The New Hermeneutics

Abstract

This chapter explores the response to Vyāsatīrtha by Appayya Dīkṣita, one of India’s most influential intellectuals in the sixteenth century. In his Power of the Opening (Upakramaparākrama), Appayya Dīkṣita responds to Vyāsatīrtha’s case law argument by showing that each case Vyāsatīrtha presents as decided by the power of the closing is really decided by some other factor. He then proceeds to develop a new cognitive model of interpretation based on a set of hermeneutic (and sometimes psychological) needs, in which sequence plays hardly any part. While ostensibly defending the traditional position of Mīmāṃsā, Appayya Dīkṣita can be seen as undermining it, rendering the whole question of sequence moot. He also brings the debate back home to Vedānta interpretive cases. In doing so, he constructs for the first time a general defense of the entire body of existing Vedānta and Mīmāṃsā, leaving only the Dualists out in the cold.