On Deconstruction and Apoha

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N. Siva Senani 12HATL05 Prof. Shivarama Padikkal HA724 - Assignment

On Deconstruction and Apoha

1. Introduction

This is a review of the article The Theory of Apoha and Deconstruction: A Note by Prof. C. N. Ramachandran, but has moved quite a bit away from the format expected of a review, mainly due to the depth of the concepts being juxtaposed and the shortness of the Note. Note. Prof. Ramachandran’s Ramachandran’s starts with “decolonization” “decolonization” as the justification for the t he paper  (269): “ . . . to become free from cultural colonialism colonialism involves locating common elements and concerns between hegemonic Western ideas/ideologies and the so-called traditional ideas/idealogies ideas/idealogies of the post-colonial societies. societies. Even to be aware of the fact that Kuntaka analyses the ‘literariness’ of a work as deeply and comprehensively as Jan Mukarovsky and Cleanth Brooks is to take a step forward toward decolonization.” By comparing the theory of  Apoha and Deconstruction, then, it is being shown that what materialized in France in 1967, was a much discussed topic a millennium and half earlier in India and that therefore Indians need not be in awe of the Western intellectuals.

Then, Prof. Ramachandran sets out the views of the sanātanadharmins or  ātmavādins as Prof. Ramachandran describes them (a term borrowed 1 from Pandit One is unable to access Pandit Ranganath Pathak’s Ṣaḍdarśana Rahasya (Patna: Bihar  Rāṣtrabhāṣa Pariṣad, 1958) quoted by Mishra (as the source for Mishra’s Diagram 1, p25). However  the schematic shown is remarkably similar to the summary provided in paragraph 108 (pp118-19) by

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Ranganath Pathak via Rajanish Kumar Mishra), mainly following Bhartrihari, followed by that of anātmavādins of anātmavādins,, that is the Buddhists. According According to him (273), the Apoha theory of  meaning holds that “the meaning of a word comes into existence due to fact that ‘it is not any other’; that is, due to the difference between one object/idea and another. Words signify differences and not objective truth. (A cow is what non-cows are not.).” Then, he describes four similarities between Apoha and Deconstruction (275-6): a) Both are are a result of reaction against hegemonic systems; b) Buddhists have a concept called ‘ vikalpa’, vikalpa ’, which in Prof. Ramachandran’s reading equals options, and this optionality of meanings lies at the core of the Derridean differance. c) Both view perception as something which includes perception of both presence and absence: when we see a tree, we perceive both the presence of the tree and the absence of the non-tree d) Finally, language cannot ever convey the Truth because for Buddhists it makes actually different things look similar; whereas for Deconstructionists like Paul de Man, the figurative element is missed resulting in all readings being misreadings.

Finally, he concludes by stating that the t he “‘decentering’ impulse” impulse” – against the perceived Centre of ‘Essence’, ‘God’ etc. on one hand and ‘Brahma’, ‘Vak’ etc. on the other  hand – is what is active in both Buddhist theories of language and deconstruction. While

Vasudeva Sastri Abhyankar in his Sanskrit upodgātha ‘prolegomenon’ to the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha of Mādhavācārya, the source book for Mishra, Pathak and Abhyankar. Given that Pathak’s book is published in 1958, and Abhyankar’s in 1924, one might be tempted to say that the nomenclature was actually borrowed from Abhyankar, but it would be unfair to pass such a remark without actually going through Pathak’s book. It might turn out that both might have a common source, or there might be an attribution by Pathak. A common source is highly unlikely since the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha was first published in 1858 in Sanskrit, and its first English translation (by (b y E. B. Cowell and A. B. Gough) between 1874 and 1878 (Cowell’s Preface, vi). Abhyankar’s is the first known Sanskrit commentary of  this very popular text (the popularity is only from the latter half of the nineteenth century – manuscripts were rare earlier to the publication of the text). So much investigation into the source of  the terminology is carried out because the terminology and representation in Mishra’s Diagram 1 is very appropriate and precise, and deserves to be widely disseminated (in the normal sense, not the Derridean sense: for, precision is the darling of the metaphysicists, that sanātanadharmins surely are).

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Ranganath Pathak via Rajanish Kumar Mishra), mainly following Bhartrihari, followed by that of anātmavādins of anātmavādins,, that is the Buddhists. According According to him (273), the Apoha theory of  meaning holds that “the meaning of a word comes into existence due to fact that ‘it is not any other’; that is, due to the difference between one object/idea and another. Words signify differences and not objective truth. (A cow is what non-cows are not.).” Then, he describes four similarities between Apoha and Deconstruction (275-6): a) Both are are a result of reaction against hegemonic systems; b) Buddhists have a concept called ‘ vikalpa’, vikalpa ’, which in Prof. Ramachandran’s reading equals options, and this optionality of meanings lies at the core of the Derridean differance. c) Both view perception as something which includes perception of both presence and absence: when we see a tree, we perceive both the presence of the tree and the absence of the non-tree d) Finally, language cannot ever convey the Truth because for Buddhists it makes actually different things look similar; whereas for Deconstructionists like Paul de Man, the figurative element is missed resulting in all readings being misreadings.

Finally, he concludes by stating that the t he “‘decentering’ impulse” impulse” – against the perceived Centre of ‘Essence’, ‘God’ etc. on one hand and ‘Brahma’, ‘Vak’ etc. on the other  hand – is what is active in both Buddhist theories of language and deconstruction. While

Vasudeva Sastri Abhyankar in his Sanskrit upodgātha ‘prolegomenon’ to the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha of Mādhavācārya, the source book for Mishra, Pathak and Abhyankar. Given that Pathak’s book is published in 1958, and Abhyankar’s in 1924, one might be tempted to say that the nomenclature was actually borrowed from Abhyankar, but it would be unfair to pass such a remark without actually going through Pathak’s book. It might turn out that both might have a common source, or there might be an attribution by Pathak. A common source is highly unlikely since the Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha was first published in 1858 in Sanskrit, and its first English translation (by (b y E. B. Cowell and A. B. Gough) between 1874 and 1878 (Cowell’s Preface, vi). Abhyankar’s is the first known Sanskrit commentary of  this very popular text (the popularity is only from the latter half of the nineteenth century – manuscripts were rare earlier to the publication of the text). So much investigation into the source of  the terminology is carried out because the terminology and representation in Mishra’s Diagram 1 is very appropriate and precise, and deserves to be widely disseminated (in the normal sense, not the Derridean sense: for, precision is the darling of the metaphysicists, that sanātanadharmins surely are).

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there is nothing that is amiss in what Prof. Ramachandran says about apoha and deconstruction, there is quite a bit left unsaid.

First and foremost, he “take[s] it for granted that m ost of the theoretical positions of  Deconstruction are familiar to reader,” and so t ouches them upon only briefly, in fact f act in only one paragraph. A brief outline of deconstruction is then one natural task that might be attempted. Secondly, Prof. Ramachandran does not touch upon a few aspects: •

the application of concepts in literary criticism and translation

•

the difference between philosophy (which deconstruction amounts to) and a concept, which is more of what apoha is

•

 Apoha’s  Apoha’s intimate relationship with inference as a means of knowing

•

The focus of deconstruction in removing the boundaries and foundations

•

Finally, the totally different result obtained by two systems which start similarly.

Finally, Prof. Ramachandran leaves a few Sanskrit verses untranslated, which need to be translated. These three then are the points of departure. It is proposed to first present deconstruction, first in the words of Derrida, and then as seen by followers and critics. In the section after that, the background necessitating necessitating apoha is given: the problem of universals. Then apoha is treated in somewhat more detail than in Prof. Ramachandran’s paper, mainly in order to lay the basis for the subsequent section, which reviews the similarities pointed out by Prof. Ramachandran Ramachandran and also considers other relationships – similarities or  differences.

Here, an explanation for the length of this paper might be in order.  Apoha in all its nuances is quite a vast subject; Dharmakīrti’s work Pramāṇavārttika alone has 1,05,400 ślokas in Tibetan as its commentaries, commentaries, according to Rahul Sankrityayan Sankrityayan ( ११). Prof. Ramachandran makes some valid remarks about apoha but without explaining them.

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Without explanations, an already anti-intuitive concept concept appears further irrational, or at any rate incomplete. Hence the attempt here to t o provide sufficient background material, material, without considering the length of the paper.

2. Deconstruction

In giving definitions, the safe practice would be to use the words of the original thinker himself to the extent possible. The problem with such an approach is that Derrida will not commit to a meaning, an interpretation of any word or concept, much less something as overarching as deconstruction, if he can help it. It is indeed mostly in interaction with others, when he has to abide by certain norms of expected social behaviour of not refusing such as in interviews or letters, that he comes close to defining deconstruction. deconstruction. Thus, if we depend on Derrida to define deconstruction for us, the way is to engage with his entire discourse; for  in performing these acts of obligation, he only touches – for meaning can only be touched, not grasped – on what is deconstruction. Other ‘definitions’ are what others think Derrida means.

Derrida talks about his “general strategy of deconstruction” deconstruction” in the t he interview (~1971) with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta (Positions, 38-39). There he clearly spells out that deconstruction has two phases: in the first, the objective is to r everse the hierarchy of metaphysical binaries; in the second phase, a new ‘concept’ emerges, which consolidates the reversal, sometimes by using a paleonym 2. Derrida says we must “mark the interval

This is a typical Derridean portmanteau combining two or more words, or more usually parts of  words, to form a new word, like the nefarious advertorial combining paleo combining paleo from the Greek palaios Greek palaios meaning old or ancient (in fact, the term paleolithic – along with neolithic, to distinguish the old stone age and the new stone age – was similarly coined by John Lubbock in the nineteenth century), and nymy from nymy from the Greek onoma or onyma (compare with Sanskrit nāma) meaning name. Paleonymy, then, is to put old names to work in a different way, in a redefined way. redefined way. Differance is the most famous of Derrida’s paleonyms – the difference in spelling is to show that this old name is now redefined. 2

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between inversion, which brings low what is high, and the irruptive emergence of a new “concept”, a concept that can no longer be, never could be, included in the previous regime”. These binaries are many: male/female, white/black, father/son, essence/appearance, intelligible/sensible, speech/writing, original/translation etc. A similar delineation of two phases – reversal and intervention – of deconstruction is to be found (6) in the “Outwork” 3 to his work, Dissemination. Here, we see deconstruction clearly as a reactionary move to Platonic metaphysics, which for Derrida is the entire W estern philosophical tradition from Plato onwards.

Chronologically speaking, the next instance when Derrida is obligated to talk about deconstruction is when a Japanese friend, Prof. Izutsu, intending to translate Derrida, asks for some “schematic and preliminary reflections” on the word “ deconstruction”. Derrida, in good faith, starts at the beginning (Letter to a Japanese Friend): When I chose the word, or when it imposed itself on me – I think it was in Of  Grammatology – . . . I wished to translate and adapt to my own ends the Heideggerian word Destruktion or  Abbau. Each signified in this context an operation bearing on the structure or traditional architecture of t he fundamental concepts of ontology or of Western metaphysics. But in French “destruction” too obviously implied an annihilation or a negative reduction much closer perhaps to Nietzschean “demolition” than to the Heideggerian interpretation.

In that exposition Derrida is keen that the Japanese translation avoid the negative determination of the word’s significations and connotations. This concern, then, allows him

Another  play of Derrida. For Derrida, what other call a preface is at once, impossible and indispensible. So he titles it Hors livre, translated as “Outwork’ by the translator. This book, famously, starts with the sentence: “This (therefore) will not have been a book.” Compared to that “Outwork” is a much milder subversion of received concepts of preface, book etc. 3

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to frame the question as: “what deconstruction is not, or what it ought not to be”. This turns out to be a long list, as evidenced by the excerpts from the letter given below. •

Deconstruction is neither an analysis nor a critique. . . .

•

Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one. It must also be made clear that deconstruction is not even an act or an operation. . . .

•

Deconstruction takes place, it is an event that does not await the deliberation, consciousness, or organization of a subject, or even of  modernity. It deconstructs itself. It can be deconstructed. . . .

•

All sentences of the type “deconstruction is X” or “deconstruction is not X” a priori miss the point, which is to say that they are at least false. One of  the principal things at stake in what is called in my texts “deconstruction” is precisely the delimiting of ontology and above all of the third person present indicative: S is P. . . .

•

What deconstruction is not? everything of course!

•

What is deconstruction? nothing of course.

Derrida understands that he is not being very helpful, and so states explicitly I recognize, my dear friend, that in trying to make a word clearer so as to assist its translation, I am only thereby increasing the difficulties: “the impossible task of the translator” (Benjamin). This too is meant by “deconstructs”.

This sentence, though, not related to a definition unfolds an important facet of the practice of  deconstruction, if one could use such a phrase. The refusal to pin down a meaning is not deliberate; there is a deeper play: the text is autonomous, it is not the writer who controls what the text means. Once he has committed, once he could no longer defer, he has to

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reinterpret afresh everytime he revisits. Or, he needs to deconstruct the limiting adjuncts that were inevitable in the earlier uses of the word. The above sentence is Derrida, the regular  Joe, one who abides by common courtesies – an ancient social contract, a  paleanthropact  as Derrida might put it – as opposed to Derrida, the philosopher, speaking. A friend, who wants to be helpful, but simply cannot be. For, the tone of Derrida the philosopher, facing an inquisition, as it were, is quite different4, as seen in the next definition that we consider.

At a later time (1989), Derrida says “Deconstruction is generally practiced in two ways or two styles, although it most often grafts one on to the other. One takes on the demonstrative and apparently ahistorical allure of logico-formal paradoxes. The other, more historical or more anamnesic, seems to proceed through readings of texts, meticulous interpretations and genealogies.” (Force of Law, 21). The second style, the historical reading, can be found in Of Grammatology where the history of writing is meticulously interpreted. The paradox or aporia 5 examined in Force of Law is the distinction between “justice . . . and the exercise of justice as law or right, legitimacy or legality, stabilizable and statutory, calculable, a system of regulated and coded prescriptions.” (Force of Law, 22). The aporia is explained thus by Derrida: Everything would still be simple if this distinction between justice and droit 6  were a true distinction, an opposition whose functioning was logically

Different, but kind, nonetheless. For such a consummate master of the language, for whom each word manifests itself in its complete historicity, from its etymology to metaphorical usage to becoming a receptacle of many assumptions to the possibility of it being a paleonym, Derrida never seems to use this mastery to hit back using language. Adverse critics would say his deconstruction is cruel enough. That is exactly what this admirer – of his use of language – wants to say: Derrida does not use harsh language to hit back. 4

Impasse would be etymologically the closest to aporia, which is from the Greek poros passage. The equivalent in Indian languages would be agamya, impassable. With Derrida, tracing etymologies is very useful, and sometimes illuminating. 5

French for law and right. Derrida begins this Keynote address at the colloquium on ‘Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice’ (Oct. 1989, Cardoso Law School, New York) by playfully suggesting that he, a Frenchman being asked to speak in English, however fluent he be in English, is not just. His words are “C’est ici un devoir, je dois m’adresser à vous en anglais ‘This is an obligation, I must address myself to you in English. As it turned out he could not read the entire paper for lack of time. 6

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regulated and permitted mastery. But it turns out that droit claims to exercise itself in the name of justice and that justice is required to establish itself in the name of a law that must be “enforced.” Deconstruction always finds itself  between these two poles. (Force of Law, 22)

This definition of deconstruction is baffling at f irst. One is prepared to view deconstruction as a philosophy, or as a method of reading, but deconstruction is not something which one associates with questions of law and justice. This aspect was not lost on Derrida, who said: Although I’ve been entrusted with the f ormidable honor of the “keynote address,” I had nothing to do with the invention of this title or with the implicit formulation of the problem. “Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice”: the conjunction “and” brings together words, concepts, perhaps things that don’t belong to the same category. A conjunction such as “and” dares to defy order, taxonomy, classificatory logic, no matter how it works: by analogy, distinction or opposition. . . . This title suggests a question that itself takes the form of a suspicion; does deconstruction insure, permit, authorize the possibility of justice? Does it make justice possible, or a discourse of  consequence on justice and the conditions of its possibility? Yes, certain people would reply; no, replies the other party. Do the so-called deconstructionists have anything to say about justice, anything to do with it? Why, basically, do they speak of it so little? Does it interest them, in the end? Isn’t it because, as certain people suspect, deconstruction doesn’t in itself  permit any just action, any just discourse on justice but instead constitutes a threat to droit , to law or right, and ruins the condition of the very possibility of   justice? . . . That is the choice, the “either/or”, “yes or no” that I detect in this The second part was read at a Conference on ‘Nazism and the Final Solution: Probing the Limits of  Representation’ organized by the University of California (USA) in April 1990.

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title. To this extent, the title is rather violent, polemical, inquisitorial. We may fear that it contains some instrument of torture – that is, a manner of  interrogation that is not the most just.” (Force of Law, 3-4).

Derrida answers these questions obliquely. In his own words, he shows that (14-15) It is this deconstructible structure of law (droit ), or if you prefer of justice as droit , that also insures the possibility of deconstruction. Justice in itself, if  such a thing exists, outside or beyond law, is not deconstructible. No more than deconstruction itself, if such a thing exists. Deconstruction is justice. . . . deconstruction takes place in the interval that separates the undeconstructibility of justice from the deconstructability of droit (authority, legitimacy, and so on).”

Derrida’s view on what deconstruction is may be found in his deconstructive reading of Rousseau’s essay On the Origin of Languages, in Of Grammatology. There (158), Derrida in a section called The Exorbitant. Question of Method brings up the question of the usage of the word “supplement” and says that the question is “not only of Rosseau’s writing, but also our reading.” This reading is identified as the deconstructive reading by Peter Barry (69), according to whom, Derrida’s own definition of deconstruction would be: [Deconstructive] reading must always aim at a certain relationship, unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not command of the patterns of the language that he uses. . . . [It] attempts to make the non-seen accessible to sight.

Both Barry (68-69) and Abrams and Harpham (73-74) cite Barbara Johnson’s definition: Deconstruction is not synonymous with destruction. . . . The deconstruction

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of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text itself. If  anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another.

Finally, some glimpses of what Derrida later said about deconstruction can be found in Deconstruction: A User’s Guide edited by Nicholas Royle. In Royle’s essay “What is Deconstruction,” the least bad definition of deconstruction, according to Derrida, is said to be “the experience of the impossible” (Derrida, ‘Afterw.rds: or, at least, less than a letter  about a letter less’, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, in Afterwords, ed. Nicholas Royle. Tampere, Finland: Outside Books, 1992, 200. Qtd. in Royle, 6). Royle also gives (10) a “constantive statement” about deconstruction by Derrida: Deconstruction is neither a theory nor a philosophy. It is neither a school nor  a method. It is not even a discourse, nor an act, nor a practice. It is what happens, what is happening today in what is called society, politics, diplomacy, economics, historical reality, and son on and so forth. Deconstruction is the case. I say this not only because I think it is true and because I could demonstrate it if we had time; but also to give an example of  a statement. (Derrida “Some Statements and Truisms about Neo-Logisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and other Small Seismisms.” Trans. Anne Tomiche, in The States of Theory: History, Art and Critical Discourse, ed. David Carroll, 1990. pp. 63-95, p. 85).

In the same book, Derrida writes an essay “Et cetera”, where he writes (300): Each time that I say ‘deconstruction and X (regardless of the concept or the theme),’ this is the prelude to a very singular division that turns this X into, or  rather makes appear in this X, an impossibility that becomes its proper and sole possibility, with the result that between the X as possible and the ‘same’

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X as impossible, there is nothing but a relation of homonymy, a relation for  which we have to provide an account. For example, here referring myself to demonstrations I have already attempted  gift, hospitality, death itself (and therefore so many other things) can be possible only as impossible, as the im-possible, that is, unconditionally.

It is best to end the search for a definition of deconstruction, by quoting in full the dictionary entry7 suggested by Royle (11). deconstruction n. not what you think: the experience of the impossible: what remains to be thought: a logic of destabilization always already on the move in ‘things themselves’: what makes every identity at once itself and different from itself: a logic of spectrality: a theoretical and practical parasitism or  virology: what is happening today in what is called society, politics, diplomacy, economics, historical reality, and so on: the opening of the future itself.

Most of the above, in a way, do not define deconstruction, as much practice the construction of what Derrida terms “constantive statements.” The problem is that admirers of  Derrida tend to give similar constantive statements; whereas critics give definitions which

Royle’s article is styled as a letter to the Editor of Chambers dictionary criticizing negatively the entry on deconstruction. There he touches upon not only Chambers but also definitions in various versions of the Oxford English Dictionary. Hence, at the end he gives what a dictionary entry might look like. Royle ends his piece with the following: “It will be obvious to you by now that I cannot send this. I ask myself: what would it mean to suppose that a letter like this could reach its destination? I ask you, dear, anonymous reader.” A dictionary represents common consensus, to the extent such a consensus is possible. A dictionary works in a certain mode: the user of a dictionary expects his problem to be solved, his quest for meaning to end. Royle’s letter cannot be sent for both these reasons. First, it is not upto Derrida or his admirers to fix meaning; meaning is what readers understand (perform, if one has to sound suitably Theoretical ). Deconstruction, then, means what Chambers and Oxford English Dictionary present it as. Second, Royle’s suggested entry does not simplify, it is, to borrow a term from the Telugu play Kanyāśulkam, deconstruction-made-difficult. Such entries would make dictionaries disappear. In simple terms, nobody would pay hard-earned money to be confused. So the Editor would be doubly justified in rejecting the letter and Royle knows that, and wants the reader to know. This, then, is the essence of Derridean thought: Language distorts, but is our only tool. 7

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the admirers say is incomplete or incorrect. Then, one will try to present one’s own understanding of what deconstruction is, whatever be its label. First, it is post-metaphysical and does not believe that something necessarily is. Second, due to this, it holds that meaning, to the extent that it can be related, is based on differences, in space and time, and is limited by context, the various ‘constructs’ that the writer, without knowing it himself, utilizes. Third, even if the writer were aware, he cannot avoid these ‘constructs’ of structures which limit meaning and the best he can do is, be aware. Therefore, everything is provisional, and every reading produces a new meaning. In this sense, language is selfreferential; every new performance changes the meaning. Fourth, one usual consequence of undoing the constructs is that foundations – ontological, epistemological, theological etc.  – of a given writer’s writing are undone, exposing the absurdity of his final positions. This applies only to writings of those who subscribe to ‘foundational’ theories. Deconstruction itself, therefore, does not subscribe to any foundational theories, nor does deconstruction claim to be a foundational theory. Fifth, since differences, rather differances are the basis, if  one could call it that, of meaning, translation, which often negotiates these differances, is a mode in which the original is best understood. Sixth, not only original/translation, but many other binaries are overturned by deconstruction by exposing their inherent invalid assumptions; thus, the absent is as important as the present , sometimes more so. Seventh, another way to look at the apparent stability of meaning is by understanding the structure of  representation. Each discourse builds its structure around a centre; say, Metaphysics around Being, Vedanta around Brahman, and Nationalism around India. The centre is, in reality, not the centre but posited at the centre for t he limited purpose of some situations initially. In due course, the limitedness of the purpose is lost on the writers and occasions deconstruction, which really de-constructs the centeredness. In that sense, a deconstructed world view or depiction is decentered, and since it is decentered, what was earlier marginal is no longer marginal. Finally, deconstruction happens not merely in philosophy or literature, but everywhere, in all discourses; for, language is the only tool we have to communicate, and language operates only when we can no longer defer; it operates with certain

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assumptions, yet, without the user being aware of those assumptions; and after  deconstruction those assumptions manifest in aporias, unresolvable and unjustified.

3. An Ontological Problem

How to define something that is not ? That is an ontological problem. Hiedegger  faced this problem while trying to define Nihilism. As quoted (xiv) in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Translator’s Preface to her translation of Derrida’s Of Grammatology , . . . Heidegger, establishing a definition, philosophically confronts the problem of definitions : in order for the nature of anything in particular to be defined as an entity, the question of Being in general must always already be broached and answered in the affirmative. That something is, presupposes that anything can be. . . . "The 'goodness' of the rightfully demanded 'good definition' finds its confirmation in our giving up the wish to define in so f ar as this must be established on assertions in which thinking dies out. ... No information can be given about nothingness and Being and nihilism, about their essence and about the ( verbal ) essence [it is] of the ( nominal ) essence [it is] which can be presented tangibly in the form of assertions [it is . . .]."

A similar problem presents itself with reference to universals for the Nominalists. Universals refer to the commonality of common nouns, say, a cow, or a tree. How do we know that certain animals are cows, and others are not? According to Realists, which group includes Plato and Aristotle on one hand, and Naiyāyikas and Mīmāṃsakas on the other  hand, universals exist. That is, there is something called cowness, or treeness which is t o be found only in cows or trees. Now, treeness has to be a single entity, which exists in all trees. When a tree is cut, the treeness itself is not cut. The Nominalists, which group includes

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Roscelin and Heidegger on the one hand, and some Indian Grammarians and Buddhists on the other hand, pose a theoretical question: what happens when all the individual cows in the world are dead? Would there be still something called a cowness? If it is there, obviously it is not associated with cows, because there are not any cows left. Now, how can something which is not associated with cows be the universal, cowness which defines all cows? It is not sufficient if they reject universals, they need to come up with an explanation of the empirical reality: that all speakers seem to understand the universal cowness: everybody knows what is a cow, and what is not. The question, then, is: how to define something, that is not?

The Buddhist doctrine of apoha, first put forth by Diṅnāga and later developed by Dharmakīrti, Śāntarakṣita, Kamalaśīla, Jñānaśrīmitra and Ratnakīrti, is “regarded as an epistemological resolution of an ontological problem” according to Bimal Krishna Matilal (15) in his introductory essay Buddhist Logic and Epistemology in the eponymous anthology. The resolution happens thus, in Matilal’s words: We need not accept universals as real and distinct entities . . . Our ability to use the same term to denote different individuals presupposes our knowledge or awareness of sameness or similarity or some shared feature in those individuals. This shared feature may simply be our agreement about what these individuals are not, or what kinds of terms cannot be applied to them. “This is a cow” denies simply such predicates as cannot be predicated of the object in question.”

With this theory of meaning, Nominalists can meaningfully talk about universals, without conceding the existence of universals. We find a similar construct in Saussure (120): In language there are only differences. Even more important: a difference generally implies positive terms between which the difference is set up; but in language there are only differences without positive terms. Whether we take

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the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system.

At the surface, this would make apoha and structuralism similar. What really sets them apart is the larger goal they serve. The Buddhist notion of  apoha, appearing as it did almost 800 years after Buddha, was a concept expounded to resolve the ontological problem. Saussure was not so committed a Nominalist. As Derrida shows in the second chapter of Of Grammatology , Saussure’s preference for speech over writing, his phonocentrism, is related to logocentricsm, which for Derrida is “the metaphysics of phonetic writing (for example, of the alphabet) which was fundamentally - for enigmatic yet essential reasons that are inaccessible to a simple historical relativism - nothing but the most original and powerful ethnocentrism, in the process of imposing itself upon the world, controlling in one and the same order” (Grammatology, 3). In other words, assuming at the center, an invariable presence, what Derrida says is represented by “eidos, archē, telos, energeia, ousia (essence, existence, substance, subject) alētheia, transcendentality, consciousness, God, man and so forth” (Writing and Difference, 353). Thus, the same concept – of meaning being established through differentials – in the hands of Derrida for whom, a Presence if it were there, could not be grasped fully was much nearer to apoha. The beliefs of Derrida regarding the ultimate are difficult to pin down, but this writer has a notion that they are somewhat similar to the Buddhist Śūnya, which so mistakenly gets translated as nothing, portraying the Buddhists as nihilists.

4. Apoha

Diṅnāga (A.D 480 – 540) is the first proponent of the concept of  apoha in his work,

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the Pramāṇasamuccaya, a Sanskrit work which is available only in fragments in Sanskrit, and more fully in its Tibetan translation8. There, he treats knowledge obtained through language as a part of inference, a variety called svārthānumāna, i.e., inference drawn for  oneself. The fifth chapter of Pramāṇasamuccaya, dealing with apoha, opens with this verse. na pramāṇāntaraṃ śabdam anumānāt tathā hi tat | kṛtakatvādivat svārthamanyāpohena bhāṣate || 1 || (Knowledge through word is not different from inference. Just like inference, a word speaks of its object (artham, which also means meaning ) by excluding the others, like in the case of manufacturedness. [Any object is held to be transient, if it has manufacturedness because manufacturedness excludes permanence].9)

Diṅnāga views language as a system of signs, not an especially Buddhist concept. Further, the signified is not the actual object, such as a tree, but a mental construct, a vikalpa, again not an exclusive Buddhist view 10. The masterstroke or exclusively Buddhist

Tibetan translations are so accurate that it is often possible to reconstruct the Sanskrit original from the Tibetan. It is significant that for a concept being compared to deconstruction (which liberates translations), apoha is primarily available through translation, because the translation was very faithful. 8

The kārikā is quoted in Mishra (104, footnote 33). The translation of Mishra, traceable to Richard P. Hayes, was avoided as it was more appropriate in the context of a discussion of logic. Also it misses the aptness of both the meanings of artham. 9

Both can be found in Bhartṛhari, for instance, kārikās 3, 5 and 6 in the Sādhanasamuddeśa of  Padakāṇḍa of the Vākyapadīya, reproduced below with the translations of this writer: 10

sādhanavyavahāraśca buddyavasthā nibandhanaḥ | sannasanvā’rtharūpeṣu bhedo buddhyā prakalpyate || 3 || Sādhana, here, means the instrumentality through which grammar operates, that is division of things into subject, object, instrument etc. so that an appropriate case (vibhakti ) can be assigned to each sādhana, that is each thing divided into subject, object etc. Such a system of treating things like agent, object etc. (or division into subject and predicate) is called sādhanavyavahāra. This sādhanavyavahāra is tied to the things situated in the mind; whether they be actually present or not in the real world, their analysis into subject, object etc. is mentally fashioned. (The next kārikā gives an example of the usage “the people of Pāñcāla are more beautiful than the Kurus” in which construct, first the two peoples are imagined to be together, and are then divided on the basis of beauty by using the ablative case [than]). śabdopahitarūpāṃśca buddherviśayatāṃ gatān |

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innovation is to make the theory of meaning a particular application of inference. Buddhist inference works on the basis of elimination. Thus, evidence of smoke would rule out places like lakes, in fact every situation where there is no fire, till one arrives at the inevitable conclusion that there is fire. Here the signifier smoke excludes other situations and settles upon the intended signified fire. Similarly, the word f or tree such as vṛkṣa rule out all mental constructs of non-tree, till we arrive at the inference that the signified is the mental construct, tree. In other words, meaning is established based on difference.

The important thing is that this theory of meaning helps avoid the necessity to admit the existence of anything to use language. For the Buddhist, everything is in the state of a flux; the tree that one sees in front today is not the same tree one saw yesterday, nor the same one, one might see tomorrow. Why? There might be some leaves which fell today, tomorrow’s tree might have a bud which is not there today. In fact, if we follow this kind of  thinking to its logical end, we will arrive at the conclusion that tree of the last instant is not the tree of the present instant, for, surely some mitochondria is at work, converting energy and therefore changing the tree. Therefore, the tree at a given instant is exactly like itself  and is not similar to the tree at an earlier instant or a later instant. Thus, the four t enets of  Buddhism are given as sarvam kṣaṇikaṃ kṣaṇikam, duḥkhaṃ duḥkham, svalakṣaṇaṃ svalakṣaṇam, śūnyaṃ śūnyam ‘(1) All is momentary, momentary; (2) all is pain, pain; (3) all  pratyakṣamiva kaṃsādīn sādhanatvena manyate || 5 || The Bhāśyakāra [Patanjali] considers Kamsa and others, who are actually mental constructs given form by words, as if they were directly perceived, as sādhana. [This has reference to the Pāṇinian aphorism hetumati ca 3-1-26 which describes the application of causative affix ṇic . There, Kātyāyana, the vārttikakāra, adds the instance of story telling, such as the one about Krishna killing Kamsa, as a situation where ṇic is to be applied as Kamsa and others are not present as sādhana for ṇic affix to be applied. The bhāṣyakāra Patanjali differs with Kātyāyana, and Bhartṛhari gives the justification: for  Patanjali, Kamsa and others, though mental constructs, are to be treated as if they were directly perceived.] The larger idea here is that language operates with reference to mental constructs, not actual things. buddhipravṛttirūpañca samāropyābhidhātṛbhiḥ | artheṣu śaktibhedānāṃ kriyate parikalpanā || 6 || Further, the mental construct is imposed upon external objects by the speakers, and the conceptual differentiation of potentials (to be subject, object etc.) is being done.

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is like itself alone; all is void, void.’ (Cowell, 15) in the Hindu doxographical work Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha. The Śūnya, at least according to Nagarjuna the great Buddhist philosopher, ought not to be understood as nothingness or void, notwithstanding the above translation, but as something between a positive entity and a negative entity, exactly in the position that a zero has in the system of natural numbers. That is, Nagarjuna is not willing to deny the existence of anything, though he believes that the ultimate is empty or hollow. It is in this context, that Diṅnāga developed the concept of double negation to arrive at a theory of meaning. When we say that a tree is that which is not a non-tree, we can talk about tree without admitting its existence, or ultimate reality. At surface, this double negation looks like an elaborate way of saying exactly the same thing as a “tree”. Siderits (344) gives a good explanation of why it is not so. Consider “polite” and “impolite,” two mutually exclusive terms; then let us add not-impolite. This category of not-impolite is not the exact equivalent of  polite. For example somebody is addressed informally, rather very familiarly. Would we call that polite? No. Is it impolite? No. So there is something which is neither polite, nor impolite  – this thing is captured in “not-impolite”, but not in “polite”.

This “exclusion” theory of meaning apoha thus helps deny the existence of  universals while explaining the common use of language. For the Buddhist, if the existence of universals is admitted, one way or the other, it would lead to admitting the existence of  some ultimate being, named god or soul or whatever, which he denies. In a sense, Derrida had the same problem with the Husserlian Essence and Heideggerian Being , as apoha had with universals, and arrived at a similar ontology though he denies that deconstruction is based on such an ontology. Derridians might be more comfortable calling that the nonontology of Derrida in the sense that he merely disagrees with the ontology of the Metaphysicists.

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Prof. Ramachandran quotes a kārikā of Diṅnāga as the major statement of  apoha, without giving the meaning. Both the kārikā and meaning are given below for the sake of  completion11 of Diṅnāga’s treatment of apoha: vikalpayonayaḥ śabdāḥ vikalpāḥ śabdayonayaḥ | kāryakāraṇatā teṣāmarthaṃ śabdaspṛśyantyapi ||12 “The cause of words is mental constructs (vikalpa) and mental constructs are based on words. Hence there is a cause-effect relationship between these two. Words do not touch the ultimate reality. 13

There is another important pair of kārikās, 12 and 13 in Apohaparīkṣā (Chapter V of  the Pramāṇasamuccaya) dealing with completeness of signification, which is important when we compare apoha with deconstruction. These are available only in the Tibetan, and so the translation of Hayes (353) of the same is given: That to which a verbal sign is applied has many properties, only some of  which are made known through the verbal sign. The verbal sign merely serves to isolate what it expresses from other properties; it also isolates the particular to which the word is applied from particulars that do not have the property isolated by the verbal sign. A verbal sign also has numerous properties, but it is significant only in virtue of those properties of the sign that are restricted to the object expressed. In the Indian tradition, it is the commentator’s task to provide such supplements, which the original author might have omitted – “as it is obvious” is the usual sympathetic explanation. 11

According to Mishra (134), this verse was first quoted in full by Dr. Srinivas Shastri in his Vācaspati  Miśra dvāra Bauddha Darśana kā Vivecana (Discussion of Buddhism through Vacaspati Misra) Kurukshetra: 1968. 27 based on the Nyāyavārttikatātparyaṭīkā of Vācaspati Miśra. This writer was unable to trace it in the edition of the text published in 1898 as Vol. XIII of the Vizianagaram Series under the editorship of Mahāmahopādhyāya Gangadhara Sastri Tailanga, but it does not materially effect the presentation on Apoha. 12

Translation given in Mishra (134). The last sentence could also be rendered as “words merely touch meaning”, making them so Derridean, but one hesitates to posit that without going through the complete context carefully. Artham translated as “ultimate reality” above could also equally well be translated as external objects; but, these other interpretations do not result in any significantly different reading. 13

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As per Diṅnāga’s system only direct perception can give complete knowledge of an object and inference always omits some particulars. Thus, when fire is inferred from smoke, the fuel used, or the intensity of fire cannot be properly gauged. Similarly, words, or verbal signs from which is inferred the “meaning”, do not express all the properties, or all the details, of a given thing. The same is expressed slightly differently by Ole Pind (67): The sign, whether it is the inferential indicator ( liṅga, hetu) or the word (śabda), does not primarily concern that particular indicator and indicated or  that particular word and signified object, but t he invariable relationship (avinābhāva, sahabhāva, sambandha) that holds between any occurrence of, for example, smoke and fire, or of substance (dravya) and existence (sattā), or between any occurrence of, for example, the word “cow” ( gośabda) and the signified object cow (go). Thus, the indicator or the word is the type and not the token or occurrence. Things are only definable in relation to t heir type. The bare individuals, that is, particulars (svalakṣaṇa), remain outside the reach of signs.

Extending this, we could say that verbal signs do not express all the possible meanings; that in a given instant, other accompanying aspects determine the meaning that becomes expressed. Now when we compare this to the position of Derrida that meaning is inherently unstable, that there is an endless chain of self-referentiality, and that therefore a word will never capture the complete meaning, we see that both Diṅnāga and Derrida arrive at the same position: that words are inadequate and their meaning is never complete. As shall be shown in a later section, the position is similar, but the route to the position and the end which this position serves is different.

Of the developments in the concept of apoha, Dharmakīrti in his unfinished commentary called Pramāṇavārttika has provided the most important extensions. The

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apoha theory has been much expanded upon in later times: on the one hand, it was criticized by Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā schools, apart from Jain scholars and other Buddhist scholars as well; on the other hand, it was defended by many Buddhist scholars. Most of the developments post Dharmakīrti are polemical in nature, and at least as far as the topic at hand is concerned, not very relevant. John D. Dunne (85) gives a succinct summation of the various Buddhist authors who treated apoha.

Dignāga’s formulation of the apoha-theory was explicitly criticized by the Naiyāyika philosopher Uddyotkara (fl. 525) and by the Buddhist thinker  Bhāvaviveka (fl. 530), who developed a similar theory of his own. Dignāga’s thought – including the apoha-theory – receives a significant reworking at the hands of Dharmakīrti, and it is his reformulation that forms the basis for all subsequent treatments, whether Buddhist or non-Buddhist. Among Buddhist thinkers, the earliest commentarial layer consists of works by Devendrabuddhi [fl. 675] and Śākyabuddhi [fl. 700], and while they propose some innovations, their interpretations do not range far f rom Dharmakīrti’s works. Thinkers such as Śāntarakṣita (d. 787) and Kamalaśīla (fl. 765) incorporate Dharmakīrti’s philosophy into Mādhyamika perspective, but the details of his pramāṇa theories are not significantly revised. However, by the time the later commentators such as Jñānaśrīmitra (fl. 1000), Ratnakīrti (fl. 1025), Karṇakagomin (fl. 975), and Mokṣākaragupta (fl. 1100), a general trend toward ever greater realism about universals becomes evident. In Tibet, realist interpretations gain momentum, and in some cases receive criticism, at the hands of numerous prominent thinkers . . . .Since the presentation given in this chapter focuses on the earliest layer of interpretation, it may appear to conflict with the more realist approaches of some later Buddhist authors, but the general contours and mechanics of the theory will nevertheless remain the same.”

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Thus, for the purposes of this paper, it would be useful to state the essence of Dharmakīrti’s treatment of apoha without noticing the further details of the later, largely, polemical treatments14. Before proceeding with the presentation of  apoha as propounded by Dharmakīrti, the meaning of the verse quoted by Prof. Ramachandran as giving the view of  Dharmakīrti regarding apoha might as well be provided. tasyāṃ yadrūpamābhāti bāhyamekamivānyataḥ | (not yadrūpamāvibhāti) vyāvṛttamiva nistattvaṃ parikṣānaṅgabhāvataḥ || 3.77 || (not vyāvṛittim nistattvaṃ parīkśābhaṅgabhavataḥ ||) “That which appears as a definite form ‘cow’ is produced by the external object and conceptual construct in our intellect which is identical with the class cow and differential with the non-cow. This is not real at the transcendental level but after examining them we find nothing.” (Mishra, 134)15

This is indeed a major statement of  apoha theory by Dharmakīrti, but a satisfactory explanation would require quite a lengthy treatment, which shall be provided. For  For instance, in the Ślokavārttika, Kumārila Bhatta denounces apoha in 176 kārikās, compared to the 52 kārikās that Diṅnāga used to expound apoha (Ganganath Jha, 295-328). To this, Śāntarakṣita responds in 355 kārikās (867 to 1212 in Ganganath Jha’s (ed.) The Tattvasaṃgraha of Śāntarakṣita with the Commentary of Kamalaśīla, 2 vols., qtd. in Mishra (114, fn 67).This work was in turn criticized by Vācaspati Miśra and Jayanta Bhatta, and in return we have the Buddhist scholar Ratnakīrti composing an entire work devoted to apoha, the Apohasiddhi. 14

According to Mishra (134, fn 114) “The full verse is quoted by Dr. Srinivas Shastri in his Vācaspati  Miśra dvārā Bauddha Darśana Kā Vivecana, Kurukshetra: 1968, pp. 213 fn. 27.” However this verse is indeed quoted (with the corrections indicated above in the text) as No. 78 in Rahul Sankrityayan’s version of Pramāṇavārttikam published in 1943 by Kitab Mahal, Allahabad. (आचायधमकतः   15

माणवाकम   ्  – वाथान ुमानपरछेदः वोपवया   ्  ृ , कणकगोमवरचतया तीकया च सहतम  राहल   ू सपादतच , कताब महल, इलहावाद). The ṭīkā of Karṇakagomin is given here  ृ यायनेन सपरतं  ु सांक in Sanskrit for the sake of completion of reference. Translation is avoided because the following material in the text amounts to an explanatory translation of the same anyhow. तयामथं तयाम  भतायाबौ   ू ु

योऽथाकारो यवकपयोरेककरणा बामव। बाम  सजातीयास ु यषु समतभासमानम   ् एकमवायतो  वजातीया यावम  नतवं नःवभावम। वाभात  त   ् । तपं  ्  ु यावमे  ु  ृ वाभात।  ृृ व बपयालकवात  ु ककारणं परानगभावतः। परानगभावतः अथयासमथमेव परागमतः परानगभावेनाथयां यसमथवादयं  ु भवत। यत बतभास िपनतवमततषयो यवहारो मयाथ एव वते इयाह।।  ु

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Dharmakīrti, for something to be real, it must have causal powers, an ability to fulfill a telic function (he calls this property arthakriyākāritva); rest is unreal, or held to be real only from a point of view of convenience. In Pramāṇavārttika III.3, he writes:

arthakriyāsamarthaṃ yat tad atra paramārthasat | anyat saṃvṛtisat proktaṃ te svasāmānyalakṣaṇe ||3.3|| Where we have causal powers, there we have the ultimate reality; others are called existent only from the point of view of convenience. These two are (respectively) particulars and universals.

The next step is the postulation that particulars can be cognized only by direct perception while universals are the object of inference, of which language is a special case. In this view, perception is always non-conceptual, that is one gets the full details of the object observed when perceiving it directly, without the superimposition of any mental constructs upon that. In contradistinction, inference is conceptual, it refers to kalpanās or  mental constructs. Further perception is always non-conceptual, whereas knowledge obtained through inference and language is always conceptual. A concept, kalpanā, for  Dharmakīrti as abhilāpasaṃsargayogyatpratibhāsā pratītiḥ kalpanā ‘a concept is a cognition with a phenomenal appearance that is capable of being conjoined with linguistic expression’ (Dunne, 87). This has led Potter to (47) to state: “what is sensed (the pure particular) cannot be thought or spoken of, and what is spoken or thought of doesn’t really exist.” Such a position throws up the problem how language is to be at all used, if language is totally delinked from the real objects of the world, what Tom Tillemans refers (50) to as the scheme-content separation. Tillemans goes on to propose two approaches to fill the scheme-content gap, a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach. The top-down approach is the approach of double negation, that a cow refers to everything which is not a non-cow. The bottom-up approach is called a “a causal theory of relation” by Tillemans and explained in the following passage (56):

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An apoha-universal U can be said to be a property of particulars p1, p2, p3, etc. because: (1) the thought of U is causally conditioned by tendencies imprinted on the mind by direct perceptions of  p1, p2, p3, etc., these perceptions being in turn causally linked to  p1, p2, p3, etc. (2) the mind can not distinguish between its own invented universal U imputed to entities and the entities themselves (which are particulars and actually lack U ).

This imputation, or the identification of an object with a previously experienced object (such as the person being seen now and the person that was seen one year ago 16) is called avidyā by Dharmakīrti – vikalpa eva hy avidyā (Dunne, 99). This is how Dunne explains how a concept such as “fire” can be applied non-randomly to a only some objects (90).

 one constructs a sameness for a class of objects on the basis of their  difference from other objects. The warrant for the construction is that every object is in fact completely unique in its causal capacities or “telic function’ (arthakriyā). In the construction of a sameness that applies to certain objects, however, one focuses on a subset of causal capacities that are relevant to one’s telos or goal (artha), and one thus ignores other capacities that distinguish even the objects we call “fire” from each other. The sameness applies to all fires is thus, strictly speaking, a negation: it is t he exclusion (vyāvṛtti ) of all other things that do not accomplish the desired telic function. Since each individual fire is actually unique, the conceptual awareness formed through exclusion is “false” (mithyā) or “erroneous” (bhrānta) in that it presents those objects as the same. Nevertheless, since it is rooted in their  causal characteristics, that “erroneous” awareness can successfully guide one to objects that will accomplish one’s goals. . . . W hen we reflect on the conceptual cognition of “fire,” for example, it appears to assume a “fire-ness” 16

For a Buddhist, these are two particulars, vyaktis, and treating them as the same is an error.

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that is present in multiple instances, and in this sense the concept of “fire” has anvaya [concomitance]. Here we encounter the relevance of factors occurring in the mind in which the concept will arise. One such factor is the imprint of previous experience . . . Another factor is t he set of expectations that arise from having a particular goal, one that Dharmakīrti always frames as obtaining the desirable or avoiding the undesirable. These essentially behavioural goals create a “desire to know” ( jijñāsa); that is, a need for  information about what will or will not accomplish the goal. This desire to know, in turn, places “limits” (avadhis) on the causes and effects upon which we focus. In other words, we have expectations about what we wish to obtain or avoid, and our concepts are constructed in relation to those expectations.

In the case of the concept “fire,” some set of interests – such as the desire for warmth – or other such dispositions prompt us to construe the phenomenal form in question as distinct from entities that do not have the causal characteristics expected of what we call “fire.” At the same time, we ignore other criteria, such as having the causal characteristics expected of  that which is “smoky” or “fragrant,” because these are not part of what we desire to know so as to accomplish our goals. When we look at an object that we will call “fire,” it produces, a phenomenal form that, given the context of  our expectations, activates the imprint of a previous experience. Both the current phenomenal form and the form that arose in the previous experience exclude all forms that we would not call “fire,” but suppose the current fire is smoky, while the previously experienced fire was not. Indeed from This context is the exact one that Derrida refers to in Letter to a Japanese Friend .

Dharmakīrti’s ontological perspective the two fires really are not the same at all, but our desire to achieve a goal – such as warming our hands – that is accomplished by fire creates a context that compels us to ignore these differences. And since we have ignored the differences between these two

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phenomenal forms – the current one and the one that caused the imprint – we can construe both of them as mutually qualified by a negation, namely, their difference from phenomenal forms that do not activate the imprints for  the concept ‘fire.” That mutual difference, which Dharmakīrti calls an “exclusion” (vyāvṛtti ), thus becomes their nondifference. In short, that exclusion or nondifference pertains to all things that are different from those that do not have the expected causal characteristics – in this case the causal characteristics expected of that which we call “f ire.” In this way, exclusion, being formed on the basis of the phenomenal forms in conceptual cognitions, are construed as negations that qualify those forms. Thus, while the phenomenal forms themselves are completely unique – they do not have anvaya and thus are not distributed over other instances – they can be construed as qualified by a negation that does have anvaya, inasmuch as that negation applies to all the instances in question because they exclude what is not a “fire.”

Dharmakīrti thus arrives at a theory of universals (sāmānyalakṣaṇa) that requires both the phenomenal form and the exclusion. That is, strictly speaking, a universal is a combination of that which is not distributed (i.e., lacks anvaya) and that which is distributed. The phenomenal forms, as a mental particular, is not distributed, but the exclusion (vyāvṛtti ), as a negation applicable to all the phenomenal forms in questions, is distributed.

The above long quotation helps in understanding the simultaneous concept of  presence and absence in Dharmakīrti’s view of meaning. With this, a sufficiently vivid explanation of apoha is available, to compare deconstruction and apoha. However before embarking upon that, one task of explaining a verse quoted by Prof. Ramachandran needs

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to be completed. The following kārikā is quoted17 by Prof. Ramachandran as a major insight of Dharmakīrti (276):

avṛkṣavyatirekeṇa vṛkṣārthagrahaṇe dvayam | anyonyāśrayamityekagrahābhāve dvayāgrahaḥ ||

Since Prof. Ramachandran was “indebted to [Mishra’s] book” for all the Buddhist quotations, we can presume that he looked at the meaning to be as given by Mishra (113) 18 and

The verse is given as per verse 116 (p233) of Rahul Sankrityayan without the mistakes, in the reckoning of this writer, introduced by Prof. Ramachandran and his source Mishra. Their quotations are shown below, with their mistakes underlined. Prof. Ramachandran’s quotation is: avrik śavyatirekeṇa vrikshārtha grahaṇe dwayam| anyōnyāśrayami thyekagr āhabhāve dway agrahaha||. Here, the substantial mistake is “ekagr āhabhāve dway agrahaḥ” whose intended meaning could be “when one is considered, both are considered,” but grāha in place of graha is incorrect. Mishra’s quotation (113, fn 66) is: avṛkṣāvyatirekeṇa vṛkṣārthā grahaṇe dvayaṁ | anyonyāśray āmityekagrahabhāve dvayagraha[ḥ] || The mistakes are significant in terms of change in meaning. avṛkṣāvyatirekeṇa is to split as avṛkṣa + avyatirekeṇa, meaning due to non-difference with non-tree, that is, it establishes a non-tree, where tree is the object intended to be established. Similarly vṛkṣārthā grahaṇe has to be split as vṛkṣārtha + agrahaṇe, meaning non-consideration of  the signified of “tree”, whereas consideration is the desired meaning. Finally grahabhāve means “when one is considered, both are considered,” but this meaning is a non sequitur . When the earlier  word is casting the charge of circularity, how could one (tree) or both (tree and absence of non-tree) be considered, i.e. their meaning be established? The commentary of Karṇakagomin (from Rahul Sankrityayan, 233) supports the reading given in the text. The ṭīkā in Sanskrit is as follows: 17

avṛkṣetyā dinā parasya codyamāśaṃkate(.) anyāpohavādinaḥ kila na vidhirūpeṇa

vṛikṣārthasya grahaṇaṃ nāpyavṛkṣārthasya. kintvanyonyavyavacchedena(.) tatra (.) avṛkṣavyatirekeṇa vṛikṣārthagrahaṇe vṛkṣaśabdasya yo’rthastasya grahaṇe’bhyupagamyamāne. dvayaṃ vṛkṣāvṛkṣagrahaṇamanyonyāśrayam . tathā hyavṛkṣārthavyavacchedena vṛkṣārthagrahaṇe satyavṛkṣagrahaṇapūrvakaṃ vṛkṣagrahaṇamaṅgīkṛtam. agṛhītasyāvṛkṣasya vyavacchetumaśakyatvāt. avṛkṣasyāpi  grahaṇam vṛkṣārthavyavacchedeneti tatrāpi vṛkṣagrahaṇapūrvakamavṛkṣagrahaṇam āpatitam.vṛkṣamagṛhītvā tadvyavacchedenāvṛkṣārthasya vyasthāpayitumaśakyatvāt. evaṃ vṛkṣāvṛkṣayormadhye ekasya vṛkṣasyāvṛkṣasya vā grahābhāve dvayāgrahaḥ . Translation: The objection (codyam) of the opponent is being stated in the verse. Those who profess anyāpoha do not posit meaning of either tree or non-tree through a vidhi (equivalent to a “statement” in discourse analysis, or an injunctive statement in jurisprudence), but through mutual exclusion. There, when they take tree to mean that which is opposed to nontree, by implication, both the meaning of tree and non-tree are dependent on each other. If  meaning of tree is that which excludes the meaning of non-tree, then it is agreed that meaning of tree is possible only when preceded by the establishment of meaning of non-tree, as it is not possible to exclude the meaning of non-tree without first establishing it. If it is said that the meaning of non-tree is also by exclusion of the meaning of tree, then it means that the meaning of non-tree has to be preceded by the meaning of tree as it is not possible to exclude the meaning of tree, without first establishing it. In this way, between tree and nontree, if the meaning of one is not established, meaning of both is not established.

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rejected it. Instead he introduces the kārikā with the remark “when we perceive an object as a ‘tree,’ simultaneously we perceive what is not a ‘tree or lack of it.’ In other words, the identity of an object consists of two dimensions: positive and negative.” The remark of Prof. Ramachandran with respect to apoha is unexceptionable, but this writer is of the opinion that the quoted verse does not support the remark. The meaning of the quoted verse would be: “In the case of taking the meaning of tree (vṛkṣārthagrahaṇe) to be that which is opposed to non-tree (avṛkṣavyatirekeṇa), both are dependent on each other  (anyonyāśrayam). Due to this [circularity] (iti ), in the absence (abhāve) of the consideration of one (ekagraha), there is non-consideration (agrahaḥ) of both (dvaya).” This is actually Udyotkara’s and Kumarila’s criticism of what Tillemans calls the top-down approach of  apoha, that it is circular 19. The pūrvapakṣa position, or the opponent’s view in Sanskrit terminology is in fact specific to what is called the saṅketakāla, the time a particular object is (arbitrarily) designated as the signified of a particular word. The details of how this objection has been countered is not being repeated, as the outlines were given in t he text earlier.

5. Apoha, deconstruction.

Having examined the definitions of deconstruction and explanation of  apoha as formulated by Diṅnāga and Dharmakīrti, one returns to t he original question that occasioned this paper: what is the relationship between apoha and deconstruction?

First, the four similarities drawn / suggested by Prof. Ramachandran may be revisited. The first is that both apoha and deconstruction are reactions opposed to

18

“.

. . a tree is a positive entity as well as a negative one in the form of non-tree. Both the aspects are known in verbal comprehension. These two aspects are mutually exclusive and through difference they qualify each other and by this process the identity of an entity is established.” 19

Karṇakagomin’s commentary refers to both the criticism immediately after this kārikā.

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hegemonic systems. As the early definitions of Derrida show, this is indeed true regarding deconstruction, but cannot be said with the same certainty with respect to apoha. There are two reasons for such a stance. The first, weak reason, if one could call it that, is that there is no explicit statement to such an effect when it comes to apoha, as with deconstruction. True, determination of meaning does not require an explicit statement, but the situation with respect to apoha can be better portrayed, if we contrast it with Buddhism. One can say more assuredly that Buddhism was indeed a reaction to the then prevalent hegemony, but with respect to apoha, it was a Buddhist solution, not reaction, to the ontological problem highlighted by the hegemonic forces. Thus it was more of a support to the reaction opposed to hegemony. Yet in the very act of support it pulled the “reaction” that we could say Buddhism was, in the very direction of the then prevalent metaphysics. For instance, Satkari Mookerjee (132-133) “surmises” three distinctive landmarks in the doctrine of apoha: (1) apoha as pure negation, as formulated by Diṅnāga, (2) apoha as the positive conceptual construction, which works through vāsanas, bringing it near to the position of Realists, and (3) Ratnakīrti’s connotation of a word as a conceptual image qualified by a negation of the opposite entities 20.

This subtle difference in fact points to a larger difference: Deconstruction, notwithstanding Derrida in his Letter to a Japanese Friend , is treated by and large as a philosophy whereas apoha is a concept that serves a Buddhist philosophy. That such a comparison is indeed being made, then, also speaks of the magnitude of Buddhism and deconstruction. Deconstruction seems to be everywhere and one is justified in thinking that it is one of the most influential developments in the twentieth century. Indeed, it is. Still, it dwarfs in front of one of the largest religions in the world, with more than half a billion The current scholarship does not hold this view. Mark Siderits in his “Was Śāntarakṣita a ‘Positivist’?” (193-206) and Shoryu Katsura in “Jñānaśrīmitra on Apoha” (171-181), both in Matilal and Evans, show that Mookerji’s categorisations were simplistic. Mookerji has still been quoted, as the point in the present context was to show that where deconstruction as a reaction is not triggered due to specific criticisms of a doctrine, apoha is a reaction only in the sense that it develops due to a polemic process. 20

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believers, which has been flourishing for the last twenty five centuries. It is so in terms of  texts as well: if Derrida’s writings and criticisms of Derrida fill a rack, Buddhist texts fill a library. This comparison is, to use Prof. Ramachandran’s words, not another step forward towards “decolonization,”21 rather, it is to serve as a reminder of the unevenness of the ground when talking about apoha and deconstruction, and a reminder to not over-read, to not stretch a point.

The second pointer of Prof. Ramachandran is the possibility of similarity between differance of Derrida and the vikalpa of Diṅnāga (or, the kalpanā of Dharmakīrti). At the surface, one wonders why he leaves the matter at the level of a t entative question. It is the view of the present writer that Derrida needs to be seen as the inheritor of Kant, Husserl and Heidegger when one examines differance in light of  vikalpa. At the surface, Derrida seems not to dwell much on ontology and epistemology, which play such a vital role in the concept of apoha. This might be because the ontological and epistemological investigations with respect to a theory of meaning have been already conducted by Husserl in some length. It is significant that Derrida’s Ph. D. topic was “The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Phenomenology” 22. Joshua Kates in his Essential History traces (Chapters 3 and 4) the development of Derrida’s thought from the work done by Derrida for the Ph. D. topic (195354, but not defended till almost three decades later), to his later (1959) summarization of the same in the paper “‘Genèse et structure’ et la phénoménologie ” (“‘Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology”), to his book-length “Introduction” to the translation of Husserl’s Origin of Geometry (1962). Continuing Kates account, by 1967 Derrida has moved completely

For this fact (that “native” thought systems were much older, that they had many more texts and adherents etc.) was well-known. The colonial discourse was that the quality of the Eastern texts was poor. “One shelf of a good European library,” for Thomas Babington Macaulay “was worth more than the whole native literature of Indian and Arabia.” He also could not find amongst the Orientalists any who would argue against the statement (as stated in his 1835 Minute on Education). 21

Though completed by 1954, this was published first in French in 1990. The English translation was published in 2003 by Chicago University Press with the title The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy. 22

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away from phenomenology. One might posit, recalling Matilal’s turn of phrase, that for  Derrida, in Husserl if the ontological problem was Genesis, it was Being in Heidegger, ultimately leading to an epistemological solution, couched as differance, consequent to the inescapable self-referentiality of language. Differance is difficult to t ypify. It is a concept; it is a non-concept; it is both and/or neither simultaneously, and/or by turns 23. In contrast, vikalpa is a concept, as in a subsidiary of the apoha theory. It is a mental construct (which also can be called “conceptual”, as it were), a phenomenal form, which is both different from the object-outside (bāhyavastu) and has similarities with it. Its dual nature is what allows us to operate in language, and that is what makes language an imperfect tool. In that sense, one can see why Prof. Ramachandran posed the question, but an alternate question presents itself: is differance similar to apoha? It is important to note that apoha also provides a solution to the problem of temporality that Husserl talks about in The Origin of Geometry. “If  the present “now” were conceived as a punctual instant, there could be no coherent of  experience as such; one would paradoxically end in denying the identity of one’s own experience, one’s own self, as did Hume. There could be no self-relation in such a case; in short, there could be no life, understood as absolute subjectivity” (Alan Bass, xxxvii). Earlier  (in p18 of this paper), the problems consequent to the Buddhist tenet of everything being momentary were presented. The solution provided by apoha to this problem of temporality lies in the concept of arthakriyākāritvam ‘the possession of a telic function’, which is posited as the reason why we refer to the object by using language. This then places limits, or  avadhi s, within which language is used. Derrida provides a slightly different version of the solution. By invoking the sense of ‘to defer’ in the term differance, he wants users to be reminded of a similar approximation as Dharmakīrti states. The critical difference is that the fact of a compromise is foregrounded in Derrida, but muted in t he background for  apohavādins. This foregrounding is conditioned to a large extent by Derrida’s refusal to have

Is this admiration at work – by way of copying the master? No, hopefully. This sentence is meant only to expand the previous one that “Differance is difficult to typify.” By the way, “concept” is applicable in all its senses here. 23

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ontological, theological or epistemological foundations. Thus, one way to view differance and apoha/vikalpa24 is to see them as differences in presentation, rather than in essence.

The third and fourth points of Prof. Ramachandran, that both apoha and deconstruction view perception as including presence and absence, and that language is inadequate to express complete meaning of anything are adequately established in the above discussion. There are other relationships that could be explored.

The first relationship would be other similarities, not mentioned by Prof. Ramachandran. Both apoha and deconstruction posit limits which fashion the language and in ultimate analysis want the limits to be removed – in fact t he limits are what are deconstructed in deconstruction. That said, once identified, limits tend to get accepted in the general discourse and get into the background. This becomes clearer with an example. From the days of Copernicus Galileo, it has been well known that it is the Earth which revolves around the Sun, yet the usage of the Sun “rising” and “setting” persists. True, it is a metaphoric usage, or more accurately, a descriptive usage transformed into a metaphoric usage. The process of metaphorisation, or troping, involved first t he wide spread acceptance of Earth’s revolutions, and then a pact to push it to the background. Thus, in this view, as and when deconstruction gets troped, it would resemble apoha. There is the other  similar concept called “trace”, which might be similar to the concept of vāsana (imprint) in apoha.

A second relationship would be the application. Derrida is a philosopher whose thinking had the greatest impact on literary criticism in English, rather than on philosophical discourse in English. Derrida himself demonstrated deconstruction in so many fields: justice, gifts, hospitality, death, society, politics, diplomacy, economics, historical reality etc. On the Terminology is not important here; the similarity of thought leading to the non-concept, non-word is the point. This, in fact, is the burden of the caution expressed at the end of p30 in this paper: not to stretch a point. 24

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other hand, Buddhism is a philosophy which has been converted into a religion, one could say, against the wishes of its founder. Buddhism has been invoked by many (say, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) but that application is quite different from the way deconstruction has been used. Apoha has largely served only Buddhist philosophy rather  than open a way for a different way of looking at literature or commentary or translation or  other fields. To be sure, there is a separate Buddhist view on literary appreciation, which derive partly from Nāṭyaśāstra and partly from Buddhist philosophical underpinnings, but the end result is that Buddhist appreciation, commentary and translation can be safely described as faithful – in the extreme. On the other hand, a deconstructionist criticism, commentary or translation is the stark opposite of that 25, as perceived by the likes of M. A. Abrams (who would find the Buddhist “post-writing”, i.e. criticism, commentary or translation, faithful). With respect to what Buddhist thinkers thought about literary criticism, we do not have much material available. Indian works on poetics have been composed, as if  Buddhism did not ever exist 26, whereas Western writers seem to be searching for a new

Here a deconstructionist would say that his criticism/commentary/translation is indeed the most faithful one, or correct or good, much in the way that Nida characterised his translation of lamb as pig or seal, as “faithful”. A most interesting example is to be found in Eaves and Fischer.Romanticism and Contemporary Criticism ed. by Morris Eaves and Michael Fishcer (Cornell UP, 1986 ). In this anthology J. Hillis Miller, a “boa deconstructor” (Abrams, 128) first deconstructs Wordsworth’s “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal”; then, in the next paper a respected negative critic of Derrida, M. H. Abrams analyses the same poem and critiques Miller’s criticism. This is followed by an in-depth interview first with Abrams; then, Miller responds with a postscript to both Miller’s criticism and interview, and is then himself interviewed. There in his paper (119), Miller makes the claim that “deconstruction is simply good reading.” This point comes out more clearly, anchored as it were in an example, in his remark (123): “I can’t make George Eliot’s Middlemarch . . . mean anything that I want it to mean. . . . [the] power of text over its readers also opens up the possibility of dialogue among readers in which you could actually work out whether somebody was right or wrong. It follows that the real way to get at Derrida – it would be hard to do – would be to try to demonstrate that he is wrong about Plato or Ponge or Hegel, that his readings are wrong. This would be far more to the point than arguing in a vacuum about his ‘theories’.” 25

In India, Sanskrit literary criticism is a much developed field. Sushil Kumar De, for instance, in his History of Sanskrit Poetics lists 105 authors (Bharata to Haladhara Bhatta) who wrote works on poetics and another 48 anonymous works. They were many Buddhist poets in India like Asvaghosha who wrote fine poetry. But, in the 150+ works, Buddhist works are not quoted as examples, except two examples of Dharmakīrti’s poems by Anandavardhana in a negative light. One can say with a certain confidence that Buddhist poems are not cited, because most works on Alaṅkāraśāstra are written according to a certain scheme, drawing heavily from vyākaraṇa, mīmāṃsā and nyāya. The purpose of any work is to convey the Vedic dharma, but in an engaging manner as a woman would instruct (kāntāsammitā), as opposed to the way a king would order ( prabhusammitā, the manner of  the Vedas), or speak bluntly like a friend (mitrasammitā, the manner of Mahabharata and Purāṇas). Indeed any commentator is expected to be a master of the three śāstras mentioned above 26

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Buddhist turn in literary criticism, like Jefferson Humphries does to a certain extent in In Reading Emptiness: Buddhism and Literature. Thus, we see that, as stated earlier, the two “strategies”27 – apoha and deconstruction – though similar in their origins, have developed to serve different purposes.

A third relationship would be the responses induced by deconstructionists and Buddhists. Both have been branded as anarchists, but display little difference in practice with respect to their supposed adversaries. For instance, as Miller put it in 1986 (121), “Derrida, for example, teaches philosophy. He teaches mostly the central canon of major  philosophers, Plato, Leibnitz, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, just as any other historian of philosophy would do.” Similarly, the eight-fold path taught by Buddha would be perfectly acceptable to any Hindu, or sanātanadharmin. Both claim to shake up the old establishment and indirectly rejuvenate the old ways of thinking. Buddhism did not explicitly claim to rejuvenate the āstikas, but according to some versions, has transformed the intuitive discourse of Upanishads into the logical and systematic treatment that is seen during the period where sūtras of various darśanas were compiled. Deconstructionists would more gladly accept the aim of rejuvenating the old ways of thinking. Finally, in their time, both have been seen as “radical,” but with passage of time, Buddhism is quite the mainstream in the Eastern part of the world. Deconstruction is yet to reach that stage. This observation leads to the one conclusion of this comparative study: that apoha helps in understanding deconstruction better by providing the foundation of ontology and epistemology, though deconstruction itself is non-foundational. This point is presented in some detail in the next, final section.

 padavākyapramāṇavit ). The exception to this is Ratnaśrījñāna who wrote a commentary on Daṇḍin’s Kāvyādarśa. In his commentary, Ratnaśrījñāna quotes Buddhist verses approvingly. 27

A rare adjective used by Derrida himself to refer to deconstruction and differance.

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6. Conclusion

The motivation for Prof. Ramachandran’s short paper, and hence this not-so-short paper, was to take a step towards decolonization by showing that what is considered avantgarde of Western thought bears similarities with ancient Indian thoughts. To that extent, a comparison of vikalpa/apoha/Buddhism and deconstruction has largely served its purpose by revealing probably similar origins (a reaction to hegemonistic philosophies), a very similar  theory of meaning based on exclusion, a similar view of cognition involving both presence and absence, a very similar view of language (its essential inability to grasp the complete meaning) and a few differences. Both the approaches have invoked similar response as well, but their major difference is that they have extended into different branches: Buddhism towards religion, and deconstruction towards literary criticism. With time, Buddhism now looks less radical (though it is not), whereas deconstruction is still at the edge, so to speak. Then, one could surmise that when deconstruction gets troped, it will start looking more like Buddhism.

There is another point which needs to be noted, with all the care and humility that deconstruction teaches 28. It seems to this writer, that many opponents of deconstruction do not understand the “strategy” because they do not understand the foundations, which of  course, do not exist as in there being a particular foundation to it. For instance, a common negative criticism of deconstructionists is that they read what they want to read in a given text or situation. The implied critique is that if deconstruction could overturn the hierarchy of  Presence/Absence, then the deconstruction hierarchy of Absence/Presence could also be overturned, and that there is no end to this “play.” Since the end is arbitrary, any meaning which is desired can be read into a text. In other words, deconstructions can be deconstructed. The view of deconstructionists is that, it is not possible to deconstruct a 28

For, the most significant “teaching” of deconstruction is to approach any situation with caution and humility, to constantly examine the assumptions, especially the foundational ones. One cannot escape the limits imposed by language, but one could be aware of it and be more careful.

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deconstruction as there must be limiting assumptions, or a centre, or a foundation to be deconstructed, but deconstructions by definition proceed without any of these, and hence deconstruction of deconstructions is not possible. At some stage, the mind of the negative critic closes, and everything that deconstructionist says is portrayed as a play of language. The compliment that critics usually give deconstructionists that such-and-such is very good with language, actually means that the words of such-and-such are empty.

Now, this writer believes that such a situation exists because critics do not pay enough attention to the foundational nature of differance. With the concept/non-concept, or concept of differance, we do have an ontological foundation (that is, not the foundation) for  deconstruction. If a version of ontology and epistemology that underlie deconstruction are explained like Tillemans has in the case of  apoha, indeed if apoha itself with its concomitant lucid expositions is proposed as a foundation for deconstruction, much of the confusion regarding deconstruction will clear. It is not to say that all negative criticism will be answered (Buddhism itself has not achieved that – but, there is not the same confusion with Buddhism or apoha, amongst its opponents, as obtains with respect to deconstruction). It is that the confusion amongst critics will be less, and hopefully there would be more adherents, not put off by the slipperiness (as perceived by the non-adherents) of the language of  deconstructionists. In making this conclusion, one tried to become aware of the various forces that push this conclusion forward. Firstly, if one spends long time on a given topic, especially a comparative one, it becomes a looking glass to view the entire world and everything becomes related to the topic at hand. Second, one is always eager to draw grand conclusions, to assert one’s insights, where none might be. Third, a hidden pride of the sort that ancient Indians, those magnificent philosophers, analyzed and presented much better  than the Johnnie-come-latelies might be at play. Even after considering the influence of  these forces, one is compelled to say that apoha is indeed helpful in explaining deconstruction better. This is true at a personal level, and if not as an established fact, at the least, it deserves to be taken as a hypothesis and be subject to further examination.

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