Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s “Small Step” for a Grammarian and “Giant Leap” for Sanskrit Grammar

This paper is devoted to theoretical and methodical considerations on our study and understanding of macroscopic transitions in the world of Sanskrit intellectuals from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century (cf. Pollock, Indian Economic and Social History Review 38(1):3–31, 2001). It is argued that compared to his immediate predecessors Bha??oji Dīk?ita’s contribution to Prakriyā grammars was modest. It was to a large extent on account of changed circumstances—over the centuries mainly a slow but steady decline—in the position of Sanskrit and the general public’s need for a simple definition of authoritatively correct Sanskrit that Bha??oji’s grammar met with success so quickly, so widely, and so solidly. I once knew a little boy in England who asked his father, “Do fathers always know more than sons?” and the father said “Yes.” The next question was, “Daddy, who invented the steam engine?” and the father said “James Watt.” And then the son came back with “But why didn’t James Watt’s father invent it?” Gregory Bateson (1972, p. 21)      

Two Obscure Sanskrit Words Related to the C��rv��ka: pa?cagupta and ku??ak��?a

Two words, pañcagupta and ku??ak???a, are found in modern Sanskrit lexicons such as the ?abdakalpadruma, the V??caspatya, the Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, and A Sanskrit English Dictionary. They are said to signify the C??rv??ka philosophy and an expert in the C??rv??ka philosophy respectively. Both the words have been taken from some twelfth-century Sanskrit ko?as but no example of actual use is available. Nor do they occur in any earlier Sanskrit ko?a, such as the Amarako?a and the Hal??yudhako?a. The inference is that the words must have appeared in some late philosophical work that was critical of the materialist C??rv??ka system of philosophy and the ko?ak??ras found them in the same source.     

The Study of Jyotiḥśāstra and the Uses of Philosophy of Science

This is one of a group of essays (collected in this issue of the journal) about methodological considerations that have arisen for the project on the “Sanskrit knowledge systems on the eve of colonialism.” For the history of the exact sciences in Sanskrit, or Jyoti??āstra, in the early modern period, there are special problems. These have to do with the historically anomalous status of the exact sciences among the ?āstras or Sanskrit knowledge systems, and with the predominantly “internalist” method by which most recent research on Jyoti??āstra has been carried out. The essay considers the usefulness for tackling these problems of recent writing elsewhere in the history and philosophy of science, especially the work of Hacking.     

On Incompetent Monks and Able Urbane Nuns in a Buddhist Monastic Code

Most modern scholars seem to assume that Buddhist monks in early India had a good knowledge of Buddhist doctrine and at least of basic Buddhist texts. But the compilers of the vinayas or monastic codes seem not to have shared this assumption. The examples presented here are drawn primarily from one vinaya, and show that the compilers put in place a whole series of rules to deal with situations in which monks were startlingly ignorant of both doctrine and text. One of these examples is particularly interesting for what it suggests about the linguistic sophistication of nuns, and another because it presents a case in which a nun is required to fill an important liturgical role in public and in the presence of monks.     

Contextualism in the Study of Indian Intellectual Cultures

When J. L. Austin introduced two “shining new tools to crack the crib of reality”—the theory of performative utterances and the doctrine of infelicities—he could not have imagined that he was also about to inaugurate a shining new industry in the philosophy of the social sciences. But with its evident concern for the features to which “all acts are heir which have the general character of ritual or ceremonial,” Austin’s theory soon became indispensable in the analysis of ritual, linguistic and every kind of social action. While Indianists such as Frits Staal, Bimal Matilal and David Seyfort Ruegg have made good use of the work of Austin and his “ordinary language” school, it is Quentin Skinner who has attempted to turn Austin’s insights into a general “theory and method” for the study of intellectual cultures. The question I want to address in this paper has to do with the applicability of Skinnerian techniques to the study of literary and intellectual Sanskrit culture in premodern India. If not all of Skinner’s methods transfer to the new context, identification of the points at which they breakdown helps to clarify the distinctive contours of Indian intellectual history, and suggests appropriate methodological innovation.     

从《大同书》看文化冲突与“士”的幽灵

近代以来 ,东西文化冲突带来中国历史上“千古未有之变局”,中国知识分子也经历了由士而知识分子的社会角色转换。但由于主客观条件的局限 ,却未能相应地进行和完成传统世界观的转变 ,其灵魂深处依然蛰居着传统士人的“幽灵”。面对空前激烈的文化冲突 ,知识分子的历史使命应是文化的更新 ,而士的幽灵却坚持文化的保守 ,这便构成了中国近代知识分子思想与灵魂脱节的二元特性。康有为的《大同书》便是这二元特性的产物 ,且在不同程度上成为近代知识分子灵魂的“圣经”。通过对《大同书》的解剖 ,便不难窥见近代知识分子灵魂深处的那个士的幽灵     

Vastutas tu: Methodology and the New School of Sanskrit Poetics

Recognizing newness is a difficult task in any intellectual history, and different cultures have gauged and evaluated novelty in different ways. In this paper we ponder the status of innovation in the context of the somewhat unusual history of one Sanskrit knowledge system, that of poetics, and try to define what in the methodology, views, style, and self-awareness of Sanskrit literary theorists in the early modern period was new. The paper focuses primarily on one thinker, Jagannātha Pa??itarāja, the most famous and influential author on poetics in the seventeenth century, and his relationship with his important sixteenth-century predecessor, Appayya Dīk?ita. We discuss Jagannātha’s complex system of labeling of ideas as “new” and “old,” the new essay style that he used to chart the evolution of ideas in his tradition, his notion of himself as an independent thinker capable of improving the system created by his predecessors in order to protect its essential assets, and the reasons his critique of Appayya was so harsh. For both scholars what emerges as new is not so much their opinions on particular topics as the new ways in which they position themselves in relation to their system.     

The Ins and Outs of the Jains in Tamil Literary Histories

The Jains and their texts play a key role in the literary histories of the Tamil-speaking region. However, in their modern form, dating from 1856 to the present, these histories have been written almost exclusively by non-Jains. Driving their efforts have been agendas such as cultural evolutionism, Dravidian nationalism or Śaiva devotionalism. This essay builds on ideas articulated by the contemporary Tamil theorist K. Civatampi, examining how various models of periodization have frozen the Jains in the ancient past. Further, it will explore how this unfolding historical drama, which gloriously climaxes in Tamil literature, has attributed the Jains, as dramatis personae, merely a role in early Jain texts; their role as communities transmitting these texts has been ignored. In contrast to this typical pattern, this article will also introduce a literary history written in 1941 by the Jain A. Cakravarti Nāyaṉār (1880–1960). It will explore whether or not his voice, which emerged from within the same academic community contributing to the strange absence of Jains in the contemporary awareness of Tamil literary, was successful in finding another way for Jains of being heard, and for non-Jains, of listening.     

Haṭhayoga’s Philosophy: A Fortuitous Union of Non-Dualities

In its classical formulation as found in Svātmārāma’s Ha?hapradīpikā, ha?hayoga is a ?aiva appropriation of an older extra-Vedic soteriological method. But this appropriation was not accompanied by an imposition of ?aiva philosophy. In general, the texts of ha?hayoga reveal, if not a disdain for, at least an insouciance towards metaphysics. Yoga is a soteriology that works regardless of the yogin’s philosophy. But the various texts that were used to compile the Ha?hapradīpikā (a table identifying these borrowings is given at the end of the article) were not composed in metaphysical vacua. Analysis of their allusions to doctrine shows that the texts from which Svātmārāma borrowed most were products of a Vedantic milieu—bearing testament to Vedānta’s newfound interest in yoga as a complement to jñāna—but that many others were ?aiva non-dual works. Because of the lack of importance given to the niceties of philosophy in ha?hayogic works, these two non-dualities were able to combine happily and thus the ?aiva tenets incorporated within ha?hayoga survived the demise of ?aivism as part of what was to become in the medieval period the dominant soteriological method in scholarly religious discourse in India.     

All talk and no bite: Copyright infringement and piracy trends in India

The Copyright Act 1957 presents the face of modern copyright protection afforded to different intellectual works and is a key statement of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the Indian legislation governing this domain, as well as being compliant to the TRIPS Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. This Act has been acceptably referred to on many occasions on global platforms, on account of its being one of the most elaborate and well-structured pieces of legislation in the field of intellectual property law. However, this well encompassing, highly creditable and widely acknowledged legislation seems to fall down in its practical implementation rendering its theoretical purpose partly futile. The situation so stands, that India continues to project major piracy rates with little regression in the trend despite the fact that this law is still very much in force. The reasons which deny effective copyright protection in India, for works of miscellaneous categories, have much to do with the lack of an equally strong enforcement mechanism. This paper provides an insight into the inadequacies of the Indian legal and administrative systems which have ultimately diminished the effectiveness of the copyright regime contrary to that envisioned by the law.     

Revelation and Rhetoric: A Critical Model of Forensic Discourse

Over the past thirty years or so, theoretical work in such fields as legal semiotics and law and literature has argued that the legal process is profoundly rhetorical. At the same time, a number of communication-based disciplines such as semiotics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology have provided, particularly in interdisciplinary combination with law, a wealth of empirical evidence on, and insight into, the micro-contexts of language and communication in the legal process. However, while these invaluable nitty-gritty analyses provide empirical support for a rhetorical thesis, work in these areas has tended to ignore rhetoric as an explanatory principle. This article introduces an overarching rhetorical framework for the discursive construction and management of cases in contemporary Anglo-American legal processes. Taking ‘forensic’ as relating to the conduct of cases and ‘discourse’ as semiosis-in-practice, I argue that the practices within which forensic discourse is embedded are not, as the received legal view would have it, aimed at revealing an impartial truth but are deeply rhetorical practices aimed at persuading decision-makers to provide a remedy for a claimed wrong. By looking across forensic texts and contexts, I identify common elements of forensic discourse that can be found both in classical forensic orations and throughout the modern legal process and consider how these intersect with critical forces of agency and structure and the particularities of semiosis in situated context. An awareness of commonalities across forensic discourse can help sharpen our focus on the critical causes and consequences of individual and structural difference and point to consequential suggestions for reform.     

‘Where the devil can't succeed,he'll send a woman’: Polish–Ukrainian families in Ukrainian political fiction,c. 1869–1939

The seven decades between 1869 and 1939 saw ongoing publication of Ukrainian novels that focused attention upon the question of Polish–Ukrainian intermarriages. These politically motivated works aimed at stemming nationally diverse unions through discoursing practices that alleged the existence of a Polish conspiracy to ensure mixed families would become Polish. The books commonly provided visions of hell to symbolize these relationships. At the same time, they portrayed the Polish woman as a devil who brings discord as well as material and moral ruin to a family. To see to it that Ukrainians do not marry Poles the authors emphasized social and cultural incompatibility. They also desired that the Ukrainian partner in any such marriage should be nationally assertive. The texts discussed were all inspired by early modern religious polemical literature that had sought to curtail religious conversion as well as inter-confessional marriages.     

Reformation,Regulation and the Image: Sumptuary Legislation and the Subject of Law

This article considers the development of the individual subject of law and his constitutional status in the early modern English State, within the context of sumptuary legislation enacted by the Crown and the Inns of Court. During the sixteenth century, the legal community took upon itself the role of exemplifying the correct use of symbols and of elucidating the purpose of sumptuary law. The image of the lawyer was manipulated to represent the inherent divinity of common law. The reformation of the image was inevitably influenced by the doctrinal concepts of the European Reformation and is a graphic indication of the centrality of Anglicanism to the development of early modern common law. I discuss these developments with reference to theories of the image proposed by Goodrich, Legendre and Marin. I refer also to Carlyle's satirical treatise on the symbolism of clothes,Sartor Resartus. The constitution of clothes represents the idea of citizenship and the centrality of reason to the body-politic. The rediscovery of classical texts during the Renaissance was instrumental in shaping a constitution in which an embryonic social contract was apparent, as represented in the sumptuary legislation of the Inns of Court. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the Incoherence of Legal Language to the General Public

I will suggest, in this article, a possible explanation of the fact that legal language appears incoherent to the general public. I will present one legal text (an indictment), explaining why it appears incoherent to legal laypersons. I will argue that the traits making this particular text appear incoherent are, first, that a specialized legal meaning is conveyed implicitly and, second, that there are no key-words that could direct laypersons to the knowledge making this meaning obvious to legalists. I will conclude that any legal text having these traits is likely to appear incoherent to the general public and suggest that the traits making my example appear incoherent might be rather common among the various texts of the various legal systems. On this suggestion there is no need to assume any causal relation between lawyers’ social interests and the apparent incoherence of legal language as it entails that this incoherence is inevitable. (I will argue that it is a result of the facts that legal language is ordinary language used, in the ordinary way, in the special context of the legal discourse.)     

Before the Law: Criminalization,Accusation and Justice

This review essay critically engages three socio-legal books directed to the changing bases of criminalization; namely, Lacey (In search of criminal responsibility: ideas, interests, and institutions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017); Farmer (Making the modern criminal law: criminalization and civil order, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016); and Norrie, Justice and the slaughter bench: essays on law’s broken dialectic, Routledge, New York, 2016). The texts explore how modern (largely English) institutions of criminal law proscribe, assign responsibility and appear through contradictory socio-political ‘constellations’. They variously reference criminal law’s expanding punitiveness as it: embraces revived character-based ways of attributing responsibility via ideas of risk; drifts away from a social function of creating civil order; and, works through a ‘broken dialectic’ that fails to recognize its ethico-political auspices. The ensuing ‘overcriminalization’ is referenced variously, but this review questions a tendency to work off legal lexicons, with consequent limitations placed on the scope of social analysis. Referring to Roman and Cape colonial forms of criminalization, this review highlights processes of accusation that call subjects to account as criminals, thereby signalling an initiating socio-political layer upon which unequal forms of overcriminalization rest.     

Does Sanskrit Knowledge Exist?

This paper addresses the near impossibility of writing the social history of knowledge production in India. It also considers the question of the historicity of Sanskrit traditions. It concludes with pointing at a major lacuna in the SKS project, namely the examination or ritual and religious knowledge.     

Jain lives of Haribhadra: An inquiry into the sources and logic of the legends

Conclusions I have attempted here to trace the development of Haribhadra's biography. My contention throughout has been that there is a basic incongruity between what one can discern from the actual works about the author Haribhadra and the legends that came to be associated with him. I have argued that the legends initially came from elsewhere in part from the legends of the arrogant monk who challenges the schismatic Rohagutta, and in part from the stories told of Akalanka, who probably was Haribhadra's contemporary. The question must inevitably arise as to why these stories were attached to Haribhadra, when they so poorly match what we can clearly know to be the attitudes displayed by the writer of the works associated with his name. That is a question I cannot satisfactorily answer, although I suspect that in general the hostile attitude of the prabhadhas and related texts towards Buddhism is a late, deliberately contrived and very political stance.³⁰ It would seem that these legends of Haribhadra and the stories told of others which are also replete with examples of Jain hostility to the Buddhists came to take shape around the 12th century A.D., during a period when Jainism was making significant Hindu conversions, particularly among royalty. We know that the prabandhas were primarily written for royal audiences or for ministers close to the kings. A natural question is then whether we can discern anything specific in the relationship between Buddhism and royal power during the 12th century in India that might have led Jain writers deliberately to cast the Buddhists in an unfavourable light and portray Jains as the extirpators of the Buddhist menace and thus as champions of the true faith. In fact the mid -12th century was a low period for the fortunes of Buddhism in its final stronghold in Bengal. Valllasena of the Sena dynasty came to power c. 1158 A.D. His Dnas-agara was completed in 1169 A.D. and gives ample evidence of the strong emphasis on orthodox Hinduism and promotion of the cause of the Brahmins that historians have associated with the Senas.³¹ It is tempting to see in the prabandhas, which were addressed to the ruling class, and in the legends of Jain religious and intellectual leaders which emphasize the conflict between Jainism and Buddhism, a continued attempt to separate Jainism radically from Buddhism which was anathema to these kings in Bengal. Hindus had historically regarded Jains and Buddhists as equally outside the Hindu fold and outside the fold of civilization. That Jains in the 12th century devise biographies with a distinct emphasis on the Jain triumph over a Buddhist enemy requires some explanation. That the collections of these biographies were usually addressed to kings and their ministers suggests that courting the royal court may have had something to do with the tone of the biographies. The most obvious historical circumstance that suggests itself by way of explanation for the anti-Buddhist tone of medieval Jain biographies is the contemporary Hindu revival in Bengal with its decidedly anti-Buddhist stance. Perhaps Jain writers in seeking to win royal patronage for their faith and indeed royal converts felt the need to divorce Jainism from the religion with which it had been so closely associated and which became so obviously out of royal favour elsewhere in the country. I offer this only as a suggestion which must await further research for confirmation.