Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c16.180

c16.180

3. **Vikalpa.** *Vikalpa* is 'use of words not corresponding to reality', where knowledge of an object is imagined (*vikalpita*). 'A sound or word has the power of calling up a sense of something which may not exist' (atyantamapi asati arthe śabdo jñānam karoti hi), as the Mīmāṁsakas say. A reality may be defined by the following three marks, viz. *Śabda* (name or word indicating it), *Artha* (actual existence), and *Jñāna* (meaning, what it indicates or stands for). In the case of *Vikalpa* mętħod of knowing, only the *Śabda* or Sound and the *Jñāna* or the sense it conveys, remain, without any *Artha* or correspondence to reality.