S. Kuppuswami Sastri and the Exegetical Principles of eka-vākyatā and samanvaya: Their Influence on S.R. Ranganathan’s Epistemology

This article focuses on the influence that the Sanskrit scholar S. Kuppuswami Sastri (1880-1943) exercised on S.R. Ranganathan (1892-1970). More than anyone else, Sanskrit learning in South India stands in Kuppuswami Sastri’s debt. No other Sanskritist combined traditional scholarship in both Śāstra (“scientific and philosophical treatises”) and Kāvya (“literature”) in such measure with modern scholarship, and no single Sanskritist contributed so largely to the cause of Sanskrit learning and education in 20th century South India. Special attention is given to the exegetical principles of eka-vākyatā (“syntactic unity”) and samanvaya (“agreement”, “consistency”) in their respective philosophical contexts, i.e. Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta. Following the Vedāntic tradition, Kuppuswami Sastri viewed the pivotal principle of eka-vākyatā as essentially a synonym of samanvaya, both of them being at the root of the accommodative processes that characterized Indian thought from its start. The thesis of this essay is that these principles along with other basic ideas of Indian philosophy played a major role in shaping Ranganathan’s epistemology. Even Ranganathan’s “discovery” of the five fundamental categories of personality, matter, energy, space and time (PMEST) was inspired by Indian concepts starting with the seminal principles (tattva) of puruṣa (“pure consciousness”) and prakṛti (“materiality”) of the Sāṃkhya dualist tradition. The article also points out the theme of preservation and classification of manuscripts and of the science of cataloguing. Kuppuswami Sastri and Ranganathan had convergent interests and were in an ongoing dialogue with one another: each of them was eager to share his profound knowledge and sophisticated methodological perspectives and in such mutual interplay the influence of Indian philosophy on Ranganathan was no doubt paramount.