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THE PEACOCK'S EGG: BHARTRHARI ON LANGUAGE AND REALITY
Johannes Bronkhorst Section de langues et civilisations orientales, Université de Lausanne
philosopher, not merely those aspects of it that we choose and remove from their original context because they remind us of issues in Western philosophy?
I will argue that a deeper understanding, one that goes beyond mere historical fand sociological analyses, is possible in the case of an important part of Indian philosophy. This is due to a factor that too rarely draws the attention of modern Ticholars. I am speaking of the presence of a tradition of rational debate and inquiry. I use this expression to refer to a tradition that came to establish itself in India-or at least in the main philosophical schools-and that obliged thinkers to listen to the criticism of often unfriendly critics, even where it concerned their most sacred convictions, such as those supposedly based on revelation, tradition, or inspiration. Confrontations between thinkers so radically opposed to each other were no doubt facilitated by the dehates organized from time to time by kings about which we have some firsthand information from the pen of Chinese pilgrims visitine India in the middle centuries of the first millennium. Little is known about the reasons why. and the date when this tradition of critical debate came to establish itself in India. Its lects, however, are visible in the efforts made by Indian thinkers to systematize their positions, to make them coherent and immune to criticism.
These reflections allow us to identify a particularly important factor in the de. lopment of Indian philosophy. Under pressure from competitors. the Indian Pinkers of the early classical period were forced to do more than just preserve the achings they had received; they had to improve and refine them- perhaps in order avoid becoming the laughingstock of those they might have to confrontat a roval purt or on some other occasion. In doing so, they created systems of philosophy What might deviate considerably from the pre-systematic teachings that they had
Anyone who has ever opened a book on Indian philosophy will have been struck by the sometimes strange doctrines that were held by the different schools, and may have wondered to what extent it is possible really to understand Indian philosophy. And what do we mean when we say that we understand this or that Indian thinker or Indian philosophy in general? Indeed, to what extent did individual philosophers themselves understand the philosophies they wrote about? The Samkhya philoso phy, to take an example, proclaims the existence of twenty-five factors which they call tattws) that somehow evolve out of each other so as to create the phenomenal world. Did individual Samkhya thinkers know why exactly these twenty-five factors had to be accepted and not any others? Did they perhaps accept these factors simply because they had been sanctioned by their particular tradition, and because ean exposure lent them a degree of plausibility that they are unlikely to acquire in the case of those who do not become acquainted with them until later in life? If this is so, how much understanding can we modern scholars ever hope to attain? Are we condemned merely to record what the Indian thinkers thought, perhaps adding & historical dimension by investigating how some of these ideas succeed more or less similar earlier ones? Or a social dimension by pointing out that this or that position served the interests of this or that particular philosopher and those of his group? Such investigations, which put Indian philosophy in its historical and social contexts, are to be sure, possible and extremely important. Historical continuities have beer studied and more will no doubt be discovered. But is this as far as we can go? If so our understanding of Indian philosophy will not be very different from that of my thology: a number of just-so stories that we can study in their historical and socia contexts. Advocates of Indian philosophy will no doubt object that there is much more
t Indian philosophy than just this. They will point out that some of the discussions and analyses resemble, sometimes anticipate, certain discussions and analyses found Western philosophy. Such advocates often have a tendency to take these discussions and analyses out of their original context and concentrate, say, on the development of logic in the Indian schools. There can be no doubt that logic underwent a markable development in India that still draws far too little attention outside alim ited group of experts. But this logic was used-and this is too easily overlooked- defend the basic doctrinal positions of the schools concerned. These doctrinal pos tions themselves are often somehow taken for granted, or even played down, by modern investigators. If we wish to give these positions their due, we are back WIL our original question: to what extent can we understand the thought of an India
The history of Indian philosophy, seen in this way, becomes the story of the earch for coherence and immunity to criticism, starting normally-but not always,
seems-with some form of traditional teaching. This traditional teaching is usually f a nonphilosophical nature. Buddhist philosophy in its various manifestations for
Sample, based itself ultimately on the teaching of the Buddha, which concerned the c ape from suffering and rebirth and had no philosophical pretensions whatsoever. Several centuries separate the Buddha from the beginning of Buddhist systematic h ilosophy, centuries during which well-meaning monks organized the original
aching in various ways. Buddhist systematic philosophy, when it finally arose, was ased on, and continued in a way, these attempts at organizing. I tried to introduce herence and drew conclusions. Buddhist philosophy thus arose out of the attempt
introduce order and coherence in the received teachings. Other school c phi fosophy proceedlec similarly.
A history of Indian philosophy worth the name will have to deal in detail with e ways in which various early teachings were transformed into coherent systems of o ught. This is of necessity a somewhat technical endeavor, which I do not plan to
dertake, at least not in this essay. However, in their search for coherence and m unity to criticism Indian philosophers were also confronted with the question to
at extent their doctrines were compatible with certain convictions shared by all.
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Philosophy East & West Volume 51, Number October 2001 474-491
Johannes Bronkhorst
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