[Advaita-l] What is abhitaanvaya-vaada and anvitaayabhidhaana-vada ?

Murali Karamchedu murali_m_k at msn.com
Fri Nov 19 12:25:36 CST 2010


Dear Vidyasankar,
>The abhihitAnvaya position says that each word has its own meaning and the >meaning of the sentence arises from the meanings of its words....>The anvitAbhidhAna position says instead that individual words do not convey >meaning except in relation to other words in the context of a sentence. The >meaning of the sentence is grasped by the listener as a whole, without >requiring the meanings of the individual words that constitute the sentence.
…> But by and large, most authors in the vedAnta tradition seem to have  taken >the abhihitAnvaya vAda position of bhATTa mImAMsA seriously and interpreted the >upanishad-s accordingly.
Are you aware of any historical reason or explanatory force for this preference? 
It appears to me that Prabhakara's, and before him Bhartrhari's approach did have some advantages. Bhartrhari's insight that language leads to phenomenal cognition and apprehension of an existant absolute  reality, due to the way in which words and sentences to divide the totality of apprehension, leads to a radically opposite conclusion than that of the Buddhists who concluded the lack of any reality due to the compositional nature of word and sentences leading to cognition and ideation.
Regards,Murali Manohar 		 	   		  


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