根源の現れとしての文の意味と直観 (特集 : 「始源の思索」)

Abstract

The representative grammarian and philosopher of India's "Classical Age" Bhartṛhari (c. fifth century C.E.) discusses the primacy of the sentence and of sentence-meaning in the second book of his Vākyapadīya. To summarize the basic points of Bhartṛhari's view, the sentence is the primary whole in language, and the sentence-meaning, which is only perceived by the hearer in a flash of intuition (pratibhā), is conveyed by the whole and not by the summation of the parts. According to BhartRhari, words are merely abstract entities, abstracted from the unity of the sentence by means of the grammatical analysis of it. In this paper, I have treated Bhartṛhari's view developed in the second book of the Vākyapadīya, verses 325-347. He argues here with the Mīmāṃsakas on the completeness of the sentence-meaning in relation to the so-called one word sentence. Bhartṛhari bases his opinion on the observation that in everyday communication people speak in sentence. Everyday communication is achieved through sentences which the speaker has in his mind and which he evokes in the mind of the hearer. When the speaker begins to speak, the sentence being as a whole in his mind assumes two aspects : the uttered sentence-sounds and the expressed sentence-meaning. The hearer hears the sentence, then the sentence-meaning bursts forth as a flash of intuition (pratibhā). In verses 2.325-347, Bhartṛhari takes the one word sentence for the example. In the context of one word sentence, the sentencemeaning is quite different from the word-meaning. When a word "vṛkṣaḥ (A tree!)" is heard, one understands the meaning "A tree stands." This sentencemeaning is only conveyed when added word-meanings are mentally understood so that completeness results. For Bhartṛhari, it is the unitary function of intuition (pratibhā) which completes the sentence-meaning without requiring any other words or meanings than the word actually uttered. The completeness of the meaning of the sentence, experienced in the intuition, is the manifestation of the world as a whole.