Purva-Mimamsa in its Sources c19.s1: Meaning of the Sentence according to Prabhākara

Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā in its Sources c19.s1

Language: English

Meaning of the Sentence according to Prabhākara

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It has been seen that according to *Prabhākara*, people learn the meaning of Words only by watching the usage and activity of older people. When a set of words is addressed by one person to another,—whereupon the latter person acts in a certain manner, it is clear to the observer that the meaning of the words pronounced must have been in the form of an Injunction to do what the other person has done. In the case of Words where such an interpretation is not possible, the comprehension of the meaning must depend upon something indirectly connected with the Injunction. This is the reason why Prabhākara has asserted in connection with the definition of Verbal Cognition that the object cognised must be one that has not been already cognised by another means of Cognition; and this can be so always in the case of the Injunctive Sentence. All words with the Imperative or similar terminations express the Injunction directly, while other words denote things related to that Injunction; such things, for instance, as the name of the Act enjoined, the person enjoined and so on. This leads to the view that the whole direct denotation of the Veda must lie in the enjoining of something to be done. This goes directly against the view of the Vedāntin that the direct denotation of the more important texts lies, not in the laying down of something to be done, but in the pointing out of certain well-accomplished entities like Brahman, the Super-Soul. As against this Vedanta view, it has been pointed out (Bṛhatī., p. 47) that, though such may be the case with a few words, yet the comprehension of the denotation of those words also could be obtained only by observing the usage of older persons, and this usage must always lie in the form of an Injunction addressed by one person to another for the doing of a certain act; thus ultimately the denotation of all Words must lie, directly or indirectly, with something to be done. The Vedānta-texts also speak of the Super-Soul as something which one is enjoined to know and meditate upon, in order to escape from the cycle of Births and Deaths.

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Thus then, if the meaning of the Words can be known only when they occur in Injunctive Sentences, it follows that every Word must denote things only as related to the other factors of the Injunction, and no word can be comprehended as having any denotation when taken apart from such Sentence. Says Prabhākara (Bṛhatī, p. 135)—‘What is eternal is the Relation which the Sentence bears to what it expresses,’—on which the Ṛjuvimālā remarks—The Word, alone by itself, never expresses any meaning; it is only the Sentence that does it; as is clear from the fact that we learn the meaning of Verbal expressions only from the usage of older people,—and this usage is only in the form of Sentences; and every single Word is understood only in so far as it is related to the other words in the Sentence; hence it becomes established that what is expressive of the meaning is the Sentence only, not any Word alone by itself.—(Ṛjuvimālā, p. 135.)

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Herein we have what has been called the Anvitābhidhāna Theory of Verbal Expression. This forms a distinctive feature of the Prabhākara School of Thought,—and it has the tacit support of the Sūtra (1.1.25) and also of Shabara (Trs., p. 44, and 132 of Bib. Ind. Text).

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Says the Bṛhatī (p. 188)— वाक्यार्थेन व्यवहार; that is, all usage is through the Sentence and its meaning. How is this to be reconciled with the assertion in the Bhāṣya that ‘the Word ‘cow’ denotes the Class or Universal distinguished by the dewlap’?—how too can this be regarded as ‘eternal,’ when it is based upon the usage of experienced people? In order to meet this difficulty which involves an inconsistency between the Premiss and the Conclusion,—the Bhāṣya has provided an explanation later on, under Sū. 1.1.25.

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On this the Ṛjuvimālā remarks—The ‘Conclusion’ stands for the declaration of the Eternality of the Relationship, and the ‘Premiss’ stands for the ‘beginninglessness of the usage.’ The inconsistency between these two has been explained away in the Bhāṣya, where it has been pointed out that words express the meaning of the Sentence only through the comprehension of the meaning of the words themselves. (See Bhāṣya under 1.1.25).

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The Ṛjuvimālā (pp. 190-191) has summed up this controversy in the following words:—

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There are some people whose mind is led away by the declamatory descriptions of the Creation and Dissolution of the World; to this class belong Kaṇāda, Gautama and their followers. These people declare that God is the one Cause, Creator, of the whole Universe. They argue thus—“We see that every composite object comes into existence through the coming together—Conjunction—of their component parts;—all worldly things, the Body and the various Regions, are composite in their nature;—the conjunction of component particle is found to go on till the

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*Diad*—the Two-Atom Compound; which Diad also is *composite*, being composed of two atoms. The conjunction between the two Atoms is brought about by the action—vibration—of the two Atoms; and this Vibration in the Atoms is due to the conjunction of Souls influenced by the Unseen Force (of Destiny);—this Unseen Force is non-intelligent, unconscious, by its nature;—and as a matter of fact no non-intelligent entity is found to act except under the guidance of an intelligent operator. This operator of the Unseen Force could not be those same Souls that are themselves under the influence of that same Force;—because they are not cognisant of this Force—which is made up of their own Merit-Demerit, of which however they themselves are not conscious—and the operator of the Force must be one who knows it;—hence all this leads us to postulate an Intelligent Being apart from the said Souls; and this Controller and Operator of these Unseen Forces is one possessed of very superior Intelligence. Thus the entire Universe comes to be regarded as having had a beginning and having been brought to the present stage through a long series of products beginning with the Atomic Diad, brought about by conjunctions due to vibrations in the Atoms due to the said Unseen Force, under the Control of the Great Operator of Superior Intelligence. Thus having had a beginning, the World must come to an end. How then can there be a *beginningless usage of Experienced People* upon which all Verbal Usage could be based?"

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The *Mīmāmsaka's* answer to the above is as follows: [*Rjuvimālā*, p. 191]:—All this argumentation may be very soul-satisfying. But what has got to be explained is—how is it that the entire World of Composite Things becomes dissolved all at once simultaneously. At the present time we find that while one thing is coming into existence, another is disappearing; when such is the fact of common experience, who can deny the beginningless tradition of usage among experienced people? Then again, if the ordinary Intelligent Beings—the ordinary Souls—are unable to control Destiny, by reason of their being non-cognisant of their own Destiny,—then how can an entirely distinct Soul (the Super-Soul, God) be the Controller? The absence of the knowledge of the Destiny of Souls would be there in His case also. Specially because the idea is that all Cognition (knowledge of things—) proceeds from Mind-Soul contact through Sense-object—

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contacts,—all these contacts being due to Destiny; and all these *contacts* could not be there, for the cognising (and controlling) of Destiny (even by God) . . . Nor is it right to regard God's Cognition as eternal; because the fact universally recognised is that every Cognition is produced and destroyed; so that God's Cognition also must be the same.—Further, what is the meaning of the ‘control’ exercised by God? The only ‘control’ that is inferable is one of the same kind as that exercised by the Carpenter over the Implements; but no such ‘control’ is possible in the case of God. As for ‘Destiny’ itself, its action can be no other than its coming into existence; and this is brought about by such acts as sacrificing and the like. The God-Idea therefore is too flimsy to receive serious attention. That is why the *Bhāṣya* and the *Bṛhatī* have taken no notice of it. (*Ṛjuvimālā*, pp. 190-191.)

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Veda is not the Work of a Personal Author According to Prabhākara.

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According to *Prabhākara*, we can derive a truly valid *Verbal Cognition* only from Words and Sentences contained in the Veda. This, he says, is clear from the very name given to the Means of Cognition, ‘*Śāstra*’ which means *Scripture*, or more precisely, *Scriptural Injunction*. As a necessary corrolary to this, it is held that, apart from the Words found in the Scriptures, no Words can provide any Cognition of things not already known through other means of knowledge; all words used in common parlance are mostly only such as denote things that can be cognised through Perception and Inference also; while things not cognised through these can be rightly cognised only when described by words of unquestionable authority and trustworthy character. From this it follows that Cognitions provided by Words other than these,—and all non-Vedic Words and Sentences belong to this other category—can have no inherent validity by themselves.

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This theory becomes divested of much of its apparent absurdity when we realise the fact that, the Scriptural Word alone is free from all defects in its source (as it has no *source* at all), and hence inherently valid; and hence no other Words can be regarded as affording invariably valid Cognitions; specially when it is found that in common parlance, most of the Cognitions obtained through Words of ordinary men turn out to be invalid and unreliable. Hence at best, Cognitions derived from Non-Scriptural Words can be regarded to be of the same kind as Remembrance; and hence of doubtful validity. And as Cognitions of doubtful validity cannot be accepted as ‘Cognition’ proper, which, by its very nature, must be always valid, the conclusion is irresistible that Non-Scriptural words cannot provide any Cognition, in the proper sense of the term; they are mere translators or reflectors or describers of what is in the mind of the person uttering the words; and the validity of these reflectors can be ascertained only by other means of knowledge. It is in reference to such Non-Scriptural words that we have the saying— पदमप्यधिकाभावात्स्मरणं विशिष्यते, that is, ‘the Word is nothing more than what provides Remembrance’ (Shlo. Vā. Shabda 107).

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This cannot be true of the words of the Veda. Because in the case of non-Vedic Words, its invalidity or doubtful validity is based upon the generally untrustworthy character of speakers, —which is due to many such causes as wrong information, wrong understanding, incapacity to use the right words, and so on. In the case of the Words of the Veda, on the other hand, as they do not emanate from a Speaker or author, there can be none of these causes to which the falsity of the assertion may be due. In the case of the words of ordinary men, even when we find them providing a reasonably connected sense, there is always a lurking suspicion that there may be some defect in the source from which the speaker has derived the information that he is seeking to convey by means of the words in question; and for this reason we can never be absolutely sure of the validity of the Cognition provided by such words, which, for this reason cannot be regarded as the ‘Means of Right Cognition’, Pramāṇa. Even in cases where ordinary words do afford valid Cognitions, it is not the Words that bring about the Cognitions directly; what occurs is that on hearing the Words, we find that they convey a certain information, and then we proceed to reason that,—‘the speaker is a trustworthy person as not one of the grounds of untrustworthiness—such as greed and the like,—is found in him, hence what he says must be true; hence the information conveyed by his word must be true.’ Thus in these cases, the Words are not the Direct Cause of the valid Cognition, they only indirectly indicate the presence of the Cognition in the Speaker’s mind, in so far as the hearer is concerned, the Words are not the *Means of Valid Cognition, Pramāṇa;*—at any rate, not independently of the Inference that is involved in the process of the Cognition in the Speaker's mind. All such cases involve a clear *inferential process*; such as for instance, as—‘This speaker has a particular Cognition in his mind, because he has pronounced these words (and he is a reliable person).’

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This view of *Verbal Cognition* and *Shabda-Pramāṇa* has been set forth in the *Prakaraṇapañchikā* (pp. 15 et seq); where we read—It is only the *Veda* that can be called *Shabda-Pramāṇa*; and that also only when containing an *Injunction*; words of common parlance cannot be so, because the Cognition produced by them is purely inferential. When, for instance, we hear a man saying something, our mind goes through the following reasoning—‘This man speaks of such and such a thing—this he must be speaking of after having known what he speaks of,—hence what he says must be true’. The speech of the man is an effect of his knowledge, and hence from the Effect (Speech) we infer its Cause (the man’s knowledge). Thus all ordinary *Verbal Cognition* is *inferential*, while that provided by the *Veda* alone is purely *Verbal*. It is true that all Words are endowed with an inborn denotative potency, but in the case of the ordinary speakers of the world, this inborn potency of the Word becomes obscured by the suspicions regarding the capacity and trustworthy character of the person concerned. On the other hand, in the case of the *Veda*, there being no speaker concerned, there can be no grounds for such suspicion, and the inherent Potency remains unobscured.

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It is interesting to note in this connection that Kaṇāda (in the *Vaiśeṣika-Sūtra* 1.1.3; 2.3.32; 9.2.3; and 10.2.9—regarding the Veda as the work of a Person (God),—has declared that *Verbal Cognition*, is nothing apart from *Inferential Cognition*, as all words emanating from *persons* provide only *Inferential Cognitions*, and there is no such thing as purely *Verbal Cognition*; hence ‘*Shabda*’ need not be regarded as a distinct *Pramāṇa*, Means of Cognition. From this it is clear that *Shabda* as a distinct Means of Cognition can be acknowledged only by those who regard the *Veda* as *Eternal*, and not the work of an author. (See below)

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Just as in the case of the other Pramāṇas, so here also, if we regard the term ‘Shāstra’ as an Accusative Abstract Noun—*Shiṣyatē yat tat*—equivalent to ‘*Shiṣṭi*’,—then it is synonymous with Verbal (or Scriptural) Cognition; but if it is taken as an Instrumental Abstract Noun—*Shiṣyaē anēna*—then it is synonymous with the Word providing Verbal Cognition.

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This ‘Word’—which, according to *Prabhākara*, is the same as *Scriptural Text*—is of two kinds:—(1) Those actually found in the Veda and (2) those, the presence of which in the Veda is inferred. To the latter class belong all those texts that are inferred as supplying the basic authority for the Injunctions of actions contained in the *Smṛtis*,—whose sole claim to authority rests upon the fact that they contain no Injunctions save those vouched for by Vedic texts.

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It may be observed here, as remarked by the *Prakaraṇapañchikā* (p. 101), that the ‘*Shāstra*,’ or Vedic Injunction often stands in need of some factors being supplied from without; *e.g.*, the text that speaks of a certain action merely as accomplishing a certain desirable result, stands in need of some such Injunctive words as that ‘this act should be done’; and these words have to be supplied. Similarly, certain texts stand in need of certain well-ascertained facts of experience; *e.g.*, for ascertaining the true significance of the injunction ‘*Udbhida yajēta*,’ ‘one should perform the *Udbhid*,’ it is necessary to call in the help of ordinary experience; the word ‘*Udbhid*’ in ordinary language means a tree; so the text might well be taken to mean that ‘one should perform the tree’; but here our experience steps in and tells us that such a performance would be an impossibility and it is only an account of this impossibility that we are led to take the word ‘*Udbhid*’ in the text as the name of a particular sacrifice, which is the correct interpretation. (*Vide Mīmā. Sū. 1.4.2.*)

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Then, as regards the question as to how to determine the facts of certain words forming a single Sentence or text,—the principle adopted is that just as a number of letters denoting a certain conceptual unit is regarded as one Word, so when a number of words express a single complete conceptual Idea, they are regarded as one Sentence. (*Mīmā. Sū. 2.1.16—see below—the Principle of Syntactical Convention.*)

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CHAPTER XIV: VERBAL COGNITION ACCORDING TO PRABHĀKARA

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We have seen that the Veda is not the work of a Person or Author. This is proved by the fact that all words and things denoted by them are Eternal (see above), and there is no other means (save the Veda) available for the Knowledge of *Dharma*,—including as it does the notion of such supersensuous thing as *Apūrva* and the like; and the Veda itself, as only a collection of words speaking of such things, must be Eternal, and as such independent of all authorship.

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The *Bṛhatī* (p. 403) asks—‘What is the meaning of the opponent’s assertion that the Veda is an *Effect*, a product? It has been proved that Words are eternal and so also is the relation of Words with their Denotations; what else then is there in the Veda which could be a product? The answer is that what is meant by the opponent regarding the Veda as an *Effect* or *product* is that it is dependent upon other Means of Cognition; and he argues that the fact of the Veda being so is shown by the presence there of such words as ‘*Babara, the son of Pravahaṇa*’ and so forth. The Mīmāṃsaka’s answer is that all such instances adduced by the other party are capable of being explained away and they do not prove the said dependence of the Veda. The rest of it can be learnt from the *Bhāṣya* (see above).

Linked texts (2)

Mīmāṃsāsūtra — Jaimini, Sanskrit
Vaiśeṣikasūtra — Kaṇāda, Sanskrit