Abstract
The chapter examines the three types of negation described in the Mīmāṃsā school in their treatment of the kinds of permissible, prohibited, and excluded (vipratipratiṣedha, niṣedha, pratiṣedha) sacrifices that are otherwise enjoined as injunctions (vidhis) in the Vedic passages. The paribhāṣā (‘meta-language’) rules becomes instructive with the development of grammar for its application to more secular speech. To give one prominent example, the injunction, ‘he shall eat’ is denoted by N[F(x)], where F(x) denotes ‘he eats’ (and modally, ‘it is necessary that he eats’). Now a prohibition (niṣedha) or negation of this injunctive sentence, if it is as injunction, is symbolized by N[¬F(x)], not by (¬N)([F(x)]) or (¬N[F(x)]). Hence it is signified by the sentence ‘she shall not-eat’. N[¬F(x)] belongs to the paryudāsa or exclusionary negation, where a noun (as distinct from a verb-form) is negated; its other form being N[F(¬x)].
The second part explains the distinct pramāṇa or mode of knowing absence as abhāva (and its variation, anupalabdhi), i.e. non-perception or the cognition of absence. The uniquely Mīmāṃsā position – as distinct from the Nyāya’s – is that every thing is counternegatively marked by its own prior and future non-existence, and so when something, x, that was there, is cognized as being ‘absent’, this really is a perception of its ‘non-existent’ other, and ‘non-existence’ is arguably a real universal. This view makes way for a Meinongian knowing of non-existent objects.
In the beginning there was neither non-existent nor existent. (Nāsadīya Sūkta Ŗgveda X.129)
This paper is a republication of a paper published in Mihir K. Chakraborti, Benedikt Loewe, Madhabendra Nath Mitra, Sundar Sarukkai (eds.), Logic, Navya-Nyaya & Applications, Homage to Bimal Krishna Matilal, College Publications 2008 [Studies in Logic, Volume 15], pp. 43–64.
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Notes
- 1.
anyā kāryatā, anyā ceṣṭasādhanatā… phalaṃ prati upayātaṃ phalasādha-natvaṃ, kṛtiṃ prati pradhānatvaṃ tadadhīnasattākatvam ca kāryatva;… loke kriyākāryatājñānātpravṛttāvapi kāryatājñānameva pravṛttinimittaḥ.
- 2.
Here Zilberman cites Maṇḍana Miśra as his authority for this rendering of ‘śabda bhāvana’, as he calls it, which otherwise would be śābdībhāvana, as ‘verbal energy’ (ibid). Arindam Chakraborty disputes this is a correct rendering of śābdībhāvana, for the bhāvana presumably is not in the verbal formation but rather is a disposition within the hearer which propels him forthwith into action. (Communication in person).
- 3.
kṣīre dadhyādi yannāsti prāgabhāvaḥ sa ucyate (2)
nāstitā payaso dadhni pradhvaṃsābhāva iṣyate.
gavi yo’śvādy-abhāvas tu so’nyonyābhāva ucyate. (3)
śiraso’vayavā nimnā vṛddhikāṭ hinyavarjitāḥ.
śaśaśṛṇgādirūpeṇa so’tyantābhāva ucyate (4).
Translation by Jha (1924, p. 243); also discussed in Sharma (1974, p. 27ff).
- 4.
Compare the Naiyāyika Jagadīśa: ‘prāgabhāva-dhvaṃsayorapi uttarapūrvakālāveva’ pointed out by Shaw (1988). Almost identical classification of these four kinds also appear in Jaina texts, notably Āptamīmāṃsā (Kumārila seemed to have been aware of this text), reported in Vidyabhusana (1977, pp. 24–25). Interestingly this very thesis on the possibility of the non-existent is built into an example of syādvāda in its saptabhaṅgīnaya, seven-step reasoning, albeit quite independently, thus:
-
1.
A thing is existent – from a certain point of view.
-
2.
It is non-existent – from another point of view.
-
3.
It is both existent and non-existent in turn – from a third point of view.
-
4.
It is indescribable (that is, both an existent and non-existent simultaneously) – from a fourth point of view.
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5.
It is existent and indescribable – from a fifth point of view.
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6.
It is non-existent and indescribable – from a sixth point of view.
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7.
It is both existent and non-existent and indescribable – from a seventh point of view.
-
1.
- 5.
Staal takes this from the Mīmāṃsā-nyāya-prākāśa (ably translated by Edgerton 1986).
- 6.
Whereas Staal takes it to be the opposite and swaps the two. Staal gives the symbolic form of niṣedha as ‘(¬ N)[F(x)]’, but which does not in deontic modal logic express a negative injunction, so while it admits of permissibility it may or may not reign in prohibition, which prasajya-pratiṣedha or niṣedha must do. Staal’s candidate ‘(¬ N)[F(x)]’ would denote there is no injunction or mandate for him to eat – and Staal says as much when he renders ‘(¬ N)[F(x)]’ as ‘there is no mandate for eating’; whereas there is a clear injunction prohibiting any eating: ‘shall-not’; the negation must strike at the verbal ending not just the N operator. It is not a simple withholding of the taxes but forfeiting the taxes to the taxman.
- 7.
I am grateful to the late Frits Staal – when I was very confused by the Mīmāṃsā formulations, I went to Staal back in 1981, and we discussed some Mīmāṃsā texts together in Berkeley many moons ago.
- 8.
In his ‘The Nyāya on Double Negation’ (1988: 144–45), and he classes them under ‘relational absences’, with certain caveats built into the ‘temporal relation as the limiting relation of the property of being the counterpositive’. Although in his other papers on negation, Shaw limits Nyāya negation to two main kinds: relational absence and mutual absence, represented respectively by (1): x is not in y, or x does not occur in y, or the absence of x occurring in y; and (2): x is not y, or x is different from y; where ‘x’ and ‘y’ are non-empty terms, and their counterpositive are: (1’) x is in y, or x occurs in y, and (2’) x is y. I am indeed grateful to Dr J.L. Shaw for sharing his papers on negation with me, and I have drawn liberally with his permission and kind guidance for the present essay. In particular, his 1978 paper.
- 9.
A point made by K.C. Bhattacharyya (1983: 576; 599–601). Bhattacharyya asks, what is the denial of ‘A is either B or C’? Is it ‘A is either not B or not C’? Bhattacharyya’s response is ‘no’; he says it that ‘A is either B or not-B’ is the logical negative of ‘A is either B or C’; but this is the proverbial excluded middle again; however, Bhattacharyya feels strongly that the ‘indeterminacy’ reeking through such negations that evade absolute truth is the ‘limiting mystery of all philosophy’! (601).
- 10.
Śabarasvāmin, Bhāṣya, I.i.5: “abhāvo’pi pramāṇyābhavo nāstītyasyāsannikṛṣy’eti”.
- 11.
This is an intersperse by Pārthasārathi Miśra (1978: 336) preceding Ślokavārttika, Abhāva 7; see previous and next notes.
- 12.
We find this also in Śāstradīpikā.
- 13.
Although for Udayana it is more a case of anumāna – straight inference – than it is of implication.
- 14.
Supplemented with Dhirendra Sharma’s (1974: 29-30ff) translation (with slight modification).
- 15.
“jñ ayate kaiścid rūpaṃ kiṅcit kadācana” (Bhaṭṭa 1978, 12, p. 337).
- 16.
Cited in Sharma (1974: 35–36), meaning that for these philosophers the ‘non-existent’ is a reality sui generis (vastuvantaram) and this ‘knowledge of absence’ (not just absence of knowledge) is admitted via yogya-pratiyogya-anupalabdhi, though not as an inference (anumāna), but a special means of knowing, pramāṇa, which they called abhāva . See also Kellner 1997.
- 17.
See next note.
- 18.
Neither is it a prameya nor is it separate pramāṇa; what we call ‘non-cognition’ is really a perception of the positive entity (the counterpositive), namely that the locus is bereft of a certain entity that otherwise was there – the latter is recalled by memory and thus provides the counterpositive as the positive entity in the apprehension along with the locus that is indeed given in perception.
- 19.
Discussed by Śālikanātha, (Pandurangi 2004: 257–258).
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Bilimoria, P. (2016). Negation (abhāva), Non-existents, and a Distinctive pramāṇa in the Nyāya-Mīmāṃsā. In: Bilimoria, P., Hemmingsen, M. (eds) Comparative Philosophy and J.L. Shaw. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17873-8_12
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