________________
176
Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics
conventional or dependent on a mutual understanding. Thus alone did language gain the capacity of unlimited growth and development”. A great part of language is pure invention by its speaking-people and consists in vocal vestures clothing their subjective concepts. The Buddhist denial of all direct relationship between words and objects may be said to emphasise this subjective factor in the development of language. The Nyāya school also seems to do the same thing. Yet a third point in connection with the question of the origin and development of language is that we are to remember that the primitive man heard the sounds emanating from various natural phenomena and observed how these sounds were connected with things in nature. He then subjectively reproduced those sounds and symbolised them in such a way that they came to convey the idea not only of those natural phenomena but of the general characteristics of those as well as of other allied phenomena. For example, the primitive man hears the roaring sound of thunder. He finds that the sound, roar, is connected with thunder. To him, the sound, roar, naturally suggests thunder. He then works upon this natural suggestion and seeing that this sound has the capacity to signify other allied phenomena, he goes a step further and invents the word, roar, which is made to stand for not only the roaring characteristics of thunder but for the sounds of other roaring substances as well. The language of primitive people thus began with a certain natural suggestive power in sounds and ended with human working upon it......".... language is a step”, says Sievers, “beyond this (mere observing and interpreting natural sounds) and different from it. To make language, the intent to signify must be present. A cry wrung out by pain or a laugh of amusement, though intelligible is not language; either of them, if consciously reproduced in order to signify to another pain or pleasure is language. Vague hints about these elements in the development of language viz:--the natural suggestive power in sounds and its shaping and modification by man, can be traced in the Jaina doctrines of स्वाभाविक सामर्थ्य and समय in words.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
