Isabelle Ratié | Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle (original) (raw)

Books by Isabelle Ratié

Qu'est-ce que la philosophie indienne?, 2023

Il est temps de congédier les clichés que l’Europe entretient sur la philosophie indienne, qui se... more Il est temps de congédier les clichés que l’Europe entretient sur la philosophie indienne, qui serait trop absorbée par sa religiosité et son mysticisme pour donner prise au concept. Les auteurs ont choisi de diriger l’attention moins sur les traditions doctrinales que sur les thèmes montrant les philosophes et les écoles à l’oeuvre, défendant leurs positions sur un mode polémique. Ces points de cristallisation du débat indien – perception et vérité, autorité, langage, sémantique, ontologie et universaux, l’espace et le temps, le soi, idéalisme et solipsisme, Dieu –constituent l’originalité de l’ouvrage. L’appétit pour les philosophies non européennes peut en effet prendre d’autres formes que celle d’une "fusion philosophy" glanant quelques concepts indiens pour épicer une pensée prétendument globale. Il y a certes dans les tentatives récentes pour faire "dialoguer" tel philosophe bouddhiste du VIIe siècle avec tel philosophe analytique un louable effort pour dépasser l’eurocentrisme philosophique. Mais dans ce jeu de parallèles et de "dialogues" fictifs, les philosophes indiens ont tout à perdre : à détacher les concepts des systèmes au sein desquels ils fonctionnent, et à abstraire ces systèmes du paysage philosophique dans lequel ils ont été construits, on prend le risque de manquer entièrement ce qui fait leur sens et leur force.

The Recognition of the Lord (Īśvarapratyabhijñā) by the Kashmirian Utpaladeva (c. 925–975) is a l... more The Recognition of the Lord (Īśvarapratyabhijñā) by the Kashmirian Utpaladeva (c. 925–975) is a landmark in the history of nondual Śaivism, and one of the masterpieces of Indian philosophy. The detailed commentary (Vivṛti) on it by the author himself was so far considered almost entirely lost, but three chapters of this major work were recently recovered from marginal annotations in manuscripts of other commentaries on Utpaladeva’s treatise. The book provides the first critical edition, annotated translation and study of the chapter devoted to the examination of the “power of action”, which endeavours to justify a fundamental paradox of the system – namely, the idea that Śiva (understood as an infinite, omniscient and omnipotent consciousness) has a dynamic essence since the core of consciousness is a subtle form of action, and yet is by no means limited by the temporal and spatial sequence that affects all ordinary acts and agents.
Isabelle Ratié, Utpaladeva on the Power of Action. A First Edition, Annotated Translation and Study of Īśvarapratyabhijñāvivṛti, Chapter 2.1, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, Harvard Oriental Series 96, 2021, xv+395 pages.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674270817

Abhinavagupta is undoubtedly the most famous Kashmirian medieval intellectual: his decisive contr... more Abhinavagupta is undoubtedly the most famous Kashmirian medieval intellectual: his decisive contributions to Indian aesthetics, Śaiva theo-logy and metaphysics, and to the philosophy of the subtle and original Pratyabhijñā system are well known. Yet so far his works have often been studied without fully taking into account the specific context in which they are embedded – an intellectual background that is not less exceptional than Abhinavagupta himself. While providing fresh inter-pretations of some of the great Śaiva polymath’s works, the nineteen essays gathered here attempt to map out for the first time the extra-ordinary cultural effervescence that took place in the little kingdom of Kashmir around Abhinavagupta‘s time.

Recent scholarship on Śaivism has significantly expanded our knowledge of the religious dimension... more Recent scholarship on Śaivism has significantly expanded our knowledge of the religious dimensions of Medieval Śaiva movements. However, the philosophical aspects displayed by some of the texts produced in these milieux remain largely unrecognized. The present study helps fill this lacuna by exploring the sophisticated and original philosophical system elaborated by the Kashmiri Śaiva nondualists Utpaladeva (fl. c. 925-975) and Abhinavagupta (fl. c. 975-1025). The book shows that this system cannot be reduced to a mere scriptural exegesis and examines the genesis of the main concepts found in the Pratyabhijñā (“Recognition”) philosophy while taking into account the complexity of the philosophical field (already occupied by various currents, Buddhist as well as Brahmanical) in which Utpaladeva’s thought was developed.

Si les récents travaux de recherche consacrés au śivaïsme ont permis de mieux comprendre les dimensions religieuses des mouvements śivaïtes médiévaux, les aspects proprements philosophiques de certains des textes produits dans ces milieux demeurent largement méconnus. La présenté étude se propose de contribuer à combler cette lacune en explorant le système philosophique complexe et original élaboré par les śivaïtes non dualistes cachemiriens Utpaladeva (925-975) et Abhinavagupta (975-1025). Montrant que ce système ne se réduit pas à une exégèse scripturaire, l’ouvrage examine la genèse des concepts de la philosophie de la Pratyabhijñā ou “Reconnaissance” en prenant en compte la complexité du champ philosophique (déjà investi par divers courants aussi bien bouddhiques que brahmaniques) dans lequel la pensée d’Utpaladeva s’est développée.

From very early times, the Buddhist intellectuals have made the notion of a self existing over an... more From very early times, the Buddhist intellectuals have made the notion of a self existing over and above the bodily and mental constituents one of their main targets. Their critique first culminates in Vasubandhu’s treatise against the Buddhist personalists (early 5th century CE). The eighth-century philosophers Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla provide another milestone in the history of the mainstream Buddhists’ critique of the self and the person: their Tattvasaṅgraha(pañjikā) contains the most learned and elaborate treatment of the subject (at least before Karṇakagomin’s and Śaṅkaranandana’s Nairātmyasiddhi monographs). But how have Dignāga and Dharmakīrti (6th century [?]) contributed to this heated debate? The present study attempts to answer at least in part this question by offering a monographic account of Dharmakīrti’s position regarding the self. The book’s introduction deals with Dharmakīrti’s view of the self as the paramount expression of nescience. Chapter 1 is devoted to his critique of the two main expressions of Buddhist substantialism, viz. the Buddha-nature teachings and Personalism (pudgalavāda). Chapter 2 presents his way of undermining the non-Buddhists’ arguments in favour of the self. Finally, Chapter 3 provides a detailed account of Dharmakīrti’s most original contribution on the subject, viz. his demonstration that the (belief in the) existence of a self makes salvation impossible.

This book offers a critical edition, translation and study of 62 Sanskrit verses from the Tattvas... more This book offers a critical edition, translation and study of 62 Sanskrit verses from the Tattvasaṅgraha (an 8th-century Buddhist philosophical treatise by Śāntarakṣita) and their commentary by Kamalaśīla. The passage expounds and criticizes the definition of the Self (ātman) upheld by the greatest champion of Brahmanical orthodoxy, the Mīmāṃsaka philosopher Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (6th-7th cent.?). According to Kumārila, there is within each human being an enduring conscious substance the permanence of which ensures personal identity and justifies the Vedic injunction to sacrifice so as to enjoy later the results of the ritual. This entity is what we recognize when we say and think “I”: in the I-cognition we apprehend ourselves as the same consciousness that perceived in the past and is still aware now. Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, for their part, set out to defend the Buddhist doctrine that there is no Self (nairātmya) – according to which existential pain has as its root the erroneous belief in a permanent subject – by showing in particular that the self-recognition invoked by Kumārila is a mere mental construct. The text is an important document for the history of Indian philosophy, not only because it contains many quotations from the Bṛhaṭṭīkā (a lost work by Kumārila) and is probably the earliest preserved Buddhist critique of Kumārila’s definition of the Self, but also because it constitutes a splendid example of the way in which religious competition has stimulated and enriched philosophical debates in Medieval India. The book includes a study of the arguments put forward by Kumārila, Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla (Chapters 1 and 2), an assessment of the originality and influence of Śāntarakṣita’s critique (Chapters 3 and 4), a tentative interpretation of the nature of the philosophical antagonism between Buddhist and Brahmanical milieux (Chapter 5), a critical edition and a translation of the text (Chapters 6 and 7).

Tokyo, International Institute for Buddhist Studies (Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series, 36), 2018

Papers by Isabelle Ratié

Hiroko Matsuoka, Shinya Moriyama, Tyler Neill (eds.), To the Heart of Truth. Felicitation Volume for Eli Franco on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, Vienna, 2023

Why do philosophers write books? According to most South Asian authors of the past, out of a desi... more Why do philosophers write books? According to most South Asian authors of the past, out of a desire to help others. Yet the influential Pramāṇavārttika by the great Buddhist thinker Dharmakīrti (c. 600 CE) is prefaced by a stanza that has been read by all modern historians as declaring that, since most people are incapable of understanding Dharmakīrti’s thought and resentful of any intellectual brillance, he is not writing so as to help others but only in order to fulfill his personal passion for beautiful philosophical discourses. The oldest preserved commentaries on the text, however, had a very different understanding of this stanza – one that has been almost completely overlooked by modern scholarship so far. According to Śākyabuddhi and Karṇakagomin, the stanza must be read, directly or indirectly, as expressing an altruistic meaning, and Dharmakīrti’s actual motive was compassion.The article, which provides an edition and English translation of the relevant passages in the commentaries, discusses the strategies employed by Buddhist commentators to salvage Dharmakīrti from accusations of egotism, as well as the perspective of medieval non-Buddhist authors on Dharmakīrti’s reasons for writing his masterpiece.

The Medieval Globe, 2022

The practice of writing a commentary on one’s own work has long been studied by historians focusi... more The practice of writing a commentary on one’s own work has long been studied by historians focusing on European Renaissance; but it was also very common in classical and medieval India. The article provides an overview of the phenomenon in Sanskrit sources while exploring hypotheses on its origins and goals. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/897565

Published in V. Eltschinger, B. Kellner, E. Mills, I. Ratié (ed. 2021), A Road Less Traveled. Fel... more Published in V. Eltschinger, B. Kellner, E. Mills, I. Ratié (ed. 2021), A Road Less Traveled. Felicitation Volume in Honor of John Taber (open access: https://wstb.univie.ac.at/product/wstb-100/). The article examines the definitions of time in Sāṃkhya from the first commentaries on the Sāṃkhyakārikās up to Vijñānabhikṣu’s works. These texts all deny the existence of time as an entity existing over and above the three constitutive elements of reality acknowledged in the tradition (i.e. the Person, Nature, and its manifest evolutes); but they have strikingly different ways of justifying this denial. The Yuktidīpikā offers by far the most elaborate definition; it argues that time cannot be an eternal, omnipresent and static substance as the Vaiśeṣikas contend, and is but a relative concept that results from our comparing various actions – an idea probably inspired by grammatical and astronomical sources. The article outlines the reception of the argument by its Vaiśeṣika adversaries and its fate within Sāṃkhya. It seeks to explain how the commentaries on the late Sāṃkhyasūtras, while still defending the principle that time is no distinct entity, ended up presenting time as being exactly what the Yuktidīpikā’s author had staunchly refused to admit: an eternal, static and omnipresent substance. It shows how this new understanding of time in Sāṃkhya was projected by late exegetes onto a twelfth-century Vaiśeṣika manual by Śivāditya, which has led modern historians to misunderstand Śivāditya’s definition of time. It also highlights differences between the Sāṃkhya and Pātañjalayoga views on time – notably the assertion in the Yogabhāṣya that contrary to succession, the moment (kṣaṇa) is real – and the ways in which commentators reacted to these apparent discrepancies, by ignoring them (as Vācaspatimiśra), by attempting to conciliate the Yogabhāṣya with the Yuktidīpikā’s argument (as the Yogavivaraṇa’s author) or by underscoring the incompatibility of the Sāṃkhya and Yoga views on time (as Vijñānabhikṣu).

V. Eltschinger, M. Sernesi & V. Tournier (eds.), Archaeologies of the Written: Indian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies in Honour of Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” Dipartimento Asia Africa e Mediterraneo, pp. 493-516, 2020

Until recently, the religious affiliation of the major Kashmirian medieval philosopher Śaṅkaranan... more Until recently, the religious affiliation of the major Kashmirian medieval philosopher Śaṅkaranandana was a matter of scholarly debate: he was variously suspected of being a Buddhist apostate who ended up embracing Śaivism; a Śaiva who eventually converted to Buddhism; a Buddhist who, without renouncing his faith, was profoundly influenced by Śaiva ideas and terminology; or even a Śaiva who composed some Buddhist works while remaining Śaiva. Abhinavagupta’s attitude towards Śaṅkaranandana played no small role in sparking such suspicions, since the famous Śaiva polymath, who often quotes from Śaṅkaranandana’s works, also alludes to him in a somewhat obscure passage that several modern scholars have read as praising the “intuition” that enabled Śaṅkaranandana to correctly understand the nature of consciousness as it is expounded in Śaiva nondualistic literature. Vincent Eltschinger’s recent examination of unpublished Sanskrit manuscript sources has shown that in fact Śaṅkaranandana’s known works were all unambiguously Buddhist. What of Abhinavagupta’s remark then? Was the Śaiva openly professing his admiration for the philosophical acumen of a Buddhist rival, in a striking illustration of the complex relationship – of both competition and influence – between Kashmirian Śaiva authors and their Buddhist counterparts? Or should we suspect that Abhinavagupta was being sarcastic and ironically congratulated Śaṅkaranandana on managing to see the blindly obvious despite his Buddhist faith? The present paper proposes to settle this issue by reading this much discussed statement in Abhinavagupta’s Īśvarapratyabhijñāvivṛtivimarśinī in light of another passage of the same text bearing on the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti.
Published in V. Eltschinger, M. Sernesi & V. Tournier (eds.), Archaeologies of the Written: Indian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies in Honour of Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” Dipartimento Asia Africa e Mediterraneo, 2020, pp. 493-516.

"Some hitherto unknown fragments of Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti (I): on the Buddhist controversy over the... more "Some hitherto unknown fragments of Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti (I): on the Buddhist controversy over the existence of other conscious streams", pp. 224-256 in R. TORELLA & B. BÄUMER (eds.), Utpaladeva, Philosopher of Recognition, Delhi: DK Printworld.
The fields of indology and Indian philosophy owe to Raffaele Torella one of the most exciting manuscript discoveries made in the last decades, namely, that of the only extensive fragment thus far known of Utpaladeva’s own Vivṛti on his Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā. Thanks to the edition of this very incomplete codex unicus (it only covers 13 verses out of 190), we are now able to compare this known part of Utpaladeva’s lost text with the numerous annotations written in the margins of the manuscripts of Abhinavagupta’s commentaries on the Pratyabhijñā treatise. This comparison shows that some of these marginalia are quotations – and in a number of cases, rather lengthy ones – of Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti. The article, which presents the first results of an ongoing study of the marginal annotations found in manuscripts of Abhinavagupta’s Pratyabhijñā commentaries, offers an edition and annotated translation of a hitherto unknown passage of the Vivṛti on kārikās 1.5.4 and 1.5.5. The fragment bears on the Buddhist controversy between Vijñānavādins and Sautrāntikas over the existence of other conscious streams (santānāntara) and on the possibility of intersubjectivity if, as the Vijñānavādins claim, nothing exists outside consciousness.
http://www.dkprintworld.com/product-detail.php?pid=1280858056

Published in Dominic GOODALL, Shaman HATLEY, Harunaga ISAACSON, Srilata RAMAN (eds.), Śaivism and... more Published in Dominic GOODALL, Shaman HATLEY, Harunaga ISAACSON, Srilata RAMAN (eds.), Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions. Essays in Honour of Alexis G.J.S. Sanderson, Leiden-Boston: Brill, pp. 106-143 (https://brill.com/view/title/56613).
Utpaladeva’s detailed commentary (the Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) on his own Īśvarapratyabhijñā treatise was certainly the most innovative text of the Pratyabhijñā corpus; unfortunately, however, to date we only have access to fragments of this work. We owe to Raffaele Torella the crucial discovery, edition and translation of an important passage of Utpaladeva’s lost commentary (covering 13 of the 190 verses of the treatise) on the basis of a unique, very incomplete Vivṛti manuscript; but many more Vivṛti fragments were recently discovered in annotations written in the margins of manuscripts containing other Pratyabhijñā texts. The lengthiest of these covers three thus far entirely unknown chapters of the Vivṛti, the first of which has been edited and translated by Isabelle Ratié in a monograph about to be published. The present article is part of a series of papers devoted to the edition, translation and explanation of shorter fragments found in the margins of manuscripts containing Abhinavagupta’s commentaries on Utpaladeva’s treatise. The first of these studies (“Some hitherto unknown fragments of Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti (I): on the Buddhist controversy over the existence of other conscious streams”, in R. Torella & B. Bäumer (eds.), Utpaladeva, Philosopher of Recognition, Delhi: DK Printworld, 2016, pp. 224-256) dealt with a fragment explaining verses 1.5.4-5; it focused on the Buddhist controversy between Vijñānavādins and Sautrāntikas over the existence of other conscious streams (santānāntara) and on the possibility of intersubjectivity if, as the Vijñānavādins claim, nothing exists outside consciousness. The paper included in the present volume deals with fragments of the Vivṛti on the following verses (1.5.6-9), which argue against the Sautrāntikas’ thesis that we must infer the existence of a reality external to consciousness in order to account for phenomenal variety. In these fragments Utpaladeva shows not only that, as already emphasized by the Vijñānavādins, postulating the existence of an external world is of no use in the realm of everyday practice, and that an external object must have contradictory properties whether it is understood as having parts or not, but also that the very act of mentally producing the concept (and therefore the inference) of an external object is in fact impossible to perform, because an object by nature alien to consciousness is simply unthinkable.

Utpaladeva’s detailed commentary (the Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) on his own magnum opus (the Īśvarapratyabhi... more Utpaladeva’s detailed commentary (the Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) on his own magnum opus (the Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā) was certainly the most important philosophical text of the Pratyabhijñā corpus. Unfortunately, however, to date we only have access to fragments of this work. We owe to Raffaele Torella the discovery, edition and translation of an important passage of Utpaladeva’s lost commentary on the basis of a unique, very incomplete Vivṛti manuscript; but more Vivṛti fragments have recently come to light. These newly discovered fragments (the lengthiest of which covers several chapters of the treatise) were found in annotations written in the margins of manuscripts containing other Pratyabhijñā texts (see I. Ratié, “In search of Utpaladeva’s lost Vivṛti on the Pratyabhijñā treatise: a report on the latest discoveries,” Journal of Indian Philosophy, 2016, published online at http://link.springer.com/ article/10.1007/s10781-016-9302-2). The following article is the continuation of a series of papers devoted to the edition, translation and explanation of fragments found in such marginal annotations. It deals with the commentary on verse 1.3.5 where Utpaladeva, while arguing in favour of the existence of the Self (ātman), criticizes the Buddhist view of memory. It was published in E. Franco & I. Ratié (eds.), Around Abhinavagupta. Aspects of the Intellectual History of Kashmir from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century, Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2016, pp. 375-400 (http://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/3-643-90697-7).

'Verità e bellezza' Essays in Honour of Raffaele Torella, 2022

This paper offers a presentation, edition and translation of a fragment of the Īśvarapratyabhijñā... more This paper offers a presentation, edition and translation of a fragment of the Īśvarapratyabhijñā-vivṛti by the tenth-century Śaiva philosopher Utpaladeva. The passage deals with the issue of non-being and the paradox of our ability to become aware of an absence – i.e., to grasp what is by definition nothing. Utpaladeva adopts the Buddhist Dharmakīrtian philosophers’ view that in order to avoid reifying nonbeing we must understand absence as a form of otherness; yet he shows that his Buddhist rivals have not understood all the consequences of their own principle. He also examines the problem of entities such as demons (piśāca), whose presence must remain doubtful because they are by nature imperceptible. Published in Francesco Sferra and Vincenzo Vergiani (eds. 2022), Verità e bellezza. Essays in Honour of Raffaele Torella, Napoli: Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”, UniorPress, p. 929-964.

The margins of Indian manuscripts have attracted very little scholarly attention to date. The pre... more The margins of Indian manuscripts have attracted very little scholarly attention to date. The present paper is aimed at showing, through the example of Kashmirian Sanskrit manuscripts, that Classical Indology has much to gain by studying marginal annotations, first and foremost because the latter often include substantial quotations of texts that are no longer extant, so that they constitute a unique source enabling us to retrieve significant parts of lost works. These marginalia also provide us with an opportunity to understand how certain texts came to be marginalized in the course of time despite their innovative character and the intense exegetic or critical reaction that they might have initially triggered; and they may afford us some rare glimpses into the practical aspects of intellectual life – particularly learning and teaching habits – in medieval India.
Published in Silvia D’Intino and Sheldon Pollock (eds.), L’espace du sens: Approches de la philologie indienne. The Space of Meaning: Approaches to Indian Philology, with the collaboration of Michaël Meyer, Paris: De Boccard, Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne du Collège de France 84, 2018, pp. 305-354.

Journal of the American Oriental Society 138(4), pp. 709-741, 2018

The fifth-century grammarian-philosopher Bhartṛhari has long attracted scholarly attention, and d... more The fifth-century grammarian-philosopher Bhartṛhari has long attracted scholarly attention, and deservedly so: his magnum opus, the Vākyapadīya, had a profound impact on later Indian schools of thought, Brahmanical as well as Buddhist. The Vākyapadīya is not, however, the only grammatical and/or philosophical work ascribed to Bhartṛhari in addition to a commentary on Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya: according to several sources dating back at least to the tenth century, the same author also composed a Śabdadhātusamīkṣā or Ṣaḍdhātusamīkṣā, which, unfortunately, has not come down to us, and which is still shrouded in mystery, as its main topic, and even title and attribution, are considered uncertain to date. The goal of this article is to examine the available fragments and testimonies and to establish on their basis that the work, the original title of which must have been the Ṣaḍdhātusamīkṣā, endeavored to show that the whole phenomenal world is made of six elements (earth, fire, water, air, ether, and consciousness) while ultimately defending a nondualistic point of view. Verses quoted by later authors as belonging to the Ṣaḍdhātusamīkṣā are gathered and translated in an appendix to the article.
Published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 138(4), 2018, pp. 709-741.

Making reason and revelation agree, notably by defining the former’s subordination to the latter,... more Making reason and revelation agree, notably by defining the former’s subordination to the latter, was one of the main concerns of European Medieval scholasticism; and from the tension between the weight of scriptural authority and the aspiration to the independence of rational inquiry finally emerged in Europe a philosophical field free of any allegiance to a revealed discourse – or at least pretending to be so – and castigating the old “scholastic method.” In India, by way of contrast, the philosophical field has remained essentially scholastic inasmuch as most philosophical systems never ceased to acknowledge scripture (āgama) as a means of valid knowledge, and even often asserted its supremacy over reason and experience. Yet, just as European scholasticism cannot be reduced to the image of it that has prevailed since Descartes, the relationship between scriptural authority and rational enquiry in India is much more complex than might appear at first sight. It is first and foremost in order to defend their respective scriptures that various Indian religious currents chose to engage in philosophical debates; but this apologetic intention paradoxically led their champions to set aside scriptural authority. The paper points out this strange process of philosophical emancipation, born of apologetic concerns and nourished by them; and by comparing two apparently diametrically opposed definitions of the relationship between reason and revelation – that of the Buddhist Dharmakīrti, and that of the Śaiva nondualist Utpaladeva –, it aims at showing that although the Indian philosophical field never acquired the autonomy (real or proclaimed) that has characterized Western philosophy from the 17th century onwards, it grew in a constant creative tension between the acceptance and rejection of scriptural authority.
https://theoremes.revues.org/1166

Far from being confined to technical issues of catoptrics, the Indian Medieval discussion on the ... more Far from being confined to technical issues of catoptrics, the Indian Medieval discussion on the nature of optical reflections – in which most Indian philosophical traditions took part – had crucial metaphysical stakes: determining the ontological status of reflections was of particular importance to Indian thinkers because while many of them admitted that consciousness can be compared to a mirror reflecting the universe, they did not agree as to the significance of this analogy regarding the (un)reality of phenomena. The paper seeks to explain the Śaiva nondualists’ highly original position in this respect by showing how their thesis was elaborated against various Buddhist and Brahmanical theories that reduced reflections either to mere illusions or to the very objects existing outside of the mirror.
“An Indian Debate on Optical Reflections and Its Metaphysical Implications – Śaiva Nondualism and the Mirror of Consciousness,” in Joerg Tuske (ed.), Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics, London: Bloomsbury: 2017, pp. 207-240.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/indian-epistemology-and-metaphysics-9781472529534/

The Īśvarapratyabhijñā treatise – an important philosophical text composed in Kashmir in the 10th... more The Īśvarapratyabhijñā treatise – an important philosophical text composed in Kashmir in the 10th century CE by the Śaiva nondualist Utpaladeva – remains partly unavailable to date: a crucial component of this work, namely the detailed commentary (Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) in which Utpaladeva explained his own verses, is considered to be almost entirely lost, since only a small part of it has been preserved in a single, very incomplete manuscript remarkably edited and translated by Raffaele Torella. However, our knowledge of the Vivṛti is quickly expanding: many additional fragments have recently come to light. The article gives an overview of these new findings while highlighting the most interesting of them, i.e. the discovery of the lengthiest Vivṛti fragment known to date in the margins of a manuscript containing Abhinavagupta’s Vivṛtivimarśinī. It also provides an edition and translation of the beginning of this fragment.

Qu'est-ce que la philosophie indienne?, 2023

Tokyo, International Institute for Buddhist Studies (Studia Philologica Buddhica, Monograph Series, 36), 2018

Hiroko Matsuoka, Shinya Moriyama, Tyler Neill (eds.), To the Heart of Truth. Felicitation Volume for Eli Franco on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, Vienna, 2023

The Medieval Globe, 2022

'Verità e bellezza' Essays in Honour of Raffaele Torella, 2022

Journal of the American Oriental Society 138(4), pp. 709-741, 2018

The Pratyabhijñā (“Recognition”) system, designed by the Śaiva nondualist Utpaladeva (c. 925-975 ... more The Pratyabhijñā (“Recognition”) system, designed by the Śaiva nondualist Utpaladeva (c. 925-975 CE) and expounded by Abhinavagupta (c. 975-1025 CE), stands out as one of the greatest accomplishments of Indian philosophy. Engaging in a dialogue with all the rival currents of thought of his time, and claiming that the realization of our identity with God (understood as a single, all-encompassing and all-powerful consciousness) can be achieved through the mere recourse to experience and reason, Utpaladeva transforms the Śaiva scriptural dogmas into philosophical concepts. His “new path” is aimed at demonstrating that the essence of any individual’s consciousness is none other than the absolute freedom characterizing God’s creativity. While examining Utpaladeva’s use of the concept of freedom in several major Indian controversies (such as the debates over the existence of the Self or the ontological status of perceived objects), this article explores his phenomenological attempts to uncover the freedom of consciousness in our most ordinary experiences.

In recent decades the complex relationship between Buddhist and Śaiva movements has attracted muc... more In recent decades the complex relationship between Buddhist and Śaiva movements has attracted much scholarly attention among historians of Medieval India, and it is now beyond doubt that the tantric Buddhist traditions have largely borrowed from their Śaiva counterparts. Thus far, however, the current debate over the nature and direction of influence between Buddhist and Śaiva religions has mainly focused on tantric practices and iconography; but what of the connections between Buddhist and Śaiva philosophical systems? Several recent studies have shown that Śaiva philosophical literature is in fact pervaded by Buddhist notions. The present article, while providing a brief overview of these findings, also deals with a related question still largely unexplored by historians of Indian philosophy, namely: did Śaiva philosophers too influence their Buddhist rivals? The paper points out that no indisputable evidence has been adduced to date in support of the thesis of a Śaiva impact on Buddhist epistemologists; it contrasts this apparent lack of Buddhist interest for Śaiva philosophical works with the Śaivas’ blatant fascination for Buddhist logic and epistemology; and it ventures an explanation of this striking disparity by emphasizing that the two religions seem to have heavily borrowed from each other only in areas (such as the field of tantric practices for the Buddhists, and the philosophical arena for the Śaivas) where their rivals were conspicuously successful and had acquired a significant amount of prestige.

pp. 257-340 in R. Torella & B. Bäumer, Utpaladeva, Philosopher of Recognition, Delhi: DK Printwor... more pp. 257-340 in R. Torella & B. Bäumer, Utpaladeva, Philosopher of Recognition, Delhi: DK Printworld, 2015

Modern scholarship has often wondered whether Indian Buddhist idealism is primarily epistemic or ... more Modern scholarship has often wondered whether Indian Buddhist idealism is primarily epistemic or metaphysical: does this idealism amount to a kind of transcendental scepticism according to which we cannot decide whether objects exist or not outside of consciousness because we can have no epistemic access whatsoever to these objects? Or is it rather ontologically committed, i.e., does it consist in denying the very existence of the external world? One could deem the question anachronistic and suspect that with such an inquiry we project onto Ancient and Medieval India a distinction that remains profoundly alien to it, were it not for a few preserved texts where Indian authors themselves distinguish between two such kinds of idealism within the Buddhist philosophical tradition. As already pointed out by Dan Arnold, this is the case in the commentary by Manorathanandin on Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika; but the difference between two varieties of Buddhist idealism is also alluded to in Hindu sources, both Mīmāṃsaka and Śaiva. The present article offers a new analysis of Manorathanandin’s short and somewhat ambiguous distinction, and it examines in this connection some important remarks found in the works of the Śaiva nondualists Utpaladeva (c. 925-975) and Abhinavagupta (c. 975-1025). It shows that according to these authors, in fact the epistemic version of the Buddhist argument in favour of idealism is already metaphysical insofar as it necessarily involves a denial of the existence of the external world, and it attempts to assess the faithfulness of this Śaiva interpretation to its Buddhist sources.
[“On the distinction between epistemic and metaphysical Buddhist idealisms: a Śaiva perspective,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 42, pp. 353-375.]

It is a well-known fact that the Śaiva nondualistic philosopher Utpaladeva (fl. c. 925-975) has a... more It is a well-known fact that the Śaiva nondualistic philosopher Utpaladeva (fl. c. 925-975) has adopted the Sāṃkhya principle according to which the effect must exist in some way before the operation of its cause (satkāryavāda). Johannes Bronkhorst has highlighted the paradox inherent in this appropriation: Utpaladeva is a staunch supporter of the satkāryavāda, but whereas Sāṃkhya authors consider it as a means of proving the existence of an unconscious matter, the Śaiva exploits it so as to establish his monistic idealism, in perfect contradiction with the Sāṃkhya dualism of matter and consciousness. How does Utpaladeva achieve this complete reversal of meaning of the satkāryavāda? The present article argues that the elliptical verses of the Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā dealing with this issue have been partly misunderstood so far due to the loss of Upaladeva’s own detailed commentary (Vivr̥ti) on this passage: Abhinavagupta’s two commentaries, however terse in this respect, clearly show that a crucial part of Utpaladeva’s reasoning remains implicit in the verses. The article therefore attempts to reconstruct the gist of Utpaladeva’s strategy by having recourse to various other Śaiva sources, including Somānanda’s Śivadr̥ṣṭi and Utpaladeva’s own commentary thereon. This examination shows that Utpaladeva’s appropriation of the satkāryavāda rests on a profound transformation of the Sāṃkhya notions of manifestation (abhivyakti) and potentiality (śakti), and that his criticism of the Sāṃkhya understanding of causality might target the Śaiva dualists as well as Sāṃkhya authors.
[“A Śaiva interpretation of the satkāryavāda: the Sāṃkhya notion of abhivyakti and its transformation in the Pratyabhijñā treatise,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 42(1), 2014, pp. 127-172.]

published in V. ELTSCHINGER & H. KRASSER (eds.), Scriptural Authority, Reason and Action. Proceed... more published in V. ELTSCHINGER & H. KRASSER (eds.), Scriptural Authority, Reason and Action. Proceedings of a Panel at the 14th World Sanskrit Conference, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2013, pp. 375-454

This article examines how the Kashmirian non-dualistic Śaiva philosophers Utpaladeva (10th c.) an... more This article examines how the Kashmirian non-dualistic Śaiva philosophers Utpaladeva (10th c.) and Abhinavagupta (10th-11th c.) present and criticize a theory expounded by some Buddhist philosophers whom the two Śaiva authors identify as Sautrāntikas. According to this theory, no entity external to consciousness can ever be perceived since perceived objects are nothing but internal aspects (ākāra) of consciousness; yet we must infer the existence of external entities so as to account for the fact that consciousness is aware of a variety of objects: phenomenal variety can only be explained by assuming the existence of various external objects that project their forms onto consciousness, just as the surface of a mirror only takes on a variegated appearance when it reflects a multiplicity of objects that are external to it. In Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikās I, 5, 8-9 and their commentaries, Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta endeavour to criticize this theory which challenges their own idealistic principles. The passage is particularly telling as regards the strategy developed by the Pratyabhijñā philosophers with respect to their Buddhist opponents: they make use of some arguments propounded by Dharmakīrti in defense of the Vijñānavāda in order to criticize the Sautrāntikas’ inference, but they also exploit this discussion to underline the superiority of their idealism over that of the Vijñānavādins.
[“Can One Prove that Something Exists Beyond Consciousness? A Śaiva Criticism of the Sautrāntika Inference of External Objects,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 39 (4-5), 2011, pp. 479-501]

Offrant un cursus complet en langues, littérature, civilisation, histoire et histoire de l’art de... more Offrant un cursus complet en langues, littérature, civilisation, histoire et histoire de l’art de l’Inde et du monde indien, la formation en Études indiennes de la Sorbonne Nouvelle est unique en France. Elle est centrée sur les études classiques, et son objet principal est la langue sanskrite et ses littératures, dont elle met en évidence la richesse : l’apprentissage du sanskrit s’y fait avant tout par la lecture et la traduction intensives de textes appartenant à des genres très différents (contes, épopée, poésie savante, littérature historiographique, traités philosophiques, traités d’esthétique, etc.). Elle a également le souci de mettre en évidence la diversité historique de ce domaine, et inclut notamment la linguistique historique (avec le sanskrit védique en amont, et, à titre secondaire, les langues modernes en aval), l’histoire de la société, des philosophies et des religions indiennes, ou encore l’histoire de la connaissance de l’Inde. Le cursus couvre une licence de sanskrit, un master de recherche et un doctorat.

Video-recording of a lecture given at Princeton University, April 2019