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Studies in Indian Philosophy
be unnameable. This is the problem we call " Bhartshari's paradox”, after the fifth century grammarian and philosopher of language, who clearly enunciated it in his Vākyapadīya.
Whether or not Bhartshari himself actually held the unnameability thesis is a difficult problem which we shall examine at some length. Some of his remarks at least suggest the unpameability thesis, without definitively committing him to it. Those who have studied the Vakyapadiya will perhaps appreciate how studiously noncommittal its author tends to be on matters of philosophical doctrine. In asmuch as the texts are inconclusive, the most we can do here is to formulate the exegetical problems with as much clartiy as present understanding of Bhartphari's theory of language seems to permit.
To make the problem vivid to modern readers, we will then introduce some arguments of our own in favour of the unnameability thesis. To the extent that these arguments provide some support for that thesis, they strengthen the paradox. For it is in the nature of the problem that every argument advanced to support any instance of the unname. ability thesis, drives one still more firmly into the paradox. This is one of the most perplexing features of our problem : the stronger those arguments, the more firmly they undercnt their own conclusions; for they naturally tend to involve repeat. ed reference to the very things whose unnameability they under. take to establtsb.
In this section we will examine some textual grounds for attributing the unnameability thesis to Bhartshari, and weigh these against conflicting interpretations. This examination will leave unresolved problems on both sides. But we hope the discussion will serve to focus the textual issues. In any case it will provide us with several interesting candidates for examples of things which cannot be named. Whether or not Bhartshari himself regared these particular things to be strictly unnameable, he did single them out and seemed to be very
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