________________
12
SAMBODHI
absolute, because the particular universals are just divisions of this all-embracing Existence. In the final part (92-110), mentalist and other views which would not imply word meanings as well-defined individual basic units receive considerable attention. The "comprehensive explosition” on jāti 'the universal' contains, therefore, also several starting-points for a 'critique of the universal.
All in all, Bhartthari has shown how it is possible that the meaning of a word can be a universal, and can be permanent in an absolute or relative sense, without definitely committing himself to word meanings as well-defined individual basic units. 7. The incomplete "comprehensive expose' in the dravya-samuddesa
An approach comparable to the 'Existence-approach' in the Jāti-samuddeša (3.1.33ff), may be recognized in the Dravya-samuddesa. Again, all wo same things, and, again, the status of individual words and their specific meanings is not presented as absolute. In the Dravya-samuddesa, however, this one things, expressed by all words, is not a universal but it is the substance. And it is not called existence (sattā) but referred to by another derivative from the root as 'to be': satya 'true' or 'real' (3.2.2, 11,15). In the first ātman (self), vastu (thing), svabhāva (own nature), śarīra (body), tattva (reality), are said to be synonyms of dravya, 'substance'.
If we compare the rest of the Dravya-samuddesa (2 till end) with the Jāti-samuddesa, there is an important structural difference. In the Jāti-samuddeša the idea that all words express the universal inasmuch as they express existence in one of its divisions, is one of the views explained. According to Helārāja, the idea represents an Advaita-Vedānta approach (VP IIIa: 41.6 and cf. VP IIIa: 96.22). Other views are explained according to which universals are just 'similarities' preceived in things which are in fact utterly distinct; or they are separate, independent entities. In addition, several technical problems are discussed which arise on the assumption that the universal is the word meaning in all cases. In the Dravya-samuddesa, however, other views' as well as the technical discussions are conspicuous by their absence. The entire Dravya-samuddeša — with its 18 kārikās much smaller than the Jāti-samuddesa — elaborates one and the same idea that all words express a single entity (Entity) in what may be called an Advaita-Vedāntalike way34
As for this Advaita-Vedānta-like idea, it is parallel to the idea expressed in the 'existence'-passage in the Jāti-samuddesa (3.1.33-43) inasmuch as in both cases all words express one and the same entity. In both cases, it can be maintained that the meaning expressed by words is permanent, a requirement inherited from the accepted grammatical tradition (cf. discussion above). In both cases, the status of the individual word meaning themselves is not necessarily absolutely fixed, a requirement resulting from the preference for the sentence as the primary unit in language. In the Jāti-samuddesa 3.1.3343, this non-fixed character of the individual word meanings — i.e. of the specific universals – is not emphasized. Two different views are recorded which make the specific universals either absolutely permanent or permanent only within a world period.
