Verse 2.31

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.31:

अर्थभागैस्तथा तेषामान्तरोऽर्थः प्रकाश्यते ।
एकस्यैवात्मनो भेदौ शब्दार्थावपृथकस्थितौ ॥ ३१ ॥

arthabhāgaistathā teṣāmāntaro'rthaḥ prakāśyate |
ekasyaivātmano bhedau śabdārthāvapṛthakasthitau[?] || 31 ||

31. According to them, the inner meaning, (that is, the Sentence-Meaning) is manifested by parts of it. Word and Meaning (that is, Sentence and Sentence-meaning) are inseparable (apṛthak-sthitau) divisions of one Inner Principle.

Commentary

It is now stated that not only the sentence but the sentence meaning also is indivisible and manifested by the word meanings.

[Read verse 31 above]

[Just as the Sentence is an inner entity, so is the Sentencemeaning. They are identical with each other and with the One Inner Principle but, externally, they appear to be different from each other. Puṇyarāja does not say anything more.

The Vṛtti interprets this verse in a deeper manner. From its terse and rather obscure language, one understands something like this:—

It is well-known that the Word-Principle is mainly the indivisible inner entity and that it is grasped through its indefinable and unreal parts. Similarly, the meanings reflected in the intellect are experienced as identical with the external objects. This is according to the view that the external object is transient. According to the view that it is eternal, it manifests itself according to the power of sequence of the intellect (Kramaśaktirūpanirbhāsamātrayā). An external object is not fit for practical purposive usage without the intellect with which it is wrongly identified. All worldly usage is done with objects which have been grasped by the intellect. Thus both the word and the object are in the intellect. Others, on the other hand, declare that as the intellect in which the object is reflected inheres in the Self, the latter which is essentially consciousness, assumes the form of the intellect which inheres in it and this explains the experience of the individual (puruṣārthasya prasiddhim). When the intellect which is transparent assumes the character of consciousness and of the object through their reflections, the powers of the enjoyed and of the enjoyer (bhogyaśakti and bhoktṛśakti) quite distinct from each other and not at all mixed up with each other, seem to attain the state of nondistinction in the intellect, which has apparently assumed the nature of consciousness and of the object and then distinctive worldly usage becomes possible. The power to experience is unchangeable and is not reflected anywhere but it appears to be reflected in the intellect. It is through the imitative transformation of the intellect in which the consciousness is reflected that one speaks of the operation of specific knowledge. The transformation of the intellect is said to be imitative (anukāramātrā) because, on the one hand, it imitates the object whose form it takes and, on the other, consciousness is reflected in it.

In the background of all statements, there are three views:—

(1) The external word is transitory and is an unreal manifestation of the eternal inner word.
(2) According to satkāryavāda, all objects are eternal and they are experienced when manifested.
(3) When the object is reflected in the transparent intellect (Buddhi), it is experienced.

According to all the views, the inner word is One, with all multiplicity resolved. From it, meanings which are also inner and undivided, with all multiplicity resolved, are understood without their original division being abandoned. What then remains is the single entity Intellect in which multiplicity has been resolved, in which the distinct powers of being the conveyor and the conveyed are not separated (pratipādakapratipattavyaśaktyor avibhāgena) even though their distinction is not abandoned. In the view that both the word and the meaning are eternal, neither is adventitious, subject to increase and decrease and to change.]

If the word and the meaning are identical, how are they said to stand in the relation of expression and expressed to each other?