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53
ślokavārtika--a study
importance of the issues it ruises it is advisable to study it separately. The same is true of the topic considered next which in Slokavārtika occurs immediately after the present one.)
(v) No False Superimposition of Words on the Things They Denote
(vv. 171-228)
In Kumārila's times there prevailed a fairly large number of views according to which the things of our everyday experience are an illusory manifestation of this alleged verity or that. Most well-known among these was Buddhist idealism which posited consciousness as the ultimate reality and which Kumārila is going to refute with great fanfare, a lesser known one was the view which posited words as the ultimate reality and which Kumārila now refutes in passing though at considerable length. Kumārila was a stark realist in whose eyes the things of our everyday experience are as real as anything can be; naturally therefore the view under consid. cration appeared to him nothing short of fantastic. For according to this view these things are an illusory manifestation of the words which denote them; (the word actually used in this connection is adhyāsa meaning illusory superimposition, a word whose employment makes this view even more vulnerable than it actually is). Kumārila begins by observing that it is never our experience that a thing is identical with the word that denotes it, for even after ernploying a word to denote this thing we find it to remain the same as it was before (v. 172). The opponent argues that a thing is identical with the word denoting it because it is our experience that one not conversant with the word 'cow' does not notice the common feature cowness (vv. 173-74); Kumärila dismisses the argument as invalid on the ground that the common feature cowness can well be noticed even by one who is not conversant with the word 'cow' (vv. 175-76) --further adding that even one who is conversant with the word cow' distinguishes it from the thing cowaess inasmuch as the former is perceived through ear the latter through eye (v. 177). Kumārila's point is that a word is just a means of cognizing this or that from among the features that charaterise a thing and so it cannot be identical with this feature, just as a lamp or an eye which is a means of cognizing colour is not identical with colour (vv. 178-79, cf. vv. 205-7,216-18, 226-27). More trenchantly Kumārila argues that if the word 'cow' and cowness are one thing there can be no superimposition because a thing is not superimposed on itself, if they are two things there can be no superimposition because one real thing is not superi. mposed on another real thing (vv. 180-81). These are Kumārila's most weighty observations against the view uader consideration, they are followed by certain relatively minor ones which can be summarized as follows :
(1) In popular practice the same word does refer to a thing, the word denoting this thing, and the cognition of this thing; e. g. the thing cow is referned to as gauḥ iti padārthaḥ, the word cow as gauḥ iti sabdaḥ, the cognition of cow as gauḥ iti
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