Sambodhi 1993 Vol 18

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

Page 25

18
SAMBODHI even without studying them in detail. First, there are here some elements denoting things' (vastv-abhidhāyin). What are these elements ? If Helārāja's commentary is followed, they are the words 'direction', 'means', 'action', 'time' themselves. And what is meant with "things' (vastu) denoted by them ? In the first kārikā of the Dravyasamuddesa, vastu was mentioned as one of the synonyms of dravya 'substance'. Could this mean that the starting point is again the view that words denote the substance, as was the case in the preceding chapters from the Dravya-samuddesa onwards ? Our kārikā 3.6.1, however, mentions an additional condition in the phrase saktirūpe padārthānām 'if word meanings have the form of capacities'. What does this mean if the words have been said to denote objects? Do these words finally express the substance or capacities ? It is moreover possible to interpret padārtha differently. It is not only ‘meaning of the word', but because of the absence of a sharp and clear distinction between meaning and referent it is in some contexts rather thing denoted by an individual word' or simply 'thing'. Finally, these words are said to be always un-fixed' or 'by no means fixed'. As observed above, the most immediate implication of the second Kānda for the third Kānda was that the status of words and word meanings (and smaller units) is strongly relativized. In the preceding chapters of the third Kāndą we have seen that when Bhartrhari defended that the meaning of words is (ultimately) permanent, he did not commit himself too much to accepting individual word meanings as absolutely fixed in themselves.
On the basis of just this kārikā 3.6.1 one can therefore conclude that the discussion in the following chapters starts (again) from the assumption that individual words denote individual things, which are not absolutely fixed, but have the character of capacities; the four main notions themselves are not absolutely fixed either. 10.1. The Dik-samuddesa
In the Dik-samuddesa, it is indeed emphasized that direction' as expressed in language is a 'capacity and as such not absolutely fixed in itself. Apart from the first kārikā introducing the subject matter of this and the following three chapters, it is nowhere emphasized that the meaning of the word is the individual substance rather than the universal. On the other hand, nothing indicates that first of all the universal would be expressed by the words. In a straightforward interpretation of the chapter it is much simpler to assume that the starting point is throughout the view that word meaning is dravya at least in its meaning of 'individual instance', without a necessarily intervening universal; it is argued in the Dik-samuddesa, that in the case of dis direction', this individual instance is actually a capacity. There is also a kārikā (3.6.1752) which, while not in conflict with the view of dis direction as a capacity, clearly echoes the Vaisesikas who categorize it as a dravya 'substance.' 10.2. The Sadhana-samuddesa
In the first kārikā of the next chapter, the Sadhana-samuddeša, sādhana or 'means' is explicitly defined as a capacity (sāmarthya) (3.7.1). The following kārikās give