________________
९६
जैन विद्या के आयाम खण्ड-६ words of a sentence severally do not have any meaning. They jointly have meaning and that is sentential meaning. Prabhakra's point is that the denoter-denoted relationship obtains between a sentence as a whole and the sentential meaning concerned. He tends to blur adistinction between the role of a sentence and the role of the individual words occurring in this sentence. We may put his basic contention as follows: "Unlike a lamp, a word does not produce cognition unless its meaning is learnt. But the meaning of a word is learnt through observing the practical dealings undertaken by the elders who however in this connection always speak a sentence as a whole, never individual words. Certainly, a sentence is what one speaks, what one hears, what one observes others speaking and hearing. So what is learnt is as to what meaning is had by what sentence. But then a sentence is of the form of several words grouped together with a view to yielding acommon meaning just as fueletc. jointly undertake cooking, the palanquin-bearers jointly carry the palanquin, the three oven-stones jointly support the cooking pot, so that it is improperto suggest that a single word uncombined with other words is what yields a meaning". As can be seen, Prabhākara does not deny that a sentence is made up of individual words, but he fails to see how words can yield any meaning other that what is commonly yielded bythem in their capacity as acomponentofone common sentence. Prabhākaraknows of no word-meanings apart from the sentential meaning concerned so that on his view here is a case of word-employment with no meaning coming in picture.
Some points of refutation are already suggested. Others are as follows. Each word of a sentence is associated with the remaining words. Soon hearing the first word we should have the knowledge of the remaining words associated with it and consequently the knowledge of the whole sentence, there is no need of employing so many words instead of justone. The second point is as follows. Even when meaning is learnt through listening to the sentences uttered by elderly people what is learnt is the meaning of an individual word, not the meaning of a sentence as a whole; certainly, sentences being infinite in number it should be impossible for one to learn their meaning one by one while as a matter of fact one conversant with the words and their meanings manages to grasp the meaningeven of a sentence fresh from the pen of a poet. So Prabhākarashould not maintain that individual words do not have meaning of their own and that they do not denote their own meaning. His mistake lies in denying the denotative power as also in applying the designation denotative power to the informative power(tatparyāsakti). The right position is that words of a sentence severally yield their respective meanings through their denotative power and jointly yield the common sentential meaning through their informative power.
The fifth chapter is devoted to the determinants of the meaning of a statement. These determinants are naya and niksepa Nayameans a standpoint or intention of a speaker. Athing has infinite aspects or attributes. The speaker chooses that aspect which suits to his purpose or the occasion and conveys through words that aspect only. So his statement is always relative to his purpose or intention. It presents his standpoint, purpose or intention. To know or understand the meaning of a statement it is necessary to take into account the seaker's intention or standpoint. All statements are relative to speaker's intention, standpoint and purpose. So their meanings are govered by them. For example, every thing is constituted of two aspects, viz. substance and mode. When a person concentrates on substance, he states that the thing is permanent. The statement is made from the substantive standpoint. When he concentrates on modes, he states that the thing is impermanent. The statement is made from the modal standpoint. No statement is understood in its true sense unless it is put in the context of the speaker's standpoint. There are as many standpoints as there are aspects of athing. There are as many modes of expression as there are standpoints. Again, a thing in its entirety can never be conveyed to others through language. For that purpose one has to analyse it into various aspects and then these aspects are to beconveyed one by one through language. In fact, one conveys those aspects only of the thing which
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
