4. The Concept of Sentence Indivisibility and Sphoṭa

The concept of sphoṭa is one of the most important contributions of Indian thinkers to the crucial problem of general linguistics. It was Bhartṛhari, who brought to light the breadth and depth of this concept beyond its linguistic features in his Vākyapadīya. But, some of the ideas underlying this theory can be found in earlier grammatical and philosophical literature in Sanskrit. It can be stated emphatically that, the whole superstructure of Bhartṛhari's language theory is erected on the concept of akhaṇḍavākyasphoṭa, which is already described. He used this fundamental concept in the study of language, which was successfully developed by later grammarians. This concept paved new pathways in the language studies in India. As discussed, the concept of sphoṭa was no new idea for the predecessors of Bhartṛhari. But the Idea of sentence-indivisibility, introduced by Bhartṛhari, has some unique features when compared to the concept of sphoṭa in general. Before proceeding into the characteristics of the concept of sentenceindivisibility, Bhartṛhari's perspectives on sphoṭa doctrine has to be discussed.

In the School of Grammar, the word or sentence, when taken as an indivisible meaning-unit, is the sphoṭa. Patañjali distinguishes sphoṭa and dhvani in Mahābhāṣya as " sphoṭaḥ śabdaḥ, dhvaniḥ śabdaguṇaḥ" (Vol.1, 1991, p.181). Thus sphoṭa is the real śabda (speech or language), while dhvani, the audible part is a quality of speech. Indologists like A B Keith mistakenly treated this as a mysterious entity and overlooked its linguistic significance, probably due to its association with Bhartṛhari's śabdabrahman (Matilal, 1992, p.84). Later scholars like J Brough, K A S Iyer, Kunjunni Raja etc. mention sphoṭa as a linguistic entity. They described it as the languagesymbol or an 'auditory image' of the uttered speech as well as the meaning bearing unit^[1]. Matilal, examining all these views, describes sphoṭa as an auditory impression of the meaning (1992, p.85).

Bhartṛhari begins his discussion about sphoṭa referring to two aspects of language.

dvāvupādānaśabdeṣu śabdau śabdavido viduḥ
eko nimittaṃ śabdānām aparo'rthe prayujyate.
  —(Vākyapadīya, 1.44)

Here, Bhartṛhari analyses the speech act from the speaker's point of view, which has two dimensions. In the language act, one is the causal root of articulated sounds (nimittaṃ śabdānām) while the other is the manifested or applied, to convey the meaning (arthe prayujyate). From the speaker's point of view, the articulated sounds are produced from the 'wordprinciple' which is present in the intellect (Buddhithaśabhaḥ). Thus the causal root of audible sound Nāda is the 'Buddhisthaśabdaḥ' or the wordprinciple in the intellect (Vākyapadīya, 1.46). Bhartṛhari calls this Buddhisthaśabda as sphoṭa. This gets transformed into utterance, when a person intends to speak (Vākyapadīya, 1.108). Though the uttered language is sequential, its source, the language faculty in the intellect (Buddhithaśabhaḥ), is devoid of any sequence or parts. But, the listener grasps the śabda produced by the speaker in a sequential manner, but not as whole. Thus, he may experience the sphoṭa as having sequence while hearing. Bhartṛhari solves this problem by differentiating dhvani or the audible sound into Prākṛtadhvani and Vaikṛtadhvani^[2]. The Vaikṛtadhvani is the actual sound spoken by the speaker and heard by the listener. Hence it includes all the peculiarities and differences in the utterance of the speaker like intonation, tempo etc. (Brough, 1951, p.40) The Prākṛtadhvani, which is indicated by the Vaikṛtadhvani, is a stage just before the articulated sounds come into existence. It represents the phonological structure or the sound pattern of the form. All the non-linguistic personal variations are absent in this stage. But, the time sequence is still present in this. This actually manifests the internal sphoṭa, the integral linguistic symbol. The Prākṛtadhvani is so close to the integral linguistic symbol sphoṭa that the characteristics of Prākṛtadhvani is superimposed on sphoṭa. Thus we may experience the sphoṭa as sequential or having parts. Brough discusses these three stages in his "Theories of General Linguistics in Sanskrit Grammar" vividly.

The later grammarians like Bhaṭṭojidīkṣita and Nāgeśabhaṭṭa enumerated eight different types of sphoṭa. This differentiation is based on two fundamental principles, viz. indivisibility and meaningfulness. Thus we get Varṇasphoṭa, Padasphoṭa and Vākyasphoṭa respectively, when we consider either the letter or the word or the sentence as vācaka or meaning-bearing unit (Śabdakaustubham, 1933, p.10). These three are again classified into Jāti and Vyakti. If word and sentence are considered as indivisible symbols denoting the meaning of the whole without any reference to the parts, they are known as Akhaṇḍapadasphoṭa and Akhaṇḍavākyasphoṭa. These are the eight types of sphoṭa described by later grammarians. Though Bhartṛhari does not enumerate these eight classes of sphoṭa, he seems to have held the Akhaṇḍavākyasphoṭa as the real sphoṭa (Brough, 1951, p.45). This is evident when he emphasizes on the definitions of sentence that come under the Akhaṇḍa School of sentence, which is already discussed. Thus, according to Bhartṛhari, the concept of sphoṭa in general, forms the philosophical outlook of his language theory. To Bhartṛhari, the theory of sphoṭa is part of his monistic and idealistic metaphysical theory according to which, the śabdatattva is the eternal principle of the universe. His magnum opus Vākyapadīya is also begun with the statement that the whole phenomenon of material existence is only the Vivarta^[3] of this speech principle (1.1).

The concept of indivisible sentence, expounded in the second canto of Vākyapadīya, forms the basis of his psycho-linguistic analysis of language. The idea of 'sentence-indivisibility' deals with how language is used and grasped. This explains sentence as the real linguistic unit, which is devoid of any sequence or parts. Puṇyarāja points out that Bhartṛhari is not the first to introduce the idea of indivisibility in the School of Grammar. Pāṇini and Patañjali have recognized the indivisibility of sentence:

"sūtrakārasya tu atiṅgrahaṇāt ekameva akhaṇḍaṃ vākyam arthaikatvāt ākhyātabhede' pi abhipretamiti gamyate",
  —Vākyapadīya, 2.1-2).

But it must be admitted that Bhartṛhari is the first to establish logically the concept of indivisibility of a sentence. He emphatically states that the sentence is 'a single undivided utterance' (eko' navayavaḥ śabdaḥ). Sibabjiban Bhattacharya explains this view as the phonetic completeness of the sentence and is not merely the aggregation of the words occurring in it. What is worthy of note here is that the whole sentence is an individual, and is not the aggregate of its parts (1984, p.28).

The grammarians consider the sentence to be indivisible because the opposite theory of division would result in infinite regress or in the acceptance of atomism (Punitha Sarma, 1998, p.77). If it is held that the words in a sentence are those very ones which are found independently somewhere else and if the phonemes are those which are found independently, there would be no essence of the sentence or the words other than phonemes. If the Sakhaṇḍa view of sentence is accepted, the phonemes also can be divided even into smaller parts like an atom and this division would be carried out infinitely. Thus ultimately, there would be no unit, which would be looked upon as the expressive element.

Therefore the grammarians put forth the sentence as an entity over and above the phonemes and words.

padāni vākye tānyeva varṇāste ca pade yadi varṇeṣu varṇabhāgānāṃ bhedaḥ syāt paramāṇuvat.
bhāgānām anupaśḷeṣeṇa na varṇo na padaṃ bhavet teṣāmavyapadeśyatvāt kimanyadapadiśyatām.
  —(Vākyapadīya, 28-29)

Modern scholars like Kunjunni Raja, J Brough, KAS Iyer and Gaurinath Sastri etc. hold that, the sphoṭa is the auditory impression of the uttered speech as well as the meaning-bearing agent. But, this concept is not enough to solve the problem of the cognition of the sentence-meaning. Hence, they hold that the sphoṭa in general and Vākyasphoṭa in particular has been assumed as a solution to the problem of the meaning of the sentence^[4]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The word ' sphoṭa' is derived from the root ' sphuṭa vikasane', which signifies 'to burst' or 'to shine forth'. Thus it can be described in two ways; if it is explained as ' sphuṭati, vikasati, arthaḥ asmāt iti sphoṭaḥ', then sphoṭa is that from which the meaning shines forth and hence it can be taken as the meaning-bearing agent. If it is described as ' sphuṭyate anena iti sphoṭaḥ', then it can be defined as an entity which is manifested by the uttered speech. According to this view, sphoṭa is the auditory impression manifested by dhvanis.

[2]:

Bhartṛhari's analysis of language encompasses three aspects viz. Vaikṛtadhvani, Prākṛtadhvani and Sphoṭa.

[3]:

Vivarta is a concept, developed by the Advaita Vedānta system, which is described as the process of manifestation by which the one becomes many.

[4]:

This view is explained in 4.7.2 of this thesis.