Name and Form

[Guest guest]

"According to the Sense-Reference theory every word has a sense,

and it is this sense that in turn refers to the 'concrete' object in the

world. According to Advaita, this theory is wrong. There is no

mediate thing called a 'sense' between a word and its

object."(Chittaranjan)

 

Hello Chittaranjan,

going back to your original position the central

misapprehension is that a word supplies a sense. It does not, human

minds supply that by their thoughts about an object. For instance if I

were to say to you 'Zeus is fierce' you might take Zeus to mean the

God who dwells on Mount Olympus. The sentence would have

sense but no reference. No truth value would be denoted. However

I might be referring to the bull-dog of my neighbour and so for me

Zeus would have both sense and reference.

 

I won't burden you too much on your trip but it would be interesting

to hear how you justify the idea that all words are objects including

some, 'not', maybe, perhaps etc. Is 'roundness' an object? As you

write:

" They are symbols of something. By something, I mean some

distinctive aspect of Reality. In Vedanta, all word meanings are

padarthas and are objects."

 

How does this work? ((By the way I found the quote B.S.B. I.iii.28

..You have been putting in the topic number (8) between the section

(iii) and the sutra(28) number which is redundant and confusing.))

Shankaracarya does seem to reject the sphota theory as fanciful

(pg.216) Similar ideas are to be found in Arabic (abjid) Judaic

(Cabalah) and Greek (Gemetria) thinking.

 

Best Regards,

Michael.

[Guest guest]

Namaste Dr. Yaduji.

 

Thanks for your very fresh thoughts on Mother's divine names quoted

by me. I would much wish that you read LalitA SahasranAmA. The

vedAntic pearls strung along the nAmAvali should be quite evident to

all of us from Mother's names now appearing on Advaitin homepage.

Considering the magnificent manner in which you interpreted the SrI

Suktam before, your taking to LalitA, I am sure, will bring in many

profound insights.

 

I am deeply indebted to you for sending me the SrI Suktam

interpretaton. My days are not complete now without chanting it.

 

The immediate purpose I had in mind when I quoted the names parA to

bhakta-mAnasahaMsikA was to demonstrate how the sahasranAmas reveal

the unraveling of the expressed word and the manifest world of

objects.

 

I have here in front of me a very scholarly interpretation in my

native Malayalam of Mother's divine names by Shri Kandiyoor Mahadeva

Sastrikal. It is really very elaborate and tough inasmuch it leaves

the reader baffled whether the author has written it in Malayalam or

Sanskrit. I would, therefore, concentrate on one pertitent point

that Shri Kandiyoor makes. It is the word vaikharI interpreted

as 'visheSeNa kharam iti vaikharI' (charasteristically hard or

solid). This would mean that vikharI encompasses not only the

expressed word but the whole of the created, manifest, concrete

world. When vaikharI is seen and appreciated from its very roots in

paRA, then She becomes the bhakta-mAnasahamsika. Otherwise, She

remains the gross, the stolid, and that is avidyA. As the former,

She reveals to Her bhakta that the word is not different from the

world as Chittaranjanji has masterfully concluded. Our VAgIshwari is

consort of Brahma, the creator, not without reason. She is not the

uttered word alone but the created world too without any distinction.

 

Besides, the correspondence of parAvAk, pashyAntIvAk, madhyamAvAk and

vaikharIvAk to points on the kundalinI detailed in Shri Kandiyoor's

interpretaton is strikingly similar to that attempted by other

scholars on the praNava of MANdUkya.

 

It is thus difficult to appreciate the sameness of the word and world

without an understanding of Sanskrit. Swami Dayanandaji always

points out that Sanskrit is a very systematic meta-language of mind-

boggling accuracy and detail that not even the most sophisticated

computer languages can ever match.

 

Mother's 678th divine name in the sahasranAma is bhASArUpa. Although

all languages and means of communication are Mother, I should imagine

She appears in Her most refined form in Samskritam. Is that some sort

of chauvinism?

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair

_________________

 

advaitin, "ymoharir" <ymoharir> wrote:

>

> I have never read or practiced "lalitaa-saharanaama" per

> say. After reading Chitaranjan's and your post following thoughts

> came to my mind and getting attracted to read it.> >We are all

> familiar with the "four-vaaNi (paraa, pashyanyanti, madhyamaa, and

> vaikhari)". It's practice in yoga is stressed by our sages. It is

> interesting to see the bhakta and it's association with the form

> ha.msaa which is united using the word "maanasa". I think the

> suffix "sa" is very important because it tell us to use mind and to

> think on the form "ha.msa".

>

> ManusmR^iti tell us – manaHpuutam sadaacareta.

>

> Meaning - Purify with the help of conscious mind. > >Now if we

apply

> this principle to "lalitaa-saharanaama", it reveals beautiful and

> yet practical meaning that is helpful for saadhakaa at all levels.

>

> All the understanding when purified with mind suggests the form

> of "ha.msa". The characteristic of

> ha.msa is –

>

> It is capable of separating water from milk. (The "aamla" and

> high concentration of stomach acids and high potency pancreatic

> enzymes instantly curdle the milk and there-by separating Cheese

and

> Water.) The feathers have a unique structure that repels water

> (hydrophobic character). This tells us to remain in water without

> getting attached to it.

>

> This suggests that we need to swim in the world without getting

> attached to it. This can be done only with understanding and

> realization that we need to develop our own ability to be able to

> separate (concentrates) the "satva" from milk (by separating what

> really matters, identifying the essence of milk).> >Unfortunately

if

> we interpret this as the "Love" and then drown ourselves in the

> ocean of "forms – maayaa" then how we could possibly liberate, if

we

> remain attached to the form? As a saadhaka it is our responsibility

> to understand the deeper meanings why our sages may have used

> specific meaningful words.

>

> IMHO - All nouns designate some forms and it is up to the saadhakaa

> to understand their meaning and practice them as verbs in order to

> enrich our lives.

[Guest guest]

Dear Sri Michaelji,

 

advaitin, ombhurbhuva <ombhurbhuva@e...> wrote:

 

> going back to your original position the central misapprehension

> is that a word supplies a sense. It does not, human minds supply

> that by their thoughts about an object.

 

Going by the same argument, one might say that the colour of an apple

is not supplied by the apple, but that the human sense (sensibility)

supplies it to the apple, and then it would all reduce to a kind of

Lockean duality. According to Advaita, the word, the sense of the

word (meaning), and the mind are all inert things. Ultimately, only

the Sentient Self supplies to our awareness both the words and the

meanings, as well as the associated relationships betweem them. A

word is not simply a pattern of sound (or letters) but is a pattern

with a sense. Take away that sense from the pattern and it is no more

worthy of being called a word. So, irrespective of how it comes to

be, the sense is invariably attached to the word. In Vedanta, words

are classified into two - Vaidika (Vedic) and laukika (worldy). The

meanings of Vedic words are said to be intrinsic and invariant. The

meanings of laukika words may be born through convention though all

such associations are eternally existent in Reality.

 

> For instance if I were to say to you 'Zeus is fierce' you

> might take Zeus to mean the God who dwells on Mount Olympus..

> bull-dog of my neighbour and so for me Zeus would have both

> sense and reference.

 

If I were to take a purely Advaitic stand, then the statements 'Zeus,

the Olympian, is fierce' and 'Zeus, the bull-dog, is fierce' are both

true as they conform to some feature in Reality, and Reality is

Existence Itself. But in the Creation of Ishvara where only some of

these features are projected as 'manifest reality' the truths of

sentences are given by the correspondence of their meanings to the

features of the projected world. That is the way of the vyavahirika

world. I would say that in paramarthika all meaningful sentences are

true, and that is the reason why a jnani who has given up everything

has indeed gained everything - for him all things are true and his

Self is full.

 

I believe that there is a normal tendency in samsara (vyavaharika

sathya) to mix up the existential predicate of the object and the

object itself. In other words, we have a tendency to say that those

objects that don't qualify to be predicated as existent are not

really objects (and that they are mental images only). From what I

know of Analytical Philosophy, a Natural Language sentence is first

paraphrased so that it may be accomodated into the Symbolic Logic

framework and then it is quantified for enabling the truth judgment

to be made. I would say that this method is valid only in so far as

the true meaning of Existence (which is synonimous with

Consciousness 'Sat-Chit') is not revealed.

 

> I won't burden you too much on your trip but it would be

> interesting to hear how you justify the idea that all words

> are objects including some, 'not', maybe, perhaps etc.

> Is 'roundness' an object? How does this work?

 

Yes, roundness is an object. It is an object that falls under the

category called 'guna' (attribute). An attribute (say, roundness) has

existence not by itself but in another padhartha i.e., substance. It

might be of interest to note that Nyaya lists things such as 'doubt'

(samsaya), 'ascertainment' (nirnaya) and 'deficiency' (nigrahasthana)

as objects (padarthas). I would say that the mind-matter dualism

which poses such a big problem to us today is absent in Nyaya - all

padarthas are simply features of Reality.

 

> (By the way I found the quote B.S.B. I.iii.28. You have been

> putting in the topic number (8) between the section

> (iii) and the sutra(28) number which is redundant and confusing.)

 

You are right Michaelji. I used to pick up this superfluity from the

contents section of the book, and I'll drop it henceforth.

 

> Shankaracarya does seem to reject the sphota theory as fanciful

> (pg.216) Similar ideas are to be found in Arabic (abjid) Judaic

> (Cabalah) and Greek (Gemetria) thinking.

 

Yes, Shankaracharya rejects the sphota as a separate 'thing' apart

from the letters of the word. He says that the sphota is a redundant

posit and that the meaning of the word is illuminated from the

letters that are heard just like the ants that fall into a line.

 

Does the concept of sphota exist also in the Cabalah and Greek

philosophy?

 

 

Warm regards,

Chittaranjan