[Advaita-l] Theory of Language: Mimamsa, Advaita and Vyakarana 3 of 3

[H S Chandramouli]

Sri Siva Senani Ji,

You observed   << according to vyAkaraNa, Sabda, artha and their saMbandha
- all three are nitya, with Brahman of the nature of Sabda being the base,
or being the entity seen as three. >>.

What exactly is the difference between the Brahman of Advaita and Shabda of
Vyakarana ?? Is Shabda a Dharma of Brahman or nondifferent from Brahman ?

Regards

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 9:59 PM, Siva Senani Nori via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Sri Venkatraghavan ji
> Namaste.
> Thank you for initiating the discussion. My response is given inline.
>
>       From: Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com>
>  To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>; Siva Senani Nori <
> sivasenani at yahoo.com>
>  Sent: Friday, 11 December 2015 7:45 PM
>  Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Theory of Language: Mimamsa, Advaita and
> Vyakarana 3 of 3
>
> Sri Siva SenAniji,
> Namaste.Thank you very much for making these posts available to the group
> - they were very enlightening indeed. Apologies about the barrage of
> questions (please ignore, if I have not understood the concepts outlined by
> you):1) If the vaiyAkaraNa considers sabda to be nitya, but that the artha
> denoted by the sabda to be only conceptual, does that concept have
> nityatvam or not?
> - the conceptual artha is nitya.
> 2) If the conceptual meaning of the word has nityatvam, then it follows
> that arthA according to vyAkaraNa will have to survive praLaya, etc. If it
> did not survive praLaya, how can the artha be nitya?
> - yes, concepts survive pralaya.
> 3) If such an artha did survive praLaya, how is the concept different from
> mImAmsa's jAti?
> - jAti cannot exist by itself and needs the ASraya of a vyakti. For
> instance, where is cowness? It is there only in cows and nowhere else. So
> after pralaya and before SRshTi, when nothing is, where does jAti reside?
> The situation with concept is different. The conceiver, the conceived and
> the concept are non-different; they are viewed as different during saMsAra.
> Irrespective of how they are viewed, they always are. When we have
> bheda-vivakshA (a desire to talk of them as separate, say as in "his
> hands", and "the fingers of his hand"), they are referred to separately,
> and when we have abheda-vivakshA (whether after pralaya and before sRshTi
> or with reference to a jIvanmukta etc.), they are spoken of as one.
> 4) If on the other hand, the vyAkaraNa position is that vyAkaraNa artha is
> not nitya, then it follows that their relationship (betn. a nitya sabda and
> its anitya artha) is not nitya. So when a vaiyAkaraNa says sabda is nitya,
> is he only referring to sabda, but not its artha and sambandha?
> - according to vyAkaraNa, Sabda, artha and their saMbandha - all three are
> nitya, with Brahman of the nature of Sabda being the base, or being the
> entity seen as three.
> 5) Moreover, any specific sabda can then have several meanings, because
> its artha is anitya. From srishti to srishti, or even within one srishti
> itself, the same sabdA can denote different things. Extending this further,
> is vyAkaraNa's position that veda sabda is nitya, but its artha keeps
> changing?
> - This is supposed to put the VaiyAkaraNa in a dock because nityatva
> demands that the relation between Sabdas and Arthas should remain constant
> through various kalpas, but there is a bhAshya statement to the contrary
> [1], seemingly accepting Sabdanityatva limited to a kalpa, and stating that
> artha is nitya across kalpas. The resolution is that bhAshykAra Patanjali
> keeps toying in such a manner. Following the maxim, व्याख्यानात्
> विशेषप्रतिपत्तिः, one should understand bhAshya statements with the help of
> commentators. There are many places where Patanjali states many views
> without indicating what the siddhAnta is. This is called perspectivism by
> modern western scholars (i.e. accommodating multiple views to develop a
> perspective), but traditional scholars identity certain positions as
> siddhAnta, though there is no textual support. SiddhAnta is that the
> relation is same across kalpas.
> 6) Finally, is the nityatvam of sabda a paramArtha satyam in vyAkaraNa? Or
> is it nityam only in a vyavahAra sense, like srishti/samsAra of an
> advaitin? If paramArtha satyam, veda sabda will be paramArtham, but that is
> not advaita's position (त्रैगुण्य विषयाः वेदाः).
> - In the paramArtha Veda is non-different from Brahman; all Artha is
> non-different from Sabda. That said, Veda  - presumably in its manifest
> state - is explicitly accepted as an upAya (i.e. something which is no
> longer useful after the goal is attained) in Vakyapadiya 1.5.
> Once again, apologies about the many questions.
> - Sir, on the contrary, you have my gratitude for raising the questions.
> Hopefully, the answers help take the discussion forward.
>
> RegardsN. Siva Senani
> [1] This occurs in the bhAshya under the sUtra तेन प्रोक्तम् ॥4.3.101॥
> This sUtra states that taddhita affixes, taught in subsequent sUtras, occur
> in the sense of tena proktam, i.e. prakarsheNa uktam. For instance on the
> strength of 4.3.102, the taddhita affix छण् is ordained after tittiri when
> the intended sense is tena proktam, i.e. तित्तिरिणा प्रोक्तम् अधीयते
> तैत्तिरीयाः। This sUtra starts a discussion on the difference between
> प्रोक्तम् and कृतम् (there is one more similar category called उपज्ञातम्,
> but then we are digressing too much). One difference shown is that Veda
> being nitya cannot be kRtam, and has to be proktam. In that context,
> Patanjali makes the following statement:
> ननु चोक्तं, न हि छन्दांसि क्रियन्ते नित्यानि छन्दांसीति। यद्यप्यर्थो
> नित्यः, या त्वसौ वर्णानुपूर्वी सा अनित्या, तद्भेदाच्चैतद्भवति काठकं कालापकं
> मोदकं पैप्पलादकमिति।It has been said that Vedas are not made, that they are
> nitya. Even though the artha of Veda is nitya, the order of letters is not;
> on account of the difference in the order of varNas, the same Veda is
> called by various names such as kAThakam, kAlApakam, modakam and
> paippalAdakam.
>
>
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