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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
356 or the primary and secondary meanings. The vyangyārtha or suggested meaning of a word is really inferred from its primary and secondary meanings and is not separate from them."
How do we learn the meanings of words? There are different ways in which we may learn them First, we learn the meanings of the radicals, verbal roots, suffixes, etc., from grammar. Secondly, we know the meanings of certain general names by means of upamāna or comparison, as when we know the gavaya from its similarity to the cow. Thirdly, we learn the meanings of words from dictionaries Then we may know the meaning of certain words from authority, as when a connoisseur tells us that such and such objects are denoted by a certain word. Or, we may know it by induction from the different uses of words by authoritative persons, as when we know the meaning of the word cow from the different uses made of it by our elders in relation to a particular kind of animal. Or, we may know the meaning of a word from its context, as when the chair' means the chairman'in a meeting Or, we may know it from a given explanation, as when we understand a word from any of its synonyms Finally, we may know the meaning of a word from its application in connection with a familiar word, as when we understand the meaning of the word pika from the sentence the pika is crying cuckoo on this tree'?
That there are so many different ways of knowing the meanings of words proves that the relation between words and their meanings is not a natural but a conventional relation. If there were a fixed natural relation between a word and its meaning as between fire and burning, then the word should have always coexisted
1 Vide Tattoadipika, P 68, Sabdaśakti-prakāśika, pp 64 f
Saktigcabam vyākaraṇopamāna,' etc , 8M, pp 359-72 prakābıkā, 20
Cf
Sabdabaktı
| SR No. | 011115 |
| Book Title | Nyaya Theory of Knowledge |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | S C Chateerjee |
| Publisher | University of Calcutta |
| Publication Year | 1939 |
| Total Pages | 440 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 38 MB |