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The Jaina Philosophy of Sentence : (89) their mutually connected parts. Thus the comprehension of meaning that we get, whether of the sentence, or of the terms, is always of the connected and not the non-connected terms. Kumārila in order to support his denotation-relation theory, can, of course, argue that it is only in profane practice and in the Vedas that we use the single (partless) word to propound the meaning of a sentence and roots, genders, suffixes and prefixes are not separately used. They are separately used only when their etymology is being explained. A word is always like a single (partless) letter. It is only to explain its meaning that we separate its parts in our imagination. Being single and partless, it is non-connected (ananvita) nevertheless, its connectivity is established. Prabhācandra contradicting this argument of Kumārila says that the very same argument, which makes a word/term a partless or single entity, can make a sentence also an undivided single whole. In that case, it can be said that it is only to explain the structure of a sentence that we separate it in imagination from its words. In fact, the sentence is an indivisible unit, in which the other connected terms are named. In the secular practices and in the Vedas, we use the sentences so that actions may proceed towards getting or not getting the objects. It is the meaning of a sentence, and not the objects, which inspires for action. Thus we have to regard a sentence as a unit and in this form, it will denote the connected terms only.
Prabhācandra thus reaches to the conclusion that, as the words/ terms are partly different and partly similar to their parts genders, conjunctions, prepositions etc. so also the terms are partly similar and partly different from their sentences. First, the term is connected to the component terms of a sentence, at the same time it is non-connected with the component terms of other sentence. In spite of being connected, it has its independent existence. Secondly, in other physical sentence, the words are separate but in the psychic sentences, they are connected.
In my opinion it should be kept in mind that even if the words have their own meanings, they lose their independent meanings when used in a sentence. In the game of chess, for example when we say that the ‘king is beaten’, the independent meaning of the separate terms of the sentence do not help us much in making sense to our preposition. Here the whole sentence has a special sense, which does not depend upon the meanings of the separate words/terms of the sentence. Thus, it is not
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