on deconstruction and apoha

7/27/2019 On Deconstruction and Apoha

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Ranganath Pathak via Rajanish Kumar Mishra), mainly following Bhartrihari, followed by that

ofantmavdins, that is the Buddhists. According to him (273), the Apoha theory of

meaning holds that the meaning of a word comes into existence due to fact that it is not

any other; that is, due to the difference between one object/idea and another. Words signify

differences and not objective truth. (A cow is what non-cows are not.). Then, he describes

four similarities between Apoha and Deconstruction (275-6):

a) Both are a result of reaction against hegemonic systems;

b) Buddhists have a concept called vikalpa, which in Prof. Ramachandrans

reading equals options, and this optionality of meanings lies at the core of the

Derridean differance.

c) Both view perception as something which includes perception of both presence

and absence: when we see a tree, we perceive both the presence of the tree and

the absence of the non-tree

d) Finally, language cannot ever convey the Truth because for Buddhists it makes

actually different things look similar; whereas for Deconstructionists like Paul de

Man, the figurative element is missed resulting in all readings being misreadings.

Finally, he concludes by stating that the decentering impulse against the

perceived Centre of Essence, God etc. on one hand and Brahma, Vak etc. on the other

hand is what is active in both Buddhist theories of language and deconstruction. While

Vasudeva Sastri Abhyankar in his Sanskrit upodgtha prolegomenon to the Sarvadaranasagrahaof Mdhavcrya, the source book for Mishra, Pathak and Abhyankar. Given that Pathaks book ispublished in 1958, and Abhyankars in 1924, one might be tempted to say that the nomenclature wasactually borrowed from Abhyankar, but it would be unfair to pass such a remark without actually goingthrough Pathaks book. It might turn out that both might have a common source, or there might be anattribution by Pathak. A common source is highly unlikely since the Sarvadaranasagraha was firstpublished in 1858 in Sanskrit, and its first English translation (by E. B. Cowell and A. B. Gough)between 1874 and 1878 (Cowells Preface, vi). Abhyankars is the first known Sanskrit commentary ofthis very popular text (the popularity is only from the latter half of the nineteenth century manuscripts were rare earlier to the publication of the text). So much investigation into the source ofthe terminology is carried out because the terminology and representation in Mishras Diagram 1 is

very appropriate and precise, and deserves to be widely disseminated (in the normal sense, not theDerridean sense: for, precision is the darling of the metaphysicists, that santanadharmins surelyare).


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between inversion, which brings low what is high, and the irruptive emergence of a new

concept, a concept that can no longer be, never could be, included in the previous regime.

These binaries are many: male/female, white/black, father/son, essence/appearance,

intelligible/sensible, speech/writing, original/translation etc. A similar delineation of two

phases reversal and intervention of deconstruction is to be found (6) in the Outwork 3 to

his work, Dissemination. Here, we see deconstruction clearly as a reactionary move to

Platonic metaphysics, which for Derrida is the entire Western philosophical tradition from

Plato onwards.

Chronologically speaking, the next instance when Derrida is obligated to talk about

deconstruction is when a Japanese friend, Prof. Izutsu, intending to translate Derrida, asks

for some schematic and preliminary reflections on the word deconstruction. Derrida, in

good faith, starts at the beginning (Letter to a Japanese Friend):

When I chose the word, or when it imposed itself on me I think it was in Of

Grammatology . . . I wished to translate and adapt to my own ends the

Heideggerian word Destruktion orAbbau. Each signified in this context an

operation bearing on the structure or traditional architecture of the

fundamental concepts of ontology or of Western metaphysics. But in French

destruction too obviously implied an annihilation or a negative reduction

much closer perhaps to Nietzschean demolition than to the Heideggerian

interpretation.

In that exposition Derrida is keen that the Japanese translation avoid the negative

determination of the words significations and connotations. This concern, then, allows him

3Anotherplayof Derrida. For Derrida, what other call a preface is at once, impossible andindispensible. So he titles it Hors livre, translated as Outwork by the translator. This book, famously,

starts with the sentence: This (therefore) will not have been a book. Compared to that Outwork is amuch milder subversion of received concepts of preface, book etc.


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to frame the question as: what deconstruction is not, or what it ought not to be. This turns

out to be a long list, as evidenced by the excerpts from the letter given below.

Deconstruction is neither an analysis nor a critique. . . .

Deconstruction is not a method and cannot be transformed into one. It

must also be made clear that deconstruction is not even an act or an

operation. . . .

Deconstruction takes place, it is an event that does not await the

deliberation, consciousness, or organization of a subject, or even of

modernity. It deconstructs itself. It can be deconstructed. . . .

All sentences of the type deconstruction is X or deconstruction is not X

a priori miss the point, which is to say that they are at least false. One of

the principal things at stake in what is called in my texts deconstruction

is precisely the delimiting of ontology and above all of the third person

present indicative: S is P. . . .

What deconstruction is not? everything of course!

What is deconstruction? nothing of course.

Derrida understands that he is not being very helpful, and so states explicitly

I recognize, my dear friend, that in trying to make a word clearer so as to

assist its translation, I am only thereby increasing the difficulties: the

impossible task of the translator (Benjamin). This too is meant bydeconstructs.

This sentence, though, not related to a definition unfolds an important facet of the practice of

deconstruction, if one could use such a phrase. The refusal to pin down a meaning is not

deliberate; there is a deeper play: the text is autonomous, it is not the writer who controls

what the text means. Once he has committed, once he could no longer defer, he has to


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reinterpret afresh everytime he revisits. Or, he needs to deconstruct the limiting adjuncts that

were inevitable in the earlier uses of the word. The above sentence is Derrida, the regular

Joe, one who abides by common courtesies an ancient social contract, a paleanthropact

as Derrida might put it as opposed to Derrida, the philosopher, speaking. A friend, who

wants to be helpful, but simply cannot be. For, the tone of Derrida the philosopher, facing an

inquisition, as it were, is quite different4, as seen in the next definition that we consider.

At a later time (1989), Derrida says Deconstruction is generally practiced in two

ways or two styles, although it most often grafts one on to the other. One takes on the

demonstrative and apparently ahistorical allure of logico-formal paradoxes. The other, more

historical or more anamnesic, seems to proceed through readings of texts, meticulous

interpretations and genealogies. (Force of Law, 21). The second style, the historical

reading, can be found in Of Grammatologywhere the history of writing is meticulously

interpreted. The paradox or aporia5 examined in Force of Lawis the distinction between

justice . . . and the exercise of justice as law or right, legitimacy or legality, stabilizable and

statutory, calculable, a system of regulated and coded prescriptions. (Force of Law, 22).

The aporia is explained thus by Derrida:

Everything would still be simple if this distinction between justice and droit6

were a true distinction, an opposition whose functioning was logically

4

Different, but kind, nonetheless. For such a consummate master of the language, for whom eachword manifests itself in its complete historicity, from its etymology to metaphorical usage to becominga receptacle of many assumptions to the possibility of it being a paleonym, Derrida never seems touse this mastery to hit back using language. Adverse critics would say his deconstruction is cruelenough. That is exactly what this admirer of his use of language wants to say: Derrida does notuse harsh language to hit back.

5Impasse would be etymologically the closest to aporia, which is from the Greekporos passage. Theequivalent in Indian languages would be agamya, impassable. With Derrida, tracing etymologies isvery useful, and sometimes illuminating.

6French for law and right. Derrida begins this Keynote address at the colloquium on Deconstructionand the Possibility of Justice (Oct. 1989, Cardoso Law School, New York) by playfully suggesting

that he, a Frenchman being asked to speak in English, however fluent he be in English, is not just.His words are Cest ici un devoir, je dois madresser vous en anglais This is an obligation, I mustaddress myself to you in English.As it turned out he could not read the entire paper for lack of time.


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regulated and permitted mastery. But it turns out that droitclaims to exercise

itself in the name of justice and that justice is required to establish itself in the

name of a law that must be enforced. Deconstruction always finds itself

between these two poles. (Force of Law, 22)

This definition of deconstruction is baffling at first. One is prepared to view

deconstruction as a philosophy, or as a method of reading, but deconstruction is not

something which one associates with questions of law and justice. This aspect was not lost

on Derrida, who said:

Although Ive been entrusted with the formidable honor of the keynote

address, I had nothing to do with the invention of this title or with the implicit

formulation of the problem. Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice: the

conjunction and brings together words, concepts, perhaps things that dont

belong to the same category. A conjunction such as and dares to defy

order, taxonomy, classificatory logic, no matter how it works: by analogy,

distinction or opposition. . . . This title suggests a question that itself takes the

form of a suspicion; does deconstruction insure, permit, authorize the

possibility of justice? Does it make justice possible, or a discourse of

consequence on justice and the conditions of its possibility? Yes, certain

people would reply; no, replies the other party. Do the so-called

deconstructionists have anything to say about justice, anything to do with it?

Why, basically, do they speak of it so little? Does it interest them, in the end?

Isnt it because, as certain people suspect, deconstruction doesnt in itself

permit any just action, any just discourse on justice but instead constitutes a

threat to droit, to law or right, and ruins the condition of the very possibility of

justice? . . . That is the choice, the either/or, yes or no that I detect in this

The second part was read at a Conference on Nazism and the Final Solution: Probing the Limits ofRepresentation organized by the University of California (USA) in April 1990.


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title. To this extent, the title is rather violent, polemical, inquisitorial. We may

fear that it contains some instrument of torture that is, a manner of

interrogation that is not the most just. (Force of Law, 3-4).

Derrida answers these questions obliquely. In his own words, he shows that (14-15)

It is this deconstructible structure of law (droit), or if you prefer of justice as

droit, that also insures the possibility of deconstruction. Justice in itself, if

such a thing exists, outside or beyond law, is not deconstructible. No more

than deconstruction itself, if such a thing exists. Deconstruction is justice. . . .

deconstruction takes place in the interval that separates the

undeconstructibility of justice from the deconstructability of droit (authority,

legitimacy, and so on).

Derridas view on what deconstruction is may be found in his deconstructive reading

of Rousseaus essay On the Origin of Languages, in Of Grammatology. There (158), Derrida

in a section called The Exorbitant. Question of Methodbrings up the question of the usage

of the word supplement and says that the question is not only of Rosseaus writing, but

also our reading. This reading is identified as the deconstructive reading by Peter Barry

(69), according to whom, Derridas own definition of deconstruction would be:

[Deconstructive] reading must always aim at a certain relationship,

unperceived by the writer, between what he commands and what he does not

command of the patterns of the language that he uses. . . . [It] attempts to

make the non-seen accessible to sight.

Both Barry (68-69) and Abrams and Harpham (73-74) cite Barbara Johnsons

definition:

Deconstruction is not synonymous with destruction. . . . The deconstruction


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of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by

the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text itself. If

anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the

claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another.

Finally, some glimpses of what Derrida later said about deconstruction can be found

in Deconstruction: A Users Guide edited by Nicholas Royle. In Royles essay What is

Deconstruction,the least bad definition of deconstruction, according to Derrida, is said to

be the experience of the impossible (Derrida, Afterw.rds: or, at least, less than a letter

about a letter less, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, inAfterwords, ed. Nicholas Royle. Tampere,

Finland: Outside Books, 1992, 200. Qtd. in Royle, 6). Royle also gives (10) a constantive

statement about deconstruction by Derrida:

Deconstruction is neither a theory nor a philosophy. It is neither a school nor

a method. It is not even a discourse, nor an act, nor a practice. It is what

happens, what is happening today in what is called society, politics,

diplomacy, economics, historical reality, and son on and so forth.

Deconstruction is the case. I say this not only because I think it is true and

because I could demonstrate it if we had time; but also to give an example of

a statement. (Derrida Some Statements and Truisms about Neo-Logisms,

Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and other Small Seismisms. Trans. Anne

Tomiche, in The States of Theory: History, Art and Critical Discourse, ed.

David Carroll, 1990. pp. 63-95, p. 85).

In the same book, Derrida writes an essay Et cetera, where he writes (300):

Each time that I say deconstruction and X (regardless of the concept or the

theme), this is the prelude to a very singular division that turns this X into, or

rather makes appear in this X, an impossibility that becomes its proper and

sole possibility, with the result that between the X as possible and the same


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X as impossible, there is nothing but a relation of homonymy, a relation for

which we have to provide an account. For example, here referring myself to

demonstrations I have already attempted gift, hospitality, death itself (and

therefore so many other things) can be possible only as impossible, as the

im-possible, that is, unconditionally.

It is best to end the search for a definition of deconstruction, by quoting in full the

dictionary entry7 suggested by Royle (11).

deconstruction n. not what you think: the experience of the impossible: what

remains to be thought: a logic of destabilization always already on the move

in things themselves: what makes every identity at once itself and different

from itself: a logic of spectrality: a theoretical and practical parasitism or

virology: what is happening today in what is called society, politics,

diplomacy, economics, historical reality, and so on: the opening of the future

itself.

Most of the above, in a way, do not define deconstruction, as much practice the

construction of what Derrida terms constantive statements. The problem is that admirers of

Derrida tend to give similar constantive statements; whereas critics give definitions which

7Royles article is styled as a letter to the Editor of Chambers dictionary criticizing negatively the entry

on deconstruction. There he touches upon not only Chambers but also definitions in various versionsof the Oxford English Dictionary. Hence, at the end he gives what a dictionary entry might look like.Royle ends his piece with the following: It will be obvious to you by now that I cannot send this. I askmyself: what would it mean to suppose that a letter like this could reach its destination? I ask you,dear, anonymous reader. A dictionary represents common consensus, to the extent such aconsensus is possible. A dictionary works in a certain mode: the user of a dictionary expects hisproblem to be solved, his quest for meaning to end. Royles letter cannot be sent for both thesereasons. First, it is not upto Derrida or his admirers to fix meaning; meaning is what readersunderstand (perform, if one has to sound suitably Theoretical). Deconstruction, then, means whatChambers and Oxford English Dictionary present it as. Second, Royles suggested entry does notsimplify, it is, to borrow a term from the Telugu play Kanyulkam, deconstruction-made-difficult.Such entries would make dictionaries disappear. In simple terms, nobody would pay hard-earnedmoney to be confused. So the Editor would be doubly justified in rejecting the letter and Royle knows

that, and wants the reader to know. This, then, is the essence of Derridean thought: Languagedistorts, but is our only tool.


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the admirers say is incomplete or incorrect. Then, one will try to present ones own

understanding of what deconstruction is, whatever be its label. First, it is post-metaphysical

and does not believe that something necessarily is. Second, due to this, it holds that

meaning, to the extent that it can be related, is based on differences, in space and time, and

is limited by context, the various constructs that the writer, without knowing it himself,

utilizes. Third, even if the writer were aware, he cannot avoid these constructs of structures

which limit meaning and the best he can do is, be aware. Therefore, everything is

provisional, and every reading produces a new meaning. In this sense, language is self-

referential; every new performance changes the meaning. Fourth, one usual consequence

of undoing the constructs is that foundations ontological, epistemological, theological etc.

of a given writers writing are undone, exposing the absurdity of his final positions. This

applies only to writings of those who subscribe to foundational theories. Deconstruction

itself, therefore, does not subscribe to any foundational theories, nor does deconstruction

claim to be a foundational theory. Fifth, since differences, rather differances are the basis, if

one could call it that, of meaning, translation, which often negotiates these differances, is a

mode in which the original is best understood. Sixth, not only original/translation, but many

other binaries are overturned by deconstruction by exposing their inherent invalid

assumptions; thus, the absentis as important as thepresent, sometimes more so. Seventh,

another way to look at the apparent stability of meaning is by understanding the structure of

representation. Each discourse builds its structure around a centre; say, Metaphysics

around Being, Vedanta around Brahman, and Nationalism around India. The centre is, in

reality, not the centre but posited at the centre for the limited purpose of some situations

initially. In due course, the limitedness of the purpose is lost on the writers and occasions

deconstruction, which really de-constructs the centeredness. In that sense, a deconstructed

world view or depiction is decentered, and since it is decentered, what was earlier marginal

is no longer marginal. Finally, deconstruction happens not merely in philosophy or literature,

but everywhere, in all discourses; for, language is the only tool we have to communicate,

and language operates only when we can no longer defer; it operates with certain


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assumptions, yet, without the user being aware of those assumptions; and after

deconstruction those assumptions manifest in aporias, unresolvable and unjustified.

3. An Ontological Problem

How to define something that isnot? That is an ontological problem. Hiedegger

faced this problem while trying to define Nihilism. As quoted (xiv) in Gayatri Chakravorty

Spivaks Translators Preface to her translation of Derridas Of Grammatology,

. . . Heidegger, establishing a definition, philosophically confronts the problem

of definitions : in order for the nature of anything in particular to be defined as

an entity, the question of Being in general must always already be broached

and answered in the affirmative. That something is, presupposes that any-

thingcan be. . . . "The 'goodness' of the rightfully demanded 'good definition'

finds its confirmation in our giving up the wish to define in so far as this must

be established on assertions in which thinking dies out. ... No information can

be given about nothingness and Being and nihilism, about their essence and

about the ( verbal ) essence [it is] of the ( nominal ) essence [it is] which can

be presented tangibly in the form of assertions [it is . . .]."

A similar problem presents itself with reference to universals for the Nominalists.Universals refer to the commonality of common nouns, say, a cow, or a tree. How do we

know that certain animals are cows, and others are not? According to Realists, which group

includes Plato and Aristotle on one hand, and Naiyyikas and Mmsakas on the other

hand, universals exist. That is, there is something called cowness, or treeness which is to be

found only in cows or trees. Now, treeness has to be a single entity, which exists in all trees.

When a tree is cut, the treeness itself is not cut. The Nominalists, which group includes


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the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that

existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic

differences that have issued from the system.

At the surface, this would make apoha and structuralism similar. What really sets

them apart is the larger goal they serve. The Buddhist notion ofapoha, appearing as it did

almost 800 years after Buddha, was a concept expounded to resolve the ontological

problem. Saussure was not so committed a Nominalist. As Derrida shows in the second

chapter ofOf Grammatology, Saussures preference for speech over writing, his

phonocentrism, is related to logocentricsm, which for Derrida is the metaphysics of phonetic

writing (for example, of the alphabet) which was fundamentally - for enigmatic yet essential

reasons that are inaccessible to a simple historical relativism - nothing but the most original

and powerful ethnocentrism, in the process of imposing itself upon the world, controlling in

one and the same order (Grammatology, 3). In other words, assuming at the center, an

invariable presence, what Derrida says is represented by eidos, arch, telos, energeia,

ousia (essence, existence, substance, subject) altheia, transcendentality, consciousness,

God, man and so forth (Writing and Difference, 353). Thus, the same concept of meaning

being established through differentials in the hands of Derrida for whom, a Presence if it

were there, could not be grasped fully was much nearer to apoha. The beliefs of Derrida

regarding the ultimate are difficult to pin down, but this writer has a notion that they are

somewhat similar to the Buddhist nya, which so mistakenly gets translated as nothing,

portraying the Buddhists as nihilists.

4.Apoha

Dinga (A.D 480 540) is the first proponent of the concept ofapoha in his work,


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the Pramasamuccaya, a Sanskrit work which is available only in fragments in Sanskrit,

and more fully in its Tibetan translation8. There, he treats knowledge obtained through

language as a part of inference, a variety called svrthnumna, i.e., inference drawn for

oneself. The fifth chapter ofPramasamuccaya, dealing with apoha, opens with this verse.

na pramntara abdam anumnt tath hi tat |

ktakatvdivat svrthamanypohena bhate || 1 ||

(Knowledge through word is not different from inference. Just like inference, a

word speaks of its object (artham, which also means meaning) by excluding

the others, like in the case of manufacturedness. [Any object is held to be

transient, if it has manufacturedness because manufacturedness excludes

permanence].9)

Dinga views language as a system of signs, not an especially Buddhist concept.

Further, the signified is not the actual object, such as a tree, but a mental construct, a

vikalpa, again not an exclusive Buddhist view10. The masterstroke or exclusively Buddhist

8Tibetan translations are so accurate that it is often possible to reconstruct the Sanskrit original fromthe Tibetan. It is significant that for a concept being compared to deconstruction (which liberatestranslations), apoha is primarily available through translation, because the translation was veryfaithful.

9The krik is quoted in Mishra (104, footnote 33). The translation of Mishra, traceable to Richard P.Hayes, was avoided as it was more appropriate in the context of a discussion of logic. Also it missesthe aptness of both the meanings ofartham.

10Both can be found in Bharthari, for instance,kriks 3, 5 and 6 in the Sdhanasamuddea of

Padaka of the Vkyapadya, reproduced below with the translations of this writer:

sdhanavyavahraca buddyavasth nibandhana |sannasanvrtharpeu bhedo buddhy prakalpyate || 3 ||Sdhana, here, means the instrumentality through which grammar operates, that is division of thingsinto subject, object, instrument etc. so that an appropriate case (vibhakti) can be assigned to eachsdhana, that is each thing divided into subject, object etc. Such a system of treating things likeagent, object etc. (or division into subject and predicate) is called sdhanavyavahra. Thissdhanavyavahra is tied to the things situated in the mind; whether they be actually present or not inthe real world, their analysis into subject, object etc. is mentally fashioned. (The next krik gives anexample of the usage the people of Pcla are more beautiful than the Kurus in which construct,first the two peoples are imagined to be together, and are then divided on the basis of beauty by

using the ablative case [than]).

abdopahitarpca buddherviayat gatn |


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is like itself alone; all is void, void. (Cowell, 15) in the Hindu doxographical work

Sarvadaranasagraha. The nya, at least according to Nagarjuna the great Buddhist

philosopher, ought not to be understood as nothingness or void, notwithstanding the above

translation, but as something between a positive entity and a negative entity, exactly in the

position that a zero has in the system of natural numbers. That is, Nagarjuna is not willing to

deny the existence of anything, though he believes that the ultimate is empty or hollow. It is

in this context, that Dinga developed the concept of double negation to arrive at a theory

of meaning. When we say that a tree is that which is not a non-tree, we can talk about tree

without admitting its existence, or ultimate reality. At surface, this double negation looks like

an elaborate way of saying exactly the same thing as a tree. Siderits (344) gives a good

explanation of why it is not so. Consider polite and impolite, two mutually exclusive terms;

then let us add not-impolite. This category of not-impolite is not the exact equivalent of

polite. For example somebody is addressed informally, rather very familiarly. Would we call

that polite? No. Is it impolite? No. So there is something which is neither polite, nor impolite

this thing is captured in not-impolite, but not in polite.

This exclusion theory of meaning apoha thus helps deny the existence of

universals while explaining the common use of language. For the Buddhist, if the existence

of universals is admitted, one way or the other, it would lead to admitting the existence of

some ultimate being, named god or soul or whatever, which he denies. In a sense, Derrida

had the same problem with the Husserlian Essence and Heideggerian Being, as apoha had

with universals, and arrived at a similar ontology though he denies that deconstruction is

based on such an ontology. Derridians might be more comfortable calling that the non-

ontology of Derrida in the sense that he merely disagrees with the ontology of the

Metaphysicists.


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Prof. Ramachandran quotes a krik of Dinga as the major statement ofapoha,

without giving the meaning. Both the krik and meaning are given below for the sake of

completion11 of Dingas treatment ofapoha:

vikalpayonaya abd vikalp abdayonaya |

kryakraat temartha abdaspyantyapi||12

The cause of words is mental constructs (vikalpa) and mental constructs are

based on words. Hence there is a cause-effect relationship between these

two. Words do not touch the ultimate reality.13

There is another important pair ofkriks, 12 and 13 inApohapark (Chapter V of

the Pramasamuccaya) dealing with completeness of signification, which is important

when we compare apoha with deconstruction. These are available only in the Tibetan, and

so the translation of Hayes (353) of the same is given:

That to which a verbal sign is applied has many properties, only some of

which are made known through the verbal sign. The verbal sign merely

serves to isolate what it expresses from other properties; it also isolates the

particular to which the word is applied from particulars that do not have the

property isolated by the verbal sign. A verbal sign also has numerous

properties, but it is significant only in virtue of those properties of the sign that

are restricted to the object expressed.

11

In the Indian tradition, it is the commentators task to provide such supplements, which the originalauthor might have omitted as it is obvious is the usual sympathetic explanation.

12According to Mishra (134), this verse was first quoted in full by Dr. Srinivas Shastri in his VcaspatiMira dvra Bauddha Darana k Vivecana (Discussion of Buddhism through Vacaspati Misra)Kurukshetra: 1968. 27 based on the Nyyavrttikattparyak of Vcaspati Mira. This writer wasunable to trace it in the edition of the text published in 1898 as Vol. XIII of the Vizianagaram Seriesunder the editorship of Mahmahopdhyya Gangadhara Sastri Tailanga, but it does not materiallyeffect the presentation on Apoha.

13Translation given in Mishra (134). The last sentence could also be rendered as words merely touchmeaning, making them so Derridean, but one hesitates to posit that without going through thecomplete context carefully.Artham translated as ultimate reality above could also equally well be

translated as external objects; but, these other interpretations do not result in any significantlydifferent reading.


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As per Dingas system only direct perception can give complete knowledge of an

object and inference always omits some particulars. Thus, when fire is inferred from smoke,

the fuel used, or the intensity of fire cannot be properly gauged. Similarly, words, or verbal

signs from which is inferred the meaning, do not express allthe properties, or all the

details, of a given thing. The same is expressed slightly differently by Ole Pind (67):

The sign, whether it is the inferential indicator (liga, hetu) or the word

(abda), does not primarily concern that particular indicator and indicated or

that particular word and signified object, but the invariable relationship

(avinbhva, sahabhva, sambandha) that holds between any occurrence of,

for example, smoke and fire, or of substance (dravya) and existence (satt),

or between any occurrence of, for example, the word cow (goabda) and

the signified object cow (go). Thus, the indicator or the word is the type and

not the token or occurrence. Things are only definable in relation to their type.

The bare individuals, that is, particulars (svalakaa), remain outside the

reach of signs.

Extending this, we could say that verbal signs do not express all the possible

meanings; that in a given instant, other accompanying aspects determine the meaning that

becomes expressed. Now when we compare this to the position of Derrida that meaning is

inherently unstable, that there is an endless chain of self-referentiality, and that therefore a

word will never capture the complete meaning, we see that both Dinga and Derrida arrive

at the same position: that words are inadequate and their meaning is never complete. As

shall be shown in a later section, the position is similar, but the route to the position and the

end which this position serves is different.

Of the developments in the concept ofapoha, Dharmakrti in his unfinished

commentary called Pramavrttika has provided the most important extensions. The


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apoha theory has been much expanded upon in later times: on the one hand, it was

criticized by Nyya and Mms schools, apart from Jain scholars and other Buddhist

scholars as well; on the other hand, it was defended by many Buddhist scholars. Most of the

developments post Dharmakrti are polemical in nature, and at least as far as the topic at

hand is concerned, not very relevant. John D. Dunne (85) gives a succinct summation of the

various Buddhist authors who treated apoha.

Digngas formulation of the apoha-theory was explicitly criticized by the

Naiyyika philosopher Uddyotkara (fl. 525) and by the Buddhist thinker

Bhvaviveka (fl. 530), who developed a similar theory of his own. Digngas

thought including the apoha-theory receives a significant reworking at the

hands of Dharmakrti, and it is his reformulation that forms the basis for all

subsequent treatments, whether Buddhist or non-Buddhist. Among Buddhist

thinkers, the earliest commentarial layer consists of works by

Devendrabuddhi [fl. 675] and kyabuddhi [fl. 700], and while they propose

some innovations, their interpretations do not range far from Dharmakrtis

works. Thinkers such as ntarakita (d. 787) and Kamalala (fl. 765)

incorporate Dharmakrtis philosophy into Mdhyamika perspective, but the

details of his prama theories are not significantly revised. However, by the

time the later commentators such as Jnarmitra (fl. 1000), Ratnakrti (fl.

1025), Karakagomin (fl. 975), and Mokkaragupta (fl. 1100), a general

trend toward ever greater realism about universals becomes evident. In Tibet,

realist interpretations gain momentum, and in some cases receive criticism,

at the hands of numerous prominent thinkers . . . .Since the presentation

given in this chapter focuses on the earliest layer of interpretation, it may

appear to conflict with the more realist approaches of some later Buddhist

authors, but the general contours and mechanics of the theory will

nevertheless remain the same.


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Dharmakrti, for something to be real, it must have causal powers, an ability to fulfill a telic

function (he calls this property arthakriykritva); rest is unreal, or held to be real only from a

point of view of convenience. In Pramavrttika III.3, he writes:

arthakriysamartha yat tad atra paramrthasat |

anyat savtisat prokta te svasmnyalakae ||3.3||

Where we have causal powers, there we have the ultimate reality; others are

called existent only from the point of view of convenience. These two are

(respectively) particulars and universals.

The next step is the postulation that particulars can be cognized only by direct

perception while universals are the object of inference, of which language is a special case.

In this view, perception is always non-conceptual, that is one gets the full details of the

object observed when perceiving it directly, without the superimposition of any mental

constructs upon that. In contradistinction, inference is conceptual, it refers to kalpans or

mental constructs. Further perception is always non-conceptual, whereas knowledge

obtained through inference and language is always conceptual. A concept, kalpan, for

Dharmakrti as abhilpasasargayogyatpratibhs pratti kalpan a concept is a cognition

with a phenomenal appearance that is capable of being conjoined with linguistic expression

(Dunne, 87). This has led Potter to (47) to state: what is sensed (the pure particular)

cannot be thought or spoken of, and what is spoken or thought of doesnt really exist. Such

a position throws up the problem how language is to be at all used, if language is totally

delinked from the real objects of the world, what Tom Tillemans refers (50) to as the

scheme-content separation. Tillemans goes on to propose two approaches to fill the

scheme-content gap, a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach. The top-down

approach is the approach of double negation, that a cow refers to everything which is not a

non-cow. The bottom-up approach is called a a causal theory of relation by Tillemans and

explained in the following passage (56):


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An apoha-universal Ucan be said to be a property of particularsp1, p2, p3,

etc. because: (1) the thought ofUis causally conditioned by tendencies

imprinted on the mind by direct perceptions ofp1, p2, p3, etc., these

perceptions being in turn causally linked top1, p2, p3, etc. (2) the mind can

not distinguish between its own invented universal Uimputed to entities and

the entities themselves (which are particulars and actually lack U).

This imputation, or the identification of an object with a previously experienced object (such

as the person being seen now and the person that was seen one year ago16) is called

avidy by Dharmakrti vikalpa eva hy avidy (Dunne, 99). This is how Dunne explains how

a concept such as fire can be applied non-randomly to a only some objects (90).

one constructs a sameness for a class of objects on the basis of their

difference from other objects. The warrant for the construction is that every

object is in fact completely unique in its causal capacities or telic function

(arthakriy). In the construction of a sameness that applies to certain objects,

however, one focuses on a subset of causal capacities that are relevant to

ones telos or goal (artha), and one thus ignores other capacities that

distinguish even the objects we call fire from each other. The sameness

applies to all fires is thus, strictly speaking, a negation: it is the exclusion

(vyvtti) of all other things that do not accomplish the desired telic function.

Since each individual fire is actually unique, the conceptual awareness

formed through exclusion is false (mithy) or erroneous (bhrnta) in that it

presents those objects as the same. Nevertheless, since it is rooted in their

causal characteristics, that erroneous awareness can successfully guide

one to objects that will accomplish ones goals. . . . When we reflect on the

conceptual cognition of fire, for example, it appears to assume a fire-ness

16For a Buddhist, these are two particulars, vyaktis, and treating them as the same is an error.


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phenomenal forms the current one and the one that caused the imprint

we can construe both of them as mutually qualified by a negation, namely,

their difference from phenomenal forms that do not activate the imprints for

the concept fire. That mutual difference, which Dharmakrti calls an

exclusion (vyvtti), thus becomes their nondifference. In short, that

exclusion or nondifference pertains to all things that are different from those

that do not have the expected causal characteristics in this case the causal

characteristics expected of that which we call f ire. In this way, exclusion,

being formed on the basis of the phenomenal forms in conceptual cognitions,

are construed as negations that qualify those forms. Thus, while the

phenomenal forms themselves are completely unique they do not have

anvaya and thus are not distributed over other instances they can be

construed as qualified by a negation that does have anvaya, inasmuch as

that negation applies to all the instances in question because they exclude

what is not a fire.

Dharmakrti thus arrives at a theory of universals (smnyalakaa)

that requires both the phenomenal form and the exclusion. That is, strictly

speaking, a universal is a combination of that which is not distributed (i.e.,

lacks anvaya) and that which is distributed. The phenomenal forms, as a

mental particular, is not distributed, but the exclusion (vyvtti), as a negation

applicable to all the phenomenal forms in questions, is distributed.

The above long quotation helps in understanding the simultaneous concept of

presence and absence in Dharmakrtis view of meaning. With this, a sufficiently vivid

explanation ofapoha is available, to compare deconstruction and apoha. However before

embarking upon that, one task of explaining a verse quoted by Prof. Ramachandran needs


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to be completed. The following krik is quoted17 by Prof. Ramachandran as a major insight

of Dharmakrti (276):

avkavyatirekea vkrthagrahae dvayam |

anyonyrayamityekagrahbhve dvaygraha ||

Since Prof. Ramachandran was indebted to [Mishras] book for all the Buddhist quotations,

we can presume that he looked at the meaning to be as given by Mishra (113)18 and

17The verse is given as per verse 116 (p233) of Rahul Sankrityayan without the mistakes, in thereckoning of this writer, introduced by Prof. Ramachandran and his source Mishra. Their quotationsare shown below, with their mistakes underlined. Prof. Ramachandrans quotation is:avrikavyatirekea vrikshrtha grahae dwayam| anynyrayamithyekagrhabhvedwayagrahaha||. Here, the substantial mistake is ekagrhabhve dwayagraha whose intendedmeaning could be when one is considered, both are considered, but grha in place ofgraha isincorrect. Mishras quotation (113, fn 66) is: avkvyatirekea vkrth grahae dvaya |anyonyraymityekagrahabhve dvayagraha[] || The mistakes are significant in terms of change inmeaning. avkvyatirekea is to split as avka + avyatirekea, meaning due to non-difference withnon-tree, that is, it establishes a non-tree, where tree is the object intended to be established.Similarly vkrth grahae has to be split as vkrtha + agrahae, meaning non-consideration of

the signified of tree, whereas consideration is the desired meaning. Finally grahabhve meanswhen one is considered, both are considered, but this meaning is a non sequitur. When the earlierword is casting the charge of circularity, how could one (tree) or both (tree and absence of non-tree)be considered, i.e. their meaning be established? The commentary of Karakagomin (from RahulSankrityayan, 233) supports the reading given in the text. The k in Sanskrit is as follows:

avketydin parasya codyamakate(.) anypohavdina kila na vidhirpeavikrthasya grahaa npyavkrthasya. kintvanyonyavyavacchedena(.) tatra (.)avkavyatirekea vikrthagrahae vkaabdasya yorthastasyagrahaebhyupagamyamne. dvaya vkvkagrahaamanyonyrayam. tathhyavkrthavyavacchedena vkrthagrahae satyavkagrahaaprvakavkagrahaamagktam. aghtasyvkasya vyavacchetumaakyatvt. avkasypigrahaam vkrthavyavacchedeneti tatrpi vkagrahaaprvakamavkagrahaam

patitam.vkamaghtv tadvyavacchedenvkrthasya vyasthpayitumaakyatvt. evavkvkayormadhye ekasya vkasyvkasya v grahbhve dvaygraha.Translation: The objection (codyam) of the opponent is being stated in the verse. Those whoprofess anypoha do not posit meaning of either tree or non-tree through a vidhi(equivalentto a statement in discourse analysis, or an injunctive statement in jurisprudence), butthrough mutual exclusion. There, when they take tree to mean that which is opposed to non-tree, by implication, both the meaning of tree and non-tree are dependent on each other. Ifmeaning of tree is that which excludes the meaning of non-tree, then it is agreed thatmeaning of tree is possible only when preceded by the establishment of meaning of non-tree,as it is not possible to exclude the meaning of non-tree without first establishing it. If it is saidthat the meaning of non-tree is also by exclusion of the meaning of tree, then it means thatthe meaning of non-tree has to be preceded by the meaning of tree as it is not possible to

exclude the meaning of tree, without first establishing it. In this way, between tree and non-tree, if the meaning of one is not established, meaning of both is not established.


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rejected it. Instead he introduces the krik with the remark when we perceive an object as

a tree, simultaneously we perceive what is not a tree or lack of it. In other words, the

identity of an object consists of two dimensions: positive and negative. The remark of Prof.

Ramachandran with respect to apoha is unexceptionable, but this writer is of the opinion

that the quoted verse does not support the remark. The meaning of the quoted verse would

be: In the case of taking the meaning of tree (vkrthagrahae) to be that which is

opposed to non-tree (avkavyatirekea), both are dependent on each other

(anyonyrayam) . Due to this [circularity] (iti), in the absence (abhve) of the consideration

of one (ekagraha), there is non-consideration (agraha) of both (dvaya). This is actually

Udyotkaras and Kumarilas criticism of what Tillemans calls the top-down approach of

apoha, that it is circular19. Theprvapaka position, or the opponents view in Sanskrit

terminology is in fact specific to what is called the saketakla, the time a particular object is

(arbitrarily) designated as the signified of a particular word. The details of how this objection

has been countered is not being repeated, as the outlines were given in the text earlier.

5.Apoha, deconstruction.

Having examined the definitions of deconstruction and explanation ofapoha as

formulated by Dinga and Dharmakrti, one returns to the original question that occasioned

this paper: what is the relationship between apoha and deconstruction?

First, the four similarities drawn / suggested by Prof. Ramachandran may be

revisited. The first is that both apoha and deconstruction are reactions opposed to

18 . . . a tree is a positive entity as well as a negative one in the form of non-tree. Both the aspectsare known in verbal comprehension. These two aspects are mutually exclusive and through

difference they qualify each other and by this process the identity of an entity is established.19Karakagomins commentary refers to both the criticism immediately after this krik.


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hegemonic systems. As the early definitions of Derrida show, this is indeed true regarding

deconstruction, but cannot be said with the same certainty with respect to apoha. There are

two reasons for such a stance. The first, weak reason, if one could call it that, is that there is

no explicit statement to such an effect when it comes to apoha, as with deconstruction.

True, determination of meaning does not require an explicit statement, but the situation with

respect to apoha can be better portrayed, if we contrast it with Buddhism. One can say more

assuredly that Buddhism was indeed a reaction to the then prevalent hegemony, but with

respect to apoha, it was a Buddhist solution, not reaction, to the ontological problem

highlighted by the hegemonic forces. Thus it was more of a support to the reaction opposed

to hegemony. Yet in the very act of support it pulled the reaction that we could say

Buddhism was, in the very direction of the then prevalent metaphysics. For instance, Satkari

Mookerjee (132-133) surmises three distinctive landmarks in the doctrine ofapoha: (1)

apoha as pure negation, as formulated by Dinga, (2) apoha as the positive conceptual

construction, which works through vsanas, bringing it near to the position of Realists, and

(3) Ratnakrtis connotation of a word as a conceptual image qualified by a negation of the

opposite entities20.

This subtle difference in fact points to a larger difference: Deconstruction,

notwithstanding Derrida in his Letter to a Japanese Friend, is treated by and large as a

philosophy whereas apoha is a concept that serves a Buddhist philosophy. That such a

comparison is indeed being made, then, also speaks of the magnitude of Buddhism and

deconstruction. Deconstruction seems to be everywhere and one is justified in thinking that

it is one of the most influential developments in the twentieth century. Indeed, it is. Still, it

dwarfs in front of one of the largest religions in the world, with more than half a billion

20The current scholarship does not hold this view. Mark Siderits in his Was ntarakita aPositivist? (193-206) and Shoryu Katsura in Jnarmitra onApoha(171-181), both in Matilal andEvans, show that Mookerjis categorisations were simplistic. Mookerji has still been quoted, as thepoint in the present context was to show that where deconstruction as a reaction is not triggered due

to specific criticisms of a doctrine, apoha is a reaction only in the sense that it develops due to apolemic process.


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believers, which has been flourishing for the last twenty five centuries. It is so in terms of

texts as well: if Derridas writings and criticisms of Derrida fill a rack, Buddhist texts fill a

library. This comparison is, to use Prof. Ramachandrans words, notanother step forward

towards decolonization,21 rather, it is to serve as a reminder of the unevenness of the

ground when talking about apoha and deconstruction, and a reminder to not over-read, to

not stretch a point.

The second pointer of Prof. Ramachandran is the possibility of similarity between

differance of Derrida and the vikalpa of Dinga (or, the kalpan of Dharmakrti). At the

surface, one wonders why he leaves the matter at the level of a tentative question. It is the

view of the present writer that Derrida needs to be seen as the inheritor of Kant, Husserl and

Heidegger when one examines differance in light ofvikalpa. At the surface, Derrida seems

not to dwell much on ontology and epistemology, which play such a vital role in the concept

ofapoha. This might be because the ontological and epistemological investigations with

respect to a theory of meaning have been already conducted by Husserl in some length. It is

significant that Derridas Ph. D. topic was The Problem of Genesis in Husserls

Phenomenology22. Joshua Kates in his Essential Historytraces (Chapters 3 and 4) the

development of Derridas thought from the work done by Derrida for the Ph. D. topic (1953-

54, but not defended till almost three decades later), to his later (1959) summarization of the

same in the paperGense et structure et la phnomnologie (Genesis and Structure

and Phenomenology), to his book-length Introduction to the translation of Husserls Origin

of Geometry(1962). Continuing Kates account, by 1967 Derrida has moved completely

21For this fact (that native thought systems were much older, that they had many more texts andadherents etc.) was well-known. The colonial discourse was that the quality of the Eastern texts waspoor. One shelf of a good European library, for Thomas Babington Macaulay was worth more thanthe whole native literature of Indian and Arabia. He also could not find amongst the Orientalists anywho would argue against the statement (as stated in his 1835 Minute on Education).

22Though completed by 1954, this was published first in French in 1990. The English translation was

published in 2003 by Chicago University Press with the title The Problem of Genesis in HusserlsPhilosophy.


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away from phenomenology. One might posit, recalling Matilals turn of phrase, that for

Derrida, in Husserl if the ontological problem was Genesis, it was Being in Heidegger,

ultimately leading to an epistemological solution, couched as differance, consequent to the

inescapable self-referentiality of language. Differance is difficult to typify. It is a concept; it is

a non-concept; it is both and/or neither simultaneously, and/or by turns23. In contrast, vikalpa

is a concept, as in a subsidiary of the apoha theory. It is a mental construct (which also can

be called conceptual, as it were), a phenomenal form, which is both different from the

object-outside (bhyavastu) and has similarities with it. Its dual nature is what allows us to

operate in language, and that is what makes language an imperfect tool. In that sense, one

can see why Prof. Ramachandran posed the question, but an alternate question presents

itself: is differance similar to apoha? It is important to note that apoha also provides a

solution to the problem of temporality that Husserl talks about in The Origin of Geometry. If

the present now were conceived as a punctual instant, there could be no coherent of

experience as such; one would paradoxically end in denying the identity of ones own

experience, ones own self, as did Hume. There could be no self-relation in such a case; in

short, there could be no life, understood as absolute subjectivity (Alan Bass, xxxvii). Earlier

(in p18 of this paper), the problems consequent to the Buddhist tenet of everything being

momentary were presented. The solution provided by apoha to this problem of temporality

lies in the concept ofarthakriykritvam the possession of a telic function, which is posited

as the reason why we refer to the object by using language. This then places limits, or

avadhis, within which language is used. Derrida provides a slightly different version of the

solution. By invoking the sense of to defer in the term differance, he wants users to be

reminded of a similar approximation as Dharmakrti states. The critical difference is that the

fact of a compromise is foregrounded in Derrida, but muted in the background for

apohavdins. This foregrounding is conditioned to a large extent by Derridas refusal to have

23

Is this admiration at work by way of copying the master? No, hopefully. This sentence is meantonly to expand the previous one that Differance is difficult to typify. By the way, concept isapplicable in all its senses here.


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ontological, theological or epistemological foundations. Thus, one way to view differance

and apoha/vikalpa24 is to see them as differences in presentation, rather than in essence.

The third and fourth points of Prof. Ramachandran, that both apoha and

deconstruction view perception as including presence and absence, and that language is

inadequate to express complete meaning of anything are adequately established in the

above discussion. There are other relationships that could be explored.

The first relationship would be other similarities, not mentioned by Prof.

Ramachandran. Both apoha and deconstruction posit limits which fashion the language and

in ultimate analysis want the limits to be removed in fact the limits are what are

deconstructed in deconstruction. That said, once identified, limits tend to get accepted in the

general discourse and get into the background. This becomes clearer with an example.

From the days of Copernicus Galileo, it has been well known that it is the Earth which

revolves around the Sun, yet the usage of the Sun rising and setting persists. True, it is a

metaphoric usage, or more accurately, a descriptive usage transformed into a metaphoric

usage. The process of metaphorisation, or troping, involved first the wide spread

acceptance of Earths revolutions, and then a pact to push it to the background. Thus, in this

view, as and when deconstruction gets troped, it would resemble apoha. There is the other

similar concept called trace, which might be similar to the concept ofvsana (imprint) in

apoha.

A second relationship would be the application. Derrida is a philosopher whose

thinking had the greatest impact on literary criticism in English, rather than on philosophical

discourse in English. Derrida himself demonstrated deconstruction in so many fields: justice,

gifts, hospitality, death, society, politics, diplomacy, economics, historical reality etc. On the

24

Terminology is not important here; the similarity of thought leading to the non-concept, non-word isthe point. This, in fact, is the burden of the caution expressed at the end of p30 in this paper: not tostretch a point.


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other hand, Buddhism is a philosophy which has been converted into a religion, one could

say, against the wishes of its founder. Buddhism has been invoked by many (say, in Zen

and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) but that application is quite different from the way

deconstruction has been used.Apoha has largely served only Buddhist philosophy rather

than open a way for a different way of looking at literature or commentary or translation or

other fields. To be sure, there is a separate Buddhist view on literary appreciation, which

derive partly from Nyastra and partly from Buddhist philosophical underpinnings, but the

end result is that Buddhist appreciation, commentary and translation can be safely

described as faithful in the extreme. On the other hand, a deconstructionist criticism,

commentary or translation is the stark opposite of that25, as perceived by the likes of M. A.

Abrams (who would find the Buddhist post-writing, i.e. criticism, commentary or translation,

faithful). With respect to what Buddhist thinkers thought about literary criticism, we do not

have much material available. Indian works on poetics have been composed, as if

Buddhism did not ever exist26, whereas Western writers seem to be searching for a new

25Here a deconstructionist would say that his criticism/commentary/translation is indeed the mostfaithful one, or correct or good, much in the way that Nida characterised his translation of lamb as pigor seal, as faithful. A most interesting example is to be found in Eaves and Fischer.Romanticismand Contemporary Criticism ed. by Morris Eaves and Michael Fishcer (Cornell UP, 1986). In thisanthology J. Hillis Miller, a boa deconstructor (Abrams, 128) first deconstructs Wordsworths ASlumber Did My Spirit Seal; then, in the next paper a respected negative critic of Derrida, M. H.Abrams analyses the same poem and critiques Millers criticism. This is followed by an in-depthinterview first with Abrams; then, Miller responds with a postscript to both Millers criticism andinterview, and is then himself interviewed. There in his paper (119), Miller makes the claim thatdeconstruction is simply good reading. This point comes out more clearly, anchored as it were in anexample, in his remark (123): I cant make George Eliots Middlemarch . . . mean anything that I wantit to mean. . . . [the] power of text over its readers also opens up the possibility of dialogue among

readers in which you could actually work out whether somebody was right or wrong. It follows that thereal way to get at Derrida it would be hard to do would be to try to demonstrate that he is wrongabout Plato or Ponge or Hegel, that his readings are wrong. This would be far more to the point thanarguing in a vacuum about his theories.

26In India, Sanskrit literary criticism is a much developed field. Sushil Kumar De, for instance, in hisHistory of Sanskrit Poetics lists 105 authors (Bharata to Haladhara Bhatta) who wrote works onpoetics and another 48 anonymous works. They were many Buddhist poets in India like Asvaghoshawho wrote fine poetry. But, in the 150+ works, Buddhist works are not quoted as examples, excepttwo examples of Dharmakrtis poems by Anandavardhana in a negative light. One can say with acertain confidence that Buddhist poems are not cited, because most works on Alakrastra arewritten according to a certain scheme, drawing heavily from vykaraa, mms and nyya. Thepurpose of any work is to convey the Vedic dharma, but in an engaging manner as a woman would

instruct (kntsammit), as opposed to the way a king would order (prabhusammit, the manner ofthe Vedas), or speak bluntly like a friend (mitrasammit, the manner of Mahabharata and Puras).Indeed any commentator is expected to be a master of the three stras mentioned above -


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Buddhist turn in literary criticism, like Jefferson Humphries does to a certain extent in In

Reading Emptiness: Buddhism and Literature. Thus, we see that, as stated earlier, the two

strategies27 apoha and deconstruction though similar in their origins, have developed to

serve different purposes.

A third relationship would be the responses induced by deconstructionists and

Buddhists. Both have been branded as anarchists, but display little difference in practice

with respect to their supposed adversaries. For instance, as Miller put it in 1986 (121),

Derrida, for example, teaches philosophy. He teaches mostly the central canon of major

philosophers, Plato, Leibnitz, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, just as any other historian

of philosophy would do. Similarly, the eight-fold path taught by Buddha would be perfectly

acceptable to any Hindu, orsantanadharmin. Both claim to shake up the old establishment

and indirectly rejuvenate the old ways of thinking. Buddhism did not explicitly claim to

rejuvenate the stikas, but according to some versions, has transformed the intuitive

discourse of Upanishads into the logical and systematic treatment that is seen during the

period where stras of various daranas were compiled. Deconstructionists would more

gladly accept the aim of rejuvenating the old ways of thinking. Finally, in their time, both

have been seen as radical, but with passage of time, Buddhism is quite the mainstream in

the Eastern part of the world. Deconstruction is yet to reach that stage. This observation

leads to the one conclusion of this comparative study: that apoha helps in understanding

deconstruction better by providing the foundation of ontology and epistemology, though

deconstruction itself is non-foundational. This point is presented in some detail in the next,

final section.

padavkyapramavit). The exception to this is Ratnarjna who wrote a commentary on DainsKvydara. In his commentary, Ratnarjna quotes Buddhist verses approvingly.

27A rare adjective used by Derrida himself to refer to deconstruction and differance.


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6. Conclusion

The motivation for Prof. Ramachandrans short paper, and hence this not-so-short

paper, was to take a step towards decolonization by showing that what is considered avant-

garde of Western thought bears similarities with ancient Indian thoughts. To that extent, a

comparison ofvikalpa/apoha/Buddhism and deconstruction has largely served its purpose

by revealing probably similar origins (a reaction to hegemonistic philosophies), a very similar

theory of meaning based on exclusion, a similar view of cognition involving both presence

and absence, a very similar view of language (its essential inability to grasp the complete

meaning) and a few differences. Both the approaches have invoked similar response as

well, but their major difference is that they have extended into different branches: Buddhism

towards religion, and deconstruction towards literary criticism. With time, Buddhism now

looks less radical (though it is not), whereas deconstruction is still at the edge, so to speak.

Then, one could surmise that when deconstruction gets troped, it will start looking more like

Buddhism.

There is another point which needs to be noted, with all the care and humility that

deconstruction teaches28. It seems to this writer, that many opponents of deconstruction do

not understand the strategy because they do not understand the foundations, which of

course, do not exist as in there being a particular foundation to it. For instance, a common

negative criticism of deconstructionists is that they read what they want to read in a given

text or situation. The implied critique is that if deconstruction could overturn the hierarchy of

Presence/Absence, then the deconstruction hierarchy of Absence/Presence could also be

overturned, and that there is no end to this play. Since the end is arbitrary, any meaning

which is desired can be read into a text. In other words, deconstructions can be

deconstructed. The view of deconstructionists is that, it is not possible to deconstruct a

28

For, the most significant teaching of deconstruction is to approach any situation with caution andhumility, to constantly examine the assumptions, especially the foundational ones. One cannotescape the limits imposed by language, but one could be aware of it and be more careful.


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deconstruction as there must be limiting assumptions, or a centre, or a foundation to be

deconstructed, but deconstructions by definition proceed without any of these, and hence

deconstruction of deconstructions is not possible. At some stage, the mind of the negative

critic closes, and everything that deconstructionist says is portrayed as a play of language.

The compliment that critics usually give deconstructionists that such-and-such is very good

with language, actually means that the words of such-and-such are empty.

Now, this writer believes that such a situation exists because critics do not pay enough

attention to the foundational nature of differance. With the concept/non-concept, or concept

of differance, we do have an ontological foundation (that is, not the foundation) for

deconstruction. If a version of ontology and epistemology that underlie deconstruction are

explained like Tillemans has in the case ofapoha, indeed ifapoha itself with its concomitant

lucid expositions is proposed as a foundation for deconstruction, much of the confusion

regarding deconstruction will clear. It is not to say that all negative criticism will be answered

(Buddhism itself has not achieved that but, there is not the same confusion with Buddhism

or apoha, amongst its opponents, as obtains with respect to deconstruction). It is that the

confusion amongst critics will be less, and hopefully there would be more adherents, not put

off by the slipperiness (as perceived by the non-adherents) of the language of

deconstructionists. In making this conclusion, one tried to become aware of the various

forces that push this conclusion forward. Firstly, if one spends long time on a given topic,

especially a comparative one, it becomes a looking glass to view the entire world and

everything becomes related to the topic at hand. Second, one is always eager to draw grand

conclusions, to assert ones insights, where none might be. Third, a hidden pride of the sort

that ancient Indians, those magnificent philosophers, analyzed and presented much better

than the Johnnie-come-latelies might be at play. Even after considering the influence of

these forces, one is compelled to say that apoha is indeed helpful in explaining

deconstruction better. This is true at a personal level, and if not as an established fact, at the

least, it deserves to be taken as a hypothesis and be subject to further examination.


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