Language and action in early Brahmanical philosophy

The present project is meant as a contribution to the history of Brahmanical thought between the 6th and the 10th century AD, as it is reflected in the epistemological and exegetical treatises written during that period. Its main focus of interest is a 7th /8 th -century Sanskrit text, Mandana Miçra`s Vidhiviveka ("An enquiry into vidhi") along with its only preserved commentary, Vâcaspati Miçra`s Nyâyakanikâ (end of the 10th century). The Vidhiviveka is the oldest text belonging to this tradition which deals specifically and extensively with human action (pravrtti) in all its various dimensions: psychological and linguistic, but also ritual and soteriological. Moreover, the wide range of philosophical topics dealt with by Mandana in the course of his exposition makes this text an invaluable witness of the evolutions of the Indian intellectual debate in this crucial phase of its development. Although the historical and philosophical importance of Mandana`s work and Vâcaspati`s commentary thereon has been recognized since almost a century, detailed studies devoted to either text are to this date practically inexistent, and only a tiny part of the Nyâyakanikâ has been translated. The purpose of this project is thus to produce an annotated English translation of large sections of the text, based, for its first part (the prvapaksa), on the critical edition by E. STERN and, for the remaining part (the siddhânta), on all other existing editions and available manuscripts. Each translation will be supplemented by a historical study aimed at situating Mandana`s arguments and concepts in their wider context and at tracing their links to those of preceding or contemporary authors belonging to different trends of thought: rival systems of Vedic exegesis, grammatical/linguistic traditions and rival philosophical systems, in particular the Buddhist "epistemological" school. Finally, the project is intended to investigate the immediate posterity of the Vidhiviveka within one of the two major traditions of Mmamsâ after the 7th century: Uttara- Mmâmsa/Vedânta, or the exegesis of the metaphysical parts of the Veda. This research will mostly concentrate on an important, though largely understudied, 10th-century Vedântic work: Prakâçâtman`s âbdanirnaya.

The project Language and action in early Brahmanical philosophy (P 25287-G15) developed from reflections that arose during research on the religious background, theories of rational agency and the doctrine of scriptural authority in the works of Buddhist philosophers of the late first millennium CE. These thinkers were recognized as presupposing a specific concept of human agency and the conditions in which it is considered rational, granting that humans, inasmuch as they are not omniscient, have no perceptive knowledge of the future and cannot validly infer the future results of their present actions.Starting from these premises, the project aimed at investigating whether and to what extent the Brahmanical philosophers, who were the most uncompromising opponents of the Buddhist philosophers, had complemented their theories of scriptural authority and epistemology with an account of human religious action. The main focus of the research was thus a translation and a study of important parts of the Vidhiviveka (An enquiry into the cause of human action) by Mandana Mishra (660/720?), one of the main proponents of the school of Vedic exegesis known as Mi?amsa as well as one of the founders of Vedanta as a separate school of philosophy and hermeneutics. In the course of the project, it appeared that such an enquiry could be fruitfully extended to other texts in which the question of rational agency is analysed, together with its most crucial epistemological presupposition, that is, the dispute about whether humans can have knowledge of supersensible things and events.The project has produced remarkable scholarly results, which have appeared in various publications. It has greatly improved our knowledge of Mandanas Vidhiviveka regarding both the structure of the text and the works conceptual contents; it has shed new light on the historical relationship between the two schools of Vedic exegesis (Mimamsa and Vedanta), in itself one of the thorniest issues in reconstructing South Asian cultural history; and it has provided new insights into the way South Asian epistemology conceived, developed and debated the problem of extraordinary knowledge. With regard to this last point a thread common to many aspects of the project the research has shown how this question had elusive philosophical beginnings but soon became central in the self-representation of most classical South Asian thinkers, being deeply connected to their religious identities, their apologetic strategies and, in due course, their attitude towards life and afterlife.