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Sütra 24 ) Cognition, Ways of Approach, Transferred Epithet
185
(Aph) The way of observation which takes cognizance of the actually present mode is called the straight and direct approach. (XXIII)
(Gloss) For example, the present is a pleasant time.
(Note) This way of approach characterizes the Buddhist philosophical orientation, particularly the doctrine of flux. The analytic approach envisaged in the third naya is carried on to its extreme limit in Buddhist philosophy. The immediate present is asserted to be the only reality, and the past and future are declared to be fictitious. It is litereally called the method of the straight line (rjusutra). It concentrates on the immediate present and is practically blind to the antecedent and subsequent aspects. It is purely particularistic in approach and the concepts of genus and species are dismissed as hypostatized abstractions,
२४. कालाविभेदेनार्थभेदकृच्छब्दः।
यथा-बभूव, भवति, भविष्यति सुमेरुरिति भिन्नकालाः शब्दा
भिन्नार्थस्य बोधकाः। 24. kälādibhedena ārthabhedakrc chabdaḥ.
vathā-babhūva, bhavati, bhavisyati sumerur iti bhinnakālāḥ sabdā bhinnārthasya bodhakāḥ.
(Aph.) The verbalistic approach takes cognizance of the entitative difference of things on the basis of distinction of tense (gender, number) and so on. (XXIV)
ss) For example, the sentences 'There was the Sumeru (the Golden Mountain)', 'There is the Sumeru' and 'There will be the Sumeru' express three different facts, as they have reference to different times.
(Note) “The advocate of this naya goes one step further in the process of particularization. He agrees with the advocate of the previous approach in the assertion that the present alone is real. But as the real is expressed and characterized by word, and words are significant and not unmeaning symbols, the real must be understood in the light of the connotation of the term that stands for it. Each term designates an action being derived from a verbal root, and it is this action which stamps the fact meant with its distinctive character. And so the word ghata (jar), which is derived from the root ghata 'to exert', stands for the thing which is capable of action, viz. drawing water, etc. This is the case with all words. The king is one who is possessed of sovereign power. If a man is called by the name 'King', it has not the word meaning of king'. Similarly the portrait or the statue of the man is loosely identified with the man. The heir apparent to the throne is addressed by the sycophants 'Your Majesty': These are all unmeaning expressions because they do not possess the function which the word connotes. Of course this constitutes the difference of this naya from the previous
one.
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