The Mīmāṃsaka Śālikanātha is Prabhākara’s main interpreter, yet he is also an original thinker. How much of Śālikanātha’s anvitābhidhāna theory for sentence signification is already there in Prabhākara’s Bṛhatī? We will find out reading the Bṛhatī and comparing it with Śālikanātha’s commentary thereon and with Śālikanātha’s elaboration of the topic in his independent treatise, the Vākyārthamātṛkā, during this workshop.
Prabhākara’s Bṛhatī commentary on 1.1.25 starts with a discussion of the meaning of sentences in the Veda and in ordinary communication.
The main topic, however, comes immediately after that, namely: whether sheer padārthas can be linguistically conveyed on their own, apart from their being syntactically connected in a sentence meaning. The basic starting point is that vṛddhavyavahāra occurs through connected sentence-meanings, not through isolated word-meanings. Hence, the linguistic reality of connected sentence-meanings is evident, that of isolated word-meanings is not.
Prabhākara seems to say that isolated word-meanings are not linguistically conveyed, Śālikanātha states that they are remembered on the basis of words, but not denoted by words.
I hope the workshop has gone well! I would be very interested in a follow-up post with reflections. In particular, this question on the workshop schedule, which I find interesting, but I’m not sure I understand (is the idea that Kumārila did not originally think lakṣaṇā is involved in sentence meaning?):
“Who introduced the idea of lakṣaṇā in regard to Kumārila’s theory? Was it Śālikanātha?”
Thank you, Malcolm. The workshop was excellent as usual and perhaps even more than usual.
I hope I will be able to write a post about it—but now I need to survive the next workshop:
mimamsa.logic.at/atai