Epistemological Point Of View Of Bhartrhari

Author(s): Ashok Aklujkar
Publisher: Ashok Aklujkar

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The Epistemological Point of View of Bharthari O
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Concepts of Knowledge
assert the difference. Their proofs or arguments, it seems, would boil down to a determination of whether cognition without symbols is possible and whether the symbols involved can be essentially different from the symbols that constitute language. B's view, as stated in 99.3, is that cognition without linguistic symbols is not possible. He also holds that language is innate. The view that all so-called nonlinguistic symbols are ultimately based on linguistic symbols can also be attributed to him with great probability Thus we can infer that he would prefer to take the position that cognition without symbols is not possible and that the symbols involved will not, in the final analysis, be nonlinguistic. In other words, we can interpret him as saying that a wider definition of language and an admission of all symbols as ultimately linguistic in nature together constitute a better theory than a theory which would take the apparent separation between linguistic and nonlinguistic symbols as a given not to be given up.
15 in Vrtti 2.31, B states the Sathkhya-Yoga view after what seems to be a statement of the Nyaya-Vaibesika view.
16 B advocates primacy of the sentence. He accepts the possibility of single-word and single-phoneme sentences (TK 2.40, 270-71).
17 The Sanskrit terms are: buddhyartha or sabdartha'sense, meaning': bathyartha or vastvartha 'reference, referent, actual thing."
18 I infer this from the direction reflected in B's remarks made in contexts other than those in which sense experience or conceptualization per se is discussed, that is, from remarks made 'unawares,' as it were, in which his subconscious assumptions are likely to be revealed. One such remark is sad api vig-vyavahaireniupaghitam artha-ropam Asati tulyarn (Vrtti 1.129) quoted in note 8. The stance or assumption of its author is clearly that physical things exist first and then come into the purview of language, implying that, in general, sensing precedes concept formation (although he would still be free to hold that no particular time can be specified at which the intertwining of the physical world and language can be said to have begun; cf. the characterization of avidyd, which is primarily a language-based notion in B's thought (94.6), as beginningless. We can probably detect similar evidence in other statements of B, suggesting that in his view physical things and their experience through senses deserves priority in systematization.
19 I say this despite several current interpretations in which B is represented as deriving both the concepts and physical objects from labda-tattva brahman or as declaring all diversity in the world to be an illusion or a lower level truth superimposed on sabda-tattva-brahman. I do not agree with those modern interpreters of B who, by adopting a later version of the 'vivarta: parinama' distinction declare B to be a parinama vadin or a vivarta-vadin. As I will point out in a future article, the understanding of vivarta and parinama in the early period of Indian philosophy, to which B belongs, was different.
20 Note the citations in the Vrtti of TK 1. 124. The karikaitself reads thus : Sabdasya parinamo'yam itymnayavido viduh/chandobhya eva prathamam etad visvanh vyavartata
21 (a) See Aklujkar 1991 for B's concept of the Veda, according to which even the nastika philosophies have their ultimate source in the Veda.
(b) The remark made here, obviously, has a bearing on the question of B's religion. I view him as a follower of Brahmanism or Vedism who was not anti Buddhist and who was, most probably, not anti-Jaina either. I expect to be able to be more specific in a future publication.
22 The words quoted here are a part of a longer statement in Sankara's bhasya introducing the Brahma-sutra or Vedanta-sútra 1.1.1. Cf. Upadesa sahasri 1.1.40, summarized in Potter 1981:221.
23 (al Since acquiring vidyd would mean acquiring liberation, Sankara's statement in the Brhadaranyaka-bhasya 3.3, summarized in Potter 1981:195.96, to the effect that liberation, truly speaking, is not acquired it is not a production, an attainment, or a modification or purification-implies that vidya, "liberating knowledge,' is, truly speaking, not acquired. Note also Upadesa sahasrl 2.17.22. summarized in Potter 1981:240, where vidya is said to be revealed not produced or obtained.
(b) It follows that, in the following statement in Potter 1981:6, the use of 'manifested' is appropriate, but the use of acquiring could be misleading: 'Since bondage depends on ignorance, liberation is manifested upon the removal of ignorance by acquiring its opposite, namely knowledge (vidyar.
24 Compare Quine's procedure of beginning the investigation of what exists with the position everything.'
25 sabda-praminakandi Miyacchabda Aha tat paramartha-rpam. Held-raja 3.1.11 p. 24.8-9. Sabde vyavahäre niropitasyaiva vastutvát. Hela-raja 3.7.152 p. 351.18. näsmábhir darśana-vivekah prärabdhah. Hela-raja 3.9.58 p. 70.25-28.
26 asamakhyeya-tattvanam arthanath laukikairyatha / vyavahare samakhyanath fat prijño na vikalpayer TK 2.142; Sabdapramadako lokah sa sastrendnugamyate TK 3.7.38; also TK 2.296-97 and Vrtti thereto; sarvatra i prasiddhist värtha - vyavastha karapam. Anavasthitaiva hi tarkigamabhyaish bhinnesu pravidesu vastu gata vyavastha. Vrtti 1. 106.
27 (a) The intention behind the remarks made here is not to suggest that B's interest in what we would call religion or religious philosophy was not sincere. In his own perspective, the mokya or brahma-prapti frame of his thought could, of course, have been meant seriously. The question of the relationship of the Ultimate or First Principle in his philosophy with the material world, however, is a philosophical question (one to be determined on the basis of logic and argumentation that does not rest on testimony, appeal to extraordinary experience of some kind, or depend on admitting an unverifiable possibility). The answer given to that question does have implications for religious thinking (e.g., for the notion of moksato be accepted and for the method to be advocated for moksa attainment), but the answer itself is not decided at the level of religious thinking. The approving references to the moksa possibility that B may be seen as making or the moksa-supporting citations he gives from texts authoritative to him cannot,
wa shart.
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