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74
Nalini Balbir
However, almost everywhere else, vibhāsā works as an abridgment-mark used in order to avoid a repetition of something which has been said before or which can be easily deduced on the basis of the preceding. The addressees of the text are thus invited to supply the implicit statement. In itself the process is not fundamentally different from what is found in the Canon, where it is, however, expressed by other terms (e.g., ... bhāniyavva-, neyavva-, .evam padiuccāreyavvam, etc.).19
For instance, out of the four combinations which would form a complete caturbhanga-argumentation, only two are explicitly mentioned as examples in the following verse. The remaining two have to be developed accordingly:
ettham puņa cau-bhango jāņaga-iarammi goni-näenam; suddhâsuddhā padham'antimā u; sesesu a vibhāsā. (ĀVN 1616) On this point there is a caturbhanga concerning (the problem of knowing whether the person who confers the pratyākhyāna-atonement and the one who receives it) know (the process) or not. (It is to be developed) with the example of the cow. The first and the last (combinations) are (respectivelyl good and bad (i.e. when both persons know the process and when none of them knows it). For the others the detailed explanation has to be supplied.
A similar process can be seen at work, now in the case of a niksepa-pattern:
sambandhaņa-samjoge khettai-vibhāsă jā bhaniyā kheltâisu samjogo so c'eva vibhāsiyavvo u. (UTIN 63)
This rather awkward verse merely aims at establishing a parallel between two niksepas as far as the viewpoints 'place, etc. are concerned: (a) the niksepa of the compound sambandhana-samjoga which has been the subject of v. 47, and (b) the niksepa of the word samjoga which should be fully developed in the subsequent verses along the same lines.20
In these two examples, the exact contents of what is implied by vibhāsā can be easily determined. Firstly, the words which occur in the verses are expanded in subsequent verses or in the prose-commentaries. Secondly, we are dealing with well-established scholastic patterns endowed with some regularity.
