________________
374
NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
meaning of the sentence in different ways and degrees Hence the words lose their individual meanings in the unitary meaning of the sentence. The Prābhākaras, on the other hand, maintain that the words convey both their separate meanings and the construed meaning of the sentence Just as in a machine the parts perform their respective functions and at the same time contribute to the function of the whole, so the words in a sentence present their individual meanings till these are construed into the unitary meaning of the sentence Hence the ineaning of a sentence is neither the aggregate meaning of the words nor is it quite independent of their separate meanings. Rather, the sentence is a new combination of the individual meanings of the words and, therefore, conveys a new meaning The Prābhākaras agree with others in holding that the combination of the separate meanings of the words is effected by memory, since the words appear in succession and their meanings are only remembered by us when we come to the end of the sentence 1
Of the different views about the meaning of a sentence, that of the Prābhākaras seems to be the best If the meaning of a sentence be, as the grammarians think, quite independent of the words, then we can have no other way of knowing it than a personal explanation from the speaker or writer of it. If, on the other hand, its meaning be merely the aggregate of the word-meanings, we do not see bow any sentence can convey a new meaning to meet a new situation. If the word-meanings are not modified in the meaning of the sentence, according to its context, no sentence can go further than the old meanings of its words. On the other hand, without something of their old meanings persisting in the words, the new meaning of a sentence cannot be understood by us.
1 Vide NM., pp 387-98, Vivaranaprameyasangraha, pp 257-60.
