Tradition and argument in classical Indian Linguistics: The Bahiraṅga-paribhāṣā in the Paribhāṣenduśekhara (review)

This book, an Indian reprint of a book originally published by Reidel (1985), is based on the author’s Ph.D. thesis (Poona, India, 1979). It is dedicated to the interpretation of just one rule of the classical Indian grammatical tradition, known as Bahiraṅga-paribhāṣā (BP), which in Sanskrit runs as follows: asiddhaṃbahiraṅgaṃantaraṅge. This can be approximately rendered as ‘[the rule or operation which is] bahiraṅga (lit. ‘external [rule]’) is [regarded as] not having taken effect (or as nonexisting) when [that which is] antaraṅga (lit. ‘internal [rule]’) [is to take effect]’. The importance of BP is that it establishes hierarchical relations and order of application of rules and operations, thus being a metarule. It was one of the subjects of the ancient Indian treatise Paribhāsenduśekhara, written by the grammarian Nageśa. The relationships between antaraṅga and bahiraṅga are determined, according to Nageśa, as follows: antaraṅga is a rule the causes of the application of which lie within the sum of the causes of a bahiraṅga rule. The main claim of Bronkhorst’s book is that this metarule was misinterpreted in the later Indian tradition, in the work written by a pupil of Nageśa, Vaidyanātha Pāyaguṇḍa.

The book consists of five parts and five appendices. In Part 1 the author focuses on Nageśa’s interpretation of the rule in question, offering an analysis that, in his view, represents a correct understanding of BP. B examines possible submeanings of the terms antaraṅga and bahiraṅga and accordingly treats BP as consisting of several parts. Part 2 deals with some other passages of Paribhāṣenduśekhara that are related to PB and thus should partly be reconsidered in accordance with the new understanding of this rule, and in Part 3 the author addresses some other passages of the text. In Part 4, ‘What went wrong?’, B offers an explanation of the misinterpreting of BP in the Indian commentarial tradition, starting with Vaidyanātha Pāyaguṇḍa.

Appendix 1 contains the original text of Paribhāṣenduśekhara dealing with PB. Appendix 2 examines a contradiction contained in Paribhāṣenduśekhara (in the application of the notion of ‘indirect cause’ in the context of PB). In the last three appendices, B addresses other writings by Nageśa. He offers a very useful outline of the relative chronology of Nageśa’s grammatical works and a convincing analysis of changes in Nageśa’s opinions regarding BP, as well as another important rule, Nājānantarya-paribhāṣā (discussed in Part 3 of the book). In Appendix 5, on the basis of the new analysis of BP, B provides additional evidence for Nageśa’s authorship of another Old Indian grammatical treatise, Laghuśabdaratna. The book also contains indices of quoted and discussed passages and words.

B’s study offers an insightful examination of and a plausible solution to a difficult problem in classical Indian linguistics. As in B’s other writings, the argumentation is very clear and convincing and the book is rich in ideas. It will certainly be useful not only for Sanskritists but also for all scholars whose interests lie in the domain of the history of linguistic thought. This book is also a valuable contribution to the general theory of linguistic descriptions, that is, metalinguistics.