The three-hour shastrartha at the Varanasi matha
A three-hour shastrartha is held at a matha in Varanasi before roughly 200 listeners. The judge must issue a written verdict within 24 hours. The Naiyayika opens with the thesis that shabda is not eternal because it is produced by effort. The Mimamsaka replies for two hours and then announces that he will make no counter-thesis and will only refute, because his own position needs no proof. At 2 hours 40 minutes the Naiyayika, losing ground, says: we accept the opponent's position on eternality. Ten minutes later he asks to resume his original thesis, saying the concession was only about one example. The Mimamsaka then objects that the Naiyayika pronounced ghatena wrongly, and that a debater who cannot pronounce his own example correctly has lost. The judge must separate substance from procedure and fix responsibility.
1. Classify the form of debate each participant is conducting, and decide whether the Mimamsaka's refutation-only strategy is legitimate.
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Nyaya recognizes three forms of katha: vada, the truth-directed debate where both sides argue for a thesis; jalpa, where a party seeks victory and may use chala, jati and the pointing out of nigrahasthana; and vitanda, refutation only, where one side attacks without establishing a counter-thesis.
- The Mimamsaka's vitanda is legitimate in itself. Refutation without a counter-thesis is a recognized form, not a fault. A refuter is not obliged to prove the opposite; he need only show that the opponent's hetu fails. This is not a nigrahasthana.
- But the form must be declared and held. Having said he will only refute, he is bound to that role. If he later asserts the eternality of shabda, he becomes a party in vada and must defend a thesis.
- The pronunciation objection belongs to jalpa, not vada. Quibbling over letters is chala of the verbal kind. It is admissible only where the announced form is jalpa, and then the Mimamsaka must accept jalpa's rules for himself as well.
The judge's first task is therefore procedural: fix the announced form from the record before assessing any substantive fault.
2. How should the Naiyayika's concession and attempted resumption be classified among the nigrahasthanas?
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The sequence must be split into two moments.
- At 2 hours 40 minutes he renounces his own thesis. Giving up a stated thesis is pratijna-sannyasa. It is more serious than pratijna-hani, which is failing to state or quietly dropping the thesis; here the abandonment is explicit and on the record.
- At 2 hours 50 minutes he reasserts the thesis he had abandoned. Asserting what one has just given up is pratijna-virodha, self-contradiction in respect of the thesis.
- If the concession contradicts a doctrine his own school is committed to, the fault is also apasiddhanta, abandoning an established tenet.
- The excuse that the concession concerned only one example is an attempt to change the subject matter after the fact. If accepted, it would be arthantara, irrelevant diversion.
The judge should not allow the retrospective reinterpretation. The record shows an unqualified renunciation. In vada, where the thesis is the whole point, this is fatal to the Naiyayika's case and the verdict should go against him on procedure, quite apart from the merits of his argument about production.
3. Rule on the pronunciation objection and state the test the judge should apply.
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The objection is chala in its verbal form: a quibble on letters that leaves the meaning of the example untouched. The example was intelligible; everyone in the hall knew which pot was meant.
The test is whether the fault affects the sadhya. Nyaya admits a nigrahasthana when the utterance is unintelligible (avijnatartha) or meaningless (nirarthaka), because then no cognition can be generated and the debate cannot proceed. Mispronunciation that leaves the referent clear does not meet that test. It is a fault of delivery, not of argument.
If the Mimamsaka wanted to make a genuine objection, he would have to attack the hetu: for example, that produced by effort is not pervaded by non-eternal, since some products are held to be eternal. That would be a substantive challenge to the vyapti. Instead he attacks the sound.
The judge should therefore rule the objection inadmissible, note it as chala, and warn that a party who relies on it is himself liable to be recorded as using a jalpa device in a vada. The verdict should rest on the pratijna-sannyasa, not on pronunciation.