Verse 3.7.3

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.7.3:

साधनव्यवहारश्च बुद्ध्यवस्थानिबन्धनः ।
सन्नसन् वार्थरूपेषु भेदो बुद्ध्या प्रकल्प्यते ॥ ३ ॥

sādhanavyavahāraśca buddhyavasthānibandhanaḥ |
sannasan vārtharūpeṣu bhedo buddhyā prakalpyate || 3 ||

3. Speaking of something as the Means is a matter of the speaker’s intention. Difference in things, whether real or unreal, is conceived by the intelligence.

Commentary

[Here a question arises: If a thing has powers, it is natural that one or more of them should become the means; but if it has not got any, how can it become the means? In such sentences as śaktiṃ ādadhāti, śaktyā sādhayati, etc., śakti = power has become a means, even though śakti cannot have śakti. Similarly, in ‘dhanavināśaṃ karoti’ dhanābhāvo na yuktaḥ destruction or non-existence has become a means, even though, being nothing, it cannot have power. This doubt is answered as follows: The use of words depends more on the speaker’s intention than on outside reality. Words follow cognition. A thing may actually exist, but if it is not cognised, it does not become the object of verbal knowledge. Similarly, even what does not exist may become the object of verbal usage, provided it has become the object of cognition and the speaker’s intention. When power which is ordinarily a property of things in itself thought of as a thing, there is no contradiction in thinking of it as having power. Similarly, we can think of non-existence as a thing (dravya), in which case it can also have power. Everything is a matter of the speaker’s intention and cognition. That is why expressions such as ‘hanty ātmānamātmanā’ in which one and the same thing is agent and instrument are possible. Ordinarily one thinks of a cooking pot (sthālī) as a vessel in which to cook something, as a receptacle (adhikaraṇa). But when it is made of thin material and so what is put in it cooks quickly, one may want to emphasize that point and. speak of the pot itself as the agent of cooking: sthālī pacati. Here through the speaker’s intention what is ordinarily a receptacle has become an agent. Similarly, if we want to emphasize that it is more through the quality of the pot than through fuel ‘that the cooking has been done quickly, we could say ‘sthālyā pacati’ in which case the pot has become an instrument. Similarly, when we say: ātmanaḥ svātmany avasthānam, one and the same thing is presented as the agent and the abode (adhikaraṇa) when one wants to emphasize that nothing else can be the agent or the abode. Even though a stone statue is no more than a body and is not different from it, we talk as if they were different from each other when we say: śilāputrakasya śarīram. Thus the position is this: when grammar explains the formation of words abstracted from the Sentence, when no other word of the sentence has been uttered and one is not conscious of the particularity which one may be intending to convey, it is possible to have a mode of formation which does not consider the sentence, but takes into account only the individual word. Word formation taking into account only the individual word is recognised in the śāstra. This does not mean that a word can have any form. It can only have a form abstracted from a real sentence. Grammar is not called upon to explain the formation of a form abstracted from something which is not a real sentence at all like the following: sthālīm odanena kāṣṭhe pacati. Such strings of words are not sentences at all.]

That the ‘means’ is something essentially mental is now confirmed.