FIFA 2022 Final and Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam

Abstract: This post on FIFA 2022 World Cup Final between Argentina and France (or, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, respectively) is a continuation of my curiosity on  Pānini’s conflict resolution rule, Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam, beyond Sanskrit grammar, contextualized through the adage, "Let the best one win." We now look forward to Hockey World Cup 2023, and welcome 2023, the International Year of Millets. 

“Let the best one win,” is a powerful adage, a wishful one, as it may not always turn out to be true. However, this adage seems to have been echoed by many football lovers after the final match between Argentina and France in the FIFA World Cup 2022 suggesting that in their view the best team did indeed win.

In this post, in sync with the adage, I will touch upon the ups and downs of that match through the lay reading of Pānini’s celebrated conflict resolution rule “In conflict the stronger (or, better) one prevails,” Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam. This draws from a recent post of mine wherein I had indicated that the lay reading renders the rule for wider application beyond Sanskrit grammar. I had also  indicated there how the lay reading of the rule resonates with Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman, John Rawls’ veil in an original position, and Adam Smith’s impartial spectator. In the spirit of that wider application, we now get back to that final match.  

Supporters of Argentina and France would have wanted their teams to win. The fan following of Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé would have wanted their idols to be in the winning side. There, however, was an undercurrent of support for Messi, as this would perhaps be his last World Cup and that his caliber as a player has been borne out by the fact that till that final match, he had been in the winning squad of all major football tournaments. In the last four years, Mbappé has also created a fan following of his own since his performance in the 2018 edition of the World Cup that France won, and he has been going from strength-to-strength thereafter.

When the 2022 FIFA final match between Argentina and France began many, so-called neutral supporters (perhaps talismanic, in a veil, and impartial spectators), wanted Argentina to win so that Messi can be part of the winning squad and will have in his repertoire the one Cup that is missing, and they also wanted Mbappé to score at least a goal. It was very much possible that Argentina would have won without Mbappé or his team scoring a goal, or for Argentina to have lost. Given the two competing wishes, it is only after the match that one could know which of these got fulfilled and who of the two teams was better and whether the better team won.

As the match progressed, Argentina and Messi were doing well. They were 2-0 up with Messi having scored one and assisted the other. But, Mbappé had not scored. He fulfills  the neutral supporters wish and around the 80^th minute scores a goal. Hold on, within another minute or so, he goes beyond that and scores another goal. With Mbappé’s two back-to-back goals, France was level with Argentina and by the end of regular time the score line read 2-2.

Now, with the match going into extra time, the neutral supporters wanted Messi to show his magic and were all delighted when he does that by scoring another goal with Argentina now leading again at 3-2. With this, our neutral supporters were somewhere feeling a little let down for Mbappé but this does not last long as he scores again, a hat-trick in a Wrold Cup final, and France levels the score again with Argentina at 3-3 at the end of extra time. With no clear winners, the match goes to penalty kicks.

Mbappé and Messi score their respective penalty goals. France misses out the second and third one with a good save by Damián Martínez the Argentine goalkeeper, but scores their fourth, while Argentina players, after Messi, score their subsequent three and go on to win the World Cup 2022 with the penalty kicks score reading 4-2.

Some non-connoisseur's of the game would suggest what was this ado all about, they could have started with the penalty kicks and decided the match. No, that cannot be. The beauty of the game lies in the the laws of the game along with the ups and downs and the upheavals therein. If there is no decision after the regular time of 90 minutes then the match goes to extra time, and if there is still no decision after the extra time of 30 minutes then the match goes to penalty kicks.

The application of the laws of the game for determining the outcome of a match follows  a sequence, which, in a convoluted sense, seems to support Vipratisidhe Param Kāryam. No decision at the end of a stage of the match (that is, end of regular or extra time) indicates that at the end of that stage the two teams continue to be of equal strength (vipratisidhe) and this requires that the progress of the match to the next or subsequent stage (param) be brought into action or invoked (kāryam). Further, as the match progresses to kicks from the penalty mark the penalty kicks can go on ad infinitum till a decision on the winner is reached.  

To get back to our adage, the best team won, Argentina won the Cup in the penalty shoot out. But, our neutral supporters got more, Messi gets the golden ball as the best player of the championship including his goals and assists (see all goals by Argentina in the World Cup), Mbappé gets the golden boot as the maximum goal scorer in the tournament, and Martínez gets the golden glove as the best goalkeeper of the competition.

There was no decision to be made by our neutral supporters, but in their personal emotional space they felt vindicated and it is this that supports our lay reading of Vipratisidhe Parama Kāryam beyond Sanskrit grammar. The feeling by our neutral supporters also seems to resonate Gandhi’s talisman, Rawls’ veil in an original position and Smith’s impartial spectator. What more would they want. The laws of the game to decide a winner in a World Cup final match also seems to, in a convoluted sense, fall in line with Pānini’s conflict resolution rule. It has been a win-win for all. 

Now, we look forward to the Hockey World Cup 2023 that is to take place in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela of Odisha, India in January 2023. Wishing you well-being and happiness for 2023, the International Year of Millets.

[I reiterate of having no knowledge of Sanskrit, as indicated in my pervious post. This is just a continuation of my curiosity of Pānini’s conflict resolution rule, in my lay understanding, beyond Sanskrit grammar. My apologies to Sanskrit grammarians and football aficionados.]

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Rishi on Pānini’s Vipratisedhe Param Kāryam and Beyond

Rishi on Pānini’s Vipratisedhe Param Kāryam and Beyond 

Srijit Mishra

28 December 2022

Abstract

The post provides a generic interpretation and a lay reading of Rishi Rajpopat’s interpretation of Pānini’s metarule vipratisedhe param kāryam for conflict resolution. This opens up possibilities for the application of this metarule beyond Sanskrit grammar. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman in his social philosophy, John Rawls’ veil in the original position as an aid in his political philosophy, and Adam Smith’s impartial spectator in his moral philosophy.

Keywords:   Adam Smith, Aṣṭādhyāyī, John Rawls, Kāryam, Mahatma Gandhi, moral philosophy, Pānini, param, political philosophy,  Sanskrit, social philosophy,  vipratisedhe.

 

The Context 

Rishi Rajpopat’s doctoral thesis In Pāṇini We Trust: Discovering the Algorithm for Rule Conflict Resolution in the Aṣṭādhyāyī  addresses an important problem for conflict resolution. Pānini’s celebrated Aṣṭādhyāyī on Sanskrit grammar has only one metarule for that, 1.4.2, vipratisedhe param kāryam, “if there are two conflicting rules, the subsequent one prevails.” 

Conventional Interpretation

Conventionally, grammarians had suggested different approaches to conflict resolution. First, the stronger rule prevails. 

• Nitya (obligatory) is stronger than its counterpart anitya (not obligatory). An example of the latter is when the sense in a compound word can be equally expressed by the constituent parts). 

• Antaraṅga (internally conditioned), as the rule has the cause of its application embedded in another rule, the bahiraṅga (externally conditioned), making the application of the former a prerequisite for the latter and in that sense the former is the stronger one.

• Apavāda (exception) is a special rule that sets aside utsarga (the general rule) and thereby makes exception rules stronger. 

Second, if rules are of equal strength, the subsequent one in Pānini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī will prevail. However, all these also led to a host of additional metarules for umpteen exceptions. 

Rishi’s Contribution

Rishi Rajpopat’s contribution is in three parts. First, it classifies whether the conflict (that is, application of two rules) is for the same operand or for different operands. 

Second, in the case of a single operand, it develops a method to identify the specific rules. This would further aid in the application of the exception rules, as being specific gives greater clarity. 

And, third, in the case of two different operands, it provides a novel interpretation wherein param in the metarule means the rule that should apply to the subsequent one or the next one from the two operands (say, the rule that is applicable to the latter of the two independent words that aid the formation of a new compound word). Here, I use the subsequent one and not the one that will come to the right-hand side, as indicated by Rishi Rajpopat, because the subsequent one is generic and should hold for people who learn Sanskrit in a script where the writing is not from left to right (while recognizing the limits of the usage because of the script) or even for those who learn (or, have learnt)  Sanskrit largely through an oral tradition.  Independent of this generic usage, this novel interpretation has solved a long-standing puzzle and opens up the logical structure of Sanskrit grammar for wider application.  

A Lay Reading

A lay reading of the metarule could imply that “if there are two conflicting rules, the stronger one prevails.” This presumes that param (or, parama) means the stronger one or the better one or the best. Such a reading is different from the perspective provided by the Sanskrit grammarians and leaves room for interpretation on what one means by ‘the stronger one’. This reading would be counterproductive as it does away with the clarity involved in interpreting param as the subsequent one or the next one (either in the sequence of rules in the conventional interpretation or in the sequence of operands in the novel interpretation). Nevertheless, we go ahead with this usage as, in our view, it subsumes different aspects of the conventional interpretation as also Rishi Rajpopat’s contribution and also opens up the metarule to a wider application.

In the conventional interpretation, by default, the stronger rules such as nitya, antaraṅga, and apavāda prevail over their corresponding weaker rules anitya, bahiraṅga, and utsarga, respectively. Only when the two rules in conflict are of equal strength then the one that comes later in the Aṣṭādhyāyī is considered to prevail. This interpretation draws from an implicit understanding that in the Aṣṭādhyāyī the sequencing of the rules is from the simpler to the complex ones. And, thereby, making the rules that come later in the sequence in the Aṣṭādhyāyī the stronger ones, albeit the exceptions.      

Rishi Rajpopat’s contribution suggests two things. One is the identification and application of specific rules as exceptions in case of the conflict in a single operand. And, the other is the one that applies to the subsequent operand in case of conflict between two operands. Thus, in case of conflict in a single operand the exception rule prevails and is the stronger one while in case of conflict between two operands the one that applies to the subsequent operand prevails and is the stronger one. 

   

Beyond grammar: Gandhi, Rawls and Smith

The lay reading is subjective to what one considers as param or, more specifically in our lay reading to what one considers to be stronger or better.  However, this lay reading opens up the application of the metarule beyond grammar, including for decision-making in other situations of conflict.

For instance, Mahatma Gandhi’s invoking of the talisman, John Rawls’ recourse to be under a veil in an original position, or Adam Smith’s reliance on the impartial spectator are the basis to guide decision-making to resolve some conflict. Gandhi’s is a powerful social philosophy for the individual to rely on thyself to resolve a conflict in one’s own mind when in doubt, Rawls’ is a transcendental political philosophy that requires a democratic ethos with identities under wrap to move forward in a reasonably plural world, and Smith’s is a moral philosophy where an individual falls back on thy conscience by being in the shoes of an impartial spectator.

Getting back to Pānini’s metarule on conflict resolution, one sees that the param kāryam (that is, the stronger one or better one prevails) in Gandhi’s talisman is a reliance on  thyself (one’s own conscience), in Rawls’ veil in an original position is the focus on the democratic ethos with individual identities being under wrap (the free and equal citizens deciding for themselves while being blind to their own identities or self-interest), and in Smith’s impartiality is in identifying thy conscience by putting on the hat of independent and disinterested persons (being open to other perspectives to help visualize propriety in the larger social space).

Conclusion

A novel interpretation of  Pānini’s metarule vipratisedhe param kāryamIn by Rishi Rajpopat  has opened it up for wider application. It is in this spirit that we have suggested a generic interpretation followed by a lay reading of the metarule, “if there are two conflicting rules, the stronger one prevails.” This lay reading is not for usage in Sanskrit grammar. Nevertheless, this lay reading, in our opinion, subsumes the conventional and new contributions on the interpretation of the metarule. It also opens up the lay reading to applications beyond Sanskrit grammar. For instance, in understanding some specific rules that aid decision-making to deal with conflict resolution by thinkers like Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman in his social philosophy for an individual in doubt, John Rawls’ veil in an original position with a set of other fundamental ideas leading to his principles of justice as a political philosophy, and Adam Smith’s impartial spectator that aids his moral philosophy.

Acknowledgements

At the outset, I must state that I have no knowledge of Sanskrit, less so of its grammar. My limited understanding is in having heard some recitation and their interpretation as a proximate illiterate.  This note is out of my curiosity, as I was intrigued by the recent discovery that has aided a long-standing puzzle in Sanskrit grammar. I am thankful to PK Viswanathan and through him Br Achutamrita Chaitanya for helping me in my understanding of the word param (परम्), and how it is different from parama (परम), and the metarule.

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Death Penalty, Justice and Ethics

Is death penalty just?

It is a difficult question. The answer would be unambiguous if we are clear and unanimous in our notion of justice.  Alas, that is not to be so! Justice can be subjective.

You and I, as lay individuals, will have our own notions of justice that need not always match with each other. In fact, the need for a just and fair outcome arises because there are differences to begin with. It is this that forces the two warring cats to seek the help from the 'unbiased' monkey.  

One should note that formal systems of adjudication through legal channels are not based on individual notions. They are based on existing laws of the land. In such a situation, the justness of a death penalty or for that matter any other matter would depend on two things. The relevant laws and their interpretations are unambiguous, and unbiased.

The legal laws and their judicial interpretations, unfortunately, are not about the physical world. They are about people and their social and economic context. Like life, they are not straightforward.  Thus, for the time being, the question of whether death penalty is just or not remains unanswered. Instead, we dwell into one powerful argument in support and another against.

Blood-for-blood

A powerful justification for the death penalty is the blood-for-blood argument. This is best explained by many a individual's instinctive reaction to a mosquito. Swash and clasp! Many a mosquitoes are killed by human beings in response to an internalized fear against mosquito-inflicted diseases.

Many a communities or individuals follow a more nuanced blood-for-blood system of adjudication while dealing with human beings. At an individual level this has led to feud between families that goes on for generations. Such conflicts are also witnessed between communities. In subtle forms, it is also observed between countries; for instance, the cold war (between the United States and its allies and the erstwhile Soviet bloc), the West Asia (Middle East) imbroglio, or the India-Pakistan 'bonhomie'.

A way out of this blood-for-blood, at least in situations when the killing of an individual was unintentional, is to reconcile the revengeful provision with a compensatory money-for-blood situation. Once introduced, this compensatory system can be extended to intentional but momentary actions that one later regrets and is remorseful of. As regret and remorse is difficult to evaluate, this could get extended to all situations and it is easy to see that people with money can get away with murder.

Just because some people are getting away with murder does not mean that the system should allow everybody to get away with murder. Instead, it should improve the rules and procedures that reduces the possibility of people getting away with murder.

Opponent of death penalty are not against punishing the guilty. They take an ethical position against the death penalty.

The ethical imperative

The ethical imperative is that human beings do not have the right to take another individual's life. Thus, they argue against death penalty in general. Besides, it is also argued that death penalty is not a deterrent against crime, and it is possible that there could have been errors in judgement. It is for this that more and more countries are taking away death penalty from their statute books. According to Amnesty International, there are 140 countries that have banned death penalty. Some countries have restricted it to few crimes, and in India it is reserved for 'rarest of rare' cases.

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind," said Mahatma Gandhi. Instead of blood-for-blood, his suggestion for reconciliation to perpetrators of crime during communal riots was to atone for their sins by adopting an orphaned child from the other community and bringing up the child in the culture and tradition of the other community. This not only ensures atonement of regret/remorse for an entire life, but also does away with a situation where money can buy justice.

The preaching's of the Buddha and the Jain Tirthankara's among many others restrain us from killing a mosquito. Live, and let live! A tall order!

[Update: 31 July 2015]
A recent case
Yesterday, one of the convicts in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts where more than 250 people died and thousands were injured, was sent to the gallows in India after a protracted legal battle. Proponents are of the view that this falls under the 'rarest of rare' cases while opponents against death penalty are of the view that some benefit of doubt could have been shown in the case because the major perpetrator of the crime are some others.

I applaud the opponents in trying all possible available legal channels to this specific case. Nevertheless, the argument is weak from the larger perspective because it agrees that the major perpetrators of the crime should be sent to the gallows and it is only a matter of interpretation of who is one of the major perpetrators.

The legal system in India also needs to be applauded for the fact that many perpetrators of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts including some who were involved in planting the bombs have not been given the death sentence because they were not identified as the major perpetrators. It has shown restraint in ordering the death sentence.

As indicated earlier, interpretation of law can differ from situation to situation and from individual positions. This, however, does not mean that opponents of death penalty are taking a position in support of a perpetrator of crime. They are arguing from an ethical prism in support of life when opposing death penalty.

Final points
Laws and their interpretations can have some grey area. Agreement is not possible between the proponents and opponents of death penalty. But, in the comity of nations, from a rights perspective, the balance of arguments are in favour of the ethical imperative.

Poverty as Unfreedom: Is it a State of Mind?

The renowned philosopher J. Krishnamurti in his Freedom from the Known (Chapter 8) said “Freedom is a state of mind - not freedom from something, but a sense of freedom...” From this perspective, an individual’s attachment to either physical or mental aspects would be a hindrance to freedom, or, rather, to a sense of freedom.

From a different perspective, Amartya Sen would suggest that doing away with hindrances that would improve physical or mental well-being will improve freedom. This is more in line with freedom from something and it is in this sense that poverty is an ‘unfreedom’.  We will focus on this latter interpretation and try to understand the notion of poverty, as a state of mind with the help of two stories.

One story is about a landlord who was envious of his peasant neighbour, as the latter was content and never agreed to work for the landlord.  One day the landlord left a bag of 99 gold coins at the peasant's house and when asked also denied that the bag was his. As there were no other neighbours, the peasant was happy to have got this bag of gold coins. But, this happiness was short-lived. Counting the coins led to a search for the 100th coin that was not found and the peasant took a decision to work hard and save so that she could add that 100th coin to the bag. She was now willing to work for the landlord and sacrifice small pleasures of life like spending time with her family. This change of lifestyle in pursuit of that elusive 100th gold coin also did away with her mental state of being content.

The other story is about a ruler who had difficulty in managing the affairs of the state. This left her worried and with many a sleepless nights. A well-meaning adviser suggested that if she were to stay for one day in the house of a person who had no worries then her worries would vanish. A search was initiated and with much difficulty a person who did not have any worries was identified, but to the ruler’s dismay, the person did not have a house. Of course, the person to take another term from Sen, did suffer from ‘physical condition neglect’, but this did not affect the person’s mental state of being worry-free. Over the years, the ruler learnt to be calm and as a consequence gave more time to improve the well-being of the people, which among other things included shelter for the homeless.

It is possible that a person who is homeless or jobless or sick or suffers from some other deprivations is content and happy about her situation. This, according to Sen, is an adaptive preference. However, this will not prevent the homeless person from valuing, and hence, desiring the possession of a house. In fact, a reliance on the mental state alone would lead to this ‘valuational neglect’ along with the earlier mentioned ‘physical condition neglect’. A welfare-state should address these neglects.

An aspect that is increasingly accepted in a discourse on poverty is that it is multidimensional. The multidimensional poverty index (MPI) computed for India by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) indicates that between 1999 and 2006 the headcount ratio declined from 56.8 per cent to 48.5 per cent. Though the reductions are impressive, yet the levels remain higher than the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Nepal that have relatively lower per capita incomes. The Global Hunger Index 2013 ranks India at 66 among 78 countries and considers the situation to be alarming. An estimate for 2010 used in the Human Development Report 2013 shows that less than two-fifths of the 25+ population have completed their secondary education. Thus, the material/physical condition neglects in India are serious.

One of the livelihood interventions in India, to address some of the deprivations, has been through the formation of female self-help groups. At the national level, this is being spearheaded by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) through Aajeevika - livelihood mission. Similar state level interventions exist in Andhra Pradesh (Indira Kranti Patham), Bihar (Jeevika) and Kerala (Kudumbashree) among others.  There have also been initiatives by non-governmental organizations in different parts of the country. In fact, in August 2013, MoRD entered into an agreement with PRADAN (Professional Assistance for Development Action) that already works in more than 40 of the poorest districts largely located in the Naxal affected areas of the country to facilitate this. A recent impact evaluation of PRADAN that this author was part of indicates that their livelihood intervention enables capabilities of individuals to manage themselves, organises them into producers’ companies/cooperatives and facilitates forward/backward linkages. For instance, they have promoted the tasar silk product now branded as Eco Tasar that is being sold in Fab India and other outlets.

To sum up, being content, worry-free, and happy are essential aspects of mental well-being, but these will not help us identify the poor. It is the civic, economic and other deprivations (being without food or home or job or health care or social dignity or rights among others) that should be the basis for identifying the poor. Organizing the poor and enabling their capabilities, which could include their mental strength and self-confidence, should be important aspects of implementation, but only after the poor are identified and the interventions focus on their deprivations. We end by referring to Mahatma Gandhi’s talisman – “whenever in doubt think of the poorest person and you will find your doubts melt away.”