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THE SABDADVAITA CONCEPT OF BHARTṚHARI AND THE JAINA LOGICIANS
Dr. Narendra Kumar Dash
The grammarian-philosopher Bhartṛhari opines that Sabda is the substratum of the world of appearance and thus he accepts the theory of Sabdadvaita. However this key-stone of the Grammarians' system of Metaphysics has elaborately been controverted by the rival schools. Here we propose to record the dialectics of the Jaina Philosophers, one of the rival schools of Metaphysics.
The grammarians accept only the determinate perception as the only possible type of perceptual cognition, and thus according to them the object is comprehended together with the term expressive thereof. We cannot conceive anything without being at the same time aware of the designation that is associated with it.1 Therefore, every act of our knowledge is relational, its content being invariably determined by a name. If the name is extracted from the form of cognition, it ceases to be a cognition as it lacks illumination perse. It is the name that illumines our psychical processes, just as according to the Vedantist viewpoint it is the Brahman that illumines the inert objects of knowledge. Even also, in the case of a new-born child the perceptual cognition is determinate, but in this case the awareness of the term determination is not so vivid and distinct as in the case of the cognition of a grown-up man. Though the child has no knowledge of the relation between the word and its sense in his birth, yet the possibility of its being invested with an impression of the pre-natal knowledge of the relation cannot be ruled out Thus the word is the constant determinate of our cognitions and it cannot be separated from the later without at the same time destroying their very essence.
It is a step from the above doctrine to the theory of Sabda being the ultimate reality, the material cause of all this phenomenal Universe; which is but a vivarta of Sabdabrahman
This theory of grammarians has been subjected to severe criticism by the Naiyayikas, Mimāṁsakas, Buddhists and Jains. Now, for our practical purpose we discuss the view of the Jaina logicians like Vidyanandi (9th Century A.D.), Abbayadev Suri (11th Century A.D.),
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