Prāmāṇyavāda in the Text Tātparyaṭīkā and Pariśuddhi

In the thirteenth century, Gaṅgeśapādhyāya of Mithilā wrote his magnum opus Tattvacintāmaṇi which marked the inception of the Navya- Nyāya School. It was from this time that the works of the Nyāya beginning with the Nyāyasūtra of Gautama, and ending with Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s Nyāyamanjarī as well as Udayana’s Nyāya-Vārttika-Tātparyaṭīkāpariśuddhi came to be designated as Prācīna-nyāya. We have elaborated the arguments of Vācaspati Miśra and Udayana in order to support and prove the extrinsic nature of pramāṇa. In this paper, we have also shown that they have added extra strength to the views of the former Māsters—their predecessors by declaring that the inference (which is advanced by Bhāṣyakāra) is purged of fallacies of all sorts in the field of the validity of pramāṇa.

     

A Reappraisal of the Role of Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb and the YMMA in the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood

In contemporary academic literature, the name of the Syrian publisher and journalist Mu?ibb al-Dīn al-Kha?īb often appears in connection with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood during the interwar years. Although his role in the transition of ?asan al-Bannā's movement from a marginal to a significant socio-political player in Egyptian affairs has been mentioned in numerous works, no comprehensive study has yet been undertaken to determine how and by what means exactly al-Kha?īb supported al-Bannā's organization in its early years. The following article is an attempt to answer these questions by showing the strategic importance of al-Kha?īb and his network in helping al-Bannā develop from being an Arabic teacher in a primary school to one of the main leaders of the Islamist movement in Egypt.     

Kāma,Preman, and Bhakti in Śrīdhara’s Commentary on Kṛṣṇa and the Gopīs in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa

International Journal of Hindu Studies - Although the Bhāgavata Purāṇa presents an innovative soteriology of emotion that explicitly identifies kāma as the gopīs’...     

The Forgotten Consort: The Goddess and Kāmadeva in the Early Worship of Tripurasundarī

International Journal of Hindu Studies - This article examines continuities between the Hindu Tantric tradition of Tripurasundarī, which later came to be known as ?rīvidyā, and...     

Śaṅkara and the Authorship of the Īśopaniṣadbhāṣya and the Kaṭhopaniṣadbhāṣya

International Journal of Hindu Studies - This article investigates the authorship of the Īśopaniṣadbhāṣya and the Kaṭhopaniṣadbhāṣya, which are...     

A Gricean Interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s Catuṣkoṭi and the No-Thesis View

Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE), the famous founder of the Madhyamika School, proposed the positive catu?ko?i in his seminal work, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: ‘All is real, or all is unreal, all is both real and unreal, all is neither unreal nor real; this is the graded teaching of the Buddha’. He also proposed the negative catu?ko?i: ‘“It is empty” is not to be said, nor “It is non-empty,” nor that it is both, nor that it is neither; [“empty”] is said only for the sake of instruction’ and the no-thesis view: ‘No dharma whatsoever was ever taught by the Buddha to anyone’. In this essay, I adopt Gricean pragmatics to explain the positive and negative catu?ko?i and the no-thesis view proposed by Nāgārjuna in a way that does not violate classical logic. For Nāgārjuna, all statements are false as long as the hearer understands them within a reified conceptual scheme, according to which (a) substance is a basic categorical concept; (b) substances have svabhāva, and (c) names and sentences have svabhāva.     

On the Coherence of Dignāga’s Epistemology: Evaluating the Critiques of Candrakīrti and Jayarāśi

I discuss two critiques of Dignāga’s epistemology, one from Candrakīrti and another from Jayarā?i. I argue that they are two versions of what I call the core problem: if the content of Dignāga’s epistemology were correct, two fundamental beliefs within this epistemological theory could not be established or known to be true, as Dignāga claims they are. In response to objections found within the classical Indian tradition as well as several plausible contemporary objections, I then argue that the core problem remains a serious issue with which those sympathetic to Dignāga ought to contend.     

The Anugītā as a Gloss on the Bhagavadgītā—Part I: The Origin of Erroneous Exegetical Tradition of the Bhagavadgītā

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - The Anugītā has been considered as the first gloss known to us on the Bhagavadgītā. The Anugītā set erroneous...     

The Soteriology of Role-Play in the Bhagavad Gītā

I will here apply the classical Indian model of the dramatic actor as a methodology for interpreting the soteriological psychology of the Bhagavad Gītā, paying special attention to the usefulness of this approach for clarifying K???a's rationale in showing his divine form in Chapter 11. I argue that the Gītā advocates creative role-play as both the means and the end of liberation. Further, while K???a's teachings can be understood in terms of orthodox Hindu soteriologies that have in view an overcoming of the emotions, I argue that K???a looks to transform Arjuna into an ‘athlete of emotion’, much like traditional Indian-based training methods do for theatrical actors.