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debate. Moreover, according to the second part of the verse employment of reasons goes hand in hand with reference to tradition and appropriate behaviour.
From the historical point of view I would certainly consider it mistaken to claim that in the Värṣṇeyädhyatma chapters we encounter a developmental stage of the Nyaya preceding the stage represented by the final compilation of the Nydyasutra. However, one could characterize these materials as presented in the Mokṣadharma (1) - using Vätsyāyana's terminology - as reflecting an adhyatmavidya which works as an investigative science (anvikṣiki) relying on examination and consideration by means of reasons, and (2) as belonging in this latter aspect to, or having drawn from, the intellectual milieu concerned with debate out of which the Nyaya developed as a philosophical school and of which further traces, touching upon other distinctive features of this milieu, remain in the Epic. Of more specific relevance in the present context, however, is the fact that apologetics do not figure in these philosophically and at the same time soteriologically and theologically oriented materials. I want to place them therefore at a time and in a climate when tradition did not yet feel seriously threatened by the employment of reasons and dialectical-eristic means vis-à-vis its specific topics, and those employing them did not think it absolutely necessary to counteract these feelings.
Nonetheless, elsewhere in the Epic, and not excluding the Mokṣadharma section, we do find some rather pronounced attacks against the use of reason and reasons in matters concerning the Self or the tradition as such, reflecting or even parallelling historically the extreme caution, suspicion and even hostility to be observed in general towards the free employment of reasoning in the Dharmaśästra literature - in contradistinction to the attitude displayed in the Dharmasutra-s. In the context of the present essay it suffices to adduce briefly two examples from the Mokṣadharma. The first one refers to reasoning under the term tarka discussed above as an essential activity and one of the relevant topics of the Nyaya (cf. p. 237f.). A secret teaching leading to the knowledge and understanding of the Self and meant for students of the Veda who have completed their training" should not be communicated to, among others, a person who has been "burnt," that is, destroyed completely, by the (or: a) teaching concerning reasoning (tarkasästradagdha)". The second example attacks
93 Cf. MB 12.238.13 ( B 12.246.13): rahasyam sarvavedänām... dtmapraryayikam sastram idam... anulasanam, 15cd (= B 16ab): sndtakānām idam śästram... anusäsanam; 18a-c (= B 19a-c): idam... rahasyadharmam....
Debate and Independent Reasoning vs. Tradition
reasoning, referring to it with an array of related terms. God Indra, appearing in the form of a jackal, narrates in a warning tone to the wise, but deeply distressed Brahmin Kasyapa how his own birth in the form of this despised, impure animal came about:
"I was a little pandit, busy with reasons (haituka) [and] censuring the Veda, devoted to the useless investigating (änvikṣiki) science of reasoning (tarkavidya); I made bombastic speeches about reasons (heru) and spoke, equipped with reasons, in the assemblies. I abused twice-born [persons] and snapped [at them] in the context of [their] statements on brahman. I was a [heretical] denier (nästika) and an all-doubting fool who deemed himself a scholar. "95
The jackal adds that should he ever be reborn as a human being, he would wish to know only what one should and may know, and would avoid what is to be avoided." Taking also into consideration the usage of the alarming term nästika, the words of the jackal can be understood as a warning to the developing orthodox philosophical traditions with their growing emphasis on logic and increasing distance from the Veda, at their head the Nyaya.
The resulting precarious position of the Nyaya is articulated in the Skandapurāna in the form of a legend about Gotama, as the legendary founder of the Nyaya school is called there," linked with the episode of the jackal in the Mokṣadharma and expressing the continuing ambivalent attitude of the orthodox tradition vis-à-vis reasoning in an almost anecdotical manner:
243
Cf. MBH 12.238.17c (= B 12.246.18c); na tarkasästradagdhaya... (K: na hetuvācamugdhāya; D1: na tatkuästradandaya; G: na tacchästravidagdhaya). Cf. also DAHLMANN 1895, 224; VIDYABHUSANA 1920, 8; 37, and 1930, xvi (original introduction p. xii); WINTERNITZ 1929, 7 (n. 18); THAKUR 1974, 403 and 1975, 42 (266 should be corrected to 246).
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II.
95 Cf. MBh 12.173.45-47ab ( B 12.180.47-49ab): aham asam panditako haituko vedanindakaḥ?!
anviksikin tarkavidyám anurakto nirarthikām // 45 //
hetuvädän pravadita" vakta samsatsu hetumat
akroştă cabhivakta ca brahmayajñeşu vai dvijän || 46 11
nästikaḥ sarvasanki ca mürkhah panditamánikaḥ
For the relevant variants and further details cf. the appendix relating to this sequence.
96 Cf. MBh 12.173.49cd ( B 12.180.51cd): jñeyajñdid bhaveyam vai varjyavarjayitä tatha
"On this name cf. above, n. 91.