Affiliation:
1. Divinity School, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Abstract
Contemporary scholarship has significantly advanced our understanding of the grammarian Bhartṛhari’s influence on the Pratyabhijñā Śaivism of Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta. One area that has been somewhat neglected, however, is the subject of relation (sambandha). Here, I examine the influence of Bhartṛhari’s sambandha-vāda on the Pratyabhijñā school. As I see it, Bhartṛhari’s understanding of the holistic movement of sphoṭa—the practical process of ‘encoding’ and ‘decoding’ linguistic information—leads to a necessary reevaluation of the general logical form of sambandha, i.e., ‘relationality-as-such.’ On this account, Bhartṛhari articulates a basically transcendental conception of sambandha as a ‘śakti-of-śaktis’ in his ‘Exposition of Relation’ (Sambandhasamuddeśa [SSam]). This effectively means that one cannot designate the general logical form of sambandha in linguistic terms without also thereby changing its essential nature as such (cf. Houben: 170–4). I maintain that Utpaladeva’s ‘Proof of Relation’ (Sambandhasiddhi [SS]) leverages this insight into a series of pragmatic arguments to demonstrate that vimarśa, or recognitive judgment, is the true locus of relational action—i.e., unity-in-diversity (bhedābheda). In doing so, he effectively salvages a coherent understanding of relation as necessarily real (satya) from the deconstructive agenda of the Buddhist eliminativist, even though the referent may indeed appear paradoxical from the perspective of theoretical reason alone.
Reference80 articles.
1. Abhyankar, K. V. (1983). Mahābhāṣyadīpikā of Bhartṛhari, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
2. Bhate, Saroja, and Bronkhorst, Johannes (1992). Bhartr̥hari, Philosopher and Grammarian: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Bhartr̥hari (University of Poona, January 6–8, 1992), Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. 1st Indian ed.
3. Allport, David (1982). Utpaladeva’s Doctrine of Recognition. [Ph.D. thesis, Oxford University].
4. Intrinsic Validity Reconsidered: A Sympathetic Study of the Mīmāṃsaka Inversion of Buddhist Epistemology;Arnold;Journal of Indian Philosophy,2001
5. Buddhist Idealism, Epistemic and Otherwise: Thoughts on the Alternating Perspectives of Dharmakīrti;Arnold;Sophia,2008