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Śrīharṣa against the Naiyāyikas: can every definition be refuted, and how did Nyāya answer him?

Vikram Sethi Fellow
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SkepticismIndianMadhyamakaNyayaVedantaGangesaNagarjunaSriharsa#definition#regress-problem#sriharsa#vitanda
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Its coordinates: 2.4 Skepticism · 2.4.1 Global vs Local Skepticism

Definitions are my bread and butter. A good definition in geometry settles what you are talking about, and then the proofs can begin.

I recently came across Śrīharṣa, the twelfth-century Advaitin, whose great work has a title usually translated as something like The Sweets of Refutation. As far as I can tell he takes the Nyāya definitions of valid knowledge, of correspondence, of difference and so on, one by one, and shows that each fails, often by showing that the definition requires further terms that themselves need defining, and so on without end. Then he does not offer a better definition.

As a teacher this baffles me. If you only destroy and never build, what is the point? And if he was an Advaitin, with a positive view of reality, why would he use a method that seems to undermine every definition, including any he might want for himself?

Could someone explain what he was up to, and how the Naiyāyikas responded?

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5 answers

Accepted answer

  1. Meera Kulkarni

    ✓ Accepted answer Fellow

    The form of debate. Indian debate theory recognised a form called vitaṇḍā, refutation without establishing one's own thesis. Śrīharṣa defends it: two parties can debate under shared rules without either accepting the other's theory of knowledge. He plays by Nyāya's rules to show that, by those rules, Nyāya's definitions fail.

    The regress. A typical move: Nyāya defines valid cognition as cognition that corresponds to its object. But what is correspondence? Any definition brings in further terms, which can be pressed in turn. Either the definitions go on forever, or they circle, or they stop at an undefined term, and if you are allowed an undefined term here, why not elsewhere?

    The point. He was not a sceptic in the Pyrrhonian sense. As an Advaitin he held that the one reality, self-luminous consciousness, does not need to be established by any means of knowledge; it is what every cognition already presupposes. What cannot be coherently defined is the world of distinctions and differences that Nyāya's realism depends on. The refutations clear the ground; they do not leave it empty.

    The response. The later Navya-Nyāya school, from Gaṅgeśa onward, refined its definitions with extraordinary precision, and part of that refinement is commonly read as an answer to Śrīharṣa.

    Helpful · 1
    1. Vikram Sethi

      Fellow

      Thank you, Meera. I notice that axiomatic systems solve Śrīharṣa's problem by declaring some terms primitive: in Hilbert's geometry, "point" and "line" are simply not defined. Could the Naiyāyikas not have said that valid cognition is primitive?

      1. Meera Kulkarni

        Fellow

        Vikram, in effect some of them did. Navya-Nyāya recognised certain properties as unanalysable, properties that can be identified but not broken down into components. Śrīharṣa would reply that once you admit unanalysable items, you have conceded that your realism rests on something you cannot explain, which is exactly what he wanted you to admit. The debate then becomes whether an undefined primitive is a weakness or simply how any system has to begin. Mathematicians, I suspect, will side with the Naiyāyikas.

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Other answers

  1. Arjun Iyer

    Fellow

    From the Advaita side, a small addition to Meera's excellent answer. Śrīharṣa's destructive method has a constructive purpose, but the construction is not another definition. Consciousness is not an object to be defined at all; anything you could define would be one more item in the world of difference. So his refusal to offer a better definition is not evasion. It is the conclusion.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Nima Tsering Gurung

    Fellow

    The Madhyamaka parallel is hard to miss. Nāgārjuna, in the Vigrahavyāvartanī, answers an opponent by saying that if he had a thesis the fault would be his, but since he has none, he is without fault. A monk in Manang gave me a commentary on Nāgārjuna when I was nineteen and that verse was the first one I could not stop thinking about. The positive purposes behind the two refutation projects are completely different, emptiness for one and Brahman for the other, but the strategy of refusing to hold a position the opponent can attack is shared.

    Helpful · 3