The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c10.98.3

c10.98.3

Assuming that articulate sounds are significant, the question is: how is the sentence, which is the unit of articulate speech, broken up into significant words and their mutual relations? Patañjali answers that this is done by an instinctive use (*cf.* Váchaspati's भूयोदर्शनजनितसंस्कारम् इन्द्रियम्) of the Joint Method of Difference (combined Addition and Subtraction), fortified by the Joint Method of Agreement (अन्वयव्यतिरेकी). Patañjali starts with a simple case. Take the two sentence-units: Pathati (he reads) and Pachati (he cooks). Suppose you start with the assumption that these sounds are significant, and that *separate elements have separate meanings*. Then you hear Pathati, and, at the same time, a man reading is pointed at. Then the assemblage of sounds Pathati (*i.e.* Path + ati) stands for the assemblage "one reads" (*i.e.* the action reading + an individual agent). Similarly, by finger-pointing or other indication, you find that the assemblage Pachati (*i.e.* Pach + ati) stands for the assemblage "one cooks" (*i.e.* the action cooking + an individual agent, say the same agent as before).