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Reading the Past: Texts and History
Bronkhorst: Systematic Philosophy between the Empires
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processes (which includes their ideas about number) reveals a succession of momentary steps: indeed, it has been said to be expressive of an "atomistic mode of thinking." Even the acceptance of common sense reality, which distinguished Vaibesika from Sarvästivada, led to a position which is very close to the one rejected. The common sense world of our experience is unreal and intimately connected with the words of language, according to Sarvästivada. This same common sense world is real according to Vaiserika, but still intimately connected with the words of language.
In order to create a coherent vision out of the elements just mentioned, Vaiseşika had to introduce a number of notions which in themselves were very different from what we find in contemporary Buddhist philosophy. This easily obscures the fact that both worked on the basis of an atomistic understanding of the world (both spatially and temporally) in which only proximate causality was allowed to "push" the next moments forward (Lysenko 1994; Bronkhorst 1992).
derivation be determined by the elements in place, not by elements that have not yet appeared.
Derivations as envisaged by Patanjali cannot use preceding information, either Only the elements in place at a particular stage determine the next operation.
This linear scheme characterizes processes in the first episteme: they consist of distinct stages, each of which is wholly determined by the immediately preceding one. It seems reasonable to assume that Patañjali thought of a grammatical derivation as some kind of process. Whether he thought of it as a mental process is less clear. For our present purposes this does not matter. Patañjali treated derivations as processes, and expected them to behave the way his episteme told him processes should behave.
It is of some importance to note that Katyāyana, whose Väririkas ie incorporated into Patañjali's Mahabhasya, does not yet adhere to Patañjali's vision of a grammatical derivation in which each stage is completely and exclusively determined by the elements in place (Bronkhorst forthcoming-e.) .
Jainism The Siyagada (Skt. Sūtrakstanga), one of the oldest texts of the Jaina canon, is acquainted with the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness. More interesting for our present purposes is that younger texts of the Jaina canon themselves adopt atomistic notions: the moment (samaya), the smallest unit of space (pradeśa), the atom (paramānu). All these are stated to be single, indivisible, indestructible in the Thara (Skt. Sthananiga). The Viyahapannari (Bhagawati) adds that "the atom and the objects that occupy one unit of space last onc unit of time." Other Canonical passages show that the Jainas side with the Vaiseșikas in accepting composite objects as separate and individual things (Jaini 1979: 98ff.; Bronkhorst 2000c).
Grammar The new atomistic way of thinking exerted an influence not just outside Buddhism but outside religio-philosophical thought as well. There is reason to think that it cxerted an influence on the discipline of grammar. This would then account for the conceptual gap which is known to exist between Pāņini and his commentator Patañjali.
The commentator Patañjali imposes a form of linearity on grammatical derivations which is not taught in Pāņini's grammer. S. D. Joshi and Paul Kiparsky have recently shown that many Pāṇinian derivations make use of (and have to make use of) "lookahead." Patañjali tries to arrive at the correct result without it. Only one example will be given here to illustrate the difference. In the derivation of dadhari "they put," the third person plural ending is not anti, as usual, but ati. In Pişinian terminology this means that the suffix jhi in the initial situation dhd-jhi is not replaced by anti, but by atl. However, the general rule (P. 7.1.3: jho ntah) prescribes substitution by ani, while the special rule (P. 7.1.4: ad abhyastar) prescribes atl only for the special case of reduplication. But at the initial stage there is no reduplication as yet; this does not come about until after some intermediate steps. Lookahead takes this future development into account, and does not replace jhi by anti until reduplication has taken place. Patañjali, and following him all later commentators, did not like lookahead, and tried to avoid it wherever possible. He goes through much trouble to formulate special principles and ad hoc rules that are meant to secure that each step in a
Sâmkhya Samkhya systematic thought looks at first sight like the odd man out in this enumeration of intellectual currents affected by the atomistic episteme. At first sight it seems indeed that the systematizers of this philosophy were not affected by it. Philosophical Simkhya as known to us from its classical texts does not postulate the existence of atoms, nor does it divide processes into momentary units. Simkhya causal thinking is poles apart from the idea of momentary proximale causes that push processes forward.
There is yet evidence concering early systematic Samkhya that suggests that the situation was not quite like that during the centuries preceding the Samkhya Karika, the earliest surviving text. A variety of early testimonies indicate that the Samkhya that found expression in Vårsaganya's Saspitantra and before included the view that the five qualities sound, touch, color, taste, and odor were the ultimate constituents of all material objects. This point of view is of course similar to that of the Sarvastivādins, who in addition thought that these qualities were essential ingredients of material atoms (Bronkhorst 1994a).
A number of indications furthermore suggest that early systematic Simkhya did have the idea of atoms that were constituted of more elementary parts. These more clementary parts are often called tanmätras, and contain among themselves (or are simply identified with) the five qualities.)
As has been pointed out above, the Samkhya that we find in the surviving texts is not in all details identical with the earlier form which interests us most at present, but information about which can only be obtained through more or less direct references and quotations in other works. We will see below that the second episteme may be responsible for the modifications subsequently introduced into school doctrine.
See the Appendix, below, and Bronkhorst forthcoming-c.
