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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 January 2008
One common interpretation of the orthodox Indian prohibition on desire is that it is a prohibition on phenomenologically salient desires. The Nyāyasūtra and Brahmasiddhi seem to support this view. I argue that this interpretation is mistaken. The Vedāntins draw a distinction between counting some fact as a reason for acting (icchā) and counting one's desire (rāga) as a reason for acting, and prohibit the latter. The Naiyāyikas draw a distinction between desiring to avoid some state of affairs (dveṣa) and believing that some state of affairs is unimportant (vairāgya), and advocate the latter. Both deny that the state to which the English word ‘desire’ refers is a necessary condition of acting.
1. The most natural translation of the word rāga in the context of the Nyāyasūtra and Brahmasiddhi is ‘desire’. For much of this paper I leave it untranslated, however, because ultimately the divergence between the standard interpretation of the theory of motivation in these texts and the interpretation that I offer entails a divergence in translation. See below.
2. All translations are mine. In Anantalal Thakur (ed.) Nyāyadarśana of Gautama with Bhāṣya of Vātsyāyana, Vārttika of Uddyotakara, Tātparyaṭika of Vācaspati, and the Pariśuddhi of Udayana (Varanasi: Mithila Institute, 1967), 453, line 23.
3. Ibid., 456, ll. 21–23.
4. It only follows that the mumukṣu must believe that mokṣa is pleasurable, not that mokṣa really is pleasurable. These philosophers were willing to grant that the mumukṣus were not wrong about this. As Arindam Chakrabarti points out, the argument assumes that ‘if mokṣa consists of permanent pleasure it would be known to do so by the mumukṣu’. See Chakrabarti, Arindam ‘Is liberation (mokṣa) pleasant?’, Philosophy East and West, 33 (1983), 172CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5. Thakur Nyāyadarśana, 456, ll. 2–3.
6. Maṇḍanamiśra Brahmasiddhi, in Mahamahopadhyaya Vidya Vacaspati and S. Kuppuswami Sastri (eds) Brahmasiddhi by Acharya Maṇḍanamiśra with Commentary by 
aṇkhapāni (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1984), 1, ll. 13–14.
7. Thakur Nyāyadarśana, 456, ll. 23–24.
8. As in the case of rāga, I leave the word dveṣa untranslated throughout. The most natural translation is ‘aversion’, but because the divergence between the standard interpretation of the theory of motivation in these texts and the interpretation that I offer entails a divergence in the way this word is translated, I leave it as dveṣa.
9. Thakur Nyāyadarśana, 457, ll. 4–5.
10. Ibid., 457, ll. 5–6.
11. ‘It [rāga] has the nature of a blazing fire. Vairāgya is not like this’; ibid., 459, ll. 25–26.
12. Vacaspati and Sastri Brahmasiddhi, 3, ll. 17, and 18–19.
13. R. Balasubramanian Advaita Vedānta (Madras: Centre for Advanced Study in Philosophy, University of Madras, 1976), 105.
14. Ibid.
15. Thakur Nyāyadarśana, 459, ll. 25–26.
16. Chakrabarti ‘Is liberation (mokṣa) pleasant?’, and idem ‘The end of life: a Nyāya-Kantian approach to the Bhagavadgītā’, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 16 (1988), 327–334Google Scholar.
17. Chakrabarti ‘The end of life’, 332.
18. Ibid., 333.
19. See below for a more thorough analysis of Chakrabarti's position. In the end I suspect his position is closer to mine than these quotations suggest.
20. Vacaspati and Sastri Brahmasiddhi, 1, ll. 15–16.
21. Ibid., 12, ll. 1–2. The śruti cited is Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, 4.4.23.
22. I mean for this to be a rather loose way of talking about the relationship between desires and desire sensations. Perhaps certain desires are in part constituted by sensations rather than accompanied by them. Nothing I say depends on getting this relationship exactly right.
23. Chakrabarti ‘The end of life’, 333.
24. Note that this does not mean that all desires in fact produce these sensations. I might manage to satisfy a desire without feeling joy. The point here is that under different circumstances, the desire might produce joy (or disappointment).
25. Despite this widespread agreement, there is a good deal of debate about whether Hume's basic claims are correct.
26. J. N. Mohanty ‘The idea of the good in Indian thought’, in Eliot Deutsch and Ron Bontekoe (eds) A Companion to World Philosophies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997).
27. B. K. Matilal ‘Karma and renunciation’, in Jonardon Ganeri (ed.) Ethics and Epics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 123.
28. Tara Chatterjea, Roy W. Perrett, and Jagat Pal also claim that desire is a necessary condition of action in the orthodox tradition; Tara Chatterjea Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2002), 125; Roy W. Perrett Hindu Ethics: A Philosophical Study (Honolulu HA: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 23; Jagat Pal Karma, Dharma, and Moksha (Delhi: Abhijeet Publications, 2004), 54–55.
29. Thomas Nagel's distinction between motivated and unmotivated desires is helpful here. Motivated desires are ‘arrived at by decision and after deliberation’. Unmotivated desires, in contrast, ‘simply assail us’. See Thomas Nagel The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 29. The Humean claims that some additional desire is a necessary condition of any motivated desire. The standard diagram of the Indian position, however, denies this.
30. The verses of the Gītā that specify the desire to be eliminated as the desire for outcomes or ends are too numerous to list. In ch. 18 alone, the prohibited desire is specified as a desire for ends in verses 2, 6, 9, 11, 12, 23, 24, 25, 27, and 34. The word kārya is used at 3.19, 6.1, 18.5, 18.9, and 18.31. Also kartavya (to be done) at 18.6 and others.
31. See my ‘Motivation in the Manusmṛti’, Journal of Indian Philosophy (forthcoming).
32. ‘It is not the case that a desire which has anything for its object is prohibited. What, in that case [is prohibited]? In the case of nityakarma, a desire for the outcome [is prohibited].’ In Dave, Jayantakrsna Harikrsna (ed.) Manusmṛtiḥ: Medhātithi – Sarvajñanārāyaṇa – Kullūka – Rāghvānanda – Nandana – Rāmacandra – Manirāma – Govindarāja – Bhāruci iti vyākhyānavakena samalaṅkṛta (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavanam, 1972–1985), 160, ll. 19–20.
33. Ibid., 160, ll. 15–16. The text says that the motive is either the fulfilment of the injunction or the avoidance of pain, but since the possible motives are joined by a disjunction, it follows that one might act in order to act in accord with scripture and without a desire for (or aversion to) the outcome.
34. As Matilal claims, ‘It may be that the “desireless” action of the Gītā was derived indirectly from such notions of the nitya-type of action’; ‘Karma and renunciation’, 129.
35. Chatterjea Knowledge and Freedom in Indian Philosophy, 140.
36. Chakrabarti ‘The end of life’, 331.
37. A contemporary and influential Western philosopher who takes this view is Michael Smith The Moral Problem (Lanham MD: Blackwell Publishing, 1994), ch. 5.
38. For a full articulation of this point, see my ‘Niṣkāmakarma: how desireless need one be?’, Asian Philosophy, 14 (2004), pp. 239–254CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39. Dave Manusmṛti, 160, l. 20.
40. Ibid., 159, ll. 5–6.
41. Chakrabarti ‘The end of life’, 333.
42. Idem ‘Is liberation (mokṣa) pleasant?’, 178.
43. Thakur Manusmṛti, 459, l. 26.
44. Wilhelm Halbfass Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (New York NY: SUNY Press, 1991), 254–255.
45. Vacaspati and Sastri Brahmasiddhi, 3, ll. 20–21.
46. ṣaṅkapāni Brahmasiddhivyākhyā, in Mahamahopadhyaya Vidya Vacaspati and S. Kuppuswami Sastri (eds) Brahmasiddhi by Acharya Maṇḍanamiśra with Commentary by ṣaṇkhapāni (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1984), p. 11, l. 23.
47. Davidson, Donald ‘Actions, reasons, and causes’, Journal of Philosophy, 60 (1963), 685–686CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48. I ignore the fact that most of the authors that discuss Davidson take his ‘pro attitudes’ to be synonymous with ‘desire’. See, for example, Michael Smith The Moral Problem, 116–117. G. F. Schueler argues that this common interpretation of Davidson's view is due to an ambiguity in the word ‘desire’. See his Desire: Its Role in Practical Reason and the Explanation of Action (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995), ch. 1.
49. Chakrabarti ‘Is liberation (mokṣa) pleasant?’, 168.
50. I say ‘seems to admit’ because these claims are part of a reductio argument against the Naiyāyikas. It might be that Maṇḍana actually admits that udvega that is dveṣa and udvega that is not dveṣa can motivate, or it might be that he points out the consequence as a means of convincing the Naiyāyikas to accept his own distinction without accepting that these states actually motivate.
51. Vacaspati and Sastri Brahmasiddhi, 3, ll. 19–20.
52. Balasubramanian Advaita Vedānta, 105.
53. Thakur Nyāyadarśana, 459, l. 26.
54. Chakrabarti ‘Is liberation (mokṣa) pleasant?’, 178.
55. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for Religious Studies for making this point.
56. I want to thank John Taber for continuous feedback on the translations of the Sanskrit texts and an earlier draft of the paper, and G. F. Schueler, Arindam Chakrabarti, Kelly Becker, the Editor, and an anonymous referee for helpful criticisms and suggestions.