[Advaita-l] Shabda artha relationship

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Namaste
My suggestion is to follow up your question by listening in detail to the
teaching of the chAndogya upanishad 6th chapter by a traditional Advaita
acharya. Till then, some leads are given below regarding your questions.


The operative sentence from bhAShya,  for your question is यदिदम्
अर्थजातमभिधेयभूतम् , तस्य अभिधानाव्यतिरेकात् , अभिधानभेदस्य च
ओङ्काराव्यतिरेकात् , ओङ्कार एवेदं सर्वम् (you have in your OP quoted the
English translation of this particular sentence in Shankara bhAShya, by
Swami Madhavananda, and asked a few questions about it based on the English
translation. Much is lost in translation..and also without the entire
context.)

Firstly, Sri Shankara is the invoking  the vAcArambhaNa shruti from
chAndogya upanishad (vAcArambhaNam vikAro nAma-dheyam mRttiketyeva satyaM
6.1.4) , which says that *all so-called 'objects' are nothing more than
words and word-meanings (nAma and rUpa)*, superimposed upon the only
independent real substratum which is the One cause of all that exists
called "sat".

To briefly put it -
There are three things involved here.
1.abhidhAna - word
2.abhidheya - meaning
3.arthajAta - object

All objects are nothing but the *meanings of words*, abhidheyas. (they are
not substances which any independent reality); they are in turn
non-separate from the words or abhidhAnas themselves. And since OmkAra is
the substratum for all words (sarvA vAk omkAreNa santRNNA), therefore
Omkaara denotes the AtmA which is the substratum for all word-meanings
(conventionally termed "objects").

The above fact allows for Om (the substratum of all words)  to denote
brahmAtmA (the substratum of all word-meanings/objects).
The word avyatireka means "non-separate from". "Non-separate" does not mean
"tautologically identical with" as when we say 1=1.

abhidhAna (word) and abhidheya (meaning of the word) are non-separate. Thus
it does not imply that a word and it's meaning are 'identical'. Rather,
they are inseparable like sun and sunlight.


Sri Shankaracharya says in Mandukya Upanishad bhashya
>
>
> "Though the name and the object signified by the name are one and the
> same,..."
>
> (Source:
>
> https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/mandukya-upanishad-karika-bhashya/d/doc143593.html
> )
>
>
> How is it that name and object (referred by name) are same?

In my
> understanding names are just placeholders for object, like a bucket which
> can hold different objects at different times.


object = abhidheya (i.e., meaning/form) is the claim of the upaniShad; and
any
abhidheya is always associated with some abhidhAnam (word/name).

the connection between name (word) and object is the same as that between
name (word) and its form (meaning).

Actually, "Names (nAma or words)are like buckets which can hold different
meanings or rUpa-s (not objects)", is the correct statement to start with.


The whole idea is to question whether there is anything independently
existing called an 'object' (artha/kArya) and we find that there is only a
word (i.e., some word or nAma which denotes it) and the corresponding
word-meaning or rUpa.

Bucket is not the object it
> holds.


> I see the following contradictions-
>
> 1. A name may refer to different objects in different contexts. So name
> cannot be same as object.


It's not said to be  "same as",  in the Upanishad as I mentioned before.
nAma is not "same as" rUpa.

The upaniShad says
Object (artha)= nothing more than (meaning/form determined by the context.)
+ (some word/name used to signify it)


2. An object may have multiple different names which may not be same. This
> won't be possible if name and object are the same.
>

An animal is variously called ashva, haya etc. But the meaning/form
(abhidheya) is the same for all of these different abhidhAnas (words).

Therefore, to sum up,  it is valid to hold that all objects are just
meanings of some words, (and again, in any given context, these meanings
and their words are inseparably connected) superimposed on only one
independent cause or substance called 'sat'.


Om

Raghav




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