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Debates on adhikāra (again)

Within the Śābarabhāṣya commentary on the Mīmāṃsāsūtra (the foundational text of the Mīmāṃsā school), chapter 1 of book 6 is dedicated to adhikāra. The chapter deals with several cases in a manner which might surprise some readers, because the text does not distinguish a priori between “good” and “bad” cases and rather applies Mīmāṃsā-based reasoning throughout. For instance, an opponent suggests understanding adhikāra as only or primarily grounded on desire and is therefore willing to accept as a consequence that women, śūdras (members of the lower class) and animals have the same adhikāra as male Brahmans to perform Vedic sacrifices. Even more surprising, perhaps, is that the reply by the upholder of the final opinion is not that animals are impure, women are inferior and śūdras are inherently flawed. Rather, they discuss about the other requirements of adhikāra and show why they exclude some of the above categories from the performance of Vedic sacrifices.

To begin with, animals lack the adhikāra to perform sacrifices not because they lack desire (they do have plans), but because 1. they lack the ability to perform them, insofar as they don’t have hands. Moreover, 2. they lack desires regarding the next life, because these desires depend on our being cultivated into desiring something beyond the present life. Thus, wolves etc. can decide to fast, but only because they want health, and not for purposes relative to a next life, because they don’t know about it.

There is then an interesting discussion about poor people and people having some physical disability. It’s easy to see that the latter lack ability and are therefore excluded from having the adhikāra to perform Vedic sacrifices. However, how can one distinguish the case of disabled people who cannot, for instance, look at the clarified butter (because they are blind) and poor people who cannot look at the clarified butter because they lack the substances to buy it? Śabara speaks therefore of a distinction between śakti and sāmarthya. Both terms can be translated as “ability”, but Śabara seems to make them into technical terms in order to distinguish the two cases. Accordingly, poor people temporarily lack the sāmarthya to perform a sacrifice, but this temporary lack of sāmarthya is remediable, because they could acquire the relevant substances later on in their life, whereas they never lost the śakti to perform sacrifice. I will conventionally call the temporary thing being lost (or sāmarthya) ‘capacity’, whereas the thing that poor people don’t loose (i.e., their śakti) ‘ability’. Śabara distinguishes them insofar as the former is bahirbhūta ‘external’, whereas the latter is ātmavṛtti ‘belonging to one’s soul, intrinsic’.

Unfortunately, Kumārila does not keep this opposition and just generically speaks of sāmarthya.

It is also interesting that the debate about disabled people continued through the centuries. Kumārila (a commentator of Śabara and possibly the main author of the Mīmāṃsā school) explains that disabled people lack the sāmarthya (and hence the adhikāra) to perform Vedic sacrifices, but that this does not mean that they cannot reach the same goal, namely happiness in a future life (a.k.a. ‘heaven’). He clarifies that they have a different path open to them, namely that of remaining a chaste student of the Veda and reciting it. This is considered by him to be an easier option and Kumārila needs therefore to explain that it is only open to the ones who lack the ability to perform the more difficult alternative, whereas those who are able to work, get married and perform Vedic sacrifices should certainly do so. Incidentally, the same device will be used by an even later author, Veṅkaṭanātha, to justify the adoption of an easier soteriological path, namely prapatti, instead of bhakti. This path is only open, he points out, to those who are unable to follow the path of bhakti, hence there is no contradiction between the command about a difficult path and an easier one.

Later Mīmāṃsā texts, possibly after Khaṇḍadeva, go back to the duties of disabled people and offer a slightly different solution. They say that disabled people cannot perform elective rituals, because they lack the relevant ability, but they still retain the adhikāra (insofar as they have learnt the Vedas by heart etc.) to perform fixed rituals. In fact, these rituals can be performed ‘as much as one can’, hence a blind person will just skip the command to look at clarified butter etc.

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Meghanadāri on adhikāra’s prerequisites and further differences from “rights”

Adhikāra presupposes 1. śakti (or sāmarthya), as discussed in previous posts. What else does it presuppose? Adhikāra for sacrifices presupposes a condition (nimitta) and/or the 2. desire for a goal. Both are necessary conditions, as it becomes obvious when animals are said to potentially have the adhikāra to sacrifice, since they are desirous (arthin), but to be excluded from it because of their lacking the relevant ability. The same discussion is found in the commentaries on UMS 1.3.34–38 in relation to śūdras’ adhikāra (e.g., Meghanadāri thereon: arthitvasāmarthyādisadbhāvāt [śūdreṣu] adhikāro ‘stu).

What else? Notice the ādi in Meghanadāri, which is repeated also elsewhere in his commentary (e.g.: atra saṃśayaḥ— kiṃ śūdrasya brahmavidyāsv adhikāro ‘sty uta neti. tadarthaṃ kiṃ tasyārthitvādīni santy uta neti). Meghanadāri lists also the 3. adhikāra for prerequisites, such as the fact of having set the fires (that is, having performed the initial ceremony that starts one’s life as a performer of sacrifices). Śūdras lack the adhikāra for sacrifices, he says, because they lack the adhikāra for the actions sacrificing presuppose (brahmavidyā and agni-setting) (vaidikakarmasu śūdrasya vidyāgnirahitatvenānadhikāraḥ samarthitaḥ).

Thus, adhikāra requires: 1. ability, 2. desire, 3. adhikāra for prerequisites.

Another interesting point is that adhikāra applies to a certain way to achieve a goal, not to the goal itself. You are disabled and cannot perform sacrifices to go to heaven? You can go to heaven through recitation of the Veda. You are a śūdra and cannot read the Upaniṣads? You can still learn about the paramātman (!) through itihāsas and purāṇas. An opponent says that veneration (upāsanā) still needs its auxiliaries (aṅga) and that these are sacrifices, to which the śūdras lack the adhikāra. Hence, due to the rule discussed above, they also cannot have the adhikāra for upāsanā. Meghanadāri replies that this is not the case, because, like in the case of fixed sacrifices, one does not need to perform all auxiliaries.

(Many thanks to Manasicha Akepiyapornchai for sharing the images of Meghanadāri’s commentary)

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Adhikāra and rights

As already observed, there is no straightforward equivalent to “rights” in Mīmāṃsā deontic (and this is normal and good, since the deontic townscape is not a given fact, but a human construct and is therefore differently articulated), but there are certainly functional equivalents covering parts of the semantic field of “rights”.

One of them is adhikāra. Possible differences:

  1. adhikāra is generally a vox media (you have the adhikāra to do X, which does not necessarily mean that X is a good thing), unlike “right” (where generally having the right to do X is a good thing).
  2. adhikāra might imply duty, whereas rights don’t (you may have the right to remain silent, and this does not imply that you ought to remain silent). For instance, for Prabhākara if you have the adhikāra to perform a given sacrifice, you also have the responsibility to carry it out. However, it is not so in Kumārila or Maṇḍana, where the additional obligation to perform fixed rituals descends from their fixedness (nityatva), not from the adhikāra, as proven by the fact that no such obligation follows in the case of elective rituals (kāmya).
  3. adhikāra is connected to ability (sāmarthya), whereas this does not apply to rights, which can instead ground the need of ability being ensured. For instance, if you have the right to go to school but cannot physically move, (in an ideal case) your government will provide you with the devices needed to let you attend school etc. By contrast, adhikāra presuppose ability, in the sense that unless there is ability to do X, there is no adhikāra to do it. Since adhikāra is a vox media, this might be a good thing after all. For instance, if you don’t have the adhikāra to do something difficult to get A, you will be allowed to do something easier instead. Please notice also that Śabara helpfully distinguishes the lack of an external (bahirbhūta) ability (sāmarthya), which is temporary and does not affect the adhikāra (for instance, you don’t lose your adhikāra if you temporarily run out of ghee or are too poor to perform a given sacrifice), and intrinsic (ātmavṛtti) ability (śakti), in the absence of which there is no adhikāra. Much to my disappointment, this distinction is not kept by later authors.
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Reconstructing the Mīmāṃsā townscape

I have been working for years on reconstructing the deontic landscape of Mīmāṃsā, but at this point I realise that “landscape” might be a misleading metaphor.

In fact, Mīmāṃsā authors were not just describing a natural scenario. They engineered a highly sophisticated system, with bridges connecting different actions and sewage systems to get rid of unwanted left-overs.

That’s why even though new Mīmāṃsā authors might change the flag on the top of the hill (as Maṇḍana did) or some particular aspect here and there, they were cautious not to jeopardise such a carefully engineered system.

For instance, when it comes to subordination, the only real options are Kumārila’s viniyoga system and Prabhākara’s upādāna. Other authors substantially follow the one or the other.

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Permissions, rights and adhikāra

As discussed in previous blogposts and articles, it is established that in Mīmāṃsā and Mīmāṃsā-following Dharmaśāstra all commands are dyadic; prescriptions, prohibitions and permissions are not interdefinable; permissions are always exceptions to previous prohibitions or negative obligations, and they are better-not permissions.

Permissions in Medhātithi: Two examples

Case 1:

Manu:

etān dvijātayo deśān saṃśrayeran prayatnataḥ |
śūdras tu yasmiṃs tasmin vā nivased vṛttikarśitaḥ || 2.24 ||

Medhātithi thereon:
śūdrasya dvijātiśuśrūṣāyā vihitatvāt taddeśanivāse sarvadā prāpte tatrājīvato deśāntaranivāso ’bhyanujñāyate.

So, living in another place (deśāntaranivāsaḥ) for a śūdra is permitted, if he cannot get a living where the twice-born ones live, because a śūdra is prescribed (vihita) to obey the twice-born ones. What we see is:

—the permission is a better-not option

—a specific permission is always parasitical on a general (sarvadā prāpte) prohibition or negative obligation (in this case: it is prohibited to live elsewhere, in turn depending on the duty to serve).

Case 2:

Manu:

strīṇāṃ sukhodyam akrūraṃ vispaṣṭārthaṃ manoharam | maṅgalyaṃ dīrghavarṇāntam āśīrvādābhidhānavat || 2.33 ||

Medhātithi:
puṃsa ity adhikṛtatvāt strīṇām aprāptau niyamyate | sukhenodyate sukhodyam | strībālair api yat sukhenoccārayituṃ śakyate tat strīṇāṃ nāma kartavyam | bāhulyena strīṇāṃ strībhir bālaiś ca vyavahāras teṣāṃ ca svakaraṇasauṣṭavāb- hāvān na sarvaṃ saṃskṛtaṃ śabdam uccārayituṃ śaktir asti | ato viśeṣeṇopadiśy- ate | na tu puṃsām asukhodyam abhyanujñāyate |

So, girls lack the śakti to pronounce Sanskrit words, hence they need easy- to-pronounce names. This command is taught explicitly with regard to them because of their inability, but it does not mean that difficult names are permitted for men.

Noteworthy here:

—The opponent is suggesting that F(x/y)—>P(x/¬y) —Medhātithi explains that this is wrong. It is true that P(x/¬y)—>F(x/(y∧¬y)) but the opposite is not true.

Rights and adhikāra


Having permissions just as exceptions means that they cannot be used to ground the notion of right (as in Hansson 2013). What else can correspond to “rights”?

• 1. There does not need to be a corresponding term. The deontic horizon is, like any other partition of the cognitive world, arbitrary.

• 2. There can be functional equivalents, one of which is adhikāra, I think.

adhikāra is connected to ability (sāmarthya and śakti), in the sense that unless there is ability, there is no adhikāra. Differences: adhikāra also implies duty. Contexts in which adhikāra is discussed: poor people having adhikāra, because they still have the śakti, although they momentarily lack the sāmarthya (all in ŚBh ad 6.1.1–3); disabled people lacking adhikāra for sacrifices but having adhikāra for svādhyāya (TV ad 1.3.4).

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Rights in Mīmāṃsā and further steps in mapping the deontic horizon—Updated

I have been working for years on mapping the deontic space of Mīmāṃsā authors. In order to do that, I tried to find a balance between systematicity, for the purpose of which I need as many information as possible and I often take whatever I can from whatever source, including many different authors, and historical attention to individual authors.

In order to strike this balance, I tend to assume that by default the same deontic concepts are shared by all authors, unless and until the opposite is proven, either because someone has an explicitly competing theory (e.g., Maṇḍana’s iṣṭasādhanatā) or because they de facto do something different (like Medhātithi’s approach to permissions if compared to Kumārila’s).

This ongoing attempt has led my coauthors and myself to understand some basic elements applying to all deontic concepts, such as their dyadic nature (each command is always of the form O(x/y) and not just O(x) or F(x)). We also examined the non-identity relation between prohibitions and obligations (in short: F(x/y) is not tantamount to O(~x/y), but an ideal system will not have F(x/y) and O(~x/y) ceteris paribus) and that between permissions and other commands (again P(x/y) is not tantamount to ~F(x/y), but P(x/y) presupposes a previous either O(~x/T) or F(x/T), with T being more general than y). In other words, if something is permitted it means that one would naturally be inclined to do it, but that its performance had been prohibited (or that refraining from it has been prescribed). The state of affairs of something being already available to one as something one is inclined to do is generally captured by the expression “prāpti“. So, there is a permission only with regard to something prāpta and niṣiddha (or the opposite of which has been vihita). Furthermore, the analysis of permissions as being always “better-not” permissions has also made us able to discuss supererogations, which occur when, although a permission to do x is present, one still avoids doing it.

Now, some authors have suggested that P(x) with no prior negative obligations or prohibitions is needed because of making sense of rights. This led me to think about rights and their seeming absence in the deontic landscape of Mīmāṃsā and Dharmaśāstra authors. The starting point is that we should not expect the same concepts to be present in each deontic landscape. Hence, we shouldn’t be looking for an equivalent of a given concept in a different setting. Rather, we should be looking at the different systems that each deontic author construes. In Mīmāṃsā, there are no “rights” as Euro-American authors know them (and, after all, this might be a good idea and we may suggest that the category of “rights” is muddy and unclear!), but there are other concepts that are times overlapping. One of them is the idea of adhikāra.

This is discussed at length in relation to rituals in the context of PMS 6.1 and its commentaries and sub-commentaries. Basically, Śabara etc. observe that adhikāra presupposes ability, but have then to explain that temporary inability does not infringe on adhikāra. In this context, they speak of an external (bahirbhūta) inability (like, being poor or having a sprained ankle) and an intrinsic (ātmavarttin) one, which blocks the adhikāra (like an inborn disability). They seem to oppose therefore śakti (for the intrinsic ability) and sāmarthya (that can be temporary).

UPDATE (thanks to MS for raising the issue): Another thing that we have not looked into yet are the various types of prescriptions (utpatti-, viniyoga-, adhikāra– and prayogavidhi) and how they behave deontically.

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Read more primary texts to unsettle your philosophical views

I tend to think that the history of philosophy is not (just) of historical significance, but that it is an integral part of philosophy.

I think that it would be delusional to think that philosophy of the last, say, twenty years, is, by coincidence the best philosophy ever produced by humans and that therefore exposing oneself to just those twenty years means blindfolding oneself and risking to mistake one’s prejudices for genuine philosophical “intuitions”. Therefore, I think that it is key to read texts written in different time-periods and coming from different philosophical traditions. With “texts” I mean primary texts (at least in translation), not just summaries of them in English.

To make an easy example: A contemporary scholar of, say, cosmopsychism who has never read Abhinavagupta or Utpaladeva may have heard about their philosophical positions and incorporate a paragraph on one or the other in their last article. But given that this engagement is based only on hearsay and not on a direct engagement with Utpaladeva or Abhinavagupta’s thought, the potential of Utpaladeva or Abhinavagupta’s thought to trigger a real rethinking of cosmopsychism is lost and they are used only to confirm the contemporary scholar’s own views. 

For instance, “material cause” and “efficient cause” are Aristotelian categories and superimposing them on Vedānta in an uncritical way risks leading to fundamental misunderstandings. The antidote? Reading Sāṅkhya, Nyāya and Vedānta theories of causation, so as to. understand similarities, but also differences with the Aristotelian paradigm.

There might come a time when secondary literature on, e.g., causation in Sanskrit philosophy or on specific authors will be enough. But we are not there yet. Only a few texts have been edited among the millions of manuscripts that await an edition, a small percentage of these have been translated, and even less have been properly studied. At this stage, any conclusion reached by secondary literature is preliminary at best.

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Further notes on Mīmāṃsā permissions UPDATED 11.3.2024

The following are a few random notes on permissions which have not (yet) found a place in an article.

1. A colleague wondered whether the command my co-authors and I have been discussing in several articles on Mīmāṃsā and called the “better-not permission” can be meaningfully described as permission at all. In fact, the term `permission’ in Euro-American philosophy or in Deontic Logic is strongly polysemic, covering, among others, acts that are not normed as well as acts that were previously prohibited and are permitted, and even rights.

Philosophers of the Mīmāṃsā school, by contrast, adopt the standard Sanskrit terms for permission, anujñā and anumati), but focus on only one aspect among better-not, encouraged or normatively indifferent, and use different terms for the others, thus offering a way out of the polysemy of `permissions’ (for instance, adhikāra comes close to rights, as I will discuss in a separate text).
Using the term `permission’ thus highlights a single shared aspect and suggests a way out of the polysemy of `permissions’.

2. Within the Mītākṣara commentary on Yājñavalkya, Vijñāneśvara discusses better-not permissions for Brāhmaṇas in distress. For instance, the general prohibition to steal is overrun by the permission to steal if one has not eaten for three days, provided one is stealing only from a non-brāhmaṇa (thus presupposing that the prohibition to stealing from a brāhmaṇa holds unconditionally).

The Mitākṣarā commentary further explains that stealing from a non-brāhmaṇa is permitted, provided one has not eaten for three days and one only takes enough for one meal and not additional supplies

Now, if one goes on like that for a long time, one might eventually die of starvation (because one is stealing only enough for one meal and only once every three days). Verse 44 suggests the solution (the king should take care of one), but this is not a solution one can count on in every case. Hence, Mitākṣarā verse 43 does not rule out a situation in which, in order to avoid violating the prohibition at stake (that of stealing in general), though weakened by the permission to steal from a non-brāhmaṇa if one has not eaten for 3 days,) and F(stealing from a brāhmaṇa/in general)) one ends up actually dying.

This further strengthens the point that there is no obligation to avoid starvation as the result of the general prohibition to perform any violence.

3. I use the term `command’ to cover all sorts of deontic statements. Thus, a command can convey an obligation, a prohibition or a permission. This terminology is different than the one adopted in Guhe, pp. 422–423, where `permission’ covers elective obligations. This distinction is due to the fact that E. Guhe relies on the definitions found in a late Nyāya primer, the Nyāyakośa, whereas I focus on Mīmāṃsā. It is historically interesting that later Nyāya authors considered elective rituals as permissions (they aren’t Mīmāṃsā better-not permissions, but they share with Euro-American permissions the fact that there is no risk connected with their lack of performance).

4. Permissions are not easily recognised by their linguistic form, because linguistic forms can be misleading in Sanskrit, as it can be in English (for instance, within a series of instructions, one can encounter statements in the indicative that are, however, to be analysed as commands, e.g. “One takes two cups of flour”, or “One threshes grains”). Therefore, Mīmāṃsā authors identify commands through a semantic and contextual analysis.

5. The Mīmāṃsā position is neatly distinguished from the one of, e.g., Hansson (2013), who thinks that introducing permissions even in the absence of general prohibitions is useful to define rights.
In fact, Mīmāṃsā authors deal with the category of rights differently, and I am currently working on its possible functional equivalent, namely adhikāra.

6. In general, the Mīmāṃsā analysis of commands focuses on commands occurring within a closed corpus of norms, such as the Veda, since only a closed corpus of norms provides the ideal setting for applying nyāyas.

(cross-posted on the Indian Philosophy Blog)

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Recommendation letters: Dos and Donts

So, you are a student and you want to ask a professor for a recommendation letter? Consider doing the following (not in hierarchical order):

  1. Explain who you are (e.g., “My name is Elisa Freschi, I was in your PHL 100 and PHL 401 classes”)
  2. Explain what you want their recommendation for (e.g., “I am writing to ask whether you might want to write a recommendation letter for me for my application to an MA in Gender Studies at Western University”)
  3. Be specific: Do you need a recommendation letter or just to put down their name as a reference?
  4. Give all the details about yourself: Attach your transcripts, letter of intent (for the school(s) you are applying to), writing sample, cv…
  5. Give all the details about the position you are applying for (a graduate program? A summer course? A conference?…)
  6. ASK before giving the name of a certain professor as reference (it is annoying to know that you have no choice)
  7. Explain when the deadline is and REMIND the professor one week in advance (I have never received an automatic reminder, but I know that it looks bad on an application if a professor did not submit their application)
  8. Don’t aim too high: It’s better to have an engaged letter by a TA or postdoc than to have a lukewarm letter by a well-known professor who does not really know you and will only say vague things about you.
  9. Connected with the above: Be sure that the professor will be happy to write a strong letter for you (not just a letter). Some letters are not really of help.
  10. Connected with the above: You have let your professor down as a TA or RA multiple times? They might not be in the best position to help you. Please try to do your best with at least one prof as TA or RA if you want their recommendation letters.
  11. Explain what exactly you are asking. In some cases, what is required is just a 1-paragraph letter, in others a longer letter is required. Be specific!
  12. Optional: Explain why you are asking exactly this professor (e.g., “I am asking you because you are the one who engaged the most with my writing assignments and could therefore speak about them/because your class is the one during which I have been improving the most and I hope you can attest to that/because of the many 1-1 discussions we had, which makes me confident that you have a clearer opinion about my philosophical ideas than most other professors/…”).
  13. INFORM your letter-writers of what happened. It’s nice to hear back from you!

Am I forgetting something?

(Updated, thanks to @neuroyogacara.bsky.social)