[[Mohan K.V 2014-08-23, 04:36:46 Source]]
सदास्वादरोमन्थः
Dear readers,
Thank you for your continued support and feedback. There were again some delays in the last few editions owing to personal exigencies, and in view of that we have relaxed our posting schedule to once per fortnight. Hopefully, this should be a more sustainable pace.
In chapter 61 on the Vibhūti-yoga of the Bhagavad-gītā, we had translated ‘nīti’ in the space of ‘moral conduct, ethics and fairness’. While this has been the primary meaning in Sanskrit’s daughter languages in recent centuries, Śatāvadhāni Dr. R. Ganesh noted that the classical meaning of the word was more in the space of ‘management’, ‘leadership-quality’, ‘administration’, ‘polity’, etc. It gives a subtly different meaning, though the underlying message of sustaining gains and long-term thinking is reaffirmed. We thank Dr. Ganesh for this perspective.
In response to the bit on “the right time” for things to happen, Pavan Srinath wrote in with a fascinating concept in modern democratic public policy called the Overton window. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy defines it thus:
Joseph Overton observed that in a given public policy area, such as education, only a relatively narrow range of potential policies will be considered politically acceptable. This “window” of politically acceptable options is primarily defined not by what politicians prefer, but rather by what they believe they can support and still win re-election. In general, then, the window shifts to include different policy options not when ideas change among politicians, but when ideas change in the society that elects them.
This is very much the concept we were circling around! We thank Pavan for this excellent link, and look forward to receiving more.
(The Overton window can be extended from its descriptive role above; for example, from a discussion of web standards:
You start by outlining the continuum of possible opinions on an issue, including opinions which seem ridiculous or unthinkable. Then you figure out the narrower range of opinions that people currently consider reasonable. This range is the Overton window. The job of the think tank is to move the Overton window in a certain direction, so that ideas that were once unthinkable become acceptable to discuss, and ideas that were once radical become popular and perhaps even become policy. Along the way, certain ideas that were once popular may “fall out of favor” and become taboo.)
The final portion of the chapter dealt with balance that is necessary for anything to flourish. The concept is so tantalizing because one can see it everywhere: for example, in individuals, Discipline must control Talent – neither one by itself can achieve much; in nation-states, the threat of violence is very effective, perhaps even necessary, when present in controlled doses in a well-established peace. Neither violence alone, nor peace alone, can remain stable; Finally, even when we think of abstract models of society, it is by all means true that even a seemingly benign system of social organization as the market system in a democracy needs a restraining conscience.
In Chapter 62 on Cārvāka, we had mentioned that the author of the Sarva-darśana-saṃgraha was Mādhavācarya who later became Vidyāraṇya; While several occidental works, like the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (edited by the cricketer-philosopher Edward Craig) and Edward Rice’s History of Kanarese Literature, uphold that authorship, Dr. Ganesh wrote that it is much more likely that the author was Vidyāraṇya’s nephew, Sāyaṇa-Mādhava. Dr. Ganesh mentions the fact that the work references Vedanta-Deśika’s corpus, and it would have been nearly impossible for that to occur given the very short overlap between Deśika’s and Vidyāraṇya’s times. However, the author of the verse in the Parting Thought (from the Pañcadaśī) is indeed Vidyāraṇya. Our thanks to Dr. Ganesh for giving a glimpse of the kind of reasoned deduction at play behind settling authorship and timeline disputes.
In that chapter, we had mentioned the famous Cārvāka polemic, ‘yāvaj jīvet sukhaṃ jīvet ṛṇaṃ kṛtvā ghṛtaṃ pibet’ (‘For as long as you live, live happily. Live lavishly on debt!’). We think all disputes regarding the matter are settled by this joke:
An angel appears at a faculty meeting of the department of Philosophy, and tells the elderly dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behavior the Lord will reward him with his choice of infinite wisdom, infinite beauty or $10 million.
Without hesitating, the dean, who has spent a lifetime seeking knowledge, selects infinite wisdom.
“Done!” says the angel, and disappears in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning.
Now, all heads turn toward the dean, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light.
One of his colleagues whispers, “Now that you are infinitely wise, say something.”
The old dean sighs and says, “I should have taken the money.”
:-)
In Chapter 63 on the Śaraṇāgati gadya, Prof. Pramod Viswanath wondered about the incessant controversies and nitpicking that appears to occur in many discussions of the great ācāryas’ works. The large common ground between them appears to be completely ignored in favor of minor, arcane differences (there have been long-standing court disputes on whether a particular temple’s elephant should be anointed with a forehead mark that looks like a U or a Y!). The psychologist Sigmund Freud in one of his few true contributions coined a phrase for exactly this: the narcissism of small differences. In the words of blogger Dr. Joy Bliss,
“The narcissism of small differences” was Freud’s 1917 term for his observation that people with minor differences between them can be more combative and hateful than those with major differences. It is a handy concept. He viewed this as a narcissistic issue because the distress comes from looking in the mirror, as it were, and seeing a pimple.
(A similar concept was (re)discovered in the fields of robotics and computer animation as the Uncanny Valley.)
She also relates a hilarious joke:
I was walking across a bridge one sunny day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: ‘Stop. Don’t do it.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ he asked.
‘Well, there’s so much to live for!’
‘Like what?’
‘Are you religious?’
He said: ‘Yes.’
I said. ‘Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?’
‘Christian.’
‘Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?’’
‘Protestant.’
‘Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?’
‘Baptist.’
‘Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?’
‘Baptist Church of God.’
‘Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?’
‘Reformed Baptist Church of God.’
‘Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?’
He said: ‘Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915.’
I said: “Die, heretic scum,” and pushed him off the bridge.
Prof. Viswanath also wondered how such differences could persist for centuries. If there is no ‘stuff’ to it, how can it last? We are reminded of a passage in Dr. Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years:
There’s no fundamental difference in this respect between a silver dollar, a Susan B. Anthony dollar coin made of a copper-nickel alloy designed to look vaguely like gold, a green piece of paper with a picture of George Washington on it, or a digital blip on some bank’s computer.
[…]
The anthropologist Keith Hart once told me a story about his brother, who in the 50’s was a British soldier stationed in Hong Kong. Soldiers used to pay their bar tabs by writing checks on accounts back in England. Local merchants would often simply endorse them over to each other and pass them around as currency: once, he saw one of his own checks, written six months before, on the counter of a local vendor covered with about forty different tiny inscriptions in Chinese.
In a similar vein, once a dispute is born, it appears that those who stand to profit from it in any way can keep it ‘in circulation’ without even a peek at the contents!
Wrapping up in that chapter, we mentioned that the last verse of the Brahma-sūtras was ‘anāvṛttiḥ śabdāt’ (“Final emancipation, per the scripture.”), with ‘śabda’ referring to scripture. We had wondered what so many people were seeking to be liberated from – and we couldn’t resist inventing a Wellerism: “as the hen-pecked husband said with a sigh of relief when his wife stomped away to her mother’s house after yet another argument, ‘anāvṛttiḥ śabdāt’” :-)
We received a lot of complimentary feedback for Chapter 64 on Laukika-nyāyas, and are grateful for your consideration. Dr. Ganesh appreciated the informal tone that is developing around our writing, and mentioned that it was one of the factors that could help bridge gaps in time, space and culture. He mentioned that the kāka-tālīya-nyāya, which is almost a synonym for ‘coincidence’, is also used in positive light – a crow was trying hard in vain to crack open a palm fruit on a tree, when it fell down to the hard ground below and, to the crow’s delight, broke open by itself. The hrada-nakra-nyāya is also used also in the sense of mutually beneficial interdependence: it is desirable to have a crocodile dwell in a lake so that other critters don’t spoil it; in the same token, the crocodile wants a lake to itself to live safely. There were also a couple of minor typos which we will fix in the master edition.
Many of you wrote in with your very interesting interpretations of the zen koan in the Parting Thought, thank you. Here is how far we’ve come: The wilderness is our state of ignorance. The tiger and the precipice are the (collectively exhaustive) risks eternally present in this world, like disease, old age and death. One can try running from one temporarily, but eventually one is trapped. The vine and the the effort of climbing down it are all connected with such temporary mitigations. The white and black mice are day and night. The strawberry is a source of self-sufficient (svataḥ-siddha) joy. One ’lesson’ from it may be to not worry too much about the eternal constraints and to enjoy what we have. Who knows, maybe the constraints themselves make the enjoyment even more intense! We’re sure that like for most koans, many more interpretations exist.
The beauty of the nyāya genre is that it is infinitely extensible. One can seamlessly integrate the affairs of any time into them. For example, one can create a Nixon-China-nyāya from an interesting modern political metaphor. From Wikipedia:
Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 was of particular significance because it marked the beginning of a process of thawing in Sino-American relations — the two countries had been estranged for many years, as the U.S. was ardently anti-Communist and refused to recognize its government, and China had viewed the United States as its top enemy. Because Nixon had an undisputed reputation of being a staunch anti-Communist, he was largely immune to any criticism of being “soft on Communism” by figures on the right of American politics.
As a political metaphor, it refers to the ability of a politician with an unassailable reputation among his supporters for representing and defending their values to take actions that would draw their criticism and even opposition if taken by someone without those credentials.
Fans of Asimov would recognize a ‘Denebīya-tamākhu-nyāya’, inspired from a line in his short story The Feeling of Power: “General Weider […] smoked Denebian tobacco with the air of one whose patriotism was so notorious, he could be allowed such liberties.” (Deneb is the enemy in the story.)
Of course, much of this is playing with perceptions. As an old Irish proverb goes, “He who gets a name for early rising can stay in bed until midday.” :-)
As always, we welcome any thoughts, feedback and suggestions from you all. Please email us at kvm….@gmail.com and shree…@gmail.com
Parting Thought
In a very poignant scene in a version of the Mahābhārata, Kunti blesses a bride thus:
भाग्यवन्तं प्रसूयेथाः मा शूरं मा च पण्डितम् ।
शूराश् च कृत-विद्याश् च वने सीदन्ति मत्-सुताः ॥
bhāgyavantaṃ prasūyethāḥ mā śūraṃ mā ca paṇḍitam |
śūrāḥ ca kṛta-vidyāḥ ca vane sīdanti matsutāḥ ||
“May you bear fortunate children [my dear], not brave or wise ones.
My mighty, learned sons are all withering away in the forest.”
Our minds recoil at the comparison of a completely uncontrollable, abstract factor like luck to much more concrete, consciously moldable traits like bravery or learning. Traits like these are the very currency of our mental transactions, revered and desired, whereas luck is a vague, emergent notion that is a transient byproduct of inefficiency or backwardness, which ought to be, and will be, stamped out in the march of progress. And yet – to a mother who cares only about her sons’ happiness, is any of that meaningful at all? If great achievement heralded by the world’s applause can yet not give peace to a loved one, of what use are the world’s value systems and hierarchies?
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