The New Attitude

Abstract

This chapter features Vijayīndratīrtha, the grand-pupil of Vyāsatīrtha, author of Conquest of the Closing (Upasaṃhāravijaya), which attacks Appayya Dīkṣita’s monograph. However, he and his nemesis had much more in common than either was prepared to acknowledge. Appayya Dīkṣita had pioneered the technique of inverting any principle that prioritizes the closing by showing that it cuts both ways and could be used to support the power of the opening. Vijayīndratīrtha adopts this technique and shows that Appayya Dīkṣita’s arguments can work against him in the same way. He thereby effectively defuses Appayya Dīkṣita’s arguments for the power of the opening, without decisively confirming the counterposition. This method leaves him, possibly by design, with a strong debater’s argument against his opponent but with a weak and possibly insincere defense of his own position. This mode of argumentation gives Vijayīndratīrtha’s work a distinctly flippant tone, rarely seen in earlier Sanskrit scholastic thought.