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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Meaning has been defined by the majority of ancient Indian writers on the philosophy of language in terms of a relation. Thus, the great grammarian Nāgeśa Bhaṭṭa defines meaning as a particular relation between the word and the object denoted. This relation is a power, which exists in the object as signifiability, and in the word as significativeness. It is only by the cognition of this relation that the presentation of objects by means of words is possible.
page 21 note 1 Mañjüṣā, p. 28; cf. Gaṅgeśa, Tattva-cintāmaṇi (iv, ii, p. 627); Vijñāna Bhikṣu on Sāṅkhya Sūtra, v, 37.
page 21 note 2 According to the grammarians Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita and Kaunḍa Bhaṭṭa denotative power resides exclusively in words (Śabda-kaustubha, p. 32; Bṛihad-Vaiyāḳaraṇa-Bhūṣaṇa, p. 243). The Vedānta, and in a certain sense the Sāṅkhya, however, maintain that this power resides in objects also. Thus the Vedānta assigns the “ expressedness ” of the jar to the cid-ābhāsa “ reflected consciousness ” (Pañcadaśī, chap, viii, 4–15). Cf. Benfey on Plato's Cratylus (pp. 10–11). The existence or absence of this cognitive power in objects is more or less an epistemological question. But from the linguistic point of view mere words cannot serve as the cause of verbal cognition; it is the relation between the word and the object which is the most potent factor of that cognition (Gaṅgeśa, Tattva-cintāmaṇi, iv, ii, p. 540). Cf. De Saussure, Cours de Linguistique Générale, p. 148; Otto Jespersen, Language, p. 113.
page 21 note 3 Nyāya-parīśuddhi, p. 395.
page 22 note 1 Sāṅkhya-vṛitti, p. 168.
page 22 note 2 Nyāya-siddhānta-muktāvalī (Benares, iv, p. 15).
page 22 note 3 Mañjūṣā (p. 23). Cf. Kumārila, Śloka-vārttika, sūtra 5, verses 140–3.
page 22 note 4 Cf. Bhartṛhari, Vākya-padīya, iii, 3, 37.
page 22 note 5 Vākya-padīya, iii, 3, 3; Vātsyāyana on Nyāya-Sūtra, ii, 1, 50.
page 23 note 1 Nyāya-Sūtra, ii, 1, 53.
page 23 note 2 Tattva-cintāmaṇi, iv, ii, p. 540.
page 23 note 3 Vide the brilliant Jain work, the Prameya-kamala-mārtaṇḍa (p. 124). Cf. Vaiśeṣika-Sūtra, vii, 2, 17.
page 23 note 4 Prameya-kamala-mārtanḍa, p. 128.
page 23 note 5 Śloka-vārttika, Sūtra 5, Section Sambandhākṣepa, 6–7.
page 24 note 1 Vaiśeṣika-Sūtra, vii, 2, 14.
page 24 note 2 Prameya-kamalamārtaṇḍa, pp. 128–30.
page 24 note 3 Cf. Śloka-vārttika (ibid.) verse 8.
page 24 note 4 Nyāya-vārttika-tātparya-ṭīkā, p. 341.
page 24 note 5 Apoha-siddhi, p. 9.
page 25 note 1 Prameya-kamala-mārtaṇḍa, p. 136.
page 25 note 2 The Jain work Aṣṭa-sahasrī, p. 249. Cf. William James, Pragmatism, p. 213.
page 25 note 3 Śloka-vārttika (ibid.).
page 25 note 4 Nyāya-Sūtra, ii, 1, 50–1. Nyāya-vārttika-tātparya-ṭikā, p. 289.
page 25 note 5 Prameya-kamala-mārtaṇḍa, ibid.
page 25 note 6 Mañjūṣā, pp. 45, 240.
page 26 note 1 Cf. Bradley, Logic, p. 115, “every judgment, positive or negative, is in the end existential.” Also of. Royce, The World and the Individual, vol. i, p. 272.
page 26 note 2 Cf. H. Paul, Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte, pp. 14–16 ; Hermann, Die Sprachwissenschaft nach ihrem Zusammenhange mit Logik, pp. 97–8. Hermann contrasts language with music, calling the former as an “ image of objectivity ”.
page 26 note 3 Mañjūṣā, p. 459.
page 27 note 1 Mañjūṣā, p. 409.
page 27 note 2 Cf. Bradley, Logic, pp. 4–6.
page 27 note 3 Cf. Lotze, Logic, vol. i, pp. 14–20, who points out the difference “ blue ” as a meaning and “ blue ” as a mere impression—the former being an objectification of the latter. Cf. Bosanquet, Logic, pp. 18–19.
page 27 note 4 Vākya-padīya, iii, 3, 33.
page 27 note 5 Helarāja, ibid.
page 27 note 6 Vishayatā-vāda, pp. 3–4. Objectivity according to Gadādhara is a separate category; it equally differs from the object as from cognition.
page 28 note 1 Vyutpatti-vāda (Benares, p. 29).
page 28 note 2 Manuscript No. 1269 in the Raghunath Temple Library, Jammu. There is unfortunately no mention of the author's name in the MS.; but the nature of the paper shows that it must be at least a century old.
page 29 note 1 Cf. Aristotle's reconciliation of both these aspects of meaning in Steinthal, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Griechen und Römern, p. 186. According to Aristotle language is primarily subjective and consequently objective.
page 30 note 1 Nyāya-ratnākara of Pārthasārathi Miśra; Śloka-vārttika, p. 566.
page 30 note 2 Nyāya-vārttika-tātparya-ṭīkā, p. 340. Cf. Apoha-siddhi, pp. 8–9.
page 30 note 3 Nyāya-mañjarī, pp. 303, 306–8.
page 31 note 1 Nyāya-vārttika-tātparya-ṭīkā, p. 340.
page 31 note 2 Cf. a similar theory in recent times : Saussure, Cours de Linguistique Générale, pp. 167–75. In language, he says, there are only differences without positive terms. The exact characteristic of terms is of being that which others are not. But, as Bosanquet rightly points out (Logic, vol. i, p. 19), every word must fundamentally have a positive content—a fact which Saussure's assertion has not disproved.
page 31 note 3 Apoha-siddhi in Six Buddhist Nyāya Tracts, by Haraprasāda Śāstrī.
page 31 note 4 Apoha-siddhi, pp. 6–16.
page 32 note 1 Śloka-vārttika, p. 567.
page 32 note 2 Nyāya-mañjarī, p. 309.
page 32 note 3 Ibid.
page 33 note 1 Ibid.
page 33 note 2 Śloka-vārttika, p. 569.
page 33 note 3 Prameya-kamala-mārtaṇḍa, chap. iv. Cf. Caird's Hegel, p. 135.
page 33 note 4 Prameya-kamala-mārtaṇḍa, ibid.
page 33 note 5 Cf. Śloka-vārttika, pp. 596, 597.
page 34 note 1 Ibid.
page 34 note 2 Nyāya-mañjarī, p. 305. In this connexion Hela-rāja, the commentator of the Vākya-padīya (iii, 3, 42), quotes an interesting couplet which means “ Negation cannot be predicated of the existing ; it does not exist in the non-existing, so there goes to death Negation in this universe! ”
“ na satāṃ ca niṣedhosti so'satsu ca na vidyate.
Jagaty anena nyāyena nañarthaḥ pralayatṃ gataḥ.”