The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Śrīharṣa

fl. 1114–1193

Also known as Sriharsa, Shriharsha

Indian philosopher and poet whose Sweets of Refutation argued that every attempt to define knowledge, truth or the categories of reality collapses under its own standards.

Śrīharṣa lived in northern India in the twelfth century. He was a poet as well as a philosopher, and in his poem on the exploits of King Nala he records that he was honoured by the king of Kanauj, probably one of the Gāhaḍavāla kings who reigned between 1114 and 1193; the dates given here span their reigns. The Sweets of Refutation is his only surviving philosophical work.

He did not explicitly align himself with any school. His target was the method of definition used by the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers to describe the structure of reality and of rational inquiry, and his arguments were influential among both Advaita Vedāntins and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers.

Key ideas

Refutation of definitions
The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers tried to define the categories of knowledge, logic and reality. Śrīharṣa set out to show, using their own standards of rational inquiry, that no adequate definition of any of them is available.
Knowledge and luck
A gambler who guesses correctly how many shells are in a closed fist has hit the truth by accident. Such cases show that defining knowledge as true awareness fails, anticipating difficulties that modern philosophers have faced in defining knowledge.
The instability of reason
For any argument a philosopher offers, there is an equally persuasive counter-argument. Since reason can always be defeated in this way, it cannot give good evidence for any philosophical view.
A defence of non-dualism?
Some scholars read Śrīharṣa as defending Advaita Vedānta, the view that only consciousness is ultimately real, by undermining the dualist picture of a world of many distinct things. This reading remains controversial.
Tradition
Indian
Region
Kanauj, northern India

Key works

  • The Sweets of Refutation (Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya)
  • The Exploits of Nala, the King of Niṣadha (Naiṣadhīyacarita)

Sources

  1. Nilanjan Das, Śrīharṣa, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy