Translation Workshop: Akalaṅka's Aṣṭaśatī and Its Non-Jain Interlocutors

Samantabhadra’s _Examination of an Authority_ (_Āptamīmāṃsā_, c. 6th century CE) is a foundational Sanskrit philosophical text for the classical Jain theory of non-one-sidedness (_anekāntavāda_). In it, Samantabhadra succinctly refutes a series of opposing positions pertaining to ontology, epistemology, ethics, and soteriology, on the ground that they are too one-sided. This leads him to the Jain method that shows how each opposing thesis could be successfully asserted, not unilaterally, but within its own specified set of parameters. The text is brief, fairly transparent, and has been translated and studied in English. The same cannot be said of its primary commentary, _The Eight Hundred (Aṣṭaśatī_, c. 8th century CE) of the eminent Digambara philosopher Akalaṅka. This is a dense and difficult but important work connecting a seminal moment of classical Jain philosophy with its fullest flourish near the turn of the second millennium, a period in which the representatives of the various philosophical schools had entered into earnest debate with each other in the lingua franca of Sanskrit. Its very title suggests its positioning and qualities: perhaps inspired by Buddhist works such as the _Perfection of Wisdom of the Eight-Thousand (Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā_), it is named for its magnitude, a profusion of prose roughly equivalent to eight hundred verses. However, even as it is long, it is yet terse, breathlessly packing entire traditions of argument into compact and often cryptic sentences, ranging over a whole spectrum of views that would defy the breadth of the most erudite scholars. Indeed, these qualities and challenges have piqued some of Jainism’s most erudite philosophers – notably, Vidyānandin and Yaśovijaya – making it one of the only Jain texts to attract subcommentaries from both sides of the Digambara-Śvetāmbara schism. Its most prominent subcommentary, _The Eight Thousand (Aṣṭasāhasrī)_ of Vidyānandin, is (as its title indicates) ten times longer and proportionately helpful, and it deems _The Eight-Hundred_ to be the only philosophical text one ever needs to read. This panel would workshop the translation-in-progress of part of _The Eight Hundred_ being produced by the international Jain Philosophy Research Group, which is composed of scholars ranging from graduate students to professors emeritus in North America, Europe, and India. The chosen extract comments upon the crucial verses dealing with posits of one-sided ‘existence’ and ‘non-existence’ and leads up to the first occurrence of Samantabhadra’s refrain summarizing non-one-sidedness. After some introductory remarks at the panel, we will distribute the translation and source text to the audience, divided up into reading groups. When we reconvene, we will invite responses from audience members who specialize in the study of the non-Jain philosophies that Akalaṅka engages in his commentary–including Sāṁkhya, Mīmāṃsā, and Yogācāra Buddhism–to unpack the allusions and arguments that he invokes so tersely. Then we will solicit any general discussion and feedback on the translation. This is a unique panel format that will engage constituencies beyond Jain Studies, and facilitate concrete improvements to a work-in-progress.