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Venkatanatha's treatment of Inference
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person for whom it may be intended. Thus, there may be three, four, or five propositions, according to the context in which the inference appears.
In addition to inference Venkaṭanatha also admits śabda, or scriptural testimony. No elaboration need be made here regarding the sabda-pramāṇa, as the treatment of the subject is more or less the same as is found in other systems of philosophy. It may be remembered that on the subject of the interpretation of words and sentences the Naiyaikas held that each single element of a sentence, such as simple words or roots, had its own separate or specific sense. These senses suffer a modification through a process of addition of meaning through the suffixes of another case-relation. Viewed from this light, the simple constituents of sentences are atomic, and gradually go through a process of aggregation through their association with suffixes until they grow into a total meaning of the sentence. This is called the abhihitā-nvaya-vāda. The opposite view is that of anvita-bhidhana-vāda, such as that of Mīmāmsaka, which held that no sentence could be analysed into purely simple entities of meaning, unassociated with one another, which could go gradually by a process of aggregation or association. Into however simple a stage each sentence might be capable of being analysed, the very simplest part of it would always imply a general association with some kind of a verb or full meaning. The function of the suffixes and case-relations, consists only in applying restrictions and limitations to this general connectedness of meaning which every word carries with itself. Venkaṭanatha holds this anvitābhidhāna-vāda against the abhihită-nvaya-vāda on the ground that the latter involves the unnecessary assumption of separate specific powers for associating the meaning of the simplest word-elements with their suffixes, or between the suffixed words among themselves and their mutual connectedness for conveying the meaning of a sentence1. The acceptance of anvitā-bhidhāna was conducive to the philosophy of Rāmānuja, as it established the all-connectedness of meaning (visiṣṭā-rtha).
Rāmānuja himself did not write any work propounding his views of logic consistent with his system of philosophy. But Nathamuni had written a work called Nyaya-tattva, in which he criticized
1 abhihită-nvyaye hi padānām padā-rthe padā-rthānam vākyā-rthe padānām ca tatra iti śakti-traya-kalpana-gauravam syat. Nyāya-parisuddhi, p. 369.
