Sambodhi 1993 Vol 18

Author(s): J B Shah, N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 15

SAMBODHI 11. Also if words (directly) express meaning universals: all words (even the word 'universal')
express a universal, since word meanings are defined by their function in language). In other words, from the point of view of how a word meaning functions in verbal usage, one may hold that all words directly denote a universal: not only in an unproblematic case like 'cow' etc., but also in the case of 'universal', simply because language treats ‘universals' and cows' in the same way as things which may be referred to through a universal feature. Word meanings, being thus defined by the way they function in verbal usage, do not have an absolute, independent status.
The next kārikā may be understood along the same lines. Not only if a universal is to be expressed does a word express a universal, but even if a particular is to be expressed20 : 12. On the assumption that the meaning of individual words is the universal, the universal or even
the particular is referred to by words as a universal; therefore, the (words) express the
universal This is next contrasted with a view which is diametrically opposite.21 13. On the other hand, on the assumption that the substance is the meaning of individual words,
each meaning is expressed as somcthing having the properties of a substance. Therefore it is
accepted that each meaning is a substance on the basis of its properties of substance. In the following kārikās, Bhartrhari returns to different ways to accept the universal as the meaning of the word. From this it should not be inferred that the view expressed in 13 would be unacceptable to Bhartrhari.22 The Jāti-samuddesa is devoted to the view that the universal is the meaning of words, and the view that substance or the particular is the meaning of words will be explained at other places in the VP23 :
One of the views discussed seems to turn the universal into something mental. The universal is not so much a propery of the object but rather of the cognition.24 19. Some consider the univesal to be the congnition (pra-khyā) which has the form of recurrence;
[and] they consider that the cognition) which has the form of exclusion (i.e. of 'going apart')
is the substance. Towards the end of the Jātisamuddesas, in kārikā 101, Bhartrhari discusses a views which is to some extent similar. According to Helārāja, kārikā 19 explains the view on word meaning according to the Buddhist school of Vijñānavāda (VP IIIa:32.10), and 101 the view on the universal of the Buddhists (saugatānām.. jāti-darśanam, VP IIIa:99.2). As in 19, the universal is in 101 something in the mind.
From 25 onwards, the relation between the universal and the individual instance is discussed. It is pointed out that anything that arises has its universal, and that this universal instigates the causes for its own manifestation in the individual instance (3.1.25). The universals, by virtue of permanent and impermanent causes, manifest themselves time and again in the effects (3.1.26). And the universal is also the sādhana'means' in the case of an object to be produced; it instigates the action, in ord to bring about its own substratum (3.1.27).