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

[Venkatraghavan S]

Sri Chandramouliji,
Namaste. That is the same question I had also.

If sabda is non-different from Brahman, then the difference between various
sabdAs, like गौ:, दुग्धं, etc can only be kalpitam.  Further, if that is
true, the nityatvam of individual sabdA, arthA and their sambandha is only
true in a vyavahAra sense. Therefore from a paramArtha viewpoint,
vyAkaraNa is the same as advaita.

However, if as you ask, sabda is a dharma of Brahman, then there is a
difference between advaita and vyAkaraNa in paramArtham.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan
On 13 Dec 2015 06:55, "H S Chandramouli via Advaita-l" <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> 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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