________________
(14)
STUDIES IN SANSKRIT SYNTAX
"If vac or language is subtle, does it really exist?" "It is permanently there."
If it is permanently there, why do we not perceive it?" "You need persons with special qualities to perceive it.'
2.6. Finally, I would like to draw attention to the Vetti's use of parenthetical clauses. These interrupt, if not disturb, the normal word order of the sentences containing them. It is my impression that such, truly parenthetical, clauses are rare in Sanskrit expository prose. Particles and short phrases that indicate hesitation, emotion, etc. on the part of the speaker are occasionally employed in Classical Sanskrit poetry for the appropriate aesthetic effect. There may also be parenthetical particles, phrases, and clauses in the Vedic corpus (Thieme 1944), some of them genuine and some due to factors such as metrical constraints, textual corruption, etc. However, as far as I can recall and ascertain without rereading a large mass of Classical sastric prose, there are very few, if any, truly parenthetical clauses in that body of literature. The Vitti, along with Mandanamiśra's Brahmasiddhi, seems to be a definite, if not a large-scale, exception to this practice. Cf. passages such as (15).
(15)
yatha hi jñānam jñeya-para-tantram jñeya-rupa-pratyavabhasatvād anirdesya-sva-rupam api jñanantarasyeva bhinnām svasyaivätmanaḥ sva-rupa-matram darśayati- tatha hy atyantam anupalabdham apy anyena jñänena smrti-visayatvamṁ pratipadyate-tadvad ayam... (V 1.51)
Just as a cognition, which is dependent upon the object on account of the (invariable) reflection (in it) of the form of the object and which is unspecifiable in terms of its own form, displays the ownform component of itself, (a component) separated as if it were (a form) of another cognition-to clarify: although it is not at all apprehended by another cognition, it becomes an object of recollection in the same way this (word)...'
Here, within the relative clause that begins with yarhd and gives an analogy, we have a parenthetical clause, set off by the two dashes. To illustrate his point that in the process of signification a signifier reveals the signatum as well as its own form, Bharthari employs the analogy of a cognition. A cognition is dependent on the object apprehended in it, in the sense that without that object it would not have any specifiable form. However, it must also be admitted that it reveals its own form as it apprehends or reveals the object that it reveals its own form as it would of another cognition. How can we infer this? From the fact that the contents of even unnoticed cognitions become objects of memory. If I saw a pitcher, I can have a recollection of the form "I saw a pitcher' even if after seeing the pitcher I did not have a reflective or introspective (anuvyavasaya) type of cognition like 'I saw a pitcher.' Now, since what is not experienced is not recollected, it must be concluded that the seeing of the pitcher was experienced (was recorded in consciousness) in some way that when I saw the pitcher my consciousness recorded the pitcher as well as my seeing of it, that is, the object
AKLUJKAR: SYNTACTIC GLEANINGS
of cognition as well as the form of the cognition. This argument is what the clause flanked by dashes states in a syntactically self-sufficient way. Its occurrence in the body of a larger sentence and the absence of a relationship of syntactic dependence on the words of the larger sentence which its words exhibit make it a true parenthetical clause.24
3. In the above discussion I have pointed out certain peculiarities of word order which may hold good only in the case of a specific body of literature written in a particular period, and which may have their origin in what the Vitti author inherited and what his objectives were. In a sequel to the present article, I shall offer a few theoretical observations on word order in Sanskrit.
Notes
*I am happy to acknowledge the financial assistance I received at various times since 1969 from the University of British Columbia Humanities and Social Sciences Research Committee, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung of the Federal Republic of Germany. The assistance enabled me to carry out a sustained study of the text with which this paper deals.
Hans Henrich Hock suggested some changes in an earlier draft of this paper that went beyond the usual editorial suggestions for consistency. I wish to thank him for his informed friendly advice.
The paper is based on the following primary sources:
(1) Bharthari's Trikandi or Vakyapadiya. I have reproduced the text of the Vitti from my critical edition of the Trikandi (under preparation). Those wishing to verify my references to the Vitti prior to the publication of my edition should consult the editions by K. A. Subramania Iyer:
(a) Vakyapadiya of Bharthari with the Vetti and the Paddhati of Visabha-deva. Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, 1966. (Deccan College Monograph Series, 32.)
(b) The Vakyapadiya of Bharthari, Kända II with the commentary of Punya-raja and the ancient Vetti, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983.
I have followed the enumeration of kärikäs in Wilhelm Rau (1977), Bharthari's Vakyapadiya: Die Müla-kärikäs nach den Handschriften herausgegeben und mit einem Pada-Index versehen. (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 42:4.) Wiesbaden: Steiner. Hence the numbers in my edition and those in the editions by Subramania lyer do not always match. However, they are not far removed from each other.
(2) Patanjali's, Vyakarana-maha-bhasya, ed. by F. Kielhorn, revised ed. by K. V. Abhyankar. Pune: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
(3) Yiska's The Nighantu and the Nirukta, ed. by Lakshman Sarup. 1920-7. Reprinted 1967, 1984. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Although the title Vakyapadiya is now used to refer to all of the three books, the older tradition is to confine it to the first two books; see Aklujkar 1969:547-54.
2vukya-pade adhikṛtya kṛtaḥ granthah vakyapadiyam 'Vakyapadiya is a book that deals with sentence and word (the latter mainly as a sentence constituent, not as a lexical item)." Bharthari's chosen subject, then, naturally involves consideration of the relation between word
