Theories of meaning according to various schools of Indic philosophy.

What can the philosophy of language learn from the classical Indian philosophical tradition? As recently as twenty or thirty years ago this question simply would not have arisen. If a practitioner of analytic philosophy of language of that time had any view of Indian philosophy at all, it was most likely to be the stereotyped picture of a gaggle of navel gazing mystics making vaguely Bradley-esque pronouncements on the oneness of the one that was one once. Much work has been done in the intervening years to overthrow that stereotype. Thanks to the efforts of such scholars as J. N. Mohanty, B. K. Matilal, and Karl Potter, philoso phers working in the analytic tradition have begun to discover something of the range and the rigor of classical Indian work in epistemolgy and metaphysics. Thus for instance, at least some recent discussions of personal identity reflect an awareness that the Indian Buddhist tradition might prove an important source of insights into the ramifications of a reductionist approach to personal identity. In philosophy of language, though, things have not improved all that much. While the old stereotype may no longer prevail among its practitioners, I suspect that they would not view classical Indian philoso phy as an important source of insights into issues in their field. Nor are they to be faulted for this.

Bhartrhari lived in the tenth century c.e. Being both a grammarian and philosopher, his influence on subsequent grammatical and philosophical thought in India has been enormous in spite of this modern scholarship has not yet given him the attention he deserves no doubt because his extent writings are difficult and were not until recently, available in satisfactory editions. Interest among scholars for Bhartrhari is now, however, growing. This is the reason why an international conference on Bhartrhari was organized in January 1992 in Pune, under the joint auspices of the University of Poons and the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). The present volume contains some of the papers read at this conference as well as an up-to-date bibliography on Bhartrhari.

This is a print on demand publication. This work deals with a topic to which philosophy, most notably analytic philosophy, has given considerable attention. Indian thinkers discuss the denotation of generic terms in a very sophisticated manner at a very early time. This book seeks to make these discussions available to philosophers today. Tables.

This book offers a study of Bhartrhari's Vakyapadiya in an altogether modern (the post-Fregean) perspective on the philosophy of language. Bhartrhari's analysis of language is presented methodically and in contemporary philosophical idiom.

This book is devoted to the task of explaining the extended meaning known as Vakyartha according to the Prabhakara school of Purva Mimamsa, the ancient Indian theory of meaning. It is based on the Vakyarthamatrka of Salikanatha Misra, the most celebrated writer of the Prabhakara Mimamsa. It presents a critical and comparative discussion of the central factors of this text, namely Expectation, Merit and Juxtaposition, which are recognised as the causes of deriving and understanding the meanings of words and sentences. The book also explores the Abhihitanvayavada of the Bhatta Mimamsa and the Anvitabhidhanavada of the Prabhakaramimamsa, investigating a number of important issues, including the cause of verbal comprehension, implication, importation, urge and performability. As such, the book will appeal to scholars in the fields of Sanskrit texts, linguistics, literary criticism, philosophy, Indology, and Ancient Indian scriptures.

In the historical study of the Indian grammarian tradition, a line of demarcation can often be drawn between the conformity of a system with the well-known grammar of Pāṇini and the explanatory effectiveness of that system. One element of Pāṇini’s grammar that scholars have sometimes struggled to bring across this line of demarcation is the theory of homogeneity, or sāvarṇya, which concerns the final consonants in Pāṇini’s reference catalog, as well as phonetic similarities between sounds. While modern Sanskrit scholars understand how to interpret and apply Pāṇini’s homogeneity, they still find it necessary to unravel the history of varying interpretations of the theory in subsequent grammars. Madhav Deshpande’s The Theory of Homogeneity provides a thorough account of the historical development of the theory. Proceeding first to study this conception in the Pāṇinian tradition, Deshpande then passes on to other grammatical systems. Deshpande gives attention not only to the definitions of homogeneity in these systems but also the implementation of the theory in those respective systems. Even where definitions are identical, the concept may be applied quite differently, in which cases Deshpande examines by considering the historical relationships among the various systems.