Who were the Tarkikas? The Place of Polemic in Samkara's Brhadaranyakopanisadbhasya

Abstract

Like other Indian commentators, the great Advaitin Śaṃkara (eighth century CE) engages throughout his works with ‘fictive opponents’ and their ideas, considering their views, subjecting them to criticism and establishing his final position in response to them. Normally he does this with politeness if with vigour. However, in his commentary on the voluminous Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, there is one set of opponents whom he treats rather differently, subjecting them to invective at every turn. It seems, at first sight, that they are the tārkikas (logicians). This gives us a puzzle. The most obvious reference of the term ‘tārkika’ is to members of the Nyāya school, which specialised in forms of argument and pramāṇa theory. Indeed, some translators and commentators assume that this is who Śaṃkara has in mind here. But this is not how he normally treats Naiyāyikas. In this article, I subject Śaṃkara’s texts to close reading to try to discover who these elusive people might be, using clues from register theory to help develop my argument. I suggest a particular identification for them which helps us to understand the context in which Śaṃkara was teaching, a context in which rivalries between ritualist brahmins and growing devotional movements may well have affected the way he was trying to position his Advaitin tradition.

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