Abhidha

Author(s): Tapasvi Nandi, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 58

[49]
are non-congruent by nature, an intelligent person concludes that such an incongruous identification has some valid reason as its basis. This he decides through reasoning. Mahimā does not accept arthāpatti' as a separate means of knowledge — i. e. pramāņa and subsumes it under ‘anumāna' or inference — "arthāpatter anumānāntarbhāvā'bhyupagamät iti uktam.” (pp. 118 ibid)
Mahimā classifies gunavrtti or metaphorical expression into two such as (i) based on similarity, and (ii) based on some other connection : "tat-sāmyatat-sambandhau hi tattvā-ropa-eka-karanam” (pp. 122, 47a, ibid). For him the apprehension of metaphorical meaning is only logical deduction from literal sense. It is a case of inference where the sadhya-sādhana-bhāva is collected from loka i.e. worldly parlour. We have noted that for Mahimā, as both bhakti' i.e. metaphorical expression and dhvani are covered up by inference, there is no cause to distinguish between the two as is done by Anandavardhana. Secondary meaning and the so-called suggested sense are, for Mahimā, arrived at by the same process of 'anumiti' i. e. inference, because both are collected from the primary meaning. For Mahimā, even terms involving 'faded metaphors' i. e. rūdhimālā laksanā, have consideration of second meaning and are therefore collected by inference. In that case they are, in the opinion of Mahimā, not different from Dhvani : (pp. 124, ibid)
rūdhā ye visaye'nyatra
śabdāḥ sva-visayād api, lāvanyädyāḥ prasaktās te
na bhavanti padam dhvaneḥ (61) (pp. 124, ibid) Mahimā as observed earlier, also rejects tātparya sakti, which for him falls under anumiti. It may be noted that for Abhinavagupta 'tatparya' is a sentence-function, as explained by the Abhihitānvayavādins, which makes for the correlated meaning of various 'pada's or words in a given sentence. Thus this can be equated with samsarga-maryādā of the later navya-naiyāyikas, and the laksaņā of the Bhāțțas (Ref. : Dr. K. Kunjunni Raja, p. 222, ibid). But Dhanika's tātparya travels farther than mere sentence-sense as a result of the total of word-meanings. It is wider enough to cover Anandavardhana's vyangyārtha also. The famous words of Dhanika are, “tātparyam na