topics: |  philosophy | india | linguistics | biography | bhartrihari

Excerpts

1 Date and works of Bhartrihari

I-Tsing: Bhartrihari was a Buddhist, died 40 years before I-Tsing's work.
But the vAkyapadiya clearly establishes that Bhartr.hari was a follower
of Brahmanic tradition and not a Buddhist.  As per I-Tsing, Bhartr.hari
should have died in 651.  But it is proved now beyond doubt that DignAga
(480-540 AD) borrowed a few verses verbatum in his pramANasamuccaya and
traikAlyaparikShA from the second and third kANDas of the vAkyapadiya.
Considering this evidence together with several facts about his guru,
vasurAta (see below) scholars such as Erich Frauwallner have proposed
the dates: vasurAta (bhartrihari's teacher): 430-490, bhartrihari: 450-510;
dignAga: 480-540.

Bhartrihari mentions that his work was based on his teacher's early work on
the theories of language, but does not mention a teacher.  He mentions merely
that chandrAchArya and others have obtained the grammatical tradition from
the south, which was lost in the north.  bhartrihari's commentator puNyarAja
identifies the teacher with vasurAta, which is corroborated by his
predecessors siMhasUrigani (Jain scholar from 6th c.) and paramArtha (AD
499-569), the latter stating that vasurAta was a brahmin and borother-in-law
of bAlAditya, a pupil of vasubandhu, who lived around 5th c. p.10

3. Subject matter and Scope of Vakyapadiya

Sentences and words found in speech of in written records form the structure
of language.

Four components of language: Sound, sense, relation between sound and sense,
and finally, purpose.

Language is used for communicating ideas for civilizational advantage, and
also to obtain spiritual merit with liberation as the final goal.

Aspects to be dealt with in grammar are eight (p.23):


  Linguistic             Communicative                  Analytic
  Component                 Language                    Language


A Sound              1 Sentences and words            2 stems, suffixes etc.

B Sense              3 Sentence and word              4 Meanings of stems,
                          meanings                      suffixes, etc.

C Relation between   5 fitness or compatibility       6 Causality
  sound and sense

D Purpose            7 Spiritual merit                8 Knowledge of the
                                                        meaning of correct words

4. Communicative and Analytic languages

Bhartrihari distinguishes language into two aspects:
* Communicative language : that which is found in use in the speech community
	for communicating ideas
* Analytic language: developed by absraction in order to show the correctness
	of communicative language.

The abstraction is made on the basis of anvaya-vyatireka, copresence and
coabsence.  Different sentences are compared and contrasted.
On the basis of similarities and differences, one extracts:
  - words and word meanings from sentences
  - bases and formative elements with segmented meanings from words

For example, from the sentences:
    rAmaH gacchati "rAma goes",
    bAlikA gacchati, "girl goes", and
    bAlakaH gacchati "boy goes"
one infers the root gam with a denoative meaning of "moving away from one
    place to another".

Just as saMhitA-pATha is shown as derived from pAda-pATha of the vedic hymbs
by the prAtiShAkhya texts, the grammarians show the sentences as being formed
by concatenating words with different case-relations (kArakas), just as
pearls in a necklace...

[NOTE: This idea appears to have influenced the Sanskrit scholar de Saussure,
who in his Course in General Linguistics, calls a version of this
distinction that of parole (individual acts of speech and the "putting into
practice of language") and langue (the abstract system of language that is
internalized by a given speech community).

Later on, Chomsky would call a related distinction as that between e-language
and i-language, which was related to the competence (the knowledge that
allows people to construct and understand grammatical sentences), and
performance (the actual sentences).]

Even though the dictionaries give word meanings, no word can signify any
meaning in isolation unless its referent is connected with an action
expressed by a verb... In the same way, a word is formed by the combination
of segments called root, suffixes, etc.

Grammatical Analysis: may be sentence based - terminating when the sentence
is reached (vAkyAvadhikAnvAkyAna); or terminating with the word
(padAvadhikAnvAkyAna).

Sentence types:
 statement: vr^kShah gr^hasya dakShiNe asti (the tree is to the left of the house)
 injunctive: satyaM vAda (speak truth!)
Hence meaning is not known until the sentence, and the grammatical analysis
should end in the sentence.  p.24-25

7. Theory of sphoTa

sphoTa is a household word for grammarians.  There is a grammarian by name of
sphoTAyana known to Panini (cf. 6.1.121: ''avaN sphoTAyanasya'').  Patanjali
uses the word while commenting on the rule 1.1.70 taparas tatkAlasya.  Here
the word is used in the sense of the permanent aspect of the phoneme.
Bhartirhari uses the wrod sphoTa in the sense of the meaning bearer or
expressive word, a concept different from the actual articulated sound which
is called dhvani.
For patanjali, a shabdah is that by the pronunciation of which there arises a
knowledge of an object (e.g. pronouncing "go" indicates an object with
dewlap, tail, hump, and hooves).

sphoTa is discussed in the first kANDa of the vAkyapadiya.  The process of
language generation goes through three stages.

* stage 1: ''sphoTa-shabda'': The first stage is in the speaker's mind, where
  the sentence is conceived in an indistinct way, soon after the idea flashes
  on his mind.  In contrast to the actual sound, ''dhvani'', the sphoTa is
  permanent (indestructible).
* stage 2: ''prakr^ta-dhvani'' or ''madhyama vAk'': In the second stage the
  speaker determines the sentence pattern in a specific sequence.  By this
  stage, the speaker is aware of the sound properties and the time sequence
  and the phonological pattern of the utterance that is about to be
  articulated. This mental sentence will be mapped into actual sound through
  articulation in the next stage.
* stage 3: ''vaikr^ta-dhvani'' or ''vaikharI vAk'': the actual speech sounds
  pronounced through articulation by the speaker; it is this that becomes
  audible to the listener.  May involve variations in speed of articulation:
  ''druta'' fast, ''madhya'' medial, or ''vilambita'' slow.  35-36

The permanence of sphoTa (as opposed to the destructibility of dhvani),
is based on bhartrihari's theory of vivarta which is the very foundation of
his shabdatattva.  vivarta is defined as "the assumption of one thing as
some thing else without loosing its inherent nature (tattva) through apparent
diversity of different unreal forms."

   ekasya tattvAd apracyutasya bhedAnukAreNAsatyavibhaktAnyarUpopagrAhittA
   vivartaH.  vr^tti in vp 1.1

For the listener this entire process is reversed, and results in the
manifestation of the indivisible sphoTa-shabda from the divisible
dhvani.  38

8. Sentence sense

When the sentence is indivisible, the sentence sense is also indivisible.
Just as the indivisible sentence is divided for convenience [into words], as
a corollary it follows that the indivisible sentence sense may be divided
into universal (''jAti''), substance (''dravya''), quality (''guNa''), number
(''saMkhya''), case relation (''saMbandha''), etc. (vAkyapadiyA 2.88).

''shabdatattva'' (lit. word principle): theory of meaning.  two powers in the
word: ''prakAshakatva'', power of illuminating, and ''prakAshyatva'', power
of illuminated.  There is causality between the sentence and the sentence
sense.  The sentence sense is what arises in the minds of the speaker and
listener, and need not have a concrete referent - impossible objects
e.g. ''shashaviShaNam'' 'the horn of a rabbit' can be conveyed by a speaker.

The meaning of the word which is understood by the listener immediately after
hearing is called the primary meaning (''mukhyArtha''), and that meaning
which is understood with the help of context etc., is called the secondary
meaning (''guNa''). p. 37

9. pratibhA: the processes of meaning construction are not conscious

pratibhA is the flash of understanding that arises when the meaning bearing
sphoTa is burst forth by the sound.

Bhartrihari uses the term in two shades of meaning - general and specific:

1. general: the 'intuition' which is reponsible for the knowledge in all
   living beings in a general sense, and
2. the specific 'flash of understanding' for comprehending a particular
   sentence.

pratibhA is like the power of intoxication which certain substances develop
when they mature, without any special effort.  It is like the singing of the
cuckoo in spring.

The meaning of a sentence is held as flashing in the mind and understood
intuitively and immediately.  The flash of meaning for the whole sentence is
totally different from the meanings of the individual words, though the
latter manifest the pratibhA.  bhartrihari warns his readers specifically
that pratibhA is not constructed of the combination of the meanings of
individual words.

In conclusion, bhartrihari says that the true nature of pratibhA remains
inexplicable (anAkhyeya) to others and even the experiencer cannot account
for it even to himself.

10. Word / Speaker intention

Bhartrihari argues that certain aspects of language are grammatical, and not
determined by semantics or other attributes.  He distinguishes
grammatical gender and number from the object's
gender or number.

For example, three words for cloth are ''paTaH'' (masculine), ''shaTI''
(fem.) and ''vastram'' (neuter).  Similarly, among the words expressive of
wife, we have ''patnI'' feminine, ''kalatram'' neuter, and dArAH masculine.
Thus these usages of number and gender are grammatical.  This view
consolidates remarks made by Patanjali based on earlier theories of
''saMgraha'' and ''vArttika''.

But the Sansktir grammarians have tried to offer some logical explanation by
correlating these grammatical attributes with some semantic relations - each
word may arise in many relations.  Thus, the specific number and gender
attributes may arise because the same word denotes many properties based
on its differing associations. p. 41

pANini, patañjali, and bhartr^hari all opine that the meaning of a word is
the notion actually present in the mind of the speaker.  This notion is the
''vaktur icchA'' or the 'intention of the speaker'.  p.43