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Lorenzo Pizzichemi

Paving the Path Towards Liberation. A Few Preliminary Considerations on the Logical and Soteriological Function of Analogy in Classical Sāṃkhya[1]

Abstract

Focusing on three Classical Sāṃkhya sources, i.e. Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Stanzas on Sāṃkhya and the glosses of its Commentators Gauḍapāda and Vācaspatimiśra, in this essay I analyze the Sāṃkhya analogical way of discriminating what is prakṛti, i.e. materiality in its unmanifest and manifest condition, from what is puruṣa, i.e. contentless consciousness, in their ‘tensive’ interplay. Being initially for their own, these two antithetical and opposite ‘masses of being’ attract each other, and their interplay generates a ‘flow’ tending to restore the previous situation of ‘equilibrium’ in which both were for their own.

Since ‘ignorance’, which produces transmigrations, arises from not distinguishing what is prakṛti from what is puruṣa when they are linked, and since Classical Sāṃkhya sources offer only analogies as means to remove the cause of the ‘ignorance’, the strategic importance of analogy results clear in these texts.

In interpreting some very refined and delicate analogies employed by these authors in the light of the wider debate on the status of ‘analogy’ (upamāna) as means of right knowledge (pramāṇa) in the Indian epistemological tradition, I argue that analogy must be understood in Sāṃkhya as an epistemic device which ‘paves’ the path towards the ‘permanent liberation’ from transmigrations. Far from being a mark of logical inconsistency, analogy plays, in Sāṃkhya, both a logical and soteriological function.

Introduction[2]

[L’Analogia] è coinvolta in una lotta intestina con la Logica.

Ed è una lotta che l’analogia non può perdere;

anche se probabilmente non può neppur vincere[3].

In this essay, I will try to discuss some analogies, i.e. similes or resemblances, which come from three Sāṃkhya sources. More precisely, these analogies come from the Stanzas on Sāṃkhya (Sāṃkhyakārikā), a work of Indian philosophy which represents the expressive summit of Classical Sāṃkhya, and from two Commentaries on it, i.e. Gaudapāḍa’s Bhāṣya  (‘Commentary’) and Vācaspatimiśra’s Tattvakaumudī (‘Moonlight on the Essence [of the Sāṃkhyakārikā]’)[4], which are indispensable tools to understand the proper meaning of the Stanzas.

Sāṃkhya metaphysics is based upon a fundamental interplay between two antithetical principles or masses of being: prakṛti, i.e. materiality in its unmanifest and manifest condition, and puruṣa, i.e. a plurality of contentless consciousness. That interplay between prakṛti and puruṣa, which is expressed in Classical Sāṃkhya works by the general word saṃyoga (contact, conjunction, alliance, etc.), is presupposed, and it is not further analyzed regardless of analogies. For this reason, the kind of interplay between puruṣa and prakṛti is still an open interpretative problem[5].

Nonetheless, as some scholars already did[6], such a depicted interplay between prakṛti and puruṣa allows one to speak reasonably about a ‘tension’ among these two antithetical and opposite principles. It is a piece of textual evidence that Classical Sāṃkhya offers only a series of analogies to discriminate what is prakṛti from what is puruṣa in their ‘tensive’ interplay. Yet, in the Sāṃkhya system, this kind of knowledge has a high soteriological value.

In this essay, I argue that the analogies contained in these texts are epistemic tools. The fact that ‘poetical tools’, for instance, analogies, are used with an epistemic function is neither inconsistent nor surprising since both poetical and logical tools are nothing but two ‘branches’ of the same ‘trunk’.

In the first part of this essay, I offer a brief sketch of Classical Sāṃkhya’s history and its core doctrine. In the second part, I certify a wide presence of analogies in Classical Sāṃkhya sources, most of them employed to distinguish prakṛti from puruṣa during their ‘tensive’ linkage. In the third part, I highlight the characteristics of the epistemological debate concerning the role played by the analogies as it is understood in Classical Indian Philosophy.

In doing so, I will argue that the analogy has to be interpreted from a logical point of view as a three-terms relation. Finally, in the last part, I analyze in detail some analogies employed in Classical Sāṃkhya sources.

I A Brief Sketch of Classical Sāṃkhya History and Doctrine

Sāṃkhya[7] is one of the most ancient and influent brāhmaṇical darśana (‘theory’) of Classical Indian philosophy[8]. Even if it is no longer the ‘core’ of the Indian philosophy, Sāṃkhya deserves the title of sāmānyaśāstra, that is, common doctrine[9]. The history of Classical Indian philosophy consists largely in a chronicle of criticisms of Sāṃkhya philosophy, this is one of the many reasons why even some of its opponents incorporated in their philosophical systems several Sāṃkhya thesis or procedures.

The Stanzas on Sāṃkhya, attributed to Īśvarakṛṣṇa, were presumably composed between 3rd and 6th century CE. It is possible to fix a terminus ante quem for their composition: between 557 and 568 the Buddhist Paramārtha translated the Stanzas into Chinese[10] with a Commentary not yet identified[11]. Besides, some scholars tried to fix also a terminus a quo for the composition of the Stanzas.

According to a recent study, the Stanzas would be datable around 550 because they seem to contain explicit answers to the criticism of the great Buddhist philosopher and logician Dignāga (5th century CE), whose activity would represent a terminus a quo[12].

Sāṃkhya as a ‘system of thought’ — which however cannot be considered a unified entity or ‘monolith’ — is much older than Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Stanzas since this work was explicitly composed as a compendium of a Sāṃkhya treatise titled Ṣaṣṭitantra (‘Sixty Doctrinal Themes)[13] which was unfortunately lost. Indeed, Sāṃkhya speculations are present already in the Upaniṣads and the Mahābhārata. The Stanzas represents only the expressive summit and the systematic outcome of Sāṃkhya speculations.

Important Commentaries in Sanskrit of Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Kārikās are the already mentioned Commentary of Guaḍapāda (7th – 8th century)[14] and Moonlight of Vācaspatimiśra (9th 10th century)[15], the doctor subtilis of the Indian Scholastic. Yet, as many scholars pointed out, the anonymous Yuktidīpikā (‘Illustration of Reasoning’)[16] is the most significant — even the most difficult — available commentary on the Stanzas.

Classical Sāṃkhya is based on few principles which may be summarized as follow:

(1) The human existence is characterized by suffering (duḥkha), which is threefold (traya)[17] — this must be eliminated; (2) That suffering is caused by ignorance (avidyā), i.e. the non-discrimination of what is prakṛti from what is puruṣa during their ‘tensive’ interplay; (3) Through the elimination of ignorance arises the freedom from human suffering and the permanent liberation (mokṣa) from transmigration; (4) The Sāṃkhya doctrine offers an efficient and definitive means to obtain the freedom from human suffering and liberation.

The Sāṃkhya doctrine is based on a fundamental difference between two separate ‘masses of being’, i.e. prakṛti and puruṣa, the existence of which is not presupposed but inferred from their being linked[18]. The main and most disputed presupposition of Sāṃkhya philosophy is the fact that those two ‘masses of being’ are in interplay. By this interplay, which has an undetermined beginning and yet an end, proceeds the creation (sarga), namely, the unfolding of the remaining twenty-three principles.

The phenomenic world could not occur if prakṛti and puruṣa would not be in tension. Similarly, the prakṛti strives for distinguishing itself from the puruṣa while simultaneously directing towards the liberation of every puruṣa, which would be impossible if the two were not already linked. What is fascinating in Classical Sāṃkhya is not the dogmatic presupposition of such link, but rather, how its authors attempted to qualify its relata.

II Wide Presence of Analogies in Sāṃkhya Sources

In Sāṃkhya sources there is an abundant usage of analogies. This is true not only for Classical Sāṃkhya texts but also for both pre-classical and post-classical Sāṃkhya sources. A wide variety of analogies is attested in ancient sāṃkhya passages, in the Mahābhārata, and in the Sāṃkhyasūtra, a late Sāṃkhya text composed around the 14th century in which an entire chapter consists only of a list of analogies. In comparing the analogies employed in these texts, it is clear that they are different not only in content but also in their purpose[19].

While in pre-classical Sāṃkhya texts analogies are taken from the natural world and are employed to account for the difference (anyatā) between prakṛti and puruṣa, in Classical Sāṃkhya sources analogies are taken mostly from the human world and are used for distinguishing what is prakṛti from what is puruṣa during their constant interplay.

Since I want to show to the reader the large usage of analogies in Classical Sāṃkhya, while at the same time limiting myself to Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Stanzas and Gauḍapāda’s Commentary, I made a shortlist of subtle and riveting analogies[20]:

(1) Analogies concerning the mutual interaction of guṇas, i.e. the three qualities of which prakṛti is endowed:

“In the same way a clod of earth generates a jar, in this manner….”[21];

“In the same way a girl and a man pairing each other, in this manner… “[22];

“In the same way a virtuous beautiful woman…”[23];

“In the same way a king, that is always engaged in the protection of his subjects and in the suppression of bad people …”[24];

“In the same way clouds …”[25];

“Like a lamp”[26];

“Like water”[27].

(2) Analogies concerning the discrimination of what is prakṛti from what is puruṣa during their interplay:

“Like a prostitute”[28];

“Like an itinerant monk”[29];

“In the same way a man, that is not a robber, is considered a robber because he moves with robbers, in this manner…. “[30];

“Like a lame man and a blind man”[31];

“In the same way a certain one, having abandoned his own aim, makes things for friends, in this manner pradhāna…”[32];

“Like a pot”[33];

“In the same way the function of the milk, which is without knowledge, is for the sake of the calf’s nourishment, in this manner… “[34];

“The same way as a dancing girl ceases from dancing after having shown [episodes] for the audience, in this way…[35];

“Like a spectator”[36].

(3) Analogies concerning the transmigration of the subtle body and the lifelong existence of the physical body despite the obtainment of the ‘discriminative knowledge’:

“Like an ant on the Spear-bearer [=Śiva]” [37];

“Like an actor”[38];

“Like a potter’s wheel”[39].

The wide use of analogies in philosophical treatises is usually marking a lack of logical or convincing arguments. However, I will argue that it is not the case in Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Stanzas and its Commentators. Here, the usage of analogies does not reflect an argumentative inconsistency. In these texts, the analogies are used as means of producing the correct cognition in their addressees even when both its communicative and cognitive functions seem to be overlapping.

The proper epistemic function of analogies as means of acquiring the right form of knowledge should not be underestimated. In the Indian epistemological tradition there was a great debate on the status of analogies as means of valid knowledge (pramāṇa), therefore, a least in principle, there is nothing unusual in arguing that using analogies represented for Īśvarakṛṣṇa and his Commentators an epistemic consistent way of reasoning.

III Epistemological Use of Analogies in Classical Sāṃkhya

In the following lines I will highlight, first, the characteristics of the epistemological debate on analogy (upamāna) in Classical Indian Philosophy; second, how the usage of analogies in Classical Sāṃkhya should be understood.

In some Indian brāhmaṇical philosophical systems, analogies are thought of as means of knowing what is yet unknown through what is already known. According to the Nyāyasūtra (‘Aphorisms on Logic’):

Analogy is a demonstration of what has to be demonstrated by means of a community of properties with what is well-known[40].

The classical example of analogy is yathā gaur tathā gavayaḥ, “in the same way a cow, in this way the gayal”, that is, “the gayal is like the cow”[41].

Since Indian logic is a class logic[42] most authors of Indian Scholastic texts understand the analogy “the gayal is like the cow” as follows:

cow: {having horns, etc.} = gayal: {having horns, etc.}

‘Cow’ and ‘gayal’ are class-terms while {having horns, etc.} is a set of universals. An analogy is a relation among two terms in respect of a set of properties. Therefore, “the gayal is like the cow” actually means: because the gayal participates of the properties ‘having horns’, ‘being four-legged’, etc., the gayal is like the cow, that is, the objects ‘cow’ and ‘gayal’ are different objects which share the same ‘configuration’ of properties in respect of a specific set of universals.

Hence, it is possible to establish an analogy among two classes of objects only through the sharing of some properties or universals among two class-terms. From a logical point of view, an analogy among two things is nothing but a a three-terms relation. Having the logical form:

Y : A = X : A

Analogies can make manifest an aspect of the unknown class of x-objects through the known relation between a class of y-objects and the specific set of universals A. Thus, analogies exemplify only the relation between an unknown class of objects and a specific arrangement of universals but not the objects themselves. If we have in mind that the arrangement of universals between cows and gayals is in some respect the same, in seeing for the first time a gayal, and in establishing that it has horns, four legs, etc., and that it is not a cow, one may say: “It is a gayal”.

In other words, analogy reveals a priori the relation between a yet unknown class-term X and other three elements previously known, i.e. (1) a well-known class term Y; (2) a specific set of universals A; (3) the known relation between the class-term Y and the specific set of universals A. Moreover, an analogy cannot directly render knowable an unknown object, it can only make knowable its relationship with the already mentioned three known elements because analogies do not imply identities of objects, but rather, an identity of relations.

This is the reason why analogy is listed among the means for acquiring right knowledge by some Schools since such a means would make knowable an object which is yet unknown (anadhigata)[43].

 At this point, some might ask that since authors were aware that ‘several’ universals must be shared by two terms to make the analogy work properly, how many universals are needed for an analogy? For the Indian logicians, one element would be enough. But this does not mean that the problem was not widely debated in Indian philosophy.

It is clear that based on different conceptions the same analogy could be evaluated differently and this is exactly what happens in the Sāṃkhya sources. Gauḍapāda’s procedure of establishing analogies is compatible with the logicians’ view, whereas Vācaspatimiśra seems mainly to employ another criterion for evaluating and producing analogies. Gauḍapādas proposes – not in all cases – analogies in which the comparandum and the comparans share a single universal or a 1-element set of universals. Instead, Vācaspatimiśra seems usually to be more exigent in the matter of analogies, thus, comparandum and comparans have to share “many” universals [44], or at least there must be no inconsistency between the properties possessed by the comparans and those possessed by the comparandum.

At this point we can ask: what is the position of Classical Sāṃkhya concerning the analogy as means of right knowledge? According to the Classical Sāṃkhya there are only three means of right knowledge: direct perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna), and verbal testimony (āptaśruti, āgama, śabda)[45]. Therefore, despite its broad usage in Classical Sāṃkhya, why is analogy not listed among those means?

As explicitly pointed out by Īśvarakṛṣṇa in Stanza IV, analogy is not an independent means of right knowledge, but it could be reduced to one of the three previously mentioned. Even though the analogy is not in se a means of right knowledge, nevertheless, for sāṃkhyas authors it is possible to reach a valid cognition by means of analogies.

Otherwise, the large usage of analogies in Sāṃkhya would be unreasonable and even contradictory. It deserves attention the fact that Commentators’s views differ also on the topic of the reduction of analogies to means of right knowledge stated by the root-text.

For both the anonymous author of the Yuktidīpikā[46] and Gauḍapāda, analogy is reducible entirely to verbal testimony[47]. In fact, a man who had never seen a gayal is instructed by a man who knows both cows and gayals in the following manner: “The gayal is like a cow”. Thus, the first would obtain a right cognition concerning a relation between a specific class of objects he never saw with other known terms.

Being this the case, the validity of an analogy depends on the authority (adhikāra) of the one who is suggesting it; of the one who is supposed to be authoritative enough to establish an efficient analogy. According to this interpretation, all the analogies employed in the Stanzas (or in Gauḍapāda’s Commentary) are valid because Īśvarakṛṣṇa (or Gauḍapāda himself) is an authoritative person.

Even though indirectly, here analogy is still conceived as a means for obtaining a valid cognition, even though somebody could obtain a valid cognition just through the authoritativeness of the person using such analogy and not directly through an analogical reasoning.

Vācaspatimiśra presents a more articulated and subtle view. He states that analogy is reducible to all the three means for proper knowledge accepted by the sāṃkhyas, i.e. (1) verbal testimony, (2) inference and (3) direct perception. It simply depends on the case.

 (1) An expert instructs an ignorant man through analogies, and through them, the latter obtains a valid cognition referring to something he didn’t know before. In this case, the analogy is reducible to verbal authoritative testimony.

 (2) Yet, employing analogies as logical mark or probans (liṅga) in an inferential procedure, the analogy is reducible to inference. E.g., in the syllogism:

(A) The word “gayal” has the property of denoting an object which is like a cow, (B) because the gayal is like a cow, (C) the word “cow” is denoting of ‘being a cow’, (D) such word, which is used by experts for denoting an object, has the property of signifying an object if there is no other use for it. If the word “gayal” is used by experts in such a manner, i.e. as denoting an object which is like a cow, (E) then, the word “gayal” has the property of denoting an object which is like a cow[48].

In this case analogy appears in the ‘logical reason’ (hetu). Since inference (as it is understood in Indian Logic) can establish a relation between a property and an object which is not right in front of the knower, this ‘syllogism’, through an analogy between the gayal and the cow, is capable of inferring that the word “gayal” has the property of ‘denoting an object’ such as the word “cow”. In doing so, somebody would obtain a valid cognition just by employing an analogy in the form of ‘logical reason’.

(3) The analogy may be also reducible to direct perception. Vācaspatimiśra states in his Moonlight:

The cow-resembling cognition of a gayal which is in front of the eyes, this cognition is just a direct perception. Just for this reason, when a cow is remembered [seeing a gayal], the gayal-resembling cognition is a direct perception. And it is not the case that the analogy [of the gayal] to the cow is different from the analogy [of the cow] to the gayal, since an arrangement of many portions of universals, which is present in one class, being present in another one, is called analogy.

And this common connection is [only] one. If this connection is perceived concerning a gayal, in the same way [it is perceived] concerning a cow[49]. The analogy would be also reducible to direct perception, since, in seeing for the first time a gayal, the cognition of it (produced by the direct perception of the gayal) ‘resembles’ in many respects that of the already known cow which is recalled through memory.

The cognition itself resembles the other one directly, and there would be no need of producing an inference to account for that resemblance. Therefore, the analogy may be a case of direct perception, and in this form, it works as means of right knowledge[50]. Since direct perceptions reflect the real arrangement of universals of an object, analogies might directly produce awareness[51].

IV Discriminating What is Prakṛti from What is Puruṣa through Analogies

For sāṃkhyas, ignorance arises in not distinguishing prakṛti from what is puruṣa in their ‘tensive’ linkage. In Classical Sāṃkhya the only way of distinguishing prakṛti from puruṣa in their constant linkage is through analogies, thus, it is immediately visible the strategic importance of the analogy in Sāṃkhya texts.

In this framework, some analogies deserve our attention. The first one is used for depicting  ‘common being’ (sāmānyatva) of prakṛti which, in its manifest condition, is compared by Gauḍapāda to a prostitute. Gauḍapāda writes:

Thus, the manifest [prakṛti] is general, like a prostitute, because of being common to all[52].

This analogy may be expressed as:

prostitute: {being common to all her enjoyers} = prakṛti: {being common to all its enjoyers}

In other words, the property of ‘being common to all’, that is, the prakṛti’s interplay with its enjoyers, i.e. the purụṣas, is similar to that of a prostitute with her lovers. In being common to all its enjoyers prakṛti is like a prostitute. A well known property of the interplay between a prostitute and her lovers, namely, her ‘being common to all’, illuminates what is prakṛti in its interplay with the puruṣas.

However, Vācaspatimiśra, replying to a hypothetical objection and accounting for the prakṛti’s property of ‘being common to all’ the puruṣas in their interplay, prefers the analogy of the gaze of a dancing girl:

Likewise, a dancing girl — the attention of many is simultaneously engaged in [her] gaze[53].

That is to say:

The gaze of the dancing girl: {being common to all her audience} = prakṛti: {being common to all its audience}

Concerning the property ‘being common to all’, the prakṛti’s interplay with the purụṣas resembles that of a dancing’s girl gaze with her audience.

Because of the meaningful epistemological usage of analogies in these texts, the differences in the analogies are not casual and do not depend only on the aesthetical sensitivity of their Commentators.

 On the one hand, Vācaspatimiśra is usually very exigent in making analogies, especially when proposes objections. On the other hand, Gauḍapāda’s analogy seems to be epistemologically more accurate not only in its displaying the property of ‘being common’, but also in its adaptability to other universals for distinguishing the prakṛti in its interplay with the puruṣas. For instance, being ‘indiscernible (avivekin); being ‘an object of enjoyment’ (viṣaya); being ‘insentient’ (acetana) and being ‘prolific’ (prasavadharmin).

A prostitute is not only ‘common to all’ her lovers, but she is also ‘indiscernible’ because her lovers cannot say: “she is mine”. Furthermore, she is an ‘object of enjoyment’[54] since she is enjoyed by her lovers. Moreover, she is ‘insentient’ because she does not feel any affection or attachment with regards to her lovers. She is finally ‘prolific’ since she is constantly engaged in copulation.

The prostitute, in her giving pleasure to the other, namely the lovers/puruṣas, as she would do it for herself, embodies the real essence of the linkage between prakṛti and puruṣa. Since the prakṛti acts for the sake of the other (parārthatā) as she would act for its own sake (svārtha iva).

After having achieved her role for her lovers — which ‘plays no helpful part’ (anupakārin) — the prostitute/prakṛti, who has ‘played a helpful part’ (upakāriṇī)[55], ceases her activity. The interplay between a prostitute and her lovers, a ‘disturbing’ taboo in the Western tradition, is, in Sāṃkhya, the perfect analogy through which that ‘discriminative knowledge’ that leads to liberation would be obtained.

In another analogy the puruṣa’s property of ‘being indifferent’ (mādhyasthya) in its interplay with prakṛti is displayed, in the following manner, by Gauḍapāda:

Also, the ‘being indifferent’ [belongs to the puruṣa]. [The word mādhyasthya] is an abstract derivation of [the word] madhyastha, “indifferent”. The puruṣa is indifferent like an itinerant monk. In the same way a certain itinerant monk is isolated and indifferent when rude people are engaged in rustic activities, in this manner the puruṣa also is not engaged when the [three] guṇas are active[56].

This analogy may be expressed as follow:

itinerant monk: {being indifferent, being isolated} = puruṣa: {being indifferent, being isolated},

The properties of ‘being indifferent’ and ‘being isolated’ of the puruṣa in its interplay with prakṛti resemble those of an itinerant monk who stays aloof among uncivilized people engaged in rustic activities. This analogy is nothing but a means for highlighting the difference between prakṛti and puruṣa in their interplay. The core doctrine of Sāṃkhya is the belief that in their interplay prakṛti directs puruṣas towards liberation thus aiming at the liberation of every puruṣa (pratipuruṣavimokṣārtha) — this is what parkṛti aims at, being in relation with the puruṣa[57].

For this reason, Īśvarakṛṣṇa employs the analogy of a blind man and the lame man taken from the Indian folklore. The stanza in which this analogy is employed is liable for different interpretations.

Translating Stanza XXI according to the explanations of Vācaspatimiśra, it says:

The interplay (saṃyoga) of the two [i.e. pradhāna and puruṣa], which is like that of a blind man and a lame man, is for the purpose of enjoying of the pradhāna [by the puruṣa] and for the purpose of the isolation of the puruṣa. By means of that, the creation [proceeds][58].

According to the glosses of Gauḍapāda, this Stanza means:

The interplay of the puruṣa [with the pradhāna] is for the purpose of seeing; likewise, the interplay of the pradhāna [with the puruṣa] is for the sake of the isolation. [The interplay] of the two is like that of a blind man and a lame man. By means of that, the creation [proceeds][59].

No matter what interpretation we chose to follow, the analogy of the blind and the lame men deserve our full attention. For explaining this analogy Gauḍapāda writes in his Commentary:

And this interplay (saṃyoga) of the two is regarded as “that like of a blind man and a lame man”. Namely, [there were] a lame man and a blind one, which were both travelling together [in the same travel company], until a raid, made by robbers, [assaulted], with great violence, the travelling company in the forest. Being both abandoned by their travelling companions, they wandered, by chance, hence and thence; and the two, by their wandering, fallen into proximity (saṃyoga).

By means of their respective instructions, an alliance (saṃyoga) [was established] for walking and seeing. The blind man piggybacked the lame one; thus, the blind man proceeded based on the way pointed out by the piggybacked lame man, whereas the lame man [proceeded] piggybacked on the blind one. In such a manner, in the puruṣa there is the faculty of seeing, and not the action, like the lame man; in the pradhāna, there is the faculty of action, and not the faculty of seeing, like the blind man.

In the same way it will occur the separation of the two, the blind man and the lame man, which, moving through the forest, realized their aim, having reached the desired destination; in this manner — as well pradhāna, having performed the liberation of the puruṣa, stops, as the puruṣa, having seen pradhāna, reaches the isolation — it will occur the separation of those two.

And what else? “By means of that, the creation [proceeds]”. ‘By means of that’ means ‘done by that interplay’ (saṃyoga); “creation” (sarga) means ‘procreation’ (sṛṣṭi). In the same way the generation of a child is due to the intercourse (saṃyoga) of a girl with a man (puruṣa), in this manner occurs the generation of the creative unfolding due to the saṃyoga of pradhāna and puruṣa[60].

This analogy may be expressed as:

blind man: {having the faculty of moving} = prakṛti: {having the faculty of moving}

lame man: {having the faculty of seeing} = puruṣa: {having the faculty of ‘seeing’}

blind man/lame man: {being initially for their own} = prakṛti/puruṣa: {being initially for their own}

blind man/lame man: {being separated after having reached the desired destination } = prakṛti/puruṣa: {being separated after having reached the desired destination}

Thus, in ‘having either the faculty of moving or the faculty of seeing’, ‘being separated after having reached the desired destination’, etc., puruṣa and prakṛti resemble, in their interplay, a lame and a blind man.

Another analogy proposed by Īśvarakṛṣṇa is that of the dancing girl and her audience. Īśvarakṛṣṇa writes in his Stanzas:

LVI. Therefore, this [creation] performed by prakṛti, from the ‘Great one’ [= buddhi or Intellect], etc., down to the specific gross elements, is for the sake of the liberation of every puruṣa. This is undertaken [by prakṛti] for the sake of another as if it were for its own benefit.

(…)

LIX. The same way as a dancing girl ceases from dancing after having shown [episodes] for the audience; in this way, prakṛti ceases to action after having manifested itself to the puruṣa.

LX. She [i.e. prakṛti, like the dancing girl], which is helpful and which possesses the guṇas, pursues in various way, without benefits [for itself], the purpose of the puruṣa, which is unhelpful and which possesses no guṇas.

LXI. This is my opinion: there is nothing more delicate than prakṛti — which says: “I have been seen”, and never again comes into the sight of the puruṣa.

(…)

LXV. By this [pure and isolated knowledge], the puruṣa — steady in its own place, like a spectator (prekṣakavat) — sees prakṛti, whose activity has ceased because of the aim’s obtaining, and which has turned back from the seven forms.

LXVI. The spectator says: “I have seen [her]”; the [dancing girl] ceases: “I have been seen”. Still being the proximity (saṃyoga) of the two, there is no motive more for the creation[61].

As far as I know, the tastefulness of these stanzas has no terms of comparison in the Western philosophical tradition.

In commenting Stanza LIX Gauḍapāḍa writes:

“The same way as a dancing girl” “after having shown for the audience” episodes endowed with both instrumental music and chanting —  together with aesthetical flavours, such as love, etc.; and their basis, such as the plot, etc., —  “ceases from dancing”, having accomplished [her] purpose; “in this way” also “prakṛti after having manifested itself to the puruṣa” with the variety of Intellect (buddhi), Self-awareness (ahaṃkāra),[62] subtle elements (tanmātra), [sense- and action-]organs (indriya) and gross elements (mahābhūta), “ceases to act”[63].

In commenting Stanza LXV Gauḍapāda writes:

“By this”, i.e. by this isolated knowledge, which is pure, “the puruṣa sees prakṛti like a spectator (prekṣakavat)”, i.e. in the same way as a spectator does, “steady in its own place”. As a spectator of a dance exhibition, steady, sees a dancing girl “in his own place”, i.e. he stays in his own place[64].

This analogy may be expressed as:

dancing girl: {ceasing from action after her exhibition} = prakṛti: {ceasing from action after its exhibition}

dancing girl: {being for the sake of another} = prakṛti: {being for the sake of another}

dancing girl: {helpful being} = prakṛti: {helpful being}

dancing girl: {being active} = prakṛti: {being active}

dancing girl: {possessing qualities} = prakṛti: {possessing ‘qualities’}

dancing girl: {being ‘delicate’} = prakṛti: {being ‘delicate’}

dancing show’s audience: {being steady in its place} = puruṣa: {being steady in its place}

dancing show’s audience: {being inactive} = puruṣa: {being inactive}

dancing show’s audience: {being unhelpful} = puruṣa: {being unhelpful}

dancing show’s audience: {possessing no qualities} = puruṣa: {possessing no ‘qualities’}

dancing show’s audience: {enjoying the show for the sake of itself} = puruṣa: {enjoying the show for the sake of itself}

In this scenario, the interplay between prakṛti and puruṣa resembles that between a dancing girl and her audience.

However, even though this analogy is based on many shared universals between the comparans and the comparandum, Vācaspatimiśra notes that this analogy is in some respects defective for distinguishing the prakṛti’s discernibility in its interplay with the puruṣa. Vācaspatimiśra presents some hypothetical objections. The first objection concerns the prakṛti’s characteristic of ‘being serving the purpose of another one’ (parārthatā) which does not display any benefit for the dancer. In commenting Stanza LIX Vācaspatimiśra writes:

Granted that prakṛti has to move for the purpose of the puruṣa, [the following objection arises]: “Prakṛti will receive some reward from the puruṣa, which is helped, like a servant girl [will receive some reward] from the learned master in order to be commanded. And in this way is not [true] that “it is undertaken for the sake of another one” [ i.e., for the sake of the puruṣa]”[65].

If prakṛti would be like a dancing girl in the presence of the puruṣa/audience, she would request some reward for the pleasure she procured to her spectators. Therefore, the analogy appears inconsistent in so far as a property of the comparans would be manifestly in contrast with a ‘desired’ property of the comparandum.

 The second objection is described as follow: prakṛti ceases definitively its activity after having reached the purpose of the puruṣa, i.e. liberation; whereas the dancing girl, because of the desire of her audience, may return on the stage to give an encore. In Vācaspatimiśra’s words:

Granted this, [following objection arises]: “In the same way a dancing girl, having shown the dance to the audience, although retried, moves because of [its] desire of seeing her again, in this manner also prakṛti, after having made shown itself for the purpose of the puruṣa, although retired, will move again”[66].

To overcome those hypothetical objections — to which, according to the commentator, Īśvarakṛṣṇa would have already implicitly answered — Vācaspatimiśra proposes new analogies.

Instead of a dancing girl, prakṛti, in its interplay with the puruṣa, resembles a chef.  In the same way, as the chef ceases to act as soon as the porridge is cooked, prakṛti strives for the sake of another and finally stops its activity after having accomplished the purpose of the puruṣa[67].

Another analogy for describing the withdrawal of prakṛti is that of a reserved woman. Prakṛti, according to Vācaspatimiśra, resembles a reserved woman, “who could not be seen even by the Sun”. After having lost by chance her shawl the woman encounters a man, thus, she bends to hide herself from the man’s sight until she picks up her shawl again:

Being ‘more delicate’ [means] being very delicate, i.e. being unable to endure the puruṣa’s gaze — such is the explanation.

Indeed, a virtuous wife, who could not be seen even by the Sun (asūryampaśyā), being by chance the añcala [= a kind of shawl] fallen down from her clothes, bends for the great bashfulness, if seen by a man (puruṣarūpa); then, in that manner in which she strives [in order to hide herself]; in that manner in which she [will be] careful that no other man sees her, in such a manner also prakṛti, which also surpass [in delicateness] a virtuous wife, having been seen by the discriminative knowledge, will not be seen again[68].

In such ‘tensive’ interplay there is no way of distinguishing what is prakṛti from what is puruṣa regardless of the analogy utilised. Since this lack of distinction leads to ignorance and to the consequent transmigration, the strategic epistemic and soteriological importance of analogies is here perspicuous.

A prostitute who is warmly embraced by every single lover remains common to all her lovers; An itinerant monk who is disturbed by the rude manners of other people shows indifference and separation; A blind man and a lame man who become travelling companions out of necessity depart separately after having reached the desired destination; A delicate dancing girl who has entertained her audience leaves the stage and rests; A reserved woman that lost her scarf tries to hide herself after having seen a man.

All these analogies, which show the deepest aesthetical feelings and movement of the ‘free play of imagination and understanding’, arise to theoretical dignity as depictions of the two relata in a ‘tensive’ interplay and pave the pathway towards liberation.

V Conclusion

(1) Classical Sāṃkhya sources do account for prakṛti and puruṣa as distinguishable relata in a ‘tensive’ interplay only through analogies; (2) analogies must be considered in these texts as something more than mere pieces of evidence of argumentative inconsistency. The analogies have an indispensable epistemic function. While the first point is a piece of textual evidence, the second one requires additional considerations.

If analogies would not be in this context of epistemological importance, then, it would be inexplicable why Commentators dedicate numerous glosses on such analogies. The entire debate on proposing new more efficient analogies would be non-sense. In these glosses, and likewise in the Stanzas, the nature of analogy itself is clearly of fundamental importance.

Ascertained that analogies must not be considered as marks of argumentative inconsistency; it may be asked if in these texts the analogies are only a mere communicative expedient devoid of epistemic functions. The ‘communicative’ and the ‘cognitive’ functions of analogies seem at times to be overlapping, nevertheless, they remain separate. The analogy’s addressees obtain, through an analogy, a form of knowledge of what is unknown ‘by means of a community of properties with what is known’. In doing so, the analogy works as an epistemic tool.

In this respect, analogies belong more to ‘logic’ than to ‘communication’ because the comparantes makes possible for the addressees a peculiar understanding of the comparanda.

Furthermore, it is meaningful that Īśvarakṛṣṇa writes that in his Stanzas ‘the illustrative tales (ākhyāyikā) [of the Ṣaṣṭitantra] were excluded’[69]. Therefore, the analogies he employed must be understood not as simply parables neither as narrative expedients. The fact that in a late Sāṃkhya text, the Sāṃkhyasūtra, an entire chapter is devoted to a collection of analogies is indicative of the philosophical importance of analogies within Sāṃkhya speculations.

Thus, unless we want to commit a historiographical inconsistency in interpreting these texts, we cannot ignore the widespread debate on the epistemological status of analogies in Classical Indian Thought[70]. However, these interpretative considerations should not distract us from the great delicacy and the splendid poetic nature of the analogies described which, alone, make the Indian texts discussed an invaluable piece of literary creation.

Bibliography:

Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka (Luce dei Tantra), trans. by R. Gnoli, (Milano, Adelphi: 2017).

Angot, Michel, Le Nyāyasūtra de Gautama Akṣapāda, avec Le Nyāyabhāṣya d’Akṣapāda Pakṣilasvāmin (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2009).

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Bandyopadhyay, Nandita, ‘The Concept of Similarity in Indian Philosophy’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 10 (1982), pp. 239-275.

Harzer, Edeltraud, The Yuktidīpikā. A Reconstruction of Sāṅkhya Methods of Knowing, (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2006).

Īśvarakṛṣṇa and Gauḍapāda, Sāṃkhyakārikā śrīśvarakṛṣṇena viracitā  śrīgauḍapādasvāmikṛtabhāṣyamahītā, ed. by Jivananda Vidyasagara Bhattacharya, 4. Ed. (Calcutta: Vācaspatyayantra, 1929).

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Kumar, Shiv, Upamāna in Indian Philosophy (Delhi, Eastern Book Linkers: 1980).

Larson, Gerald James, Classical Sāṃkhya. An Interpretation of its History and Meaning, 2. Ed., (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979).

Martinetti, Piero, Il sistema Sāṃkhya. Studio sulla filosofia indiana (Torino: Lattes, 1897).

Motegi, Shujun and Welzer, Albrecht, eds., Yuktidīpikā. The Most Significant Commentary on the Sāṃkhyakārikā, (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 1998).

Potter, Karl H., Presuppositions of India’s philosophies (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991).

Sferra, Francesco, ‘Il linguaggio dell’epistemologia nella riflessione filosofica in sanscrito: pramāṇa e pramā/pramīti’, in Terminologia filosofica tra oriente e occidente, ed. by M. Zonta and P. Grezzi, (Firenze: Leo Olschki, 2018).

_____, ed., Filosofie dell’India. Un’antologia di testi (Carocci: Roma, 2019).

Torella, Raffaele, ‘Sāṃkhya as sāmānyaśāstra’, Asiatische Studien/Ètudes Asiatiques, Bd. 53/ H. 3 (1999), pp. 553-562.

_____, The Philosophical Traditions of India. An Appraisal, trans. by K.F. Hurry (Varanasi: Indica Book, 2011).

Vācaspatimiśra. The Tattva-kaumudī. Vācaspati Miśra’s Commentary on the Sāṃkhya-kārikā, ed. and trans. by G. Jha, 2. Ed. (Oriental Book Agency: Poona, 1957).

Notes:

[1] Since a recent reform in the UK removed readings and teaching of poetry from high-school programs, and because of the always more frequent ‘emendation’ — or even purgation — of some classical poets by English scholars within university-classes, I dedicate this essay to the memory of Poetry in the UK. The planned ‘killing’ and discredit of poetry experienced in all the worldwide recent promulgated educational ‘reforms’ is nothing but a prelude of the extinction of both scientific thought and political freedom.

[2] I would like to thank Francesco Sferra, Nicola Bajetta and the anonymous Reviewer for having read a previous version of this paper and for suggesting improvements and constructive criticisms. I thank also Filippo Ursitti for having kindly improved my English. All the mistakes, inaccuracies, omissions and inconsistencies contained in this essay are mine.

[3] Enzo Melandri, La Linea e il Circolo. Studio logico-filosofico sull’analogia (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2004), p. 3. The first edition of La Linea e il Circolo appeared in 1968.

[4] Given that Vācaspatimiśra used to give meaningful and polysemous titles to his works. The term  ‘kaumudī’, here utilised in a metaphorical sense, literally means the moonlight that blossoms the kumuda flowers. The commentary is thus intended as a ‘diffused light’ from which ‘blossom’ ideas and perspectives.

[5] See Gerald James Larson, Classical Sāṃkhya. An Interpretation of its History and Meaning, 2. Ed., (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979), p. 74. Hereafter abbreviated to Interpretation.

[6] See Raffaele Torella, The Philosophical Traditions of India. An Appraisal, trans. by K.F. Hurry (Varanasi: Indica Book, 2011), p. 76. Hereafter abbreviated to Appraisal.

[7] The Sanskrit word sāṃkhya derives from prefixing the prepositional particle (upasarga) sam– (cf. Gr. syn-), expressing conjunction, union, thoroughness or intensity to the root √khyā which means ‘to tell’, ‘to relate’, etc. More precisely, the word sāṃkhya is an ‘extension’ (vṛddhi) of the word saṃkhyā which possesses firstly the mathematical meaning of ‘number’ (in arithmetic) or ‘gnomon’ (in geometry). Since the extended form of a noun expresses a relationship of dependence or descent to the term being object of extension, the word sāṃkhya means literally ‘relative to the number’, ‘concerning the number’, namely ‘enumeration’, ‘calculation’, ‘analysis’ and ‘reasoning’. Roughly, the term sāṃkhya corresponds to Lat. ratio, ‘calculation’, ‘list’ (as in enumeration), ‘reason’, etc. Therefore, it is not accidental that Sāṃkhya philosophy is based on the classification and ordering of the tattvas (principles) whose enumeration, associated with the ‘discriminative knowledge’ (viveka, vijñāna), i.e. the knowledge of the difference between prakṛti (in its manifest and unmanifest condition) and puruṣa (or jña, ‘the knower one’), would be able to free humans from suffering and from the chains of the ‘transmigration’ (saṃsāra).

[8] For a brief and authoritative introduction to the philosophy of Sāṃkhya, in particular on its epistemology, see Appraisal, pp. 76-90. Clear and indispensable starting points for a detailed study of Sāṃkhya are Larson’s Interpretation and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya and Gerald James Larson, eds., Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophy, Vol. IV. Sāṃkhya: A Dualist Tradition in Indian Philosophy, (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987), hereafter abbreviated to Encyclopedia. A particular mention deserves Piero Martinetti, Il sistema Sāṃkhya. Studio sulla filosofia indiana (Torino: Lattes, 1897), one of the first Italian studies on Sāṃkhya, composed by a Kantian philosopher.

[9] See Raffaele Torella, ‘Sāṃkhya as sāmānyaśāstra’, Asiatische Studien/Ètudes Asiatiques, Bd. 53/ H. 3 (1999), pp. 553-562. It was also suggested that sāṃkhya philosophy was probably one among the teaching subjects in the Buddhist ‘university’ of Nālandā.

[10] See Interpretation, p. 145.

[11] See Encyclopedia, pp. 167-69.

[12] See Edeltraud Harzer, The Yuktidīpikā. A Reconstruction of Sāṅkhya Methods of Knowing, (Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2006), p. 107, hereafter abbreviate to Reconstruction.

[13] See Īśvarakṛṣṇa, Sāṃkhyakārikā śrīśvarakṛṣṇena viracitā śrīgauḍapādasvāmikṛtabhāṣyamahītā, ed. by Jivananda Vidyasagara Bhattacharya, 4. Ed. (Calcutta: Vācaspatyayantra, 1929), p. 52. Hereafter abbreviated to Stanzas. In Interpretation, pp. 255-277, there is an English translation of the Stanzas.

[14] Gauḍapāda, Sāṃkhyakārikā śrīśvarakṛṣṇena viracitā śrīgauḍapādasvāmikṛtabhāṣyamahītā, ed. by Jivananda Vidyasagara Bhattacharya, 4. Ed. (Calcutta: Vācaspatyayantra, 1929), hereafter abbreviated to Commentary. In Francesco Sferra, ed., Filosofie dell’India. Un’antologia di testi, (Roma: Carocci, 2019), pp. 93-141, hereafter abbreviated to Filosofie, there is an Italian translation of the Stanzas with Gauḍapāda’s Commentary. This translation is made by Corrado Pensa.

[15] Vācaspatimiśra. The Tattva-kaumudī. Vācaspati Miśra’s Commentary on the Sāṃkhya-kārikā, ed. and trans. by G. Jha, 2. Ed. (Oriental Book Agency: Poona, 1957). Hereafter abbreviated to Moonlight.

[16] Motegi, Shujun and Welzer, Albrecht, eds., Yuktidīpikā. The Most Significant Commentary on the Sāṃkhyakārikā (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 1998). Hereafter abbreviated to Illustration. Until now, there is no full translation available of the Yuktidīpika. In Reconstruction, pp. 35-71, there is an English translation of the Yuktidīpikā’s glosses ad Stanzas V-VIII, and XXVIII; in Filosofie, pp. 237-241, there is an Italian translation of the Yuktidīpikā’s gloss ad Stanzas IIab. This translation is made by Saverio Marchignoli.

[17] Commentary, and Moonlight (glosses ad Stanzas I) agree both in glossing ‘threefold suffering’ as follows: suffering is ‘internal’ (ādhyātmika), i.e. body and mental pains; ‘external’ (ādhibhautika), e.g. pains caused by beasts, etc.; and ‘divine’ (ādhidaivika), e.g. pains due to the evil influence of gods or planets. Translations from Sanskrit texts contained in this essay are mine. The consultation of the translations of Larson, Jha, and Pensa was very helpful for my research.

[18] Cf. Stanzas VIII, pp. 8-9, and XVII, pp. 18-19. Sāṃkhya is clearly a ‘dualistic doctrine’ (dvaitavāda). At this point, someone could think that the dualism between prakṛti and puruṣa is of the same type of Descartes’s dualism between res extensa and res cogitans. This would be a mistake, because for sāṃkhyas what concerns the res cogitans belongs to the res extensa. In fact, Sāṃkhya authors do not oppose ‘mind’ and ‘body’, since they think that what concerns ‘mind’ (‘I’, ‘Intellect’, etc.) actually belongs to ‘body’. In this respect, Sāṃkhya philosophy is a kind of ‘materialism’. For a discussion of the ‘eccentricity’ of the Sāṃkhya dualism see Encyclopedia, pp. 75-77.   

[19] See Knut Axel Jacobsen, ‘What similes in Sāṃkhya do: a comparison of the similes in the Sāṃkhya texts in the Mahābhārata, the Sāṃkhyakārikā and the Sāṃkhyasūtra’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 34 (2006), pp. 587–605.

[20] From a linguistical point of view, in the Stanzas and its Commentaries analogies are principally flagged by two linguistic devices: the -vat affixation (called by Indian Grammarians vatI), which means  “-like”, and constructions such as yathā…. tathā/tataḥ/evam…, i.e. “In the same way … in this manner/in this way/thus…”.

[21] Commentary, p. 14, gloss ad Stanzas XII: yathā mṛtpiṇḍo ghaṭaṃ janayati, tathā….

[22] Ibid.: yathā strīpuṃsau anyonyamithunau, tathā…

[23] Ibid.: yathā surūpā suśīlā strī.

[24] Ibid.: yathā rajā sadodyuktaḥ prajāpalane duṣṭanigrahe

[25] Ibid. yathā meghāḥ.

[26] Stanzas XIII, p. 15: pradīpavat. See also Stanzas XXXVI, p. 32: “[these guṇas], which are equal to a lamp (pradīpakalpāḥ)”.

[27] Ibid. XVI, p. 17: salilavat.

[28] Commentary, p. 11, gloss ad Stanzas XI: mūlyadāsīvat.

[29] Ibid., p. 20, gloss ad Stanzas XIX: parivrājakavat.

[30] Ibid., p. 21, gloss ad Stanzas XX: yathā acauraś cauraiḥ saha gṛhitaś caura ity avagamyata, evam… This analogy refers to the fact that puruṣa may be wrongly conceived ‘active’ as prakṛti, only because of their interplay.

[31] Stanzas XXI, p. 21:  paṅgvandhanavat.

[32] Commentary, p. 46, gloss ad Stanzas LVI: yathā kaścit, svārthaṃ tyaktvā, mitrakāryāṇi karoti, evaṃ pradhānam. Pradhāna, i.e. ‘The Chief One’, is in Classical Sāṃkhya a synonym of prakṛti in her manifest or unmanifest condition (also called mūlaprakṛti, ‘root-nature’).

[33]  Ibid.: kumbhavat.

[34] Stanzas LVII, p. 46: vatsavivṛddhinimittaṃ kṣīrasya yathā pravṛttir ajñāsya … tathā…. See also Stanzas LVIII, p. 51.

[35] Ibid. LIX, p. 47: raṅgasya darśayitvā nivartate nartakī yathā…tathā…

[36] Ibid. LXV, p. 50: prekṣakavat.

[37] Commentary, p. 35, gloss ad Stanzas XL: śūlagrahapipīlikāvat. This analogy refers to the transmigration of the liṅga, i.e. the “subtle body”, which is the transmigrating entity.

[38] Stanzas XLII, p. 36: naṭavat. The “subtle body” resembles an actor, because it may assume in transmigrations various forms, e.g. human, animal etc., just like an actor may impersonate different characters in the same play. See also Commentary, p. 37, gloss ad Stanzas XLII: “In the same way an actor…, in this way…” (yathā naṭaḥ… evaṃ….).

[39] Stanzas LXVII, p. 51: cakrabhramivad. This ingenious and wonderful analogy does account for the reason why the physical body continues to exist inertially until death.

[40] Michel Angot, Le Nyāyasūtra de Gautama Akṣapāda, avec Le Nyāyabhāṣya d’Akṣapāda Pakṣilasvāmin (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2009), I.1.6, p. 284.   

[41] The gayal (Sk. gavaya) is a large domestic bovine inhabiting in the Indian subcontinent.

[42] Consequently, ‘individuals’ (individual objects) are class-terms, whereas properties are ‘universals’.

[43] Anyway, according to some authors a means for acquiring right knowledge applies not only to what is undetermined.  E.g. for Abhinavagupta (10th – 11th century CE), a master of the Trika tantric School and one of the most important Indian philosopher, the application of a means of right knowledge is not limited to an object yet undetermined, but it can be extended also to previously known objects until the knower’s “satisfaction” is reached. See Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka (Luce dei Tantra), trans. by R. Gnoli (Milano: Adelphi, 2017), IV, 81b-83, pp. 89-90.

[44] Since analogies are not identities among objects, this position may lead to a regressus, because it is possible to ask again and again “how many ‘many’?”.

[45] I am aware that the problem of ‘testimony’ recently rose to theoretical dignity among scholars of English-American philosophical milieu. Nevertheless, I have to notice with deep consternation, that none of them considered sources or author from Indian philosophy, in which there is a rich and profound thousand-year old debate on the problem of ‘verbal testimony’.

[46] See Illustration, p. 72, gloss ad Stanzas IV.

[47] Commentary, p. 6, gloss ad Stanzas IV.

[48] Here I put in the conventional order the Vācaspatimiśra’s ‘syllogism’ contained in Moonlight, p. 14, gloss ad Stanzas V. The members of this ‘syllogism’ are: (A) ‘Demonstrandum’ (pratijñā); (B) ‘Reason’ (hetu); (C) ‘Exemplification’ (udāharaṇa); (D) ‘Application’ (upanaya); (E) ‘Conclusion’ (nigamana). The ‘syllogism’ is nothing but a communication of an “inference”. For an introduction to the syllogistic procedures (“inference for others”) in Indian Classical Logic and its terminology see Karl H. Potter, Presuppositions of India’s philosophies (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991), pp. 59-78; Appraisal, pp. 49-56.

[49] Moonlight, p. 14, gloss ad Stanzas V.

[50] This passage is explained as follow by Shiv Kumar, Upamāna in Indian Philosophy (Delhi, Eastern Book Linkers: 1980), pp.121-122, hereafter abbreviated to Upamāna: “When after perceiving the gavaya one cognises its similarity to the cow, it is a case of perception, and, hence, when one remembers the cow as similar to gavaya after perceiving the latter, it is also a case of perception since the object of perception is the same in both the cases. The similarity is the conglomeration of the components of the body of one animal found to be almost the same in the body of another. The conglomeration being the same in the case of the cow and gavaya is perceived directly on the sight of the either of the two”.

[51] It should be noticed that, already several centuries before Vācaspatimiśra, Buddhist logicians as Dignāga criticized the reduction to ‘direct perception’ of analogy. Buddhist criticisms was based on the fact that, if resemblances would be directly perceived, one and same cognition produced by direct perception would have two contents, i.e. ‘the perception of the object’ and ‘the perception of the resemblance of this object with another one’ — being this circumstance contradictory. Kumārila tried to answer to this criticisms replying that the position of Buddhists on analogy is inconsistent. On this debate, see Francesco Sferra, ‘Il linguaggio dell’epistemologia nella riflessione filosofica in sanscrito: pramāṇa e pramā/pramīti’, in Terminologia filosofica tra oriente e occidente, ed. by M. Zonta and P. Grezzi, (Firenze: Leo Olschki, 2018), pp. 113-114. I would object against Vācaspatimśra that ‘analogies’ could not be perceived because analogies are logical relations among class-terms, and not ‘qualities’ of objects. Moreover, analogies are not necessarily based on direct perception.

[52] Commentary, p. 11, gloss ad Stanzas XI: tathā sāmānyaṃ vyaktaṃ mūlyadāsīvat sarvasādhāraṇatvāt.

[53]Moonlight, p. 27, gloss ad Stanzas XI: tathā ca nartakī — bhrūlatābhaṅge ekasmin bahūnāṃ pratisandhānaṃ yuktam.

[54] Both Gauḍapāda and Vācaspatimiśra gloss the word viṣaya, “object”, as bhojya, “object of enjoyment”.

[55] The opposition between ‘spirit-consciousness-inactivity-male element’ vs. ‘matter-unconsciousness-activity-female element’ becomes also an iconographical motive in Tantric representations of the mystical copulation, since the ‘female’-partner is always represented as active and ‘helpful’, whereas the male-partner is ‘immobile’ and ‘unhelpful’.

[56] Commentary, p. 20, gloss ad Stanzas XIX.

[57] In Sāṃkhya, being the individual ‘male-element’ inactive, no liberation can occur without the activity of the common ‘female element’. On the other hand, the ‘contentless consciousness’ of every human being is supposed to be ‘male’. Therefore, in these speculations every gender difference among living beings is ultimately meaningless.

[58] See Moonlight, p. 40, gloss ad Stanzas XXI. Commentaries in Sanskrit present frequently useful and precious grammatical explanations. Here Vācaspatimiśra interprets pradhānasya, i.e. the genitive case of the word pradhāna, in the sense of a genetivus obiectivus (Skt. karmaṇi ṣaṣṭhī).

[59] See Commentary, p. 21, gloss ad Stanzas XXI.

[60] Ibid., pp. 21-22, gloss ad Stanzas XXI. I can imagine the appeal this analogy might have in Kantian interprets of Sāṃkhya like Martinetti, which glimpsed in it the Kant’s statement “intuitions without concepts are blind, while concepts without intuitions are empty”, as well as their indispensable interplay — like that of the blind and the lame — in order to the arising of objective knowledge.

[61] Stanzas, pp. 46-50.

[62] Lit., “I”-saying, the personal pronoun “I”.

[63] Commentary, p. 47, gloss ad Stanzas LIX. The ‘Intellect’ etc. are the ‘products’ of prakṛti in her manifest condition. For an analysis of the enumeration and functioning of the twenty-three tattvas of the manifest world, see Interpretation, pp. 176-201.

[64] Ibid., p. 50, gloss ad Stanzas LXV.

[65] Moonlight, p. 72, gloss ad Stanzas LIX.

[66] Ibid., p. 73, gloss ad Stanzas LX.

[67] Ibid., p. 70, gloss ad Stanzas LVI.

[68] Ibid., pp. 73-74, gloss ad Stanzas LXI.

[69] Stanzas LXXII, p. 52.

[70] See Upamāna and Nandita Bandyopadhyay, ‘The Concept of Similarity in Indian Philosophy’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 10 (1982), pp. 239-275.

Biography:

Lorenzo Pizzichemi, Ph.D., is an adjunct lecturer in Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University ‘e-campus’ of Novedrate (Italy). He studied and researched in several universities and institutions in Italy, Germany, and the United States. His study and research are currently focused on authors and texts of the Classical Indian philosophical tradition. Among his publications: Carl Immanuel Diez e gli inizi dell’idealismo tedesco (Lecce-Brescia: Pensa, 2013) and L’uso di sé. Il concetto di ‘uso’ in Kant e la questione del fondamento della filosofia trascendentale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2020).