Slokavartika a Study

SR No.: 001133
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: K K Dixit, Nagin J Shah, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1983
Total Pages: 132
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Nyay, Tattvartha Sutra, & Tattvarth
File Size: 11 MB

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Slokavārtika-a study
odanam pacati), the acts like burning etc. undertaken by the agents like fuel-sticks etc. get linked with the chief act that is cooking; for here these acts constitute the manner--of--doing required by the act of cooking (vv. 287.-88). In relation to cooked - rice which acts as objective cooking acts an instrument, but cooking does not take place unless it is undertaken and so it itself requires an instrument; and things like fuelsticks etc. or their acts like burning etc. act as instrument in relation to cooking (vv. 288-89). Certainly, a manner--of--doing is required wherever an instrument is spoken of, and what is manger--of--doing in relation to one act might well be instrument in relation to another; (thus in the present case fuel etc. and burning etc. constitute manner--of--doing in relation to the Causing' in question, the same constute instrument and manner-of--doing respectively in relation to cooking which itself constitute instrument in relation to this Causing') (v. 290). Thus it is that agents like fuel-- sticks etc. get linked with the chief act cooking through the mediation of their own acts like burning etc., as for the view that an act cannot cause another act we do not subscribe to it (v. 291). Then that point about agentship and chief agentship. The fuel--sticks etc. are certainly a chief agent in relation to their own acts like burnig etc. but in relation to the act of cooking they are an agent of the form of instrument etc; for in the latter case a new capacity makes its appearing in them (vv. 293.-94). As a matter of fact, it is precisely because the fuelsticks etc. are found to be a chief agent in relation to their own acts like burning ete. that they are employed as an agent of the form of instrument etc. in relation to the act of cooking (vv. 294-95); and when thus employed they find their chief agentship suppressed by the chief agentship which now makes its appearance in Devadatta etc. (vv.295--96). Nay, in case we do not wish to make mention of this suppression of their chief agentship we freely say · Fuel--sticks etc. cook cooked--rice' (vv. 296.-97). Since the principle is that the verb--word expresses the act of the chief agent we might concede that the acts of other agents, though operative there, are not expressed verbally; there is nothing anomalous about that. But this principle itself might be discarded and we might say that the verb--word expresses primarily the act of the chief agent and secondarily the acts of the other agents; for after all, in relation to the Causing' in question these latter acts go to constitute the manner- of doing which is as indispensable an element as any other (vv.297--99).” After so much elaboration of the theory of
Causing' Kumārila takes up the anomalies pointed out by the opponent in the behaviour of the particles of negation and those of alternation (vv. 300--330); the opponent had also pointed out anomalies in the behaviour of prefixes but this part of his argument Kumārila has incidentally disposed of earlier (vv. 277-287). All this too deserves some notice. Thus the opponent had argued that a prefix is supposed to qualify the verb to which it is attached but that what it usually does is to alter the very meaning of this verb-something no qualifier should do; Kumärila retorts that it is precisely by somehow altering the meaning of the verb to which it is attached that a prefix acts as a qualifier to this verb (vv. 282-87). Similarly, the opponent had said that a particle of negation seeks to do away with something that is already posited as existing; Kumāpila