Amrita Collected Papers by A M Ghatage

SR No.: 006968
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Kasturbhai Lalbhai Smarak Nidhi Ahmedabad
Total Pages: 530
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 10 MB

Page 373

364
Amrita
situation can be reasonably explained on the basis of that a Middle IndoAryan word like jhama is at the root of both these words, which is also the source of the verb jhämeti or jhämei. But this is not all. The doubt raised by Edgerton about the lack of semantic link must also be explained. The original meaning of the root kṣai-(kṣāyati) is no doubt to burn and its participle kṣāma means burnt. From this developed the two meanings black and dried up. All these senses are found in dhyama as well. In the sense dark it is often replaced in classical Sanskrit by the words syama and yamala.
Kṣāma developed the meaning 'weak, emaciated' first in its negative form as found in the Carakasamhitä and was later extended to the simplex as well. Thus developed the other shades of meaning not weak, strong, big, complete, full etc. That this line of semantic development started with the meaning 'dried up' is possible but some amount of influence from the other word kṣiņa is also present. In the Niryukti of Bhadrababu on the Uttaradhyayana, we find an early attempt made to associate adhyayana with akṣina which suggests the way this influence must have worked with the Jain writers. The meaning clear and loud are due to this influence. There is a parallel to this in the meaning of the Latin word serenus 'clear, bright, fair' etc. from the verb seresco to dry, but is probably to be judged as an accident. When we speak of the influence of one word on the other we reach the boundary-line between what can be proved and what is of the nature of an imaginative suggestion.
Before I conclude I find it necessary to add a few general observations, if only to avoid possible misunderstanding.
When interpretation is called a science it must be emphasised that it is a classificatory or taxonominal science and not prescriptive or predictive. Of course the demarcating line between a classification and an explanation is hard to draw and one merges into the other. I am reminded of my bewilderment some fifty years ago when I started reading the Jain canonical work Nandisutra which states se kim tam paccakkam. paccakkham duviham pannattam. indiyapaccakkham noindiyapaccakkham ca and so on to the very end of work. Today it does not appear to me so very incongruous. The Nyaya system distinguishes betwen uddeśa, lakṣaṇa and pariksă but rarely follows it in practice. They are really not so different or better not mutually exclusive.
In the field of interpretation we do not speak of true or false, not even of accurate or inaccurate but only of better or worse. Here the scale of evaluation is a sliding one and the results asymptotic. It is best to avoid