Sambodhi 1993 Vol 18

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

Page 26

Vol. XVIII, '92-'93 different views on this means' as a capacity and its relation (if any) to the substance in which it inheres.
A kārikā which is of particular interest is 3.7.7. Here it is pointed out that a meantalist approach according to which the thing referred to by words is a mental substance (as explained in preceding kārikās), allows for a solution to a problem which arises on the assumption that word meaning is the particular instance. The same problem was solved in a different way in the Jāti-samuddes'a (3.1.27), on the assumption that word meaning is the universal. The problem is: how is it possible that in a sentence like 'he makes the pot', the role of grammatical object is played by something which does not yet exist, namely the pot which is precisely the thing to be produced ? Here the solution is possible on the basis of 'mental states': it is the mental state in which the pot is conceived which forms the grammatical object of the action, not the not-yet-existing external pot. This mental state is still an individual instance, though not an external object. The solution presented here, and the fact that it is explicitly said to be based on the assumption that the individual instance is the word meaning,53 are just indications of the fact that the entire 'mentalist approach' (3.7.3-7) presupposes the view that the word meaning is the individual instance, 54 and that it solves problems (relation word - external thing) which would not arise, or which would arise in entirely different terms, if the word meaning was thought to be the universal.
We have been that in the Jāti-samuddesa much attention was devoted to the problem of substitutes which are a factor (sādhana) in a prescribed action. In the Sadhanasamuddesa this problem receives very little attention, probably because it is already solved by the discussions in the Jāti-samuddeša. There, the solution was possible by introducing the notion of sakti "capacity' (3.1.3-5). In the Sadhana-samuddesa, factor (sādhana) is from the beginning defined as a sakti 'capacity'. In this samuddeša it is mentioned only en passant that the object in an action may be substituted: in the 3.7.26 it is said, in order to distinguish the grammatical notions karana 'instrument' and hetu 'cause', that the former can be substituted but not the latter. Helārāja mentions that some explain karana here as referring to any sādhana or means in an action.
Skipping a lot of interesting and relevant material, we may now turn to the final section of the Sadhana-samuddeša (3.7.165-167)SS: 165. On the basis of the fact that an indeclinablc is taught in the sense of the ending, it
should be inferred that thc mcaning of the ending is different from the substance, and that it is expressed by the indeclinable. But substance, if il exists in a certain way, than it exists for ever in the same way. This nature of the substance which belongs to it, is not given up even if it is
connected with action. 56 167. Therefore, the substance which is instrument, does not again become the object.
Otherwise, cach individual substance could become different. Kārikā 165 returns to a point made earlier (3.7.13-15, 38, 43), namely that the
166.