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COMMON SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE....
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It is knowledge for the sake of others as it produces decision in others. Word or speech is a medium through which knowledge is conveyed to others. A word of a speech itself is not knowledge but metaphorically it is called knowledge.
A word is defined as combination of letters which are related to one another and a similar combination of words makes a sentence. “A word signifies its object by means of both its natural force and applied meaning”.44 The Jaina view is that a word has natural power to signify its corresponding object and by convention also it signifies its object.
As against Buddhist view of non-relationship of words and objects Jainas put forward the doctrine of significant relationship between the two. They refute the view that the object signified by a word is a subjective idea 'externalized and 'generalized and that there is no real counterpart of the word. This Buddhist view that words cannot properly indicate the things as the object signified by word has no existence outside mind cannot be supported. Jainas also set aside the view held by some Buddhists the knowledge about an object which we derive from hearing a word involves intention of the speaker. As against it, Jainas believe that a word does not signify its object mediately through an inference about the person's intention but it signifies its object directly by its own force. As it is said “A word is not afraid of its object”.45 Since a thing is constituted of both individuality or particularity and generality, a word which signifies an object has also these two aspects. A word produces in us a knowledge about an object which has both these aspects. The word reveals the object just as the light reveals an object. So the word has natural force to express an
