Ołena Łucyszyna

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the classical Sāṁkhya view on the relationship between a word and its meaning. The study embraces all the extant texts of classical Sāṁkhya, but it is based mainly on the Yuktidīpikā, since this commentary contains most of the fragments which are directly related to the topic of our research. The textual analysis has led me to the following conclusion. It is possible to reconstruct two different and conflicting views on the relationship between a word and its meaning from the classical Sāṁkhya texts. The first view, the source of which is the Yuktidīpikā, is that all words are conventional in their origin. It resembles the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of the primary linguistic convention and the conventional origin of all words. The second view, which is the implication of the Sāṁkhya idea of the authorless Vedas we can reconstruct on the basis of the majority of the classical Sāṁkhya commentaries, is that the relationship between a word and its meaning is natural. This view is probably influenced by Mīmāṁsā. Both of these views are hardly compatible with the Sāṁkhya teaching. It seems like classical Sāṁkhya, not having created its own detailed theory, oscillated between different conceptions.

The aim of this study is to clarify the meaning of the term saṁketa, which is usually translated as ‘ convention’, in the Yogasūtrabhāṣya, the first and the most authoritative commentary to the Yogasūtras. This paper is a contribution to the reconstruction of the classical Yoga view on the relation between word and its meaning, for saṁketa is a key term used by this darśana in discussing this relation. The textual analysis of the Yogasūtrabhāṣya has led me to the conclusion that its author’s understanding of the linguistic convention is different from the notion of the linguistic convention of the Vaiśeṣikas and Naiyāyikas and similar to the notion of the linguistic convention of the Grammarians. These are interpretations of the term saṁketa which reflect Yogasūtrabhāṣya’s understanding of the linguistic convention: the tradition of the usage of words, established usage of words. Saṁketa of the Yogasūtrabhāṣya, unlike saṁketa/samaya of the Vaiśeṣikas and Naiyāyikas, is not an agreement established by anyone, but an agreement in the sense of tradition, established practice, or established custom. Unlike the saṁketa/samaya of these philosophers, the saṁketa of the Yogasūtrabhāṣya, having neither beginning nor end, is not re-created, but only made known at the beginning of each cycle of existence of the world.

ABSTRACT One of the lively polemics between Buddhists and Naiyāyikas is devoted to the question of whether each pramāṇa—means of knowledge—has an independent scope of validity, which does not overlap the scopes of other pramāṇas, or whether more than one pramāṇa can be applied to the same object. Dignāga and continuators of his thought defend pramāṇa-vyavasthā, ‘autonomy of [the object spheres of] pramāṇas,’ while Naiyāyikas defend the opposing conception, called pramāṇa-samplava, ‘coalescence of [the object spheres of] pramāṇas.’ Scholars usually ascribe pramāṇa-vyavasthā to Sāṃkhya. This paper explores the classical and postclassical Sāṃkhya view of the scope of the pramāṇas and shows that Sāṃkhya did not follow pramāṇa-vyavasthā. In Sāṃkhya, the scopes of perception and inference for knowing perceptible objects overlap, while inference for knowing supersensible objects and reliable verbal testimony have autonomous object spheres. However, there is also a tendency toward pramāṇa-vyavasthā in Sāṃkhya, which is in conflict with the Sāṃkhya theory of pramāṇas.

Linguistic convention is one of the central notions of Indian philosophy of language. The well-known view of samaya/saṃketa is its conception as the agreement initiating the relationship between words and their previously unrelated meanings. However, in Indian philosophy of language, we also encounter two other important but little-researched interpretations of samaya/saṃketa, which consider it as the established usage of words. I present a new classification of traditions of Indian thought based on their view of linguistic convention. This classification is to be verified and expanded in further studies. As far as I know, such a classification has never been undertaken before. 1) Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Buddhism, and later classical Yoga of the Tattvavaiśāradī accept samaya/saṃketa as an agreement initiating the relationship between words and their previously unrelated meanings. 2) Bhartṛhari the Grammarian and the continuators of his thought acknowledge samaya/saṃketa as the established usage of words that is rooted in the natural relationship between words and their meanings; the convention manifests the relationship. This view was probably also shared by Mīmāṃsakas and Advaitins. 3) Classical Yoga of the Yogasūtrabhāṣya and probably also earlier Grammar thought of the Mahābhāṣya accept linguistic convention as the established usage of words, but this usage, though having neither a beginning nor an end, is not based on any natural and necessary word–meaning relationship. In this view, linguistic convention not only manifests the word–meaning relationship but also keeps it in existence. Another new contribution of this research is my explanation for why the same Sanskrit term samaya/saṃketa was applied to the different ways of understanding linguistic convention. I explain this through the common aspects of all three kinds of samaya/saṃketa. The first aspect is the content of all these kinds of samaya/saṃketa. Irrespective of how linguistic convention is understood, its content is the same: “such and such a word has such and such a meaning”. The second aspect is the crucial role of linguistic convention in language acquisition, communication, and transmission.

Sāṃkhya, in its commentary Yuktidīpikā, responds to the Buddhist claim that a means of valid cognition (pramāṇa) and a valid cognition (pramā), its result (phala), are identical. The response of Sāṃkhya was pioneering: it is one of the two earliest responses to the Buddhists in the lively polemic on the relationship between a pramāṇa and its result. (The other of these two earliest responses is in the Ślokavārttika by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa.) Sāṃkhya’s voice in this polemic is earlier than that of Nyāya, which is, as well as Mīmāṃsā, the main rival of the Buddhists in addressing this issue. This study provides a translation and detailed reconstruction of the Yuktidīpikā’s polemic with the Buddhist opponent, which has not been researched before, as well as a critical assessment of the Sāṃkhya position. The Yuktidīpikā polemicizes against Dignāga. It aptly questions the standpoint of the Buddhist opponent and presents an alternative standpoint, contrasting its own view with that of the opponent. Though the Sāṃkhya position formulated in the Yuktidīpikā evokes several critical remarks, the Yuktidīpikā’s response is an important contribution to Indian thought.