [one of the] sense-faculties, for instance. And without such [certainty, we] could not be sure that our judgments are erroneous [or veridical], and so there could be no certainty about the object [of such judgments]; it is said that there cannot be the effect in the absence of the cause. Objection: Very well, do away with all of this [certainty, knowledge that our judgments are true/false, and the like]! Reply: This is untenable, because if that were so it would follow that all practical activity—to shun [things] or obtain [them]—would be [similarly] done away with. How? Because all practical activity is rooted in [certainty].”

1

See Dasgupta (1932: 101–102) for a discussion of Sureśvara’s view on the relationship between brahman and nescience.

2

See Dasgupta (1932: 202–203) for a discussion of the significance of this statement.

3

yathā citrasya bhittiḥ sākṣān nopādānam, nāpi sahajaṃ citram tasyāḥ, nāpy avasthāntaraṃ mr̥da iva ghaṭādiḥ, nāpi guṇāntarāgama āmrasyeva raktatādiḥ, na cāsyāś citrajanmādau janmādiḥ, citrāt prāg ūrdhvaṃ ca bhāvāt, yady api bhittiṃ vinā citraṃ na bhāti, tathāpi na sā citraṃ vinā na bhātīty evam ādy anubhūtibhittijagaccitrayor yojyam. (IS: 37.) “The canvas is clearly not the material cause of the painting, nor does the painting belong innately to [the canvas]. The [painting] is not [the canvas] in a different state, as a pot is clay [in a different state]; nor is [the painting] the appearance of a new trope [in the canvas], like the colour red [appearing] in a mango [as it is exposed to the sun]. Nor does [the canvas] come into being [or cease to exist] when the painting comes into being [or ceases to exist], since the [the canvas] exists both before and after the painting. Even though in the absence of the canvas the painting cannot appear, it is not the case that [the canvas] cannot appear in the absence of the painting: these facts, and others [about the relationship between the canvas and the painting] apply equally to the awareness-canvas [(i.e. brahman)] and the world-painting.”

4

See Suryanarayana Sastri (1933: 136) for the text and a translation of this passage. See Dasgupta (1932: 109–110) for a discussion of Vācaspati’s view.

5

Dasgupta (1932: 104–105).

6

tasmād anirvacanīyamāyāviśiṣṭaṃ kāraṇaṃ brahmeti prāptam. … traividhyam atra sambhavati—rajjvāḥ saṃyuktasūtradvayavan māyāviśiṣṭaṃ brahma kāraṇam iti vā; devātmaśaktiṃ svaguṇair nigūḍhām iti śruter māyāśaktimad brahma kāraṇam iti vā; jagadupādā-namāyāśrayatayā brahma kāraṇam iti veti. (Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, PP/PPV: 652.) “Therefore, it follows that brahman, insofar as it is combined with indeterminate illusion, is the cause [of the world-appearance]. … There are three ways [in which brahman, combined with indeterminate illusion, could be the cause of the world]: (1) brahman combined with illusion is the cause [of the world], just as two threads bound together [are the cause] of a rope; or (2) brahman insofar as it is possessed of the potency (śakti) of illusion is the cause [of the world], on the basis of the following passage of śruti: ‘[Those who follow the discipline of meditation have seen] god, the self, and the power, all hidden by their own qualities …’ (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 1,1.3); or (3) brahman is the cause [of the world] insofar as [brahman is] the locus of illusion, which [illusion itself] is the material cause of the world.” The full verse from the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad reads: te dhyānayogānugatā apaśyan devātmaśaktiṃ svaguṇair nigūḍhām / yaḥ kāraṇāni nikhilāni tāni kālātmayuktāny adhitiṣṭhaty ekaḥ // (Olivelle, 1998: 414.) Olivelle translates: “Those who follow the discipline of meditation have seen God, the self, and the power, all hidden by their own qualities. One alone is he who governs all those causes, from ‘time’ to ‘self’.”

7

ekasya tattvād apracyutasya pūrvaviparītāsatyānekarūpāvabhāso vivartaḥ. ekasya pūrvarūpaparityāgena satyarūpāntarāpattiḥ pariṇāmaḥ. (Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, PP/PPV: 653.)

8

NAB, 1:8.

9

See NAB, 1:36–38 for the relevant passage.

10

kiṃ punar idaṃ mithyātvam? (1) pramāṇāgamyatvaṃ vā? (2) apramāṇajñānagamyatvaṃ vā? (3) ayathārthajñānagamyatvaṃ vā? (4) sadvilakṣaṇatvaṃ vā? (5) sadasadvilakṣaṇatvaṃ vā? (6)avidyātatkāryayor anyataratvaṃ vā? (7) jñānanivartyatvaṃ vā? (8) pratipannopādhau niṣedhapratiyogitvaṃ vā? (9) bādhyatvaṃ vā? (10) svātyantābhāvasamānādhikaraṇatayā pratīyamānatvaṃ vā? (TP: 32–33.) “And what is this ‘illusoriness’? Is it: (1) ‘Not being knowable through the means of knowledge’? Or, (2) ‘Being knowable through a cognition that is not produced by a valid means of knowledge’? Or, (3) ‘Being knowable through a cognition that does not correspond to its object’? Or, (4) ‘Being different from what exists’? Or, (5) ‘Being different from both what exists and what does not exist’? Or, (6) ‘Being either nescience or an effect [of nescience]’? Or, (7) ‘Being liable to cancellation by knowledge’? Or, (8) [Something’s] ‘being the counterpositive of an absence in the very locus where [it itself was] perceived’? Or, (9) ‘Sublatability’? Or, (10) ‘[Something’s] ‘being experienced as sharing a common locus with its own constant absence’?”

11

Vyāsatīrtha says the following: tathāpi mithyāśabdo ’nirvācyavacana iti pañcapādikārītyā sadasattvānadhikaraṇatvarūpānirvācyatvaṃ mithyātvam; tatprasiddhiś ca khyātivāde vakṣyate. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:37.) “Nevertheless, in the fashion of [Padmapāda’s] Pañcapādikā, which says, ‘The word “illusory” denotes what is indeterminate’, illusoriness is indeterminacy in the form of ‘being the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence’. And [we, the Advaitins,] will demonstrate in [our] discussion of perceptual error that [indeterminacy] is well-established [in everyday perceptual illusions].” Vyāsatīrtha seems to have in mind here a passage of the Pañcapādikā found in PP/PPV: 23.

12

Vyāsatīrtha is clear in the Nyāyāmr̥ta that he considers both this definition and D³ to be sub-definitions of “sublatability” (bādhyatva), which can itself be considered an analysis of “indeterminacy”. He attributes D² primarily to Prakāśātman’s Vivaraṇa, although he indicates that it could be implicit in Sureśvara’s Vārttika also: yad vā bādhyatvam anirvācyatvam. tac ca śuktirūpyādir eva pāramārthikatvākāreṇa traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogīti mate pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam. uktaṃ hi vivaraṇe—pratipannopādhāv abhāvapratiyogitvalakṣaṇasya mithyātvasyeti. uktaṃ ca vārttike—tat tvam asy ādivākyārthasamyagdhījanmamātrataḥ / avidyā saha kāryeṇa nāsīd asti bhaviṣyati // iti. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:37.) “Or ‘indeterminacy’ consists in ‘being liable to sublation’. And [the quality of being liable to sublation] consists in [something’s] being the counter-positive of an omnitemporal absence in the very thing that was taken to be [its] substrate, that is, according to the view that it is the ‘silver’ superimposed on mother-of-pearl that is the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence from the ultimate point of view. For, [Prakāśātman] says in [his Vivaraṇa]: ‘Of illusoriness, which consists in [something’s] being the counterpositive of an absence in the very thing that was taken to be [its] substrate … ’. And Sureśvara says in his [Br̥hadāraṇyakopani-ṣadbhāṣya]vārttika: “Only upon the arising of the understanding of the Upaniṣadic passages like, ‘That is how you are[, Śvetaketu] …’ (tat tvam asi), does it become clear that nescience, together with [its] effect were never, are not, and never shall be.” See Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, PP/PPV: 174–175, for the passage that Vyāsatīrtha draws this definition from, and Gupta (2011: 234–235) for a translation of that passage. Sureśvara’s verse (number 183) is found in BĀUBh: 58. In the edition the verse in question reads as follows: tat tvam asy ādivākyotthasamyagdhījanmamātrataḥ / avidyā saha kāryeṇa nāsīd asti bhaviṣyati //.

13

Vyāsatīrtha (NAB, 1:38) says that this definition is derived from a passage of Prakāśātman’s Pañ-capādikāvivaraṇa: matāntare tu bādhyatvaṃ jñānatvena jñānanivartyatvam. uktaṃ hi vivaraṇe— ajñānasya svakāryeṇa vartamānena pravilīnena vā saha jñānena nivr̥ttir bādha iti. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:38.) “On another view [of Advaitin philosophers], sublatability consists in the quality of ‘being liable to be cancelled by cognition by virtue [of the cancelling thing’s] being a cognition’. For, [Prakāśātman] says in [his] Vivaraṇa—‘Sublation (bādha) is the destruction (nivr̥tti), through knowledge, of ignorance (ajñāna) together with its effects, which either exist or have [already] been annulled’.” The passage in question is found in Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa, PP/PPV: 178. It has been translated by Gupta (2011: 246). See also Pellegrini (2015: 305–306) for further discussion of this passage in Prakāśātman’s work.

14

atha vā citsukharītyā svasamānādhikaraṇātyantābhāvapratiyogitvaṃ mithyātvam. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:38.) The passage is found in Citsukha’s Tattvapradīpikā; see TP: 67.

15

yad vānandabodharītyā sadviviktatvaṃ mithyātvam. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:38.) See Nyāyadīpāvalī, NM: 1, for this definition of Ānandabodha.

16

Vyāsatīrtha draws comparisons between the Advaita and Yogācāra Buddhist philosophies in his refutation of the concept of “perceptibility” (dr̥śyatva) in the Nyāyāmr̥ta, for instance. He says that the Advaitins’ inference that the world is illusory because it is perceptible is simply a “regurgitation” of the Yogācāra-Buddhist position which is further inconsistent with Advaita epistemology: dr̥śyatvahetūktir api—stambhādipratyayo mithyā, pratyayatvāt tathā hi yaḥ / pratyayaḥ sa mr̥ṣā dr̥ṣṭaḥ svapnādipratyayo yathā // iti bauddhoktayukticchardimātram. iyāṃs tu viśeṣaḥ—bauddhamate hy aprāmāṇyasya svatastvāt tad yuktam. tvanmate tu prāmāṇyasya svatastvāt, tad ayuktam iti. (NAB, 1:126.) “Further, the statement of ‘perceptibility’ as a reason [in Ānandabodha’s inferences] is just a regurgitation of the [following] inference made by the Buddhists—‘The cognition of the post and so on is illusory, because [it is] a cognition; whatever is a cognition, is [also] illusory, just like the observed case of a dream-cognition’. But there is this difference [between the Advaitins’ and the Buddhists’ use of this inference]—In the view of the Buddhists, non-validity is intrinsic [to cognition], so [this inference] is legitimate[, at least from their point of view]. In your view, by contrast, validity is intrinsic [to cognition], and so [this inference] is untenable [on your own terms, because it is already ruled out by the witness’s initial perception that the cognition of the post is valid].”

17

Madhva, for instance, devotes a large part of his topical treatise the Tattvoddyota to proving this claim (Vādaḥ [=Tattvoddyota], SMG5, 47–48). Madhva points to the apparent similarities between the Advaita and Buddhist theories that there are multiple levels of truth/existence. He also argues that the Advaitins’ concept of the “qualification-free” brahman is ultimately indistinguishable from the nihilistic Buddhist’s position. The modern Advaitin scholar Anantakrishna Sastri attempted to turn the tables on the Mādhvas, arguing that key Mādhva doctrines are quite close to certain Buddhist philosophical positions. Sastri (NAK: 44), apparently following Gauḍa Brahmānanda, argues that the Mādhva theory of perceptual illusion, according to which the object of illusions is simply nonexistent, is little different to the asatkhyāti theory of the śūnyavādins: “On the other hand, it is the Mādhvas who adopt the Asat-khyāti view in the case of error, since in the illusion, shell-silver, they acknowledge the nonexistent silver to manifest itself as existent. So it is the view of the Mā-dhvas and not that of the Advaitins that is at least partially coloured by the view of the Buddhists”. Sastri (NAK: 43–44) also argues, contra Madhva, that the Advaita position that there are multiple levels of truth (pāramārthika- vs. vyāvahārika-sat) is logically incompatible with the Buddhist theory of sāṃvr̥ta- vs. pāramārthika-sat. See Whaling (1979) for an overview of the different arguments proposed by medieval and modern scholars to prove that the Advaitins are really “crypto-Buddhists”.

18

As Schmücker (2001: 85–86) points out, Vimuktātman uses the term avācya to mean “ineffable” or “indescribable”. By contrast, he always uses the terms anirvacanīya and anirvācya in the technical sense described here. Schmücker writes: “Die Bezeichnung ‘unbestimmbar’ (anirvacanīya) unterscheidet Vimuktātman von der Bezeichnung ‘nicht benennbar’ (avācya). Mit keiner weltlichen Bezeichnung benennbar ist nur der Ātman/das Brahman. In diesem Zusammenhang ist mit anirvacanīya gemeint, daß die Welt und ihre materielle Ursache die Māyā/Avidyā—ein vom absoluten Sein des Brahman und vom absoluten Nitchsein unterschiedenes Kennzeichen (sadasadvilakṣaṇa) haben”.

19

See VĀ: 4, for instance.

20

nāvidyā brahmaṇaḥ svabhāvaḥ, nārthāntaram, nātyantam asatī, nāpi satī; evam eveyam avidyā māyā mithyāvabhāsa ity ucyate. svabhāvaś cet kasya cit, anyo ’nanyo vā paramārtha eveti nāvidyā, atyantāsattve khapuṣpasadr̥śī na vyavahārāṅgam. tasmād anirvacanīyā. (BS: 9.) This passage has also been translated by Thrasher (1993: 1).

21

Vimutkātman’s arguments on indeterminacy have been studied extensively by Marcus Schmücker (2001).

22

nanu yady evam, kā tarhi gatir dvaitaprapañcasya pratyakṣādiviṣayasya karmajñānakāṇḍāśrayasya? athāyaṃ prapañco nāsty eva, tadā pratyakṣāder nirviṣayatvād aprāmāṇyāt; karmajñānakāṇḍayor āśrayāsiddheḥ, svarūpāsiddheś cāprāmāṇyāt; pratyakṣādeś ca prapañcāntaḥpātitvāt tadabhāve ’bhāvāt; śrutismr̥tinyāyānāṃ ca svato ’siddheḥ, na tadbalād yathoktabrahmavastusiddhiḥ. (IS: 32.)

23

athaitaddoṣaparijihīrṣayā prapañco ’bhyupeyate, tadā sa brahmaṇo bhinno ’bhinno bhinābhinno vābhyupeyaḥ, nānyathā; na hi vastunaḥ prakāratrayaṃ muktvānyathāsiddhiḥ samasti. avastutve cokto doṣaḥ prasajyeta. na hi nr̥śr̥ṅgakhapuṣpādināvastunā yathokto vyavahāraḥ sidhyet. vastutve ’pi prakāratraye ’pi yathoktaṃ brahma na sidhyet. ataḥ prapañcasya bhāve ’bhāve ’pi vedāntavākyebhyo yathoktabrahmāsiddheḥ, taddarśanād iṣṭāniṣṭaprāptiparihārāv ātyantikau puṃsaḥ sidhyata ity ayuktam. ato mokṣasyānyaḥ prakāra āśrayaṇīyaḥ, na vā mokṣa iti. (IS: 32.)

24

atrocyate—naiko ’pi doṣo ’smatpakṣe, prapañcasya māyānirmitatvābhyupagamāt. māyāyāḥ sakāryāyā api vastutvāvastutvābhyām anirvacanīyatvād vastvavastupakṣadvayāśrayā doṣā nāsmatpakṣaṃ kaṭākṣeṇāpi vīkṣante. tathā hi—prapañcasya vastutvābhāvān nādvaitahāniḥ; avastutvābhāvāc ca pratyakṣādyaprāmāṇyādyuktadoṣābhāvān na yathoktabrahmāsiddhiḥ. taddarśanāc ca māyātatkāryanivr̥tter na mokṣāsiddhiḥ. (IS: 32–33.) Schmücker (2001: 84–87) gives a translation and discussion of this passage.

25

sattve śuktirūpyasya taddhīr na bhrāntiḥ syāt, satyarūpyadhīr iva. tad vad eva ca nāsyā bādhaḥ. asattve tu nr̥śr̥ṅgavat tasya na khyātiḥ; ato na bhrāntibādhau syātām. na ca tau na sta eva, sarvajantuprasiddhatvāt; sarvavādibhiś ceṣṭatvāt. (IS: 47.) This passage is discussed by Mesquita in his analysis of Madhva’s refutation of indeterminacy in the Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya. See Mesquita (2000a: 119).

26

Pellegrini (2011: 444) translates this definition as: “To be the counterpositive of the constant absence of an entity in the [same] locus in which it is perceived”. He discusses the somewhat unusual use of the term upādhi in this definition. It is clear that the participants in the Nyāyāmr̥ta debate understand the word in this context as having the sense of “substrate” or “location” (adhiṣṭhāna, adhikaraṇa, etc.). Śrīnivāsatīrtha explains the compound pratipanna-upādhau (“In what was taken for [its] locus”) in the definition as follows: yasya yad adhiṣṭhānatvena pratipannam, tatrety arthaḥ. tucche ’tivyāptivāraṇāyedaṃ viśeṣaṇam, tatra pratipannopādher evābhāvād iti bhāvaḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥-taprakāśa, NAB, 1:23). “The meaning [of the compound ‘in the very thing that was taken to be [that thing’s] own substrate’ (pratipannopādhau)] is, ‘in that which was taken to be the substrate of that thing’. The idea is that this qualifier [i.e. ‘taken to be’ (pratipanna-)] has the purpose of preventing [the definition] from applying inappropriately to what is completely nonexistent (tuccha). For, there can be nothing that is ‘taken to be the substrate’ of [something that is completely nonexistent, because such things cannot be cognised at all, according to the Advatins].” The Advaitin scholar Yogendranath Bagchi (Bālabodhinī, ASV, 1:53.) also analyses the term upādhi as meaning “substrate”. He says that this definition of mithyātva means: “being the counterpositive of an omnitemporal absence that is present in the substrate (upādhi)–i.e. the substrate (adhikaraṇa)—which is ‘cognised’ (pratipanna)—i.e. which is the qualificandum in a mental judgment” (pratipanne pratītiviśeṣya up-ādhāv adhikaraṇe vartamāno yas traikāliko niṣedhaḥ, tatpratiyogitvam). Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāya, in his commentary on Brahmānanda’s Laghucandrikā, derives the term as follows: upa samīpa ādhīyate ’sminn ity upādhir iti. (Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāyī, ASMu: 94). I interpret the term niṣedha in this definition in the sense of “absence” rather than “negation”.

27

Citsukha gives this definition as follows in the Tattvapradīpikā: atrocyate—na tāval lakṣaṇā-sambhavaḥ, yataḥ—sarveṣām api bhāvānām āśrayatvena sammate / pratiyogitvam atyantābhāvaṃ prati mr̥ṣātmatā // tathā hi—¹paṭādīnāṃ¹ bhāvānāṃ svāśrayatvenābhimatās tantvādayo ye, tanni-ṣṭhātyantābhāvapratiyogitaiva teṣāṃ mithyātvam. na hi teṣām anyatra sattā sambhavinī. (TP: 39.) “[In response to the objector who claims that there is neither a satisfactory definition of, nor a conclusive proof for, ‘illusoriness’, I] say—In the first place, [‘illusoriness’] does not lack a definition. For: ‘The illusoriness (mr̥ṣātmatā) of all entities consists in their being the counterpositive of a constant absence in the very thing that was taken to be [their own] substrate.’ To explain—Positive entities such as a cloth and so on are ‘illusory’ precisely because they are the counterpositive of a constant absence that is located in the very thing that is considered to be their own substrate, [in the case of a cloth, for instance, its own] threads. For, they cannot possibly exist anywhere else.” Emendations: (1.) conj.; the edition reads ghaṭādīnām here. See Pellegrini (2011: 451–452) for a further translation and explanation of this passage of the Tattvapradīpikā.

28

Pellegrini (2011: 453) writes: “As a matter of fact, the definition seems essentially the same as the second. However, to differentiate them MS alters the qualifier (viśeṣaṇa) and the qualified (viśeṣya), so the meaning is (AS3, pp. 182–183): svātyantābhāvādhikaraṇa eva pratīyamānatvam, ‘[the characteristic of actually] being cognised in the locus of its absolute absence.’ The second definition, by contrast, means the property of being the counter-positive of the absence which resides in that which is cognised as the locus of the counter-positive”. The question of the difference between these two definitions was apparently already an issue when Citsukha’s commentator Pratyagrūpa was writing in the early fifteenth century. When commenting on a passage where Citsukha gives these two definitions in the Tattvapradīpikā, Pratyagrūpa glosses the tenth definition in this list as follows: pūrvaṃ svādhiṣṭhānaniṣṭhābhāvamātrapratiyogitvaṃ vivakṣitam. iha tu svātyantābhāvasya svasya caikatra vartamānatayā pratītir iti nāṣṭamadaśamasaṅkaraḥ śaṅkanīyaḥ. (Nayanaprasādinī, TP: 33.) “In a preceding [definition of illusoriness given by Citsukha in this passage, i.e. definition (8)] what was meant is [that ‘illusoriness’ is something’s] ‘being the counterpositive of a mere absence [and not a constant absence] that is located in that thing’s own substrate. Here [in definition (10)], by contrast, there is the cognition of both the constant absence [of the thing in question] and the thing itself as being present in one and the same substrate. Hence it cannot be doubted that there is a cross-over between definitions (8) and (10) [in this list]”.

29

See NAB, 1:104.

30

pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitve sādhye ’tyantāsattvaprāptiḥ. na ceṣṭāpattiḥ, asadvilakṣaṇasvarūpāṅgīkārāt; tathā ca bādha ity asvarasād āha—pāramārthikatveti. asadvi-lakṣaṇaṃ vyāvahārikaṃ svarūpam anupamr̥dya pāramārthikatvākāreṇa nāstīti sādhyata iti na doṣa iti bhāvaḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:23.)

31

See above, Chapter 3, p. 46, for a complete translation of Vyāsatīrtha’s maṅgalaślokas.

32

nanu mithyaiva viśvam. tathā hi tatra vipratipattiḥ—brahmapramānyena vā saprakāreṇa vābādhyatve saty asadvilakṣaṇatve sati brahmānyat pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogi, na vā? pāramārthikatvākāreṇa traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogi, na vā? akhaṇḍārthaniṣṭhavedāntajanyaniṣprakārakabrahmapramābādhyam api viśvam, brahmapramānyena vā saprakāreṇa vā na bādhyam iti nāśrayāsiddhiḥ. (NAB, 1:8.) As Gaṅgeśa understands the term, “non-establishment of the substrate” (āśrayāsiddhi) refers to a type of pseudo-reason (hetvābhāsa) in an inference. It is applicable when the subject of a (putative) inference is something nonexistent/“unestablished”. A standard example of such a fallacious inference is: “The sky-lotus is fragrant, because it is a lotus”. In the final vākya of this passage, Vyāsatīrtha explains why he inserted the two qualifiers, “not being liable to sublation by something other than knowledge of brahman” and “not being liable to sublation by a qualificative [cognition]”. The point is that if we add either of these qualifiers, the subject still encompasses the empirical world, and thus there is no concern that the subject is an empty domain, in which case the flaw of āśrayāsiddhi would apply. Even though the world is liable to sublation, according to the Advaitins it is only liable to sublation through the direct experience of brahman, which is also a non-qualificative awareness.

33

See Phillips (2020a: 82–84) for a translation and discussion of Gaṅgeśa’s vipratipattis at the beginning of the Prāmāṇyavāda of the Tattvacintāmaṇi.

34

Śrīnivāsatīrtha explains Vyāsatīrtha’s doubts about qualifier 1a as follows: atha brahmapramānyenābādhyatve satīty ādy uktau brahmaṇy āropitakṣaṇikatve brahma sthāyīti pramābādhye brahmapramānyenety ādi viśeṣaṇajātasya sattvena dharmitvaprāptau tatra mithyātvasādhane siddhasādhanatā syād ity asvarasād āha—saprakāreṇa veti. tathā ca na brahmaṇy āropitakṣaṇikatvasya vipratipattidharmitā. (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, NAB, 1:22.) “Now, assuming that the words ‘… while not being liable to sublation by anything other than the knowledge of brahman’ are mentioned [by Vyā-satīrtha in the formulation of the vipratipatti], then, since the ‘momentariness’ that is superimposed upon brahman [by the Buddhist philosopher] is liable to sublation by the knowledge that ‘brahman is unchanging (sthāyin)’[, which can be described as a ‘knowledge of brahman’,] then all the qualifiers [that determine the subject in the vipratipatti,] beginning with ‘… which is different from knowledge of brahman …’, would be present [in the momentariness that is mistakenly superimposed by the Buddhist upon brahman]. As such, [this momentariness] would be part of the subject, and if it were established that [that momentariness is] illusory, [the Advaitin who attempts to prove the illusoriness of the empirical world] would be proving something that is already established [to his Mādhva opponent, who already accepts that the momentariness mistakenly superimposed on brahman by Buddhist philosophers is ‘illusory’]. Because of this unsavoury contingency, [Vyāsatīrtha] says—‘Or by a qualificative [cognition]’ (saprakāreṇa vā). And thus is the momentariness [falsely] superimposed on brahman [by Buddhist philosophers] not part of the qualificandum mentioned in the disagreement.”

35

See Nyāyadīpāvalī, NM: 1, and Pellegrini (2015) for a further discussion of this definition in Ānandabodha’s work.

36

yad vānandabodhoktarītyā sadviviktatvaṃ mithyātvam. tac ca sadrūpatvābhāvaḥ. brahma ca sattārahitam api sāmānyam iva sadrūpam. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:38.) “Or, ‘illusoriness’, following the approach of Ānandabodha, is ‘being different from what is existent’. And [‘being different from what is existent’] consists in ‘not being existent by essence’. [It might be objected that this definition of ‘illusoriness’ applies inappropriately to brahman itself, which, being ‘free from qualities’, must lack even the property of existence. However,] like the universal (sāmānya)[, which, according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, can be spoken of as ‘existent’ even though it lacks the quality of existence], brahman is existent by essence, even though it lacks the quality of existence.”

37

pramāṇaṃ cātrānumānam—vimataṃ mithyā, dr̥śyatvāt, jaḍatvāt, paricchinnatvāt; suktirūpyavad ity ānandabodhokteḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:24.) Jayatīrtha presents Ānandabodha’s inferences in a similar fashion at the beginning of the Vādāvalī: nanu kathaṃ satyatā jagato ’ṅgīkārādhikā-riṇī? vimataṃ mithyā, dr̥śyatvāt, jaḍatvāt, paricchinnatvāt; śuktirūpyavad ity anumānavirodhād iti. (VĀ: 1.) In the same passage of the Nyāyāmr̥ta, Vyāsatīrtha ascribes the following inferences to Citsukha: ayaṃ paṭa etattantuniṣṭhātyantābhāvapratiyogī, paṭatvād, aṃśitvāt; paṭāntaravad iti tattvapradīpokteḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:24.) “[Because] there is the following argument of [Citsukha in] the Tattvapradīpā—‘This garment here is the counterpositive of a constant absence that is located in these very threads, because [it is] a garment, [or] because it is something that consists of parts (aṃśin); just like this other garment’.”

38

In the Nyāyāmr̥ta (NAB, 1:47), Vyāsatīrtha refers to both Ānandabodha’s Pramāṇamālā and Nyāyadīpāvalī when critiquing “perceptibility” (dr̥śyatva) as a reason in Ānandabodha’s inferences. He refers to the Pramāṇamālā also when discussing the reason of “finitude” (paricchinnatva) in the inferences (1:198). He refers to Ānandabodha’s Nyāyamakaranda by name when critiquing Prakāśātman’s definition of illusoriness (1:68).

39

While defending the Advaita doctrine of indeterminacy in his magnum opus, the Nyāyamakaranda, Ānandabodha writes: tasmān na sat, nāsat, nāpi sadasat; api tv anādyanirvā-cyāvidyākrīḍanam alīkanirbhāsaṃ vibhramālambanam iti siddham. sati caivaṃ prapañco ’pi syād avidyāvijr̥mbhitaḥ / jāḍyadr̥śyatvahetubhyāṃ rajatasvapnadr̥śyavat // (Nyāyamakaranda, NM: 127–128.) “Therefore, it is established that the objective basis (ālambana) of error is neither existent, nor nonexistent, nor both existent and nonexistent; rather it is a play of beginningless, indeterminate nescience, the appearance of which is illusory. And, this being [established], the world too must have grown from nescience, by reason of [its] being insentient and perceptible, just like the ‘silver’ [superimposed on mother-of-pearl] or an object seen in a dream.” Ānandabodha’s śloka in this passage gives a concise formulation of two of the inferences that Vyāsatīrtha ascribes to him in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. The reasons in these inferences are “insentience” (jāḍya) and “perceptibility”. In the Nyāyadīpāvalī, Ānandabodha presents the first of the inferences using the full five-part syllogism used by the Naiyāyikas: vivādapadaṃ mithyā, dr̥śyatvāt; yad itthaṃ tat tathā, yathobhayavādyavivādapadaṃ rajatam; tathaitat, tatas tathā. (Nyāyadīpāvalī, NM: 1.) “The object of the dispute [= the world] is illusory, because [it is] perceptible; that which is so [= perceptible] is [also] illusory, just like the ‘silver’ [superimposed on mother-of-pearl], which is not subject to dispute by the two debaters; [and the world] is so [= perceptible]; therefore it is illusory.”

40

Madhva refutes the dr̥śyatva inference, for instance, in Anuvyākhyāna 2,2.217–222 (Anuvyākhyāna, SMG1, 1:83–84).

41

Jeffrey Lunstead (1977) argued that Madhva himself followed a modified version of the inferential terminology of Bhāsarvajña (fl. 950) in his arguments against the Advaitins in the (Prapañ-camithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana). Lunstead concludes that Madhva used Bhāsarvajña’s system in part because his Advaitin opponents would be prepared to accept Bhāsarvajña’s theory of inference. See Lunstead (1977: 29) for a discussion of Vyāsatīrtha’s own reference to Bhāsarvajña in his commentary on the Prapañcamithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana. Madhva clearly uses a different system of inferential flaws in the Prapañcamithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana than he does in his Pramāṇalakṣaṇa. Lunstead points out that Madhva’s list of “faulty-reasons” (hetvābhāsas) corresponds closely to that of Bhāsarvajña, and that both Madhva and Bhāsarvajña refer to “faults of the example” (dr̥ṣṭāntā-bhāsas) as an independent category. Lunstead (1977: 33) reasons as follows: “There are two possible explanations for this seeming contradiction. The first is that the system derived from Bhāsarvajña which was used in the Khaṇḍana had a purely dialectical function, that Madhva used it, not because he believed in it himself, but because his opponents did. […] The second possibility is that this was a system developed by Madhva at an early stage in his career, borrowing either directly or indirectly from Bhāsarvajña. The system was then superseded by the system […] which he [= Madhva] developed later”. Lunstead also points out that Ānandabodha and Sarvajñātman, two of the Advaitins with whose works Madhva was acquainted, were clearly aware of Bhāsarvajña’s theory of inference.

42

śrutiś cātra pramāṇam, ekam evādvitīyam ity ādāv advitīyam ity ādiśabdair dvitīyamātraniṣedhāt. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:50.)

43

na ca pratyakṣabādhād anumānam amānam, śrutiś cāmukhyārtheti yuktam; pratyakṣeṇa vyā-vahārikasattvagrahāt, anumānādibhiś ca pāramārthikasattvaniṣedhāt. na hi vartamānamātra-grāhi pratyakṣaṃ trikālābādhyatvagrāhi. vahnir anuṣṇa ity atra tūṣṇatvasya pratyakṣasiddhavyā-vahārikasattvapratiṣedhād bādhaḥ. dr̥śyate ca nabhonailyacandraprādeśatvagrāhipratyakṣayor anumānāgamābhyāṃ bādha iti. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:50–51.)

1

The terms sattva and sattā are both formed from the present active participle of the verbal root as combined with an abstract suffix, and both can be translated as “existence”. However, Vyāsatīrtha consistently uses the terms sattva and sattā in different ways in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. He usually uses the term sattā to refer to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of existence as a universal/natural kind present in substances, motions, and tropes. By contrast, he usually uses the term sattva when discussing the Mādhva and Advaita theories of existence.

2

See Tattvoddyotaṭīkā, TU: 125.

3

See NAB, 1:248.

4

See below, p. 133, for a discussion of this passage in the Sattvanirukti.

5

Citsukha endorses this definition of sattva in the Tattvapradīpikā; see for instance TP: 47.

6

See below, p. 157, for a discussion of this argument in Citsukha’s Tattvapradīpikā.

7

My translation of anyathākhyāti here reflects Jayatīrtha’s understanding of perceptual error as entailing the misidentification of two individuals. The term might be translated differently when discussing some versions of the Nyāya anyathākhyāti theory of perceptual illusion.

8

Vyāsatīrtha (TT, 4:347–348) refers to the Nyāyalīlāvatī explicitly when critiquing Vallabha’s position that there are really four types of pseudo-reasons in inference. He also refers to the Nyāyalīlā-vatī when discussing the Nyāya theory of word-denotation (TT, 2:52). Vyāsatīrtha shows a deep knowledge of Vardhamāna’s commentary (the Prakāśa) on Udayana’s Nyāyakusumāñjali in the Īśvaravāda of the Tarkatāṇḍava. See TT, 1:361–377.

9

For a discussion of some of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers Vyāsatīrtha was familiar with as seen in the Tarkatāṇḍava, see Williams (2014).

10

For a summary of all Śaṅkara Miśra’s Vaiśeṣika works, see Bhattacharyya and Potter (1993: 423–453).

11

See Bhattacharyya and Potter (1993: 455) for an outline of Vācaspati’s works.

12

See Ganeri (2011) and Williams (2017b) for recent discussions of Raghunātha’s metaphysical arguments in the Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa and that text’s impact on metaphysics in Bengal and Mithila.

13

See above, pp. 40–43, for a discussion of the familiarity of later Mādhva thinkers with Raghunātha and Gadādhara.

14

abhidheyaḥ padārthaḥ. sa dvividhaḥ—bhāvābhāvabhedāt. tatra nañarthaviṣayatvarahitapratyayaviṣayo bhāvaḥ. (Tachikawa, 1981: 56.) “A category (padārtha) is what can be named. [Category] is of two sorts, because of the difference between positive and negative [categories]. Of those [two], the positive is what is the object of a judgment whose object cannot be expressed by a negative particle”. With the exception of Candramati’s Daśapadārthaśāstra, the early Vaiśeṣika thinkers, including Praśastapāda, did not consider absence to be a separate category. However, Vaiśeṣika philosophers like Śrīdhara, Udayana, and Vallabha did regard it as such. An early work where absence is systematically integrated into the Vaiśeṣika system of categories is Śivāditya’s (fl. 1150) Saptapadārthī. See Matilal (1968: 99–103) for a discussion of the history of absence among Nyāya/Vaiśeṣika thinkers.

15

tatra guṇātyantābhāvānadhikaraṇatvaṃ dravyatvaṃ. (Tachikawa, 1981: 56.) “Among those [categories] substancehood consists in ‘being the locus of the constant absence of trope’”.

16

See Tachikawa (1981: 34–37) for a discussion of the atomic theory found in the Lakṣaṇāvalī. See also Tachikawa (1981: 17–21) for a discussion of atomism in earlier Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika texts.

17

For a discussion of the ability of yogins to perceive atoms and Raghunātha’s critique of this theory, see Potter (1957: 43–44) and Williams (2017b: 629–631).

18

See Tachikawa (1981: 72–74) for this list in the Lakṣaṇāvalī

19

KR: 152.

20

Tachikawa (1981: 82–83).

21

See KR: 167.

22

See Tachikawa (1981: 84–85).

23

See TT, 1:471–480.

24

See Tachikawa (1981: 84–85).

25

Matilal (1968: 100) points out that the ninth century Naiyāyika Jayanta Bhaṭṭa had already accepted a very similar scheme of absence with slight variations.

26

Tachikawa (1981: 84–85).

27

See KĀ: 15. The purpose of the specification “eternal” (nityam) in this definition is to stop the definition from applying to contact tropes. Like universals, contact tropes inhere in multiple individuals, but unlike universals they are not taken to be eternal.

28

See Chakrabarti (1975: 367–368) for a discussion of how universals are perceived according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers.

29

tad idaṃ sāmānyaṃ dvividham—param aparaṃ ca. paraṃ vyāpakam, aparaṃ vyāpyam. tatra paraṃ sattā; tad dhi sāmānyam eva, na tu kuto viśeṣo ’pi. tasyāś ca sākṣādvyāpyāni dravyatvaguṇatvakarmatvāni, paramparāvyāpyāni tu pr̥thivītvarūpatvotkṣepaṇatvādīni. (KR: 163.) “This ‘universal’ is of two sorts—the highest and the lower. The highest is the pervader, the lower is the thing pervaded. Of those, the highest is existence (sattā); for it is something entirely generic, and not something more particular than something else. And the universals substancehood, tropeness, and motionness are directly pervaded by [existence], whereas earthness, colourness, upward-motionness, and so on are indirectly pervaded by it.”

30

See Potter (1957: 61–62) for a translation of the passages in the Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa where Raghunātha argues for the identification of existence and nonexistence with bhāvatva and abhā-vatva, respectively.

31

For this classification, see for instance Madhva’s Tattvasaṅkhyāna: 63.

32

See Sharma (1986: 92–99) for a discussion of the category of difference in the philosophy of Madhva.

33

See Ingalls (1951: 81).

34

Sharma writes: “His [Madhva’s] rejection of universal (sāmānya) is a direct corollary of the pluralistic implications of his Svarūpabhedavāda. He believes in the distinctiveness, nay, uniqueness of each individual and particular. He could ill afford, then, to recognize a single universal class-essence running through a number of particulars, which will surreptitiously open the door to monism in the end. He therefore, sets his face resolutely against the universal and gives it no quarter”.

35

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 248–251, for a discussion of the relevant passages.

36

kiṃ ca sthūlam utpannam, sthūlaṃ naṣṭam; nīlam utpannam, nīlaṃ naṣṭam iti vad ghaṭa utpannaḥ, ghaṭo naṣṭa ity anubhavāt pratyakṣād eva jātyutpattināśau. na ca viśiṣṭotpattyādiviṣayeyaṃ dhīr viśeṣyavyaktimātrotpattyādināpi yukteti vācyam, vaiparītyasyāpi suvacatvāt; sthūlam utpannam ity ādibuddher api tathātvāpātāc ca. (TT, 2:295.)

37

The full passage of the Nyāyasudhā reads: athāsattvānadhikaraṇatve vādiprativādisiddhe sattvā-nadhikaraṇatvam apy adhikaṃ sādhyata iti cet, na; aniṣṭānistārāt. kiṃ ca na sattvaṃ nāmaikam anugatam, kiṃ tu prativastu sattvāni bhidyante. tatra viyadāder asadvailakṣaṇye sati sattvā-nadhikaraṇatvaṃ sādhyamānaṃ kim ekasattvānadhikaraṇatvam, utānekasattvānadhikaraṇatvam, atha sarvasattvānadhikaraṇatvam, kiṃ vāviśeṣitasattvānadhikaraṇatvam, atha vā sarvathā sattvā-nadhikaraṇatvaṃ vivakṣitam? (NS, 2:95). “Objection: It being established to both the proponent in the debate and his opponent that [the world] is not the locus of nonexistence, it is further established that [the world has] the property of not being the locus of existence. Reply (Jayatīrtha): Wrong! For this does not do away with the unwanted consequence. This being so, is the state of not being the locus of existence qualified by the state of being different from what does not exist, which is being proved in the case of everything from the heavens down, (1) not being the locus of a single instance of existence? Or, (2) not being the locus of multiple cases of existence? Or, (3) not being the locus of every instance of existence? Or not being the locus of unqualified existence? Or (4) Not being the locus of existence in any way at all?”

38

See Williams (2020a).

39

For a discussion of Vācaspati’s views on this matter, for instance, see Phillips (1995: 34).

40

See TP: 47.

41

This is outlined by Dharmakīrti in his Pramāṇavārttikakārikās, III,3. See PVBh: 175.

42

anirvacanīyasya yadi na mithyāśabdo vācakas tarhi tadvācyaṃ vācyam. satyam. asad iti brūmaḥ. evaṃ tarhi nirarthaka iti prāptam. na hy asad astīti sambhavati, vyāhatatvāt. nirarthakatve ca padatvavyāghāta iti cet, maivam. atyantābhāvapratiyogitvalakṣaṇasyāsattvasya vidyamānatvāt. na hi mithyety asya śaśaviṣāṇādikam ity arthaḥ. tathā sati śaśaviṣāṇaṃ mithyeti na syāt. kiṃ nāma? tan nāstīti. tathā ca mithyaiva rajatam ity asya nāsti rajatam, rajatātyantābhāvo ’stīty arthaḥ. svayam asataḥ kathaṃ pratiyogitvam iti cet, kim iha katham? na hi pratiyogitvaṃ rūpādivad dharmisattāsāpekṣam, abhāvajñānopayogijñānaviṣayatāmātrasya pratiyogitvatvāt. asato ’pi pratītim upapā-dayiṣyāmaḥ. (Tattvoddyotaṭīkā, TU: 32).

43

rūpādikaṃ yathā dharmisattāsāpekṣam, na tathā pratiyogitvam, prāgabhāvādidaśāyām asato ’pi ghaṭādes tatpratiyogitvadarśanāt. kālāntare sattvasya cedānīm anupayogād iti bhāvaḥ. (Tattvoddyotaṭīkāṭippaṇī, TU: 33.) “The property of counterpositive-ness does not depend on the existence of [its] substrate in the same way that properties such as colour and so on do. For, [we] observe that a pot, though it does not exist in the period of [its] prior absence, still has the property of being the counterpositive of [its prior absence]. And the fact that the pot exists at some other point in time is of no consequence to [its nonexistence] now [i.e. during the period of its prior absence].”

44

san ghaṭa ity ādipratyakṣabādhitāś ca dr̥śyatvādayaḥ. nanu kim idaṃ sattvam, yat pratyakṣasiddham—(1) parajātir vā? (2) asadvailakṣaṇyaṃ vā? (3) arthakriyākāritvaṃ vā? (4) pramāviṣayatvaṃ vā? (5) tadyogyatvaṃ vā? (6) bhramāviṣayatvaṃ vā? (7) svasamānādhikara-ṇasvasamānakālīnaniṣedhāpratiyogitvaṃ vā? (8) abādhyatvaṃ vā? (NAB, 1:248.)

45

sauhārde tu—trikālasarvadeśīyaniṣedhāpratiyogitā / sattocyate ’dhyastatucche taṃ prati pratiyoginī // (NAB, 1:249.)

46

sarvadeśakālasambandhaniṣedhāpratiyogitvaṃ sattvam. yadavacchinne saṃyogaḥ, tadavacchinne tadatyantābhāvo neti na tatrāvyaptiḥ. gaganāder apy atyantābhāvaḥ kevalānvayī nety uktatvān na gaganādāv avyāptiḥ. tuccham adhyastaṃ coktapratiṣedhapratiyogīty uktatvān nātivyāptir api. aśve gotvaṃ kadā cid api nāstīty ādau tatsaṃsarga eva niṣidhyata iti mate deśapadam anapekṣitam. (NAB, 1:249.)

47

Rāmācārya explains Vyāsatīrtha’s argument as follows: vr̥kṣabhinne sarvatra deśe vidyamānasya saṃyogaviśeṣātyantābhāvasya vr̥kṣe saṃyogo neti pratītyā vr̥kṣe ’pi sattvena sarvadeśīyasyāpi saṃyogātyantābhāvasya sarvāvacchedena vr̥ttyabhāvād yadavacchinne saṃyogaḥ, tadavacchinne tadatyantābhāvo neti na tatrāvyāptiḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, NAB, 1:257.) “The constant absence of a contact trope is present everywhere (sarvadeśīya), since the constant absence of the particular contact trope [that connects a monkey to one part of a tree], being present everywhere besides the tree, is absent from the tree also, on the strength of the judgment, ‘[This] contact is not present in the tree’. Nevertheless, since [the absence of this contact trope] is not present to the full extent of [its locus] (sarvāvacchedena), the constant absence [of the contact trope] cannot be present in the area determined by the thing that determines the area in which the contact trope [itself] is present; hence there is no failure of [Vyāsatīrtha’s definition] of existence to apply [to contact tropes].”

48

nanv athāpi gaganādinityadravyātyantābhāvasya kevalānvayitvena sārvadaiśikatvād gaganā-dau sārvadaiśikaniṣedhapratiyogitvasyaiva sadbhāvenāvyāptir ity ata āha—gaganāder apīti. uktatvād iti. deśakālāv api sadā, sarvatra deśakālāv ity abādhitapratītyā prameyatvābhidheyatvavat svavr̥tty anyonyavr̥ttī cety uktatvena deśakālayor deśakālayor eva sattvena na sārvadaiśikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam, ato nāvyāptir ity arthaḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, NAB, 1:274.) “Objection: Nevertheless, since the constant absences of eternal substances such as the ether[, the self, time, and space,] are universal-positive properties, they must be present in all locations; hence the ether [and the other eternal substances] must each be the counterpositives of an absence present in all locations, and [‘existence’ as you have defined it] cannot apply to them. With this objection in mind does [Vyāsatīrtha] say— ‘Of the ether and so on …’ (gaganāder api). ‘For, it is said …’ (uktatvāt). On the basis of the uncontradicted judgment, ‘Space and time are everywhere and always’, even space and time are both present in themselves and in each other, as is the case with [self-instantiating properties such as] ‘knowability’ and ‘nameability’ [which are both present in themselves and in one another]. It having been argued thus, space and time [themselves] are [both] present in both space and time, and hence [they] cannot be the counterpositives of an absence belonging to all places, and [the definition of existence given by me, Vyāsatīrtha,] does not fail to apply to them. This is what [Vyā-satīrtha] means.”

49

nanu tathāpi kathaṃ pratyakṣam ātyantikābādhyatvagrāhi? tātkālikābādhas tu rūpyāder iveṣṭa iti cet; kiṃ pratyakṣam apramāṇam eva? uta pramāṇam api vartamānamātragrāhitvāt trikālābā-dhagrahākṣamam? (NAB, 1:276.)

50

ādye ’pi svataḥprāptasya tattvāvedanarūpaprāmāṇyasya tyāgaḥ kim anumānavirodhāt? āgamavirodhād vā? bhāvibādhakaśaṅkāmātreṇa vā? nādyau, tayoḥ prāmāṇye tadvirodhenākṣasyāprā-māṇyam, sati ca tasmin mānāvirodhena tayoḥ prāmāṇyam ity anyonyāśrayāt. akṣasya tu prabalasya prāmāṇyam anumānāgamāvirodhāpekṣaṃ neti nānyonyāśrayaḥ. na hi siṃhaḥ śaśaśāvakābhāvam apekṣya vanaṃ gāhate. (NAB, 1:276.)

51

kiṃ copajīvyatvāt prābalyam akṣasya, śruteḥ smr̥tita iva. tac cākṣeṇānumitikāraṇasya pakṣasādhyahetuvyāptyādeḥ, śābdadhīhetoḥ śabdasvarūpasya taddharmasya yogyatādeḥ, upakramopasaṃhāraikarūpyādeḥ, anumitiśābdadhīsvarūpatatprāmāṇyādeś ca grāhyatvāt. (NAB, 1:312.)

52

pratyakṣasyānumityāditaḥ prābalyaṃ ca tadagr̥hītarekhoparekhādiviśeṣagrāhitvād anumityādyanivartitadiṅmohādinivartakatvāc ca jātyaiva. dr̥ṣṭaṃ hi vahniśaityānumāne dharmyādeś cakṣurādināpi siddhyānupajīvyatve ’py auṣṇyapratyakṣasya jātyaiva prābalyam. (NAB, 1:276.)

53

Śrīnivāsatīrtha explains: pratīcyāṃ prācītvāropeṇeyaṃ prācīty ādyāptavākyajanyajñāne neyaṃ prācī sūryodayaśūnyatvād ity ādyānumānikajñāne ca saty api yāvat pratyakṣeṇa sūryodayādikaṃ na paśyati, tāvat sa bhramo na nivartata ity arthaḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, NAB, 1:308) “If [someone] mistakes west for east, then even if they are told by a reliable person, ‘This is not east!’ and, likewise, even if they make the inference, ‘This is not east, because the sun does not rise here’, so long as they do not see through perception the sun rising [in that place], the delusion [‘This is east, not west’] is not dispelled. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means.”

54

For a translation and discussion of this sūtra, see Taber (2005: 44) and Bhatt (1962: 147–148).

55

See for instance PL: 212–213, for Madhva and Jayatīrtha’s response to this challenge of Advaitin philosophers.

56

Vyāsatīrtha resumes his discussion after a long interlude where he lays out his arguments to prove that perception is stronger than inference because inference depends upon it. See above, p. 140, for the beginning of this argument.

57

nāpi pratyakṣaṃ kālatrayābādhyatvagrahākṣamam iti dvitīyaḥ. tad dhi na kālatraye ’pi sattvam, manmate ’py anityaprapañce tadabhāvāt; kiṃ tu kālatrayavr̥tti yad asattvam, tadabhāvaḥ. sa ca kadā cit sattve gr̥hīte ’pi gr̥hīta eveti pratipannopādhau sattvagrāhiṇā pratyakṣeṇa tadupādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvarūpamithyātvābhāvasiddhiḥ. svakāle hy astitāṃ gr̥hṇan sākṣātkāras trikālagam / pratiṣedhaṃ nirundhāno gr̥hṇāty evātyabādhyatām // vede ’pi hi viṣayasyābādhyatve jñā-naprāmāṇyam eva tantram; na tu śabdatvaṃ vā, vartamānakālādyanavacchedena svaviṣayasattvagrāhitvaṃ vā, sarvakālādisambandhitvena svaviṣayasattvagrāhitvaṃ vā tantram; uktaprakāratrayayuktānāptavākyaviṣayasyātyantābādhyatvāpātāt. tac ca tattvāvedanarūpaṃ prāmāṇyaṃ śrautajñānasyevākṣajñānasyāpi jñānagrāhiṇā sākṣiṇā gr̥hyate, prāmāṇyasya svatastvāt. na ca rūpyādijñā-neṣv iva bādho vā, doṣo vā niścitaḥ, yena tad apodyeta. (NAB, 1:444–445.)

58

See for instance PL: 212–213.

59

For a discussion of the witness as the “essential faculty”, see above, p. 73.

60

kiṃ cānāgatakālagrāhī sākṣī svaviṣayasya gaganādeḥ sākṣātsvāviṣayasya ghaṭāder api nirdoṣataddhīprāmāṇyagrahaṇadvārā bhāvibādhābhāvaṃ gr̥ṇhāty eva; na hi viṣayābādham anantarbhāvya prāmāṇyagrahaṇaṃ nāma. tyaktavyaṃ ca pareṇaiva pratyakṣasya vartamānamātragrāhitvam; anyathā rūpyādeḥ pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvarūpaṃ mithyātvaṃ pratyakṣaṃ na syāt. (NAB, 1:445–446.)

61

tasmāt pratyakṣasya pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvarūpamithyātvābhāvagrā-hitvād bādhitā dr̥śyatvādayaḥ. (NAB, 1:446.)

1

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 240–247 for a translation and discussion of the relevant passages.

2

This aspect of the Nyāya theory of unestablished terms drives a great deal of the discussion in Gaṅgeśa’s attempts to define pervasion (vyāpti) in his Tattvacintāmaṇi, for instance. The Navya-Naiyāyikas accept that there are “universal-positive” (kevalānvayin) properties, that is, properties that are present in every possible location. These include “nameability” (abhidheyatva) and “knowability” (jñeyatva), for instance, because everything is both knowable and nameable according to the Navya-Naiyāyikas. Since these properties are present in every possible location, their absence must be uninstantiated; the “absence of knowability” (jñeyatva-abhāva) is, as such, an empty term, just like the “hare’s horn”. Hence Gaṅgeśa argues that if pervasion were defined as sādhyābhāvavadavr̥ttitvam (“[the reason’s] not occurring in something that has the absence of the probandum”), then the definition must be rejected because it refers, in certain applications, to an empty term. For, if the (putative) definition is applied to the (valid) inference “This thing is knowable, because it is nameable”, then the expression “the absence of the probandum” will refer to the “absence of knowability”, which is an empty term. On this ground, Gaṅgeśa rejects this definition and several others that refer somehow to the “absence of the probandum”. See Goekoop (1967: 60–64) for a translation of the text of the Tattvacintāmaṇi here and a broader discussion of these issues. See also Perrett (1999) for the significance of universal-positive properties in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thought.

3

ayathārthajñānam eva nāstīti prābhākarādayaḥ; tan na, anubhavasiddhatvāt; etāvantaṃ kālam ahaṃ śuktikām eva rajatatvena pratipanno ’smīty uttarakāle parāmarśāc ca. pratītaṃ ca rajataṃ deśāntare sad eveti vaiśeṣikādayaḥ. jñānasvarūpam eveti vijñānavādinaḥ. tatraiva tātkālikam utpannaṃ sad iti bhāskaraḥ. na sat, nāsat, na sadasat; kiṃ tv anirvacanīyam eveti māyāvādinaḥ. asad eva rajataṃ pratyabhād ity uttarakālīnānubhavāc chuktir evātyantāsadrajatātmanā pratibhātīty ācāryāḥ. anadhyavasāyaḥ svapnaś cāyathārthajñānāntaram astīti vaiśeṣikāḥ. (PP: 85.)

4

apare punā rajataṃ sad eva, kiṃ tv antar eveti manyate. tathā hi—na tāvad asad eva rajatam, pratītyanupapatteḥ. nāpi purata eva sat; bhrāntyanupapatteḥ, bādhavirodhāc ca. na ca deśāntare sat, pramāṇābhāvāt. ataḥ pariśeṣāj jñānākāram evāvatiṣṭhate. kiṃ cedaṃ jñānarūpam, indriyasamprayoge ’saty aparokṣatvāt, jñānavat. na ca satyatve bhrāntyanupapattiḥ, āntarasyaiva bāhyatayā-vabhāso bhrama ity aṅgīkārāt. (NS, 2:313.) See NS, 2:312–313 for Jayatīrtha’s full presentation of the Yogācāra position on error. See also Sharma (1986: 180–181) for a discussion of the Yogācāra position based on Jayatīrtha’s analysis in the Nyāyasudhā.

5

See Sharma (1986: 181) for a discussion of the asatkhyāti view.

6

See NS, 2:149–277 for Jayatīrtha’s explanation/refutation of this position. See also Sharma (1986: 174–177) for a discussion of the Prābhākara view of illusion based on the Nyāyasudhā.

7

nanu tarhīdaṃ rajatam ity ādipratyayasya kā gatiḥ? ucyate—rajatam idam iti dve jñāne smr̥tyanubhavarūpe. tatredam iti purovartidravyamātragrahaṇam, doṣavaśāt tadgatasya śuktitvasāmānyaviśeṣasyāgrahaṇāt. tanmātraṃ ca gr̥hītaṃ sadr̥śatayā saṃskārodbodhakrameṇa rajatasmr̥tiṃ janayati. sā ca gr̥hītagrahaṇasvabhāvāpi doṣavaśād ¹gr̥hītatāṃśa¹pramoṣeṇa gr̥hītisarūpāvatiṣṭhate. tathā ca rajatasmr̥teḥ purovr̥ttigrahaṇasya ca mithaḥ svarūpato viṣayataś ca bhedāgrahaṇāt sannihitarajatajñānasārūpyeṇedam, rajatam iti bhinne ’pi grahaṇasmaraṇe ’bhedavyavahāraṃ sāmānādhikaraṇyavyapadeśaṃ ca pravartayataḥ. (NS, 2:170.) Emendations: (1) conj.; the edition reads gr̥hītatattāṃśa here.

8

See Williams (2017a) for a discussion of how Jayatīrtha presents the Nyāya theory and differentiates his own explanation of illusion from it. See Matilal (1986) for a general discussion of the Nyāya position. For a discussion of the Nyāya theory as it is presented in Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi, see Phillips (2020a: 267–304). For a discussion of the Nyāya position and Appayya Dīkṣita’s response to it in his Parimala, see Duquette and Ramasubrahmanian (2009).

9

na ca paramārthato bhedābhāvaḥ, vyāvahārikaḥ so ’stīti vācyam; sadasadvailakṣaṇye pramāṇā-bhāvāt. asataḥ khyātyayogād iti vadato ’sataḥ khyātir abhūt, na vā? yadi nābhūt, na tatkhyātinirākaraṇam; yady abhūt, tathāpi. na śukte rajatatvaṃ sadasadvilakṣaṇam, asad eva pratyabhād ity anubhavāt. na ca pratītatvād asattvābhāvaḥ, asataḥ sattvapratītiḥ, sato ’sattvapratītir ity anyathā-pratīter eva bhrāntitvāt. (Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya, SMG5: 21–22.) Mesquita (2000a: 119–120) adduces a number of passages from the works of Madhva and Vimuktātman which shed light on this passage.

10

Citsukha argues: vibhramālambanaṃ tu kim asat? sad eva vā? kiṃ vobhayātmakam? utobhayavilakṣaṇam iti vivecanīyam. na tāvad asat, asato ’parokṣāvabhāsānarhatvāt; tadāditsayā pravr̥ttyanupapatteś ca. kva cid asadviśeṣe ’pi pratibhāsapravr̥ttī kiṃ na syātām iti cet, na; viśeṣādhikaraṇatve tucchatvānupapatteḥ, tasya niḥsvabhāvāt. (TP: 70). “However, it must be deliberated as follows—is the basis (ālambana) of illusion nonexistent, existent, or does it consist of both of these, or is it something different from both of these? In the first place, it cannot be nonexistent, since we cannot have a direct (aparokṣa) experience of something that is nonexistent. Moreover, the activity prompted by the desire to obtain [the ‘silver’] would not be possible [if it does not exist]. Objection: [Although generally we cannot have a perception-like experience of nonexistent things, such as hare’s horns, for instance,] why can it not be that particular nonexistent things can be both experienced and become the object of action? Reply: This is impossible, since if something is the locus of individuality, it cannot be a mere nothing, since [nonexistent things] have no essence.” Pratyagrūpa glosses: aparokṣeti śābdapratītivyāvr̥ttyai. nanu yady api śaśaviṣāṇādau pravr̥ttipratītī na dr̥ṣṭe, tathāpy asadviśeṣe rū-pyādau kiṃ na syātām? iti śaṅkate—kva cid iti. sataḥ khalv ayaṃ sāmānyaviśeṣabhāvaḥ, na tv asata iti pariharati—neti. (Nayanaprasādinī, TP: 70.)

11

See for example Matilal (1986: 183–184).

12

etenāparokṣajñānasyendriyasamutthatvāt, indriyāṇāṃ cārthasannikr̥ṣṭānām eva jñānahetutvāt, asatā ca sannikarṣāyogān nāsadviṣayāparokṣajñānam iti parāstam; śuktisannikr̥ṣṭeṇendriyeṇa do-ṣavaśād rajatatayā tajjñānajananāṅgikārāt. (Tattvoddyotaṭīkā, TU: 79.)

13

tasmād anirvācyakhyātyasambhavād udbuddharūpyasaṃskārasacivaṃ duṣṭendriyaṃ svasannikr̥ṣṭaṃ śuktīdamaṃśam atyantāsadrūpyātmanā gr̥hṇātīty anyathākhyātir eva yuktā. rūpyasyāsattve cāsad eva rūpyam abhād iti pratyakṣam; vimatam asat, sattvānadhikaraṇatvāt, nr̥śr̥ṅgavat; apramāsadviṣayikā, sattvānadhikaraṇaviṣayakatvāt, sanmātrāviṣayakatve sati saviṣayakatvāc ca, asadviṣayakaparokṣajñānavad ity ādyanumānaṃ ca mānam. (NAB, 2:632.)

14

na caivam asatkhyātyāpattiḥ, manmate rūpyasyāsattve ’pīdamaṃśasya sattvena bāhyamata ivedaṃ rūpyam iti jñāne bhātasya sarvasyāpy asattvābhāvāt. anyathādvaitimate ’pi sadanyapratīter asataś ca parokṣapratīteḥ, tārkikamate śuktī rūpyaṃ cety ubhayatādātmyasya vā saṃsargasya vāsata eva pratīter bāhyamatāpattiḥ. (NAB, 2:632.)

15

The Advaitin scholar Anantakrishna Sastri (NAK: 44), for instance, argues that the Mādhva view was influenced by the asatkhyāti theory of perceptual illusions: “The Advaitins have nowhere accepted the position that the absolutely non-existent can be directly apprehended as existent. So they have not subscribed to the theory of error technically known as ‘asat-khyāti’. ... On the other hand, it is the Mādhvas who adopt the asat-khyāti view in the case of error, since in the illusion, shell-silver, they acknowledge the non-existent silver to manifest itself as existent. So it is the view of the Mādhvas and not that of the Advaitins that is at least partially coloured by the view of the Buddhists. Manifestation of the non-existent object as existent constitutes the Mādhva theory of error. Call it by any name you please, you cannot deny the Buddhist influence on this point. So in conclusion, Brahmānanda successfully turns the table against the Mādhvas”.

16

See above, p. 157, for a discussion of Citsukha’s view.

17

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 274–275, for a translation of this part of the chapter.

18

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 240–243, for a translation of this section of the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga.

19

Madhva raises the charge in his Anuvyākhyāna. See Anuvyākhyāna, SMG1: 127; verse 3,2.24.

20

Jayatīrtha raises the charge of contradiction at several points in his works; see for instance VĀ: 8–9.

21

It is possible that Vyāsatīrtha studied the Kusumāñjali directly on this subject, or that he encountered Udayana’s arguments indirectly through the works of Citsukha, who reproduces many of them in his Tattvapradīpikā when discussing contradiction. Cf. TP: 49, for instance.

22

parasparavirodhe hi na prakārāntarasthitiḥ / naikatāpi viruddhānām uktimātravirodhataḥ // (NKM: 193; verse 3.8.) For some discussion of this passage, see Matilal (1977: 97).

23

Udayana glosses the verse of the Nyāyakusumāñjali as follows: na hi bhāvābhāvābhyām anyaḥ prakāraḥ sambhāvanīyaḥ, parasparavidhiniṣedharūpatvāt. na bhāva iti hi niṣedhamātreṇaivābhā-vavidhiḥ. tatas taṃ vihāya, kathaṃ svavacanenaiva punaḥ suhr̥dayo niṣedhet, nābhāva iti? evaṃ nābhāva iti hi niṣedha eva bhāvavidhiḥ. tatas taṃ vihāya, svavācaivānunmattaḥ kathaṃ punar niṣedhet, na bhāva iti? (NKM: 193). “For, there is no state other than being (bhāva) or non-being (abhāva), since the postulation of one is identical with the negation of the other. For, simply by negating being by saying: ‘There is not being’, one postulates non-being. So, how could a sincere person cancel [that statement] by saying, ‘There is not non-being’? Likewise, through the negation, ‘There is not non-being’, there is the postulation of being. So, how could a sane person overlook that and cancel it by saying, ‘There is not being’?”

24

na ca parasparaviruddhayoḥ sadasattvayor niṣedhasamuccayo ’nupapannaḥ, anyataraniṣedhasyānyataravidhināntarīyakatvād iti yuktam; niṣedhasamuccayasya tāttvikatvānaṅgīkārāt; tattatpratiyogidurnirūpatāmātraprakaṭanāya tadvilakṣaṇatvābhilāpaḥ. na hi svarūpato durnirūpasya kiṃ cid api rūpaṃ vāstavaṃ sambhavati, tathā sati tasyāpi tāttvikatvaprasaṅgāt. na caikatarani-ṣedho ’nyataravidhināntarīyakaḥ, anirvacanīyavādinaṃ prati vyāptyasiddheḥ. (TP: 79.) Citsukha’s commentator Pratyagrūpa glosses this passage as follows: yat tv atrāpi tenoktaṃ tad anūdya nirākaroti—na ca paraspareti. samuccayānupapattau hetuḥ—anyataraniṣedhasyeti. na ca yuktam ity uktaṃ tatra hetum āha—niṣedhasamuccayasyeti. anupapanna iti ko ’rthaḥ? yadi pramāṇayuktyā-ghātaṃ na sahata iti siddham evedam asmākam advaitavādinām iti bhāvaḥ. kas tarhi sadasadvilakṣaṇaśabdārthaḥ? tatrāha—tattatpratiyogīti. pratiyogī sattvādiḥ. kim uttarakātarateyam āśrīyate vidhā? na, aparathāsambhavād ity āha—na hi svarūpata iti. svarūpeṇa sadasattvādibhir durnirūpasya prapañcasya yo ’yaṃ sadasadvailakṣaṇyaṃ dharmaḥ, tasya kathaṃ sadāditvena nirūpaṇasambhavaḥ; tathātve vā tadāśrayasyāpi tathātvaprasaṅgād ity arthaḥ. kiṃ cāṅgīkr̥tya vyāptim idaṃ uktam; saiva nāstīty āha—na caikatareti. (Nayanaprasādinī, TP: 79.)

25

Śrīharṣa takes a similar stance in the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍanakhādya. Phyllis Granoff observes in her study of the text: “The assertion that all but knowledge is ‘sadasadvilakṣaṇatva’ is not to be understood as an avowal of a third truth value. Anirvacanīyatva is only the result of the opponent’s contentions. … What is known and contradicted cannot be said to exist, and yet what does not exist cannot be a cause. The latter half of this contention has in fact been refuted in the discussion on the existent as a cause. It is thus in part a concession to the sadvādin. The statements on p. 31 (Chow) that one cannot say the pramāṇas, etc. do not exist and then enter into debate and speak as if they do, is not to be confused as Śrīharṣa’s own assertion that the world neither exists nor does not exist. The contradiction rests in saying both that x is and is not; there is nothing amiss if one does not say that it is not, although that is in reality the truth”. (Granoff, 1978: 138.)

26

madabhimatayo rāhityavivakṣāyāṃ tu mayā lāghavād āvaśyakatvāc ¹ca sattvābhāva evāsattvam¹ iti svīkārāt, dvau nañau prakr̥tam arthaṃ sātiśayaṃ gamayata iti nyāyenaikataraniṣedhasyānyataravidhirūpatvāt, mātā vandhyeti vad vyāghātaḥ. (NAB, 2:568.) Variant readings found in editions: (1.) The edition gives the alternative reading: cāsattvābhāva eva sattvam. See Ingalls (1951: 67–68) for a discussion of the different terminology Navya-Naiyāyikas use to express identity.

27

sattvāsattve samānādhikaraṇātyantābhāvapratiyoginī na bhavataḥ, parasparātyantābhāvatvāt; ghaṭatvāghaṭatvavat. (NAB, 2:591.)

28

See above, Chapter 4, p. 93, fn. 26, for this use of the term upādhi in the second definition of illusoriness that Vyāsatīrtha considers in the Nyāyāmr̥ta. It is clear that all the participants in the debate understand it in this context in the sense of “location” or “substrate” (adhikaraṇa, adhiṣṭhāna, etc.). Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāya, in his commentary on Brahmānanda’s Laghucandrikā, derives the term as follows: upa samīpa ādhīyate ’sminn ity upādhir iti. (Viṭṭhaleśopādhyāyī, ASMu: 94). For further discussion of this use of the term, see Pellegrini (2011: 443).

29

See for instance Madhusūdana’s treatment of the second definition of illusoriness (Advaitasiddhi, NAB, 2:72).

30

In his defence of indeterminacy in the Advaitasiddhi, for instance, Madhusūdana says: sattvāsattvayor na parasparaviraharūpatvam, kiṃ tu parasparavirahavyāpyatāmātram. (Advaitasiddhi, NAB, 2:572). “Existence and nonexistence are not each identical with the other’s absence; rather, they are merely each pervaded by the other’s absence.”

31

The entire passage where Madhusūdana makes this argument reads: na ca vyāhatiḥ. sā hi sattvā-sattvayoḥ parasparaviraharūpatayā vā? parasparavirahavyāpakatayā vā? parasparavirahavyāpyatayā vā? nādyaḥ, tadanaṅgīkārāt. tathā hi—atra trikālābādhyatvarūpasattvavyatireko nāsattvam, kiṃ tu kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratīyamānatvānadhikaraṇatvam; tadvyatirekaś ca sādhyatvena vivakṣitaḥ. tathā ca trikālābādhyavilakṣaṇatve sati kva cid apy upādhau sattvena pratīyamā-natvarūpaṃ sādhyaṃ paryavasitam. evaṃ ca sati na śuktirūpye sādhyavaikalyam api, bādhyatvarūpāsattvavyatirekasya sādhyāpraveśāt. nāpi vyāghātaḥ, parasparaviraharūpatvābhāvāt. ata eva na dvitīyo ’pi, sattvābhāvavati śuktirūpye vivakṣitāsattvavyatirekasya vidyamānatvena vyabhicārāt. nāpi tr̥tīyaḥ, tasya vyāghātāprayojakatvāt. gotvāśvatvayoḥ parasparavirahavyāpyatve ’pi tadabhā-vayor uṣṭrādāv ekatra sahopalambhāt. (Advaitasiddhi, NAB, 1:54). “Nor does [accepting that ‘illusoriness’ is indeterminacy lead to] contradiction. For, would there be [contradiction] because: Reason (R)¹: existence and nonexistence are each essentially identical with the other’s absence? R²: Existence and nonexistence each pervade the absence of the other? R³: Existence and nonexistence are each pervaded by the other’s absence? R¹ is not tenable, because [we] do not accept that [existence and nonexistence are each identical with the absence of the other]. To explain—here, nonexistence is not the absence of existence in the form of omni-temporal non-sublatability; rather, it is the quality of not being the locus of the state of being judged to be existent in some location or other, and [we] mean to define the absence of that as the probandum. Hence the probandum resolves into ‘being cognised as existent in some location while being different from what is not sublatable in all three times’. This being so, the [example, the] silver superimposed on shell, does not lack the probandum, because the absence of nonexistence in the form of sublatability is not inserted into the probandum; nor is there is no contradiction, since [existence and nonexistence so defined] are not each identical with the other’s absence. For this very same reason, R² is not tenable. For, since the absence of nonexistence in the way we have defined it is found in the silver superimposed upon shell, which is devoid of existence, it follows that there is a deviation [between existence and nonexistence]. Nor is R³ tenable, because it does not lead to a contradiction. For, even though cowness and horseness are each pervaded by the absence of the other, their respective absences are observed to be present in a single location (e.g. a camel).” See below, Chapter 9, pp. 240–243, for a full explanation of this passage.

32

See above, Chapter 4, p. 93, for a discussion of this definition of illusoriness.

33

atyantāsattvāpātāc ca. pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam api hy anyatrāsattvena sammatasya paṭādeḥ sarvatra traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvaparyantam iti tvanmatam, anyathānyatra tatsattvāpātāt. na hi teṣām anyatra sattā sambhavinīti tvadukteś ca. tathā ca kathaṃ nā-tyantāsattvāpattiḥ? na hi śaśaśr̥ṅgādīnām apīto ’nyad asattvam asti. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:67.)

34

The passage from the Tattvapradīpikā referred to here reads: atrocyate—na tāval lakṣaṇāsambhavaḥ, yataḥ—sarveṣām api bhāvānām āśrayatvena sammate / pratiyogitvam atyantābhāvaṃ prati mr̥ṣātmatā // tathā hi—¹paṭādīnāṃ¹ bhāvānāṃ svāśrayatvenābhimatās tantvādayo ye, tanni-ṣṭhātyantābhāvapratiyogitaiva teṣāṃ mithyātvam. na hi teṣām anyatra sattā saṃbhavinī … nāpi mānāsattvam, anumānasadbhāvāt. tathā hi—aṃśinaḥ svāṃśagātyantābhāvasya pratiyoginaḥ / aṃ-śitvād itarāṃśīva dig evaiṣa guṇādiṣu // vimataḥ paṭa etattantuniṣṭhātyantābhāvapratiyogī, avayavitvāt; paṭāntaravat. evam etadguṇakarmajātyādayo ’pi tattanniṣṭhātyantābhāvapratiyoginaḥ, tattadrūpatvād; itaratattadrūpavad ity evam ādiprayogaḥ sarvatraivohanīyaḥ. (TP: 39–41.) “[In response to the objector, who claims that ‘illusoriness’ has neither definition nor evidence,] it is said: In the first place, there is not the absence of a definition [of ‘illusoriness’], because: ‘The illusoriness (mr̥ṣātmatā) of all entities consists in their being the counterpositive of a constant absence in the very thing that is taken to be [their own] locus’. To explain: positive entities such as cloth and so on are illusory precisely because they are the counterpositives of a constant absence that is located in the very location that is considered to be their own locus, [in the case of cloth, for instance, its] threads. For, they cannot possibly exist anywhere else. … Nor is there a lack of proof [for illusoriness], because there is an inference [that establishes that all things are illusory]. To explain: ‘Wholes (aṃśin) are the counterpositive of a constant absence located in their own parts, because [they are] wholes; just like another whole’. The very same [approach] is taken in the case of [properties such as] tropes[, motions, universals,] and so on [to prove that they are illusory]. ‘The subject of the dispute, i.e. the cloth, is the counterpositive of a constant absence located in these threads, since [it] has parts; just like another piece of cloth’. In the same manner: ‘These tropes, motions, universals, etc., are the counterpositive of a constant absence located in their respective [inherence-causes], because they are a property (rūpa) of the thing in question; just like a property of some other thing’. This line of reasoning can be employed in all possible locations [to show that the entire world of appearance is illusory].” Emendations: (1.) conj.; the edition reads ghaṭādīnām here.

35

According to Śrīnivāsatīrtha, Vyāsatīrtha interprets the term nirupākhya as meaning both “ineffable” and “uncognisable”. See below, fn. 36, for Śrīnivāsatīrtha’s interpretation of this part of the text.

36

na ca nirupākhyatvam eva teṣām asattvam, nirupākhyapadenaiva khyāyamānatvāt. asato ’pratī-tāv asadvailakṣaṇyajñānasyāsatpratītinirāsasya, asatpadaprayogasya cāyogāc ca. nāpy aparokṣato ’pratīyamānatvam asattvam, nityātīndriye ’pi sattvāt. (Nyāyāmr̥ta, NAB, 1:67.) Śrīnivāsatīrtha’s full analysis of this passage reads: nanu sarvatra svarūpeṇa traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvaṃ nātyantā-sattvam, śaśaśr̥ṅgādāv asattvasyaitadanyasyaiva sattvād ity ata āha―na hīti. śaśaśr̥ṅgādīnām ito ’nyad asattvam astīty āśaṅkya niṣedhati―na cety ādinā. teṣām, śaśaśr̥ṅgādīnām. nirupākhyatvaṃ nāmopākhyāyata aneneti vyutpattyā padaśaktyaviṣayatvaṃ vā, pratītyaviṣayatvaṃ vā. nādya ity āha―nirupākhyapadenaiveti. tathā ca nirupākhyapadaśaktiviṣayatayā tatpadenaiva vyavahriyamāṇatvād ity arthaḥ. tathā cāsattvena sampratipannasyāpy asattvaṃ na syād iti bhāvaḥ. dvitīye doṣam āha―asata iti. asadvailakṣaṇyeti. abhāvajñāne pratiyogijñānasya kāraṇatvād iti bhāvaḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, NAB, 1:90). “Objection: Nonexistence does not consist in ‘being, by essence, the counterpositive of an omni-temporal absence in all locations’. For, a sort of nonexistence that is quite different from the aforementioned is present in the hare’s horn and so on. Thus does [Vyāsatīrtha] say: ‘For it is not’ (na hi). Objection: There is, in fact, a type of nonexistence, different from this, which belongs to the hare’s horn and so on. [Vyāsatīrtha] refutes [this objection] with the words beginning: ‘And it is not’ (na ca). The expression ‘of those’ means ‘of the hare’s horn and so on’. The term nirupākhyatvam means either (1) not being the object of the denotive power of words (according to the derivation ‘it is described [upākhyāyate] by this’), or (2) not being an object of experience. In order to refute the first analysis of the term, [Vyāsatīrtha] says: ‘By the word ‘ineffable’ itself’ (nirūpākhyapadenaiva). What [Vyāsatīrtha] means is that, since [what is nonexistent] is the object of the denotive power of the word ‘ineffable’, it is referred to by that very word [‘ineffable’] itself. He shows the flaw with the second [understanding of the term nirupākhyatva as meaning ‘uncognisable’]: ‘Of what is nonexistent’ (asataḥ). ‘The state of being different from what is nonexistent’ (asadvailakṣaṇya). For, the cognition of the counterpositive is a cause of the cognition of absence. This is the idea [behind Vyāsatīrtha’s words].”

37

prekṣāvatkr̥taśabdaprayogasya śabdārthajñānapūrvakatvāt, asatpadaprayogārtham asajjñā-nasyāvaśyakatvād ity arthaḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, NAB, 1:78). “Since the use of a word by a considerate person must be preceded by the knowledge of the meaning of [that] word, a cognition of what does not exist is necessary in order to employ the word ‘nonexistent’. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means.”

38

See NAB, 2:600–601 for this argument.

39

Vyāsatīrtha’s point is that this passage expresses the view of some people that reality originated ex nihilo, before going on to dismiss this view and reassert the theory that reality originates from something existent. This implies, of course, that those who hold the alternative view falsely judge something that is really existent to be nonexistent. The full passage reads: sad eva somyedam agra āsīd ekam evādvitīyam. tad dhaika āhur asad evedam agra āsid, ekam evādvitīyam. tasmād asataḥ saj jāyata. kutas tu khalu somyaivaṃ syād iti hovāca. katham asataḥ saj jāyeteti. sat tv eva somyedam agra āsīd ekam evādvitīyam. (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2.1; Olivelle, 1998: 246). Olivelle (1998: 247) translates: “In the beginning, son, this world was simply what is existent―one only, without a second. Now, on this point some do say: ‘In the beginning this world was simply what is nonexistent―one only, without a second. And from what is nonexistent was born what is existent.’ ‘But how can that possibly be?’ he continued. ‘How can what is existent be born from what is nonexistent? On the contrary, son, in the beginning this world was simply what is existent―one only, without a second”.

40

nāpi kva cid apy upādhau sattvenāpratīyamānatvam asattvam, jagati śuktirūpyādau caivaṃvidhāsadvailakṣaṇyasya śūnyavāde ’pi sattvāt; tvayāpy asac cet, na pratīyeteti vadatoktāpratītiṃ prati prayojakasyānyasyaivāsattvasya vaktavyatvāc ca; brahmaṇy aṅgīkr̥taṃ yat pratipannopādhau traikālikaniṣedhāpratiyogitvātmakābādhyatvarūpaṃ sattvam, tadviruddhasyaivāsattvarūpatvāc ca. anyathāpratītyanupādhikāsattvābhāve brahmaṇy api sattvena pratītir eva sattvaṃ syāt. yena puṃsā śaśaśr̥ṅgābhāvo na niścitaḥ, tasya gośr̥ṅgam astīti vākyād iva śaśaśr̥ṅgam astīti vākyād api jñānotpatteś ca. tvanmate ’pi hi tatrādhyastasyāstitvasyānirvācyatve ’py adhiṣṭhānam asad eva; vakṣyate caitadanirvācyatvabhaṅge. tad dhaika āhur asad evedam agra āsīd iti śrutyāpy asataḥ sattvena pratīteś ca. (NAB, 1:67).

41

Śrīnivāsatīrtha explains: śūnyavādinā jagato ’sattvam aṅgīkr̥tam iti tadvailakṣaṇyaṃ tvayā sā-dhanīyam. tena ca niḥsvarūpatvam evāsattvam aṅgīkr̥tam iti tadvailakṣaṇyam eva tvayā sādhanī-yam, na tu kva cid apy upādhau sattvenāpratīyamānatvam asattvam ity aṅgīkr̥tya tadvailakṣaṇyam; tathātve siddhasādhanatā syāt, tenāpi sāṃvr̥tasattvāṅgīkāreṇaitādr̥śāsadvailakṣaṇyasyāṅgīkārād iti bhāvaḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, NAB, 1:90–91.) “The nihilist accepts that the world is nonexistent, hence you[, the Advaitin,] must establish that [the world] is different from [nonexistence as it is defined by them]. And [the nihilist] accepts that ‘nonexistence’ is simply the quality of ‘lacking essence’ (niḥsvarūpatva), hence you[, the Advaitin,] must establish that [the world] is different from that [that is, from ‘nonexistence’ defined as ‘the quality of lacking an essence’]; [you] cannot simply accept that ‘nonexistence’ is the state of ‘not being cognised as existent in some substrate or other’ and then [establish] that [the world] lacks that [quality]. If that were the case then you would merely be establishing something that is already accepted [by the nihilist]. For, since [the nihilist] too accepts that [the ‘silver’] has practical (sāṃvr̥ta) existence, they already accept that [it] has the property of being different from what is nonexistent, where what is nonexistent is [‘something that cannot be experienced as existent in some substrate or other’].”

42

Śrīnivāsatīrtha comments: sattvenāpratīyamānatvarūpāsattvalakṣaṇasya śaśaśr̥ṅge ’vyāptir ity āha―yeneti. jñānotpatteḥ, sattvaprakārakajñānotpatteḥ. tathā ca sattvenāpratīyamānatvaṃ nāstīti bhāvaḥ. nanu śaśaśr̥ṅgam astīti vākyān na śaśaśr̥ṅgāstitvaprakārakaṃ jñānam utpadyate, śaśaśr̥ṅ-gaṃ nāstīty ayogyatāniścayasya tatra pratibandhakatvād ity ata āha yena pumṣeti. (Nyāyāmr̥-taprakāśa, NAB, 1:91.) “Realising that the definition of nonexistence as ‘not being liable to be experienced as existent [in some substrate or other]’ fails to apply to the hare’s horn, [Vyāsatīrtha] says: ‘By which’ (yena). By the words, ‘The arising of a cognition’, [Vyāsatīrtha] means: ‘The arising of a cognition that has existence as its predication content’. The idea is that, this being the case, [the hare’s horn] is not subject to the quality of ‘not being liable to be experienced as real [in some substrate or other]’. Objection: The statement, ‘There is a hare’s horn’ will not give rise to a cognition that has as its predication content the existence of the hare’s horn, since it will be blocked by the ascertainment of the impossibility of such a statement in the form, ‘There is no hare’s horn’. With this in mind [Vyāsatīrtha] says: ‘By the person [who is not aware that the hare’s horn does not exist]’ (yena puṃsā).”

43

Rāmācārya goes into more detail about the linguistic questions surrounding the argument. How is it that a false statement can give rise to a cognition on the part of one who hears it? Rāmācārya’s answer is that even though false statements lack the crucial syntactic feature of “consistency” (yogyatā), they nevertheless create the illusion of such a quality in the unwitting and produce a cognition of their referent: na hy atra jabagaḍadaś ity ādinirarthakeṣv iva padārthadhīr eva vā, kuṇḍam ajājinam ity ādyapārthakeṣv ivānvayadhīr vā nāsti. viparītabodhakeṣu yogyatābhāve ’pi yogyatābhrameṇākāṅkṣājñānena ca vākyārthajñānotpatter anubhavāt; anyathā pravr̥ttyāder ayogāt. tathā ca sattvenāpratīyamānatvaṃ śaśaśr̥ṅgādāv asiddham ity arthaḥ. nanu śaśaśrṅgam astīti vākyābhāsāt śaśe ’nirvacanīyaśr̥ṅgaviṣayako bhrama utpadyate, na tv asadviṣayakaḥ sa ity āha tvanmate ’pīti. anirvācyavādinas tava mate ’pi tatrādhyastasyāstitvasyānirvācyatve ’pi śaśaśr̥ṅgam asad iti vākya iva śaśaśr̥ṅgam astīti vākye ’pi śaśaśr̥ṅgaśabdenāsata eva pratīter ity arthaḥ. (Nyāyāmr̥-tataraṅginī, NAB, 1:78.) “For, the [statement, ‘The hare’s horn does not exist’] fails to generate neither (1) a cognition of something, as in the case of meaningless [strings of sounds] such as jabagaḍadaś, nor (2) a cognition of syntactical connection (anvaya) as in senseless sentences such as ‘.. basin, goat’s skin ...’ and so on. For, in the case of [statements] that represent something contrary to the way it really is, even though there is no consistency (yogyatā), [we] see that, through the illusion of consistency and the knowledge of expectancy (ākāṅkṣā), there is a knowledge of the meaning (artha) of the sentence. Otherwise, it would be impossible that [the person who believes the false statement] would act [upon it], for instance. And so [nonexistence defined as] ‘not being liable to be experienced as real [in any substrate whatsoever]’ is not established in the case of the hare’s horn and so on. This is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means. Objection: The pseudo-statement ‘There is a hare’s horn’ gives rise to a false cognition that has for its object an indeterminate horn present in [a real] hare; [the false cognition in question] does not have something nonexistent for its object. With this in mind, [Vyāsatīrtha] says, ‘In your view too’ (tvanmate ’pi). For you[, the Advaitin,] subscribe to the doctrine of indeterminacy; hence in your view, too, even if the existence (astitva) that is superimposed [on the hare’s horn] is indeterminate, the word ‘hare’s horn’ gives rise to a cognition of what is nonexistent [when it is used] in the sentence ‘The hare’s horn exists’, just as it does [when it is used] in the statement ‘The hare’s horn is nonexistent’.”

1

See Chapter 9, pp. 296–298, for a translation and discussion of this passage.

2

This is Gaṅgeśa’s definition of subjecthood. Gaṅgeśa writes: ucyate siṣādhayiṣāvirahasahakr̥tasādhakapramāṇābhāvo yatrāsti, sa pakṣaḥ. tena siṣādhayiṣāvirahasahakr̥taṃ sādhakapramāṇaṃ yatrāsti sa na pakṣaḥ, yatra sādhakapramāṇe saty asati vā siṣādhayiṣā tatra cobhayābhāvas tatra viśiṣṭābhāvāt pakṣatvam. (ACN: 431–432.)

3

idaṃ ca vipratipattipradarśanaṃ tārkikarītyaiva na tu vastutaḥ. tatpakṣe ’pi vipratipattivākyasya pakṣaparigrahaikaphalakatvāt. tasya kathābāhyena nigrahānarheṇa laukikarītyanusāriṇā saṃskr̥-tarūpeṇa vā bhāṣārūpeṇa vā mayā prapañcamithyātvaṃ sādhyata iti vādivākyena vā, tvayā prapañ-camithyātvaṃ sādhyam iti madhyasthaparikalpitaviṣayasvīkāreṇa vā siddhau, pratijñāvyatiriktasyoktakusr̥ṣṭiyuktasya vipratipattivākyasya vaiyārthyāt. … na ca pakṣatvaprayojakasaṃśayārthaṃ tat, vādiprativādinoḥ prāśnikānāṃ ca niścayavattvena tadayogāt. … saṃśayaṃ vināpi siṣādhayiṣā-virahasahakr̥tasādhakamānābhāvarūpasya pakṣatvasya sambhavāc ca. (NAB, 1:8.)

4

See Williams (2014: 138–141) for a more detailed discussion of how Vyāsatīrtha’s commentators treat this passage.

5

See below, fn. 11, for a passage where Vyāsatīrtha refers to the Nyāyāmr̥ta in the Tarkatāṇḍava.

6

See Williams (2014: 146, fn. 25) for a discussion of this passage.

7

See Ingalls (1951: 29) for a discussion of this translation of the term upamiti.

8

The entire passage of the Tattvacintāmaṇi reads: pratyakṣopajīvakatvāt pratyakṣānantaram, bahuvādisammatatvād upamānāt prāg anumānaṃ nirūpyate. tatra vyāptiviśiṣṭapakṣadharmatājñānajanyaṃ jñānam anumitiḥ; tatkaraṇam anumānam. tac ca liṅgaparāmarśaḥ, na tu parāmr̥śyamāṇaṃ liṅgam iti vakṣyate. (ACN: 1–2.) “Inference is characterised after perception, because [it] depends upon perception; it is characterised before comparison, because[, unlike comparison, inference] is agreed by many philosophers [to be a separate source of knowledge]. Of those [different types of knowledge], inferential knowledge (anumiti) is a cognition that is produced by a cognition of the [reason’s] being a property of the subject, which property is coupled with pervasion; its instrumental cause is inference (anumāna); and this is consideration (parāmarśa) of the reason, and not the reason being considered, as will be explained [later in this text].” See Ingalls (1951: 30–33) and Goekoop (1967: 55–56) for more details about Gaṅgeśa’s theory and terminology.

9

yena puruṣeṇa mahānasādau dhūme vahnivyāptir gr̥hītā, paścāt sa eva puruṣaḥ kva cit parvatādāv avicchinnamūlāṃ dhūmarekhāṃ paśyati, tadanantaraṃ dhūmo vahnivyāpya ity evaṃrūpaṃ vyāptismaraṇaṃ tasya bhavati, paścāc ca vahnivyāpyadhūmavān ayam iti jñānam, sa eva parāmarśa ity ucyate. tadanantaraṃ, parvato vahnimān ity anumitir jāyate. (NSM: 210–211.)

10

This is based on the recognition of the Naiyāyikas, first appearing in the works of Praśastapāda, that certain properties must occur in everything. According to Praśastapāda, all the Vaiśeṣika categories have “being (astitva), nameability, and knowability”. See Perrett (1999) for a discussion of the concept of universal-positive properties. The claim that “everything is knowable” is sometimes taken to be a corollary of the Nyāya position that god is omniscient. However, Perrett argues that Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers are, in fact, committed to the claim that everything is in principle knowable by human beings.

11

See ACN: 572. Gaṅgeśa explains that the term “possessing occurrence” (vr̥ttimat-) in the compound is inserted to include the constant absence of the ether under the scope of universal-positive properties. The ether is, according to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers, a non-occurring substance, so its absence should occur in every possible location. The point is that even though it is present everywhere, the constant absence of the ether is the counterpositive of a constant absence. Since a presence and the corresponding absence are each identical with the absence of the other, the constant absence of the ether is the counterpositive of a constant absence in the form of the ether itself. The word vr̥ttimat- thus serves to include the constant absence of the ether. For, even though the constant absence of the ether is the counterpositive of a constant absence, it is not the counterpositive of a constant absence that has something that occurs in something else for its counterpositive, because the ether itself does not occur in anything. Vyāsatīrtha critiques this argument as follows in the Tarkatāṇḍava: yac ca maṇau vyāptir dvedhā, anvayavyatirekabhedāt. tataś cānumānam api kevalānvayikevalavyatirekyanvayavyatirekibhedāt trividham. tatra vr̥ttimadatyantābhāvāpratiyogitvaṃ kevalānvayitvam. gaganātyantābhāvasya kevalānvayitvārthaṃ vr̥ttimatpadam iti, tan na; gaganasya kevalānvayyatyantābhāvapratiyogitve tucchatvāpātāt. na hi śaśaśr̥ṅgāder apīto ’nyad asattvam asti; vistr̥taṃ caitan nyāyāmr̥te. (TT, 4:173–174.) “[Gaṅgeśa] says in the [Tattvacintā]maṇi as follows—‘Pervasion is of two sorts, because of the difference between positive and negative pervasion. And so inference itself is of three sorts, because of the difference between universal-positive, universal-negative, and both-positive-and-negative-pervasion. In those [different sorts of pervasion], being a universal-positive [property] is “not being the counterpositive of a constant absence that occurs [in something else]”. The word vr̥ttimat- (“occurring [in something else]”) has the purpose of ensuring that the constant absence of the ether is a universal-positive property’. That[, say I, Vyāsatīrtha,] is wrong! For, if the ether is the counterpositive of a constant absence that occurs in all locations, then it must be a mere void! For a hare’s horn and so on has no other ‘nonexistence’ than [‘being the counterpositive of an absence that occurs in all locations’]; and [I] have elaborated this in [the Dvitīyamithyātvabhaṅga and Sattvanirukti chapters of my] Nyāyāmr̥ta.” This passage makes it clear that Vyāsatīrtha had already written the Nyāyāmr̥ta when he was writing the Tarkatāṇḍava.

12

tac cānumānaṃ trividham―kevalānvayikevalavyatirekyanvayavyatirekibhedāt. tatrāsadvipakṣaṃ kevalānvayi. … kevalavyatirekī tv asatsapakṣaḥ, yatra vyatirekasahacāreṇa vyāptigrahaḥ. (ACN: 552–582.) “And inference is of three sorts, because of the difference between universal-positive-, universal-negative-, and both-positive-and-negative inferences. Of those [three sorts of inference], universal-positive inference is that which has no heterologue (vipakṣa). … Universal-negative inference, on the other hand, is that which lacks a homologue (sapakṣa), where the pervasion is apprehended through the negative concomitance [of the reason and the probandum].”

13

See Ganeri (2001: 192). Gaṅgeśa’s conclusive definition of pervasion (vyāptisiddhāntalakṣaṇa) in the Tattvacintāmaṇi reads: “A (= sādhya) pervades B (= hetu) if B shares a common locus with A, and A is not qualified by the determiner of counterpositiveness to a constant absence that (1) shares a common locus with B, and (2) does not share a common locus with [its own] counterpositive” (pratiyogyasamānādhikaraṇayatsamānādhikaraṇātyantābhāvapratiyogitāvacchedakāvacchinnaṃ yan na bhavati, tena samaṃ tasya sāmānādhikaraṇyaṃ vyāptiḥ). See Goekoop (1967: 109–116) for a translation and discussion of Gaṅgeśa’s definition.

14

For discussions of this definition, see Ingalls (1951: 90–93) and Goekoop (1967: 60–64).

15

Gaṅgeśa and Vyāsatīrtha usually refer to an alternative formulation of the inference to define earth, where the reason is the universal earthness (pr̥thivītva) rather than the property of possessing-smell (gandhavattva): “Earth is different from the other [substances and categories], because [it possesses] earthness” (pr̥thivītarebhyo bhidyate, pr̥thivītvāt). However, in this chapter I have used the inference in which gandhavattva is the reason, since it perhaps makes the function of the inference clearer. Among Navya-Naiyāyikas, both of these inferences are considered paradigms of the universal-negative mode of inference.

16

According to Rāghavendra, a kevalavyatirekin property is a property only the absence of which is well established (prasiddha). He accordingly explains universal-negative inference as an inference where the probandum is such a quality: yasya dharmasya kevalaṃ vyatirekaḥ—abhāva eva— prasiddhaḥ, na tu bhāvaḥ, sa dharmaḥ kevalavyatirekīti. tādr̥śadharmasādhyakam anumānam api kevalavyatirekyanumānam ity arthaḥ. (Nyāyadīpa, TT, 4:175.) “A property is called a ‘universal-negative property’ when only its absence (vyatireka/abhāva) is established, and not its presence. And universal-negative inference (kevalavyatirekyanumāna) is an inference in which the probandum is a property of that sort; this is what [Vyāsatīrtha] means [in this passage of the Tarkatāṇḍava].”

17

Vyāsatīrtha’s commentator, Śrīnivāsatīrtha, acknowledges this when commenting on the Prathamamithyātvabhaṅga, but he offers no explanation of why Gaṅgeśa and Vyāsatīrtha do not include absence in the list of categories. See my translation of the Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, Chapter 9, pp. 270–271.

18

See for instance ACN: 588.

19

vimataṃ mithyā, dr̥śyatvāt; yad ittham, tat tathā, yathā śuktirajatam. jagato ’bhāvād āśrayāsiddhaḥ. pakṣo ’nirvacanīyasyāsiddher aprasiddhaviśeṣaṇaḥ. asadvailakṣaṇye mithyātvasya siddhasā-dhanatā. (Mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana, SMG5, 58.) “[Ānandabodha has argued as follows—]‘The object of dispute [= the world] is illusory, because [it is] perceptible; that which is so (= perceptible) is as such (= illusory), just like the silver [superimposed on] mother-of-pearl’. [However, this inference is untenable. For,] since the [subject of the inference,] the world, [in the view of the Advaitin] doesnot exist (abhāva), the [reason in the inference, ‘perceptibility’,] is not established in its substrate. [Moreover, the inference is untenable because], since what is indeterminate is unestablished, the subject has an unestablished qualifier. [Moreover, the inference is untenable because establishing that the world has] ‘illusoriness’[, understood as indeterminacy,] proves something that is already established in respect of the state of being different from what is nonexistent[, which I, the realist, already accept is true of the world].”

20

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 254–256.

21

kevalavyatirekyanumānaṃ ca na yuktam. tvanmate vyāptigrahārtham, pratijñāvākyasyābodhakatva¹parihārārtham¹, viśiṣṭajñānaṃ viśeṣaṇajñānapūrvakam iti niyamārthaṃ ²ca² sādhyaprasiddher āvaśyakatvāt; kevalavyatirekiṇi ca tasyābhāvāt. tatra sādhyaprasiddhir na tāvat pakṣe, kevalavyatirekivaiyarthyāt; nāpy anyatra, tatra hetor vr̥ttāv anvayitvasyāvr̥ttāv asādhāraṇyasya cā-pātāt. (TT, 4:175–176.) Variant readings found in editions: (1.) This reading is reported to have been found in the exemplars labelled “ṭa” and “rā” by the editors of the Mysuru edition of the Tarkatāṇḍava. The Mysuru edition itself reads parihārārthaṃ ca. (2.) This reading is also found in the exemplars “ṭa” and “rā” of the Mysuru edition. The Mysuru edition itself omits the word ca. See the Bengaluru edition of the Tarkatāṇḍava, 3:103, for these readings. See Phillips (2016: 461–463) for a translation and commentary on the passage of the Kevalavyatirekivāda of the Tattvacintāmaṇi that Vyāsatīrtha is paraphrasing here.

22

See Williams (2013) for a discussion of this problem in Jayatīrtha’s Tattvoddyotaṭīkā.

23

See Phillips (2016: 468) for a translation and explanation of the relevant passage of the Kevalavyatirekivāda.

24

See Phillips (2016: 468–478) for a translation of the passages of the Kevalavyatirekivāda where Gaṅgeśa outlines this solution.

25

nāpi pakṣaikadeśe; tena nāsādhāraṇyam, pakṣād anyatra tadaprasiddheḥ. nāpi kevalavyatirekavaiyarthyam, tasya kr̥tsne pakṣe sādhyapratītyarthatvād iti vācyam, pr̥thivītarabhinnety ādau pakṣasyaikadeśasattve ’pi gaganam itarabhinnam ity ādau tadabhāvāt. aṃśe siddhasādhanāc ca. abhedānumāna iva pakṣaikadeśasya niścitasādhyakatayānvayadr̥ṣṭāntatvasambhavena kevalavyatirekitvabhaṅgāc ca. (TT, 4:176.)

26

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 284–286, for the relevant passage of the Nyāyāmr̥ta. See Phillips (2016: 473) for a translation and commentary on the relevant part of the Tattvacintāmaṇi.

27

See Phillips (2016: 473–474) for a translation of the relevant passage of Gaṅgeśa.

28

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 296–298.

29

na ca yatrānitye vāṅmanasīty ādau pakṣatāvacchedakanānātvam, tatraivāṃśe siddhasādhanam; iha tu tadavacchedakaṃ pr̥thivītvam ekam eveti vācyam. uddeśyapratītisiddhyasiddhyor eva sid-dhasādhanatadabhāvau prati tantratayāsya paribhāṣāmātratvāt. (TT, 4: 177.) Paribhāṣās are auxiliary hypotheses which seek to improve or explain the procedures of Pāṇini’s grammar. The term paribhāṣā could also be translated as “meta-rule”, “principle”, or “theorem”. See Wujastyk (1993: xi) for a discussion of their function.

30

na ca tarhy uddeśyāyāḥ pr̥thivītvāvacchedenetarabhedabuddher aṃśe ’py abhāvān nāṃśe siddhasādhanam iti vācyam. niścitasādhyakatvena sandehasiṣādhayiṣayor abhāvenaikadeśasya tvanmate pakṣatvāyogāt. na ca ghaṭasya ghaṭatvenetarabhedaniścaye ’pi pr̥thivītvena tatsandehādikam iti vācyam; viśeṣākāreṇetarabhedaniścaye sati sāmānyākāreṇa tatsandehasya tadviśeṣetara-viśeṣaviṣayatvaniyamāt. anyathaitatparvatatvena vahnimattayā niścaye ’pi parvate parvatatvena tatsandehāpattyā tatra vahnyarthino niṣkampapravr̥ttir na syāt. (TT, 4:177–178.) Rāghavendra comments: tatraiveti. pakṣatāvacchedakasāmānādhikaraṇyena sādhyasiddhir hy anumānaphalam. nā-nātvasthale caikāvacchedena sādhyasiddhāv apy anumānaphalasya jātatvāt punar anyāvacchedenāpy anumityutpādanārtham anumānāpravr̥tter iti bhāvaḥ. ekam iti. tathā ca ghaṭādyaṃśe gha-ṭatvādyavacchedena sādhyasiddhāv api pr̥thivītvarūpapakṣatāvacchedakasāmānādhikaraṇyenetarabhedarūpasādhyāsiddhyā tatrānumityudayārtham anumānapravr̥ttisambhavān na tatra doṣa iti bhāvaḥ. (Nyāyadīpa, TT, 4:177–178.) “ ‘There alone’ (tatraiva). For, the result of an inference is the establishing of the probandum as sharing a common locus with the determiner of subjecthood. And in case there are multiple [determiners of subjecthood], even if the probandum has been established to the full extent of one [of the determiners of subjecthood], then the result of the inference has already arisen; the inference does not proceed to further give rise to the inferential knowledge that [the probandum is present] to the full extent of the other [determiner(s) of subjecthood]. This is the idea [behind Gaṅgeśa’s argument here]. ‘One alone’ (ekam). And so, even though the probandum is established to the extent of potness and so on in the part of [of the probandum] that consists in the pot, etc., since the probandum—being different from the other [substances and categories]— is not established as sharing a common locus with the determiner of subjecthood (= earthness), the inference can proceed to give arise to an inferential knowledge [that the probandum shares a common locus with the determiner of subjecthood]; hence there is not the fault [of proving what is already established in the case of the inference to define earth].” Rāghavendra also indicates that the final part of this passage reflects a comment made by Gaṅgeśa’s commentator Yajñapati on the relevant part of the Tattvacintāmaṇi. This seems to be accurate, for in the relevant part of his Tattvacintāmaṇiprabhā, Yajñapati says: sarvā pr̥thivītarabhinnā, na veti. yady api yatra viśeṣato yanniścayaḥ, tatra sāmānyato ’pi na tatsaṃśayaḥ; tathaivānubhavāt. anyathā purovartini parvata idaṃparvatatvena vahniniścaye ’pi parvato vahnimān, na veti sāmānyākārasaṃśayasya tadviṣayatvasambhavena tatra vahnyarthaṃ niṣkampapravr̥ttiprasaṅgāc ca; tathāpi ghaṭe sādhyaniścaye ’py anumitsāvaśāt pakṣatvam ity evātrābhisaṃhitam. (TCP: 115.) See Phillips (2016: 474) for a translation of the passage on which Yajñapati is commenting here.

31

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 254–256.

32

na ca tarhi pakṣād anyatraiva trayodaśasu trayodaśabhedānāṃ viśakalitānāṃ niścayarūpā prasiddhir astīti nāprasiddhaviśeṣaṇatvādīti vācyam. jīvaccharīrajātaṃ sātmakam ity ādāv akhaṇḍasā-dhyaka uktaprakārāsambhavāt; trayodaśasu sādhyaprasiddhau tatra sādhyābhāvasyāsattvena vyatirekavyāptigrahāsambhavāc ca. (TT, 4:180–181.)

33

This form of the pervasion is given by Rāghavendra: yatra trayodaśānyonyābhāvānām abhāvaḥ, tatra pr̥thivītvābhāva ity evaṃrūpeṇa militapratiyogikābhāvanirūpitaikavyāptyety arthaḥ. (Nyāyadīpa, TT, 4:181.)

34

kiṃ caikenaiva liṅgenaikadā sādhyamānā api trayodaśabhedāḥ pratyekanirūpitatrayodaśavyā-ptibhir eva sādhanīyāḥ, na tu militanirūpitaikavyāptyā; militāprasiddhau tadajñānāt. tathā ca pratyekam eva sādhyatā viśrāntety ekaikabhedarūpasādhyavato jalāder eva sapakṣatvena tato vyāvr̥-ttatvena hetor asādhāraṇyatādavasthyam. (TT, 4:181–182.)

35

kathaṃ tarhi kevalavyatirekiṇaḥ śāstre saṃvyavahāraḥ? ittham—tatrāpi yat prāṇādimat, tat sā-tmakam ity eva vyāptiḥ. kiṃ tu vyāptigrahaṇasthānasyaiva vipratipattiviṣayatvaprāptyā sā darśayitum aśakyābhūt. tato ’numānena tāṃ sādhayituṃ vyatirekavyāptir upanyasyate. prāṇādimattvād iti prayukte katham asya vyāptir ity ākāṅkṣāyāṃ prāṇādimattvaṃ sātmakatvena vyāptam, tadabhāvavyāpakābhāvapratiyogitvāt; yad yad abhāvavyāpakābhāvapratiyogi tat tena vyāptam, yathā dhūmavattvam agnimattvena. (PP: 276.)

36

The relevant passage from the Tarkatāṇḍava where Vyāsatīrtha discusses this reads: … kiṃ tu vandhyāsuto na vaktā, acetanatvād ity ādāv ivāsadāśrayatvam. tasya tu doṣatvaṃ kim—asato nirdharmakatvena sādhyadharmānāśrayatvena bādhāt, sādhanābhāvenāsiddher vā? pratītyaviṣayatvena vidhiniṣedharūpasakalavyavahārābhājanatvād vā? aprāmāṇikatvena pramāṇānaṅgatvād vā? tasyādoṣatve ’tiprasaṅgād vā? niradhikaraṇayor dharmayor niyatasāmānādhikaraṇyarūpavyāptyabhāvād vā? nādyau. asati tvaduktayoḥ sādhyasādhanadharmānāśrayatvarūpayoḥ sādhyayor nirdharmakatvarūpasya sādhanasya cāsambhavena tavāpi bādhādiprasaṅgāt. tvaduktadharmāṇām abhāvarūpatvāt tatra sambhave ca tata eva maduktāvaktr̥tvācetanatvāder api sambhavāt. bhāvarūpāṇāṃ tu mayāpy anaṅgīkārāt. yadi ca sādhyadharmādyabhāvādyāśrayatvābhāve ’pi sādhyadharmādyanāśrayatvasya sattvāt tava na bādhādiḥ, tarhi vakr̥tvābhāvāśrayatvābhāve ’pi vakr̥tvānāśrayatvasya sattvān mamāpi na bādhādiḥ. (TT, 4:240–242.) [Even though all the definitions of āśrayāsiddhi mentioned thus far in this chapter are obviously flawed, āśrayāsiddhi] could be ‘having a nonexistent substrate’ (asadāśrayatva), as in the inference, ‘The son of a barren woman cannot speak, because [it is] insentient’. But [I, Vyāsatīrtha, ask,] is that a flaw because: (1) since what is nonexistent cannot have qualities, (a) [it] cannot be the substrate of the quality that is to be proved by the inference and hence there would be [the inferential flaw of] ‘contradiction’ (bādha) [and] (b) since there would be the absence of the reason [in the subject], there would be [the inferential flaw of] ‘non-establishment’ (asiddhi); or, (2) since [a nonexistent entity] cannot be the object of [any] judgment, it cannot be involved in any linguistic act, be it an ascription or a denial; or, (3) since [what is nonexistent is not] amenable to the valid means of knowledge, it cannot be an object of those means of knowledge; or, (4) because, if it were not a flaw, then it would follow that other things [that clearly cannot be valid inferences would have to be regarded as such]; or, (5) because two qualities that lack any locus cannot be related by pervasion, that is, the relationship of invariant collocation. The first two [grounds for āśrayāsiddhi’s being a flaw] are untenable. For, since the probanda you have mentioned—‘not being the substrate of the probandum’ and ‘not being the substrate of the reason’—as well as [your] reason—the state of lacking [all] qualities—cannot be present in what is nonexistent, you yourself are guilty of contradiction and [making an inference where the reason is unestablished]. And because if the qualities you have specified can be present there [= in what is nonexistent], because they are negative in form, then for the very same reason can the qualities I accept—non-speakerness, insentience and so on—also [be present in what is nonexistent]. For I too do not accept that positive [qualities can be present in things that do not exist]. And if you are not guilty of contradiction and [non-establishment of reason] because the quality of not being the substrate of the quality to be established and [the reason] can exist even in the absence of the quality of being the locus of the absence of the quality to be established and [the reason], then I too am not guilty of contradiction [and having an unestablished reason], since the quality of not being the locus of speakerness can exist even in the absence of the quality of being the locus of the absence of speakerness.”

37

Rāghavendra explains: sandigdhasādhyadharmakadharmirūpapakṣaniṣṭhatvarūpatvāt pakṣadharmatāyā iti bhāvaḥ. (Nyāyadīpa, TT, 4:251.) “For, being an attribute of the inferential subject (pakṣadharmatā) consists in being located in the inferential subject, [the inferential subject itself being] a property-bearer (dharmin) that is subject to the doubt of whether or not it possesses the property that is to be established [by the inference].”

38

Rāghavendra explains: sādhyāprasiddhau tannirūpitavyāptigrahāsambhavena vyāptivighaṭanād ity arthaḥ. (Nyāyadīpa, TT, 4:251.) “If the probandum is unestablished, then since [one] cannot grasp the pervasion in which [the probandum] is a term, the pervasion is destroyed.”

39

evaṃ sādhyāprasiddhir na doṣaḥ. tathā hi—tasyā doṣatvaṃ kim atiprasaṅgāt? sādhyakoṭer aprasiddhyā sandehābhāvena tadghaṭitapakṣadharmatāvighaṭanād vā? vyāptivighaṭanād vā? prati-jñāvākyasyāviditapadārthakatvenābodhakatvaprasaṅgād vā? kāraṇasya viśeṣaṇajñānasyābhāve kāryasya viśiṣṭajñānasyāyogād vā? (TT, 4:251–252.)

40

Rāghavendra comments: śr̥ṅgavatīty atra śr̥ṅgaśabdena mahattvasamānādhikaraṇodbhūtarū-pavān śiraḥsaṃyukto ’vayavaviśeṣo bhipreyate, atha kaś cid atīndriyaḥ. ādya āha—yogyeti. vyā-ptyabhāvādir ādipadārthaḥ. dvitīya āha—ayogyeti. śr̥ṅgeti nāmamātram, na hy atīndriyaṃ nāma śr̥ṅgam asti. (Nyāyadīpa, TT, 3:154.)

41

nādyaḥ; asādhutvena sammatasya vimataṃ sadasadvilakṣaṇam, bādhyatvād ity ādeḥ kḷptena vyāghātādinā doṣāntareṇaiva; iyaṃ bhūḥ śaśaśr̥ṅgavatī, etadbhūtvād ity āder yogyaśr̥ṅgasādhakatve yogyānupalabdhibādhādinā doṣāntareṇaiva, ayogyasādhakatve ’tīndriyaiḥ śr̥ṅgādibhiḥ siddhasādhanādinā ca doṣāntareṇaiva duṣṭatvāt; doṣāntararahitatvena sammatasya tu jīvaccharīrajātaṃ sātmakam, prāṇādimattvād ity ādeḥ sādhutvād atiprasaṅgābhāvāt. (TT, 4:252–253.)

42

See below, Chapter 9, pp. 296–298.

43

vicitrā hi dharmāḥ. ke cid āśritāḥ, yathā rūpādayaḥ. ke cid anyāśritā anyoparañjakāḥ, yathā jñā-nādayo ghaṭādīnām. ke cid anāśritāḥ, yathāsattvādayaḥ, śaśaśr̥ṅam asad ity abādhitapratīteḥ. anyathā tasyāsattvāsiddheḥ. (TT, 4:244.)

1

Ingalls (1951) and Matilal (1968 et al.) both translate the term as such.

2

Phillips (2020) renders the word as such throughout his translation of the Tattvacintāmaṇi.

3

See Ingalls (1951: p. 40, fn. 43, and 157–158) for a discussion of how the term viśiṣṭa is used in this sense. Wada (1990) seems to follow this approach in his translation of the Vyāptivāda of Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi. However, Goekoop (1967: 14) interprets the term differently in this context. Goekoop says that the term avacchinna is used in this sense in connection with the nature of an entity, since it is determined by its abstract character.

4

In the entry for the term viśiṣṭa (NK: 779), the Nyāyakośa says that the term vaiśiṣṭya can mean “association” or “collocatedness” (atra vaiśiṣṭyaṃ ca sāhityaṃ sāmānādhikaraṇyaṃ vā jñeyam).

5

NK: 849–850.

6

See Chapter 9, TEXT 6. As I will explain shortly, my translation of the PMBh and its commentaries in that chapter is divided into ten separate segments of text.

7

See below, TEXT 10, Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī.

8

TEXT 2.

9

vidheyasya vidhānaṃ ca kva cid viśeṣyatāvacchedakasāmānādhikaraṇyena, kva cic ca viśeṣyatāvacchedakāvacchedena bhavati. yasmin kasminn api viśeṣye yad vidhānam, tat viśeṣyatāvacchedakasāmānādhikaraṇyena—viśeṣyatāvacchedakasya samāna ekasminn adhikaraṇe vr̥ttitayā—vidhānam. yathā brāhmaṇo vidvān bhavatīty anena na sarva eva brāhma-ṇāḥ vidvāṃso bhavantīti vidhīyate; kiṃ tu yatra yatra brāhmaṇyaṃ vartate, teṣāṃ madhye keṣu cid vidyā vartata iti. yatra yatra viśeṣyatāvacchedako vartate, tatra sarvatraiva— arthāt sarvasminn eva—viśeṣye vidheyasya vidhānam, viśeṣyatāvacchedakāvacchedena— viśeṣyatāvacchedakasyāvacchedena, vyāptyā,—vidhānam. yathā manuṣyo maraṇaśīla ity anenana keṣu cit manuṣyeṣu maraṇaśīlatvaṃ vidhīyate, kiṃ tu sarveṣv eva manuṣyeṣu. manuṣyatvaṃ vyāpya—sarveṣv eva manuṣyeṣu—maraṇaśīlatvaṃ vidhīyata iti. (NBhP: 129–130.)

10

The Navya-Naiyāyikas often explained the expression -avacchedena using the concept of pervasion. The Nyāyakośa explains this as follows: … vyāptiḥ. yathā pakṣatāvacchedakāvacchedena sādhyasiddhāv ity ādau sādhyanirūpitā pakṣatāvacchedakaniṣṭhā vyāptiḥ. atra vyāpakatvam apy avacchedaśabdasyārthaḥ sambhavati. tathā ca pakṣatāvacchedakavyāpakatvaviśiṣṭasādhyasiddhau iti bodhyaḥ. “[‘Determination’ (avaccheda) can mean] pervasion. For instance, in the phrase, ‘When the probandum is established to be determined by the determiner of subjecthood …’, the pervasion located in the determiner of subjecthood is described by the probandum. Here, the word ‘determination’ (avaccheda) may also mean the state of being the pervader (vyāpakatva). And so, the [phrase] should be understood as, ‘When there is the establishment of the probandum coupled with the state of being the pervader of the determiner of subjecthood’.”

1

NAMu: 22v–23r; NAK: 91–92.

2

See below, TEXT 4.

3

ASMu: 48–49; ASMy: 24; ASV: 29–31; KD: 3r; NAK: 91–92.

4

Bagchi’s edition of the Advaitasiddhi (ASV) records this reading. Anantakrishna Sastri’s Kolkata edition of the text also reports this reading as being the reading given in Balabhadra’s Advaitasiddhivyākhyā (NAK: 92), although Sastri does not report the variant in his Mumbai edition of the Advaitasiddhi (ASMu). It is possible that Bagchi, who had extensive familiarity with the commentaries on the Advaitasiddhi, was reporting here the reading found in Balabhadra’s commentary.

5

NAK: 91–92; NATMu: 10v.

6

NAMu: 23v; NAK: 92.

7

For an explanation of how the term viśiṣṭa is used in this context, see above, Chapter 8, pp. 225–226.

8

See NK: 779.

9

ASMu: 49–50; ASMy: 24–25; ASV: 32–34; KD: 3r; NAK: 92–96.

10

NAK: 92–93; NAMu: 10v.

11

NAK: 93; NAMu: 23v.

12

ASMu: 50–55; ASMy: 25; ASV: 34–39; KD: 3r–3v; NAK: 96–99.

13

Brahmānanda explains Madhusūdana’s analysis here as follows: sattvasyābhāvo ’sattvam, asattvābhāvaḥ sattvam iti vā; sattvābhāvavyāpakam asattvam, asattvābhāvavyāpakaṃ sattvam iti vā; sattvābhāvavyāpyam asattvam, asattvābhāvavyāpyaṃ sattvam iti vā vyāghāte hetur ity arthaḥ. (Laghucandrikā, ASMu: 50.) “Is the reason [that M² results in] a contradiction that: (R¹) Nonexistence consists in the absence of existence [and] existence consists in the absence of nonexistence; or (R²) nonexistence pervades the absence of existence [and] existence pervades the absence of nonexistence; or (R³) nonexistence is pervaded by the absence of existence [and] existence is pervaded by the absence of nonexistence. This is what [Madhusūdana] means.”

14

Elsewhere in the Advaitasiddhi, Brahmānanda (Laghucandrikā, ASMu: 51) glosses the word pratīyamānatvānadhikaraṇatvam with pratīyamānatvāyogyatvam: “Not being fit to have the property of being experienced”. When commenting on Vyāsatīrtha’s refutation of the second definition of “illusoriness” in the Advaitasiddhi, Madhusūdana (NAB: 71) defines “nonexistence” as “Not being fit to be an object of an experience in any substrate whatsoever” (kva cid apy upādhau pratītyanarhatvam). The language Madhusūdana uses in this later portion of the text perhaps more clearly articulates his intended meaning than his use of the present participle in the present passage of the Advaitasiddhi.

15

The term upādhi must be interpreted to mean “substrate” or “locus” in this context. Bagchi (ASV: 53) glosses it with the term adhikaraṇa (“locus”). Brahmānanda (Laghucandrikā, ASMu: 51) glosses Madhusūdana’s definition of “nonexistence” as follows: “Being cognised as being existent, which existence is present in some property-bearer (dharmin)” (kiñciddharminiṣṭhaṃ yat sattvam, tena pratīyamānatvam). The term upādhi also appears, apparently with the same meaning, in Prakāśātman’s definition of mithyātva, which Vyāsatīrtha considers in the Nyāyāmr̥ta (i.e. pratipannopā-dhau traikālikaniṣedhapratiyogitvam).

16

I translate this literally. However, there are a number of problems with interpreting Madhusūdana’s words here. The term vilakṣaṇatva usually has the sense of “being different from”, i.e. a mutual absence (anyonyābhāva, bheda) rather than a relational absence (saṃsargābhāva). However, M², which Madhusūdana is here defending, consists of a pair of constant absences, which are relational absences. Bagchi (ASV: 36), apparently drawing on the Laghucandrikā, points out that if we take the definition at face value, Madhusūdana could be charged with repetition (paunaruktya), since he will shortly offer a definition of M² which defines it in terms of mutual absences (see below, TEXT 4). A further problem is Madhusūdana’s use here of the locative absolute phrase trikālābādhyavilakṣaṇatve sati. This sort of locative absolute phrase is usually used to represent a qualified/compound (viśiṣṭa) entity. However, M² consists in a pair of qualities rather than a qualified/compound entity. Bagchi (ASV: 36) again points out that Madhusūdana could be charged with repetition, since the definition now overlaps with M³, which is clearly stated to be a compound entity. It seems that Madhusūdana is simply speaking imprecisely in formulating the definition the way he does in this passage.

17

At this point, I have omitted a short passage of the Taraṅginī where Rāmācārya simply repeats Madhusūdana’s arguments against contradiction exactly as they are found in the text of the Advaitasiddhi given above.

18

NAK: 99–100; NAMu: 11r.

19

The famous passage of the Chāndogya Upaniṣad being referred to here by Rāmācārya sees Uddālaka Āruṇi instruct his son, Śvetaketu, about the origins of the universe. He tells Śvetaketu that the world was simply existent at its beginning, before going on to report the views of others that it originated from nonexistence, and denying the latter view in the next passage. The part of the ChU referred to here is 6.2.1. According to Olivelle’s (1998: 246) edition, the text reads: sad eva somyedam agra āsīd ekam evādvitīyam. tad dhaika āhur asad evedam agra āsīd ekam evādvitīyam. tasmād asataḥ saj jāyata. kutas tu khalu somyaivaṃ syād iti hovāca. kathaṃ sataḥ saj jāyeteti. sat tv eva somyedam agra āsīd ekam evādvitīyam. Olivelle (1998: 247) translates this passage as follows: “In the beginning, son, this world was simply what is existent—one only, without a second. Now, on this point some do say: ‘In the beginning this world was simply what is nonexistent—one only, without a second. And from what is nonexistent was born what is existent.’ But, son, how can that possibly be?’ he continued. ‘How can what is existent be born from what is nonexistent? On the contrary, son, in the beginning this world was simply what is existent—one only, without a second.”

20

NAK: 103; NAMu: 24v.

21

See above, TEXT 2.

22

ASMu: 55–57; ASMy: 25–26; ASV: 39–41; KD: 3v; NAK: 103–107.

23

See above, Chapter 5, pp. 123–124, for a discussion of the different treatments of “consecutive discourse” among the Mādhvas, Naiyāyikas, and Advaitins. For a discussion of the analyisis of consecutive characters in Navya-Nyāya, see Matilal (1968: 82–83).

24

NAK: 103–105; NAMu: 11v.

25

NAMu: 24v–25r; NAK: 105–110.

26

This is a quote from Jayatīrtha’s ṭīkā on Madhva’s Mithyātvānumānakhaṇḍana. Cf. MAKh: 3.

27

ASMu: 57–78; ASMy: 26–40; ASV: 42–46; KD: 3v–4r; NAK: 107–142.

28

The manuscript KD (folio 3v) gives the following marginal gloss on the reason (samānādhikr̥-tatvāt) in the inference: abhedasaṃsargakadhīviṣayatvayogyatvād ity arthaḥ.

29

Bagchi (ASV: 45) attributes this view to “the Buddhists, the Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsakas, the Sāṅkhyas, the followers of Patañjali, the Mādhvas, and others”.

30

NAK: 105–106; NATMu: 11v–12r.

31

NAK: 108; NATMu: 12r.

32

NAK: 108–110; NATMu: 12r.

33

Ānanda Bhaṭṭāraka is apparently referring here to the chapter of the first book of the Nyāyāmr̥ta where Vyāsatīrtha critiques the concept of perceptibility (NAB, 1:126–131).

34

NAMu: 24v; NAPB: 45–46.

35

NAMu: 24v; NAPB: 46.

36

NAMu: 24v–25r; NAPB: 46.

37

NAMu: 25r–25v; NAK: 110.

38

NAK: 110; NATMu: 12r–12v.

39

See above, Nyāyāmr̥tataraṅginī, TEXT 3, for a translation of the passage Rāmācārya refers to here.

40

NAK: 110–111; NATMu: 12v.

41

NAK: 111; NATMu: 12v–13r.

42

This is a quote from the Kevalavyatirekivāda of the Tattvacintāmaṇi (ACN, 1:622). See Phillips (2020: 795–796) for a translation and explanation of this passage.

43

NAMu: 25r; NAPB: 46–47.

44

NAMu: 25r–25v; NAPB: 47.

45

NAK: 111; NAMu: 25r–25v.

46

NAK: 111; NATMu: 13r.

47

All the editions read vāṅmanase here. I follow Phillips (2020: 789), who emends the same expression in the text of the Anumānacintāmaṇi on the advice of Ramanuja Tatacharya.

48

NAMu: 25v; NAK: 112.

49

See ACN: 613. See Phillips (2020: 789) for a translation and discussion of this passage.

50

NAK: 112; NATMu: 13r.

51

See the translation of the Nyāyāmr̥ta above, TEXT 5, for the argument that Rāmācārya is referring to here.

52

NAMu: 25v; NAPB: 47–48.

53

The passage of the Nyāyāmr̥ta that Śrīnivāsatīrtha is referring to here is translated below in TEXT 10.

54

NAMu: 25v–26r; NAPB: 48.

55

NAB: 25v–26v; NAK: 112–113.

56

Śrīnivāsatīrtha explains as follows: nanu bhedābhedānumānadr̥ṣṭānto na yuktaḥ. tatra [1]guṇādikaṃ[1] guṇyādinābhinnam ity eva kr̥te ’bhedarūpasādhyavati ghaṭakalaśādau ghaṭaḥ kalaśa iti prayogādarśanena samānādhikr̥tatvarūpahetvabhāvenābhedarūpasādhyaṃ prati samānā-dhikr̥tatvasya prayojakatvābhāvāt. hetur astu sādhyaṃ māstv ity evaṃrūpāprayojakatātra nābhipretā. kiṃ nāma tasmin saty abhavataḥ, tena vināpi bhavataḥ, tada[2]prayojakatvād[2] iti vacanāt sādhye saty apy abhavato hetoḥ sādhye prayojakatvābhāvāt. ato ’prayojakatānirāsāya bhedaviśiṣṭadhīs tatroddeśyā. (Nyāyāmr̥taprakāśa, NAB, 1:66.) Emendations: (1) I have emended this from the NAB reading, which adds the compound guṇyādikam after guṇādikam. (2) I have emended this to reflect the reading of this quotation found in the Taraṅginī. “Objection: The example of the inference [to persuade the Naiyāyika that tropes and so on are] both different and non-different [from their substrates] is not appropriate. For, in that case if the inference were simply formulated as: ‘Trope, etc., are not different from the thing that possesses the trope and so on[, since they are placed in grammatical apposition with the thing that possesses them]’, then [the reason,] ‘being grammatically coordinated’, would not be determinative in respect of the probandum. For, [we] do not observe the use of the expression ‘A pot (ghaṭaḥ) is a pot (kalaśa)’ in the case of things such as ‘pot’ (ghaṭaḥ) and ‘pot’ (kalaśa), [which are identical with one another and therefore] possess the probandum in the form of ‘non-difference’. In this context, ‘not being determinative of’ (aprayojakatā) does not mean that the reason may be present where the probandum is absent. Rather, it means that the reason is not determinative of the probandum because the reason is absent even though the probandum is present, as in the expression ‘For, something that is absent when x is present, [or] present when x is absent, is not determinative of x ’.”

57

NAK: 111; NATMu: 13r.

58

NAK: 111–112; NATMu: 13v.

59

NAMu: 26v–27r; NAK: 113–143.

60

ASMu: 79–90; ASMy: 40–46; ASV: 47–51; KD: 4r; NAK: 143–155.

61

NAK: 113; NATMu: 14r.

62

NAK: 113; NATMu: 13v–14r.

63

NAK: 133; NATMu: 13v.

64

See Sharma (1986: 101–103) for an account of the theory of viśiṣṭas in these different traditions.

65

NAMu: 26v–27r; NAPB: 49.

66

Śrīnivāsatīrtha probably has in mind here an objection that Gaṅgeśa considers in the siddhānta portion of his Kevalavyatirekivāda of the Tattvacintāmaṇi (TCA: 609–612). See Phillips (2020: 788–789) for a translation and a discussion of this passage.

67

NAMu: 27v; NAPB: 49.