Indian Logic Part 03

Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Sanskrit Sanskriti Granthmala

Page 45

PROBLEMS OF UNIVERSALS, WORDMEANING AND SENTENCE-MEANING
(1). Introductory .
In Ahnika, V Jayanta, considers the question as to what a word stands for, and his enquiry is divided into two parts, viz.one considering as to what an individual word stands for, the other as to what a sentence stands for. However, this much should give very little idea of what Jayant precisely does in the present Āhnika with its two distinct parts. For he evinces clear realisation that neither the problem of word-meaning nor that of sentential meaning is one in connection with which his Nyāya school has made a notable contribution. Thus it is towards the very close of the first part that Jayanta actually discusses as to what different types of meaning are conveyed by the grammatically different types of word, and the enquiry is cut short by confessing that a detailed consideration as to what a word means, is the special task of another particular discipline,' his point being that that is the special task of the science of grammar. Somewhat earlier Jayanta discusses as to whether a word stands for the corresponding universal or for the corresponding configuration or for the corresponding particularentities, a discussion apparently confined to. noun-words but one which was actually undertaken by the Nyāya authors since beginning. But even this discussion is relatively yery, brief and the real thing is the elaborate discussion which precedes this one, for there Jayanta takes up the much debated problem of the reality or otherwise of a 'universal'. The debate had of course something to do with the problem of word-meaning. For the Nyāya and Mimämsā authors were of the view that a noun-word stands for a universal which is an eternal independent real residing in each of the particular-entities denoted by this word, a view countered by the Buddhists by arguing that a 'universal' thus conceived is something fictitious while a noun-word supposed to stand for such a universal in fact stands for nothing real. Hence.Jayanta's contention that since he is out to maintain that a word is an independent source of valid