Abstract
A number of different kinds of negation and negation of negation are developed in Indian thought, from ancient religious texts to classical philosophy. The chapter explores the Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, Jaina and Buddhist theorizing on the various forms and permutations of negation, denial, nullity, nothing and nothingness, or emptiness. The main thesis argued for is that in the broad Indic tradition, negation cannot be viewed as a mere classical operator turning the true into the false (and conversely), nor reduced to the mainstream Boolean dichotomy: 1 vs 0. Special attention is given to how contradiction is handled in Jaina and Buddhist logic.
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Notes
- 1.
The Rig Veda: An Anthology, transl. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Penguin Classics, New York, NY (1981), p. 25.
- 2.
It may be noted that this sūkta along with various Upaniṣadic binomial statements such as ‘It [Brahman] moves and it does not move’ resonate with the sevenfold predication of Jaina logic (Bhargava 1973); and that had also later preoccupied many an Indologist in Europe and India and recently the US. The Jaina theory is discussed in Part II.
- 3.
For further discussion of Wilhelm Halbfass on this observation, see (Bilimoria 2012). Chāndogya Upaniṣad (ChUp III, 19) in Olivelle, Patrick Upaniṣads, Oxford University Press, New York (1998).
- 4.
- 5.
Ślokavārttika (=SV), with Nyāyaratnākara of Pārthasārathi Miśra. Tara Publications, Varanasi (1979).
- 6.
See footnote 9 below.
- 7.
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’ (Zilberman 1988). 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 (seminar response).
- 8.
Jaiminisūtra In: Mīmāṃsādarśana edited by Gajanana Sastri Musalgaonkar, Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, Varanasi (1979).
- 9.
Technically signifies a conflict of two rules of which the latter prohibits the former.
- 10.
My suggestion of substituting here Church’s λ, lambda operator, has not gone down well with reviewers.
- 11.
I am grateful to Staal—when I was very confused by the Mīmāṃsā formulations, I went to Staal personally back in 1981, and we discussed some Mīmāṃsā texts together in Berkeley many moons ago.
- 12.
Shaw (1988) (pp. 144–145) classes them under ‘relational absences’, which certain caveats built into the “temporal relation as the limiting relation of the property of being the counterpositive.” A counterpositive is the negatum of a negation. 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 Shaw for sharing his papers on negation with me, and I have drawn liberally from with his permission. See See also Shaw (1981) (pp. 57–78); Shaw (1978); Shaw (1988) (p. 144). See also J L Shaw on double negation that pertains to this discussion (Shaw 2016c) (pp. 224–237).
- 13.
There is tendency sometimes to collapse anekāntavāda with syādvāda, but I believe it makes for more precision to keep them apart and see them as interactive reasoning.
- 14.
On the difference between ‘perspectivism’ and ‘relativism’ as understood in contemporary thought, see Bilimoria (2008).
- 15.
For further discussion, see Williams [27, 246] here Robinson is cited; and especially the chapter by D. Seyfort Ruegg [18, 213-277]; see also Garfield [7, 46].
- 16.
I am grateful to J L Shaw for this summary from Inada (1993).
- 17.
I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for this input by way of clarification (reference source undisclosed).
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Acknowledgement
I wish to express gratitude for the immense guidance I received from Jayshankar Lal Shaw and Anand Vaidya toward revising the chapter. I also thank (the late) Frits Staal, (the late) Bimal K. Matilal, Stephen Phillips, my students in Berkeley. The editors of this volume and an anonymous referee have also provided invaluable feedback from the time of the conference to this point in the process.
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Bilimoria, P. (2020). Thinking Negation in Early Hinduism & Classical Indian Philosophy. In: Silvestre, R.S., Göcke, B.P., Béziau, JY., Bilimoria, P. (eds) Beyond Faith and Rationality. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 34. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43535-6_16
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