Syadvada Manjari

Author(s): Mallishenacharya, F W Thomas
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 86

XIV. The Vedanta theory of the denotation of terms
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the place of honour belongs to the denotant, since in general the demonstrating of meaning depends upon the (use of) words. And so the grammarians) -
“There is no notion in the world which is without verbal accompaniment;
All cognition seems to be, as it were, permeated by (speech) sound" The sense-meaning is as follows: some heretics approve only of what has the form of an universal as being the denotand. And these followers of the 'substance-existent Method') are a branch of the Mimāmsakas, the Advaita disputants and the Samkhyas. And some also expound the denotand as merely of the form of a particular; and these, following the stateexistent Method''), are Buddhists; and others make out as the denotand an entity possessed of universality and particularity as mutually independent separate categories, and these, conforming to the practical Method', are the followers of Kanada, and the followers of Akşapada). (107)
And this triad of alternatives is discussed a little. As thus: those disputants who cling to the generality-Method (samgraha-naya) expound: The universal alone is real because we do not see differentiae apart from it; so all is one because indistinguishably it has existence, inferred through the mark of regular presence called the cognition 'existent'. Thus, substanceness alone is reality, because the substances, merit, demerit, ether, time, matter, soul, are not observed as objects different from it. Moreover, the differentiae which are supposed to be separate from the universal, and have for essence a mutual exclusion, is there ir them differentia-ness, or not? If not, it follows that they have no own-nature, since they have not even an own-form. If there is, then that itself is an universal; because universality is the status of things similar (samana), and a presentation of all of them indistinguishably, as having the form of differentia, is actually established.
Moreover, the mark of a differentia is its being cause of the presentation of distinction. And the presentation of distinction itsell, upon consideration, does not fit. For distinction is negation of another thing in regard to a meant thing. And a meant thing stops at (par yavasayi) the mere setting forth of its own-form in each instance; how has it audacity for the negation of another thing? Nor is there in it, other than the existence of its own-form, any. thing wherethrough the denial thereof takes place. And, if an exclusion in regard thereto (to other things) takes place, then there should be excluded from it (all) the things different from itself, past, present, and future, in the Triple Universe. And they cannot be excluded while their own-form is not cognized. And therefore on the full cognition of even a single differentia there should be omniscience in the knower; and that is neither so presented, nor logically proved. Further, exclusion is denial, and that, as having the form of non-existence, is nothing; how does it come within the range of presentation, like a flower in the sky ? (108)
*Furthermore, the things from which there is distinction, are they in the form (aspect) of existent, or of non-existent? If in the form (aspect) of non-existent, then why is there not distinction from ass's born? But, if of existent, there is merely the universal. And as for this distinction effected by the differentiae, is it in all the particular differentiae one or plural? If plural, it follows that that also is a differentia; since the differentiae have for their sole subsistence the being of plural form; and so that (distinction) also, since its being differentia is otherwise unaccountable, must have distinction-ness. And if distinction-ness also
") From Bhartphari's Vakya-padiya, I. 124 (M. L.): quoted in Sammati-tarka, p. 380, and Nyaya-manjari, p. 532.
) See note 5). ") On these Methods' (naya) see infra, vv. XXIV (pp. 142 sq.), XXVII (pp. 152 sq.).
The Vaišeşikas and Naiyāyikas.