삼반다사뭇데샤

Abstract

This article aims to introduce Bharthari's concept of relation through the analysis of abandha-samuddeśa. A relation between word and meaning has been dealt with as a main topic of hilosophy of language in India from ancient times. Bharthari developed the concept of relation by reflecting on views and ideas of different schools of Indian philosophy including Sanskrit grammarians. Bharthari's concept of relation is based on the presupposition that a relation between word and meaning is permanent on the ground that the meaning expressed by abda 'word' is a mental meaning. The concept of mental meaning also makes verbal communication possible. The word-meanig relation is a natural one which is by itself accepted generally and through which the word and its meaning are identified. There are two models which account for the relation: suitability and causality. Suitability is a natural capacity of words to convey meaning and is made known through convention. Causality explains that the word and its meaning function as each other's cause and effect respectively. From the viewpoint of ultimate reality, the word-meaning relation is not complete. Just as, through a defect in a sense organ, objects produce distorted cognitions, words also produce distorted cognitions. On the other hand, words are based on cognitions which do not reveal the full reality. Therefore words present objects in another form, not determined by their real form. Thus, existence and non-existence enter verbal usage in an identical manner and existence, as an object expressed by words, has sequence. In reality, however, simultaneity is not different from sequence, just as non-existence is not different from existence. Nonetheless, verbal usage is possible only on the basis of differentiation between sequence and simultaneity. In conclusion, what is ccepted in everyday verbal usage need not be ultimately real. The one eternal reality is expressed by words in one way or the other in verbal usage in the form of existence and non-existence, inlaid with all kinds of limiting factors. Verbal usage of everyday life takes place by means of conceptualized meanings of words. And in the science of grammar it is the meanings adopted in the world on the basis of which the work of explaining the forms is done.