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जैन विद्या के आयाम खण्ड-६ them into sound orspoken word, this process goes on, the material particles transformed into sound orspoken word goes on increasing by infinite times as they travel and spread and at last reach the end of the universe (loka).
Dr. Jain discusses the question as to how a word acquire meaning. In other words, how does word-meaning relationship comes into existence. The Mīmārsaka theoreticians maintain that the relation is natural and eternal. The Nyāya-Vaisesikathinkers contend thatit is God who establishes the relation. Some are of the view that it is established by society or tradition; in other words, it is man-made. Jaina philosophers assert that thoughaword has inherent capacity to get associated with meaning, it is only conventionally associated with meaning and this convention is established through tradition and usage.
Inevery language we come acrosswords having many meanings. In their connection there arises a question as to how to determine one out of many primary meanings in a particular case/instance/sentence. Jainas are of the view that here context and intention work as determinants.
While discussing the problem as to what is denoted by words, Dr. Jain states that according to Jainathinkers a word denotes an individual characterised by universal. Thus they agree with the Nyāya-Vaišesika thinkers on this point. But it is to be borne in mind that the Jaina conception of universal is very different from the Nyāya-Vaiśesika thinkers positone self-identical impartite independent entity residing in all the members of a class and numerically identical in each of these members; they call it universal. The Jainas do not, of course, positsuch an entity because experience does not warrantus todoso. Forthem universalis nothing but similar qualities or transformations possessed by the members of a class. According to them, universal means positive common features exhibited by the members of a class. Again, Jainas do not endorse the Nyāya-Vaiśesika position that word first grasps universal and then individual because the position is nottenable. Why? It is because there does not obtain cause-effect relation between them, nor are they separate existents occupying different places. Dr. Jain expounds Grammarian's Sphota theory and Buddhist Exclusion theory and then refutes them after Jainathinkers. We reserve our consideration of them. Some have raised the question as to what the individualqualified by universal is. Is it external thing or mental image/idea? The NyāyaVaišesika theoreticians accept the former alternative while the Buddhists the latter one. But Jainathinkers synthesise the two. For them meaning of a word is neither mental image/ideanor external thing but the form of the external thing brought to mind. Dr. Jain observes that there obtains similarity between this Jaina view and Ludwig Wittgenstein's Picture theory. And he finds that Jaina acceptance of tradition, usage and context as determinants of word-meaning accomodates Wittgenstein's Usage theory.
Dr. Jain states that a group of letters which has meaning is called word (sabda). He brings out the distinction between sabda, padaand vākya(sentence). A šābda is a word withoutcase-ending while padais a word with case-ending and expects other padasin asentence to convey its meaning. This means a word which has case-ending and is employed in a sentence is called pada
Now we take up the explanation of Buddhist Exclusion theory (apohavāda) and Grammarians' Sphotatheory and their refutation by Jainathinkers, as presented by Dr. Sagarmal Jain.
According to the Buddhista word conveys orexpresses what is common to several objects but he is of the view that each objecthas just gotone positive nature which it does not share with any other. So, according to him what several objects have in common is not any positive feature or entity but justexclusion of the opposite (i.e. what cows have in common is just exclusion of non-cows). This Exclusion theory is a necessary corollary of Buddhist theories of momentarism and unique particular (svalakṣaṇa). According to the Buddhist there is no substance running through all the states/moments. He rejects substance. Similarly, for them there is no positive feature or entity common to
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