Verse 908

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

(सारूप्याच्च) श्रुतेर्वृत्तिःकथं वा (ऽशब्द)चोदिते ।
सारूप्या (द्यमलकव) न्नामाद्येतेन दूषितम् ॥ ९०८ ॥

(sārūpyācca) śrutervṛttiḥkathaṃ vā ('śabda)codite |
sārūpyā (dyamalakava) nnāmādyetena dūṣitam || 908 ||

How can the word be applied,—merely through similarity,—to what is hot expressed by it? And the view that it is through similarity, as in the case of the names of twins, is also discarded by this same argument.—(908)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

The idea may be that—“there is some sort of similarity between what appears in the ‘desire to speak’ and the external object,—and on the basis of this similarity, the word may be applied to the external object, even though it may not be directly expressed; as happens in the case of twins”.—

This is answered in the following—[see verse 908 above]

Such being the case, the application of words to external objects can never be possible; in fact it might be possible to apply the word to an object not figuring in the ‘desire to speak’ at all; as in the case of twins.

The Vaibhāṣika postulates, as mark of the object called ‘Name’ and ‘Basis’, a distinct faculty.—This theory also becomes discarded by this same argument. Because if the said ‘Name’ is momentary, then there can be no co-ordination; if it is not-momentary, then there can be no succession; and there is the anomaly of the word being applied to an external object; and it could not always be on the basis of similarity.—All these objections descend upon this theory in a body.

Or the phrase ‘by this same argument’ may be taken to refer to the objections urged against ‘Specific Individuality’ and the rest. That is to say, in the present connection also, it may be said that—‘The nature of the Name, etc., which contains nothing else, is such that there can be no Convention in regard to them; similarly what does not exist cannot be denoted by words’.—(908)