Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c83.39

v2.c83.39

From Ānandavardhana's repudiation (pp. 201 f) of the views of this school, it appears that its essential position consisted in establishing that the cognition of the unexpressed or suggested sense is nothing more than the cognition of the object of a logical conclusion, so that the relation of the suggestor and the suggested is that of the syllogistic middle and major terms (*vyaṅgya-pratītir liṅga-pratītir evéti liṅga-liṅgi-bhāva eva teṣām, vyaṅgya-vyañjaka-bhāvo náparaḥ kaścit*). One of the alleged reasons for this assumption is that the Dhvani school itself admits suggestivity as depending upon the intention of the speaker, which intention is always an object of logical conclusion. Ānandavardhana, however, demonstrates that this does not affect the general position of his school. He shews that words have two different functions, the one inferrable (*anumeya*) and the other communicable (*pratipādya*). The first, consisting of intention (*vivakṣā*), may either be the wish to utter a sound or the wish to express an idea by a word; the former, being a common characteristic of all animals, does not come within the sphere of speech. The communicable is something different from this, and consists of the idea itself which forms the object of the speaker's need of communication (*pratipādyas tu prayoktur artha-pratipādana-samīhā-viṣayīkṛtaḥ*). It may be either expressed (*vācya*) or suggested (*vyaṅgya*); for the speaker sometimes wishes to communicate the idea directly by its Denotation, or sometimes he wishes to do so in such a way that it is not conveyed directly in words. This last-named inner content, Ānandavardhana maintains, cannot be recognised in the form of a syllogistic conclusion, but can be by some other artificial or natural relation; for words, in the form of a logical middle term, can convey that an unexpressed idea is the object of intention, but cannot convey the unexpressed idea itself (*vivakṣā- viṣayatvaṃ hi tasyārthasya śabdair liṅgatayā pratīyate, na tu svarūpam). If the contrary is maintained, then, as every idea could be logically established, there would be no dispute about the correctness or falsity of an idea, any more than about any other conclusion from a logical syllogism (yadi hi liṅgatayā śabdānāṃ vyavahāraḥ syāt, tac-chabdārthe samyaṅ-mithyātvādi-vivādā na pravarteran). It is only when the unexpressed takes the form of the intention of the speaker that it may be a matter of ordinary inference; but the inner content of the idea itself, when unexpressed, can be communicated only by the supposition of an artificial power like Suggestion, for the natural mode of direct expression, as well as inference, is out of the question.