________________
140
INDIAN LOGIC
(ii) Sabda-monism of the Grammarian Refuted The doctrine of word-monism was a sort of philosophical curiosity developed by certain grammarians who as such had no interest in philosophical problems. As presented by Jayanta this doctrine has three sub-forms along with a main form which consists in submitting that there is possible no cognition which involves no mention of a word." The first sub-form consists in submitting that in all cognition a word appears as qualifying the thing denoted by this word, the second in submitting that a word here appears as superimposed on this thing;42 as against these the third sub-form consists in submitting that in all cognition what appears is a word transformed into the thing concerned, there being no thing as such."
The main form is criticised by Jayanta as follows: "Even those not conversant with the word standing for a thing can well have a perceptual cognition of this thing on the basis of observing how there obtain similarities and dissimilarities between this thing and certain other things. Nay, even at the time when the name of a thing is introduced to a novice he has an independent perceptual cognition of this thing while on having subsequently encountered this thing he recalls this word along with this perceptual cognition.":44 About the first sub-form it is recalled that it has already been criticised in connection with offering an account of perception where it was maintained that the object of savikalpaka perception is not a-thingas-qualified-by-the-word-concerned.45 The second sub-form is criticised as follows: "For the purpose of cognising one of the so many properties belonging to a thing the word concerned is but a means just as a lamp etc. are a means for perceptually cognising a thing; but a word - just like a lamp etc. - is not one with the thing it enables one to cognise.46 Moreover, if a word is really one with the thing it denotes then there is no sense in saying that this word is
superimposed on this thing.47 Really, if a word by its very form · reveals what it stands for then there should be difficulty about a word that stands for several different things, difficulty about a word that stands for an operation yet to be brought about, difficulty about two words describing the same thing, difficulty about two words standing for the same thing; moreover, in that case there will be no sense in one seeking to learn as o what a word stands for.48 And then one thing is superimposed in another on account of
