An Enquiry into the Nature of Liberation: Bhatta Ramakantha's Paramoksanirasakarikavrtti, a Commentary on Sadyojyotih's Refutation of Twenty Conceptions of the Liberated State (moksa).

• Author: Nicholson, Andrew J.
• Position: Book review

An Enquiry into the Nature of Liberation: Bhatta Ramakantha's Paramoksanirasakarikavrtti, a Commentary on Sadyojyotih's Refutation of Twenty Conceptions of the Liberated State (moksa). Edited and translated by Alex Watson, Dominic Goodall, and S. L. P. Anjaneya Sarma. Collection Indologie, vol. 122. Pondicherry: Institut Francais de Pondichery, Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 2013. Pp. 508. 38 [euro].

The Sanskrit text edited and translated in this book is by Bhatta Ramakantha, a Saiva Siddhanta commentator who lived in the late tenth c. C.E. He comments on the Paramoksanirasakarika of Sadyojyotih (circa 675-725 C.E.), a text in verse whose concern was to refute the erroneous ideas about liberation held by other schools. Ramakantha's work offers a remarkable glimpse of the intellectual landscape of tenth-century India through the lens of Saiva Siddhanta's dualist theology. While much of the text is devoted to intramural disputes among Saiva sects, Ramakantha also targets others, such as Buddhists, Naiyayikas, Carvakas, and Advaita Vedantins, who hold erroneous views on moksa and are in need of refutation.

The authors Watson, Goodall, and Anjaneya Sarma have organized this book into three main parts: a scholarly introduction, a critical edition of the Sanskrit text, and an amply annotated English translation. They write that their translation was not intended as "an independent text in smooth English," but rather as a tool to help readers follow along with a very demanding Sanskrit commentary. Some of this commentary's difficulty comes from the great number of arguments Ramakantha uses to attack opposing views. Understanding these arguments and counter-arguments requires an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Indian philosophy and theology. Fortunately, the translators are up to the challenge, and in their extensive footnotes explain what is at stake in each of the arguments. Ramakantha's polemical approach is similar to that of Bhaviveka's celebrated sixth-century Madhyamaka Buddhist text, "The Heart of the Middle Way" (Madhyamakahrdaya). Both are refutations of competing schools. Neither text is primarily concerned with summarizing viewpoints, but in the process of refutation Bhaviveka and Ramakantha present many doctrines that were unfamiliar to later doxographers. Some of the doctrines that Ramakantha examines are quite exotic indeed, and rarely or never discussed elsewhere. There are also surprising omissions of major schools. For...