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Vyañjanā-virodha or, opposition to suggestive power
745 specific when he explained that the province of anumiti and that of word are distinct from each other. When the former ends, the latter starts. It can be understood as follows. Supposing you are in a place, the language of which land is not known to you. Suddenly you hear someone talking to you loudly or rudely or in a polite tone. You do not understand the meaning of a language foreign to you. But you can infer something. That someone has an intention to convey something is understood by you through inference. But what exactly he wants to convey can be understood only, if through an interpreter you come to know the meaning of spoken words. Thus, to get at the meaning you have to have an understanding of the convention of a particular word of that language with reference to a particular meaning. Thus Anandavardhana has made this absolutely clear that the anumeva visaya' of words and the 'pratipadva visaya' of words are different. When someone speaks, you may infer that he is a santient being and that through his language, known or unknown to you, he wants to convey something. Thus the intention to convey through use of words on his part, is a matter of inference. But actually whatever is conveyed through use of words is the denotative aspect. : "pratipădyas tu prayoktur artha-pratipādana-samīhā-visayîkrtā'rthah" - i.e. "The denotative scope of words relates to meaning itself which happens to be the aim of the speaker's intention to convey meaning." Nothing can be clearer than this. So, after Bhāmaha's effort to pacify the anumitivādins, Sankuka or the likes of him or his predecessors must have once again raised the bogie of inference and Anandavardhana directed his efforts to pacify these voices by partly accepting and wholly explaining as to where anumiti should end. But the voice was not silenced for ever and perhaps it had a tendency to take shape like the phoenix from ashes.
Hence Abhinavagupta also had to tackle it very carefully. In presenting Sankuka's views and in its refutation by his teachers, the author of Abhinavabhārati makes a plea that, "laukikánumāne tu kā rasatā" - what aesthetics can be derived from “popular” anumāna or inference at worldly parlour ? It seems he refers to two categories here. One is the scientific i.e. śāstriya or tarka-anumāna which is rejected out right. Later even Mahimā, the avowed supporter of inference, also concedes that 'tarkánumiti' or scientific inference is never sought after by the anumitivādins. But he evolves a third category called kāvyánumiti', over and above the tarkánumiti and the laukikánumāna as suggested earlier. Anandavardhana rejected the tarkánumāna of the tārkikas or logicians, but tried to accomodate some element of it in what he called, "anumeyo visayaḥ śabdānām". Abhinavagupta went a step further and accepted that “rasánubhava' or aesthetic
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