Kumārila’s Defence of Realism

Abstract

T complex structure of titles and subtitles highlights the twofold nature of this work, including a translation of a Sanskrit text on perception in a theoretical framework. The text is the Pratyakṣapariccheda (“chapter on perception”, but also “determination of perception”) of the Ślokavārttika, one of the main philosophical texts of the great mīmāṁsā thinker Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (possibly 7th century AD). Kumārila’s work, as Professor Taber understands it, represents the mīmāṁsā’s vigorous reply to the challenges of the Buddhist logician Diṅnāga (c. 480-540 AD). more in detail, Kumārila’s Pratyakṣapariccheda aims at defending the mīmāṁsaka realist view of perception against Diṅnāga’s sharp criticism. Diṅnāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya opens with an analysis of the definitions of perception to be found in the root-texts of the so-called orthodox systems of Hindu thought (among which mīmāṁsā is included), and shows their flaws. Perception, he maintains, is nothing but the immediate grasp of an unrepeatable particular (svalakṣaṇa). Every conceptualisation, and hence verbalisation, is necessarily subsequent and therefore unfaithful to the content of immediate perception (whose object has only a momentary existence). The unrepeatable particular stands in no justified relation with one’s succeeding conceptualisations of it (such as the awareness “this is x”), which should consequently be regarded as purely hypothetical. indeed, for KUmĀriLa’S DEFENCE oF rEaLiSm