Verse 909

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

विवक्षानु(मितिश्लिष्टमाकारं बाह्यभावतः ।
व्यवस्ततोः प्रवृत्ति)श्चेत्तदेवास्मन्मतं पुनः ॥ ९०९ ॥

vivakṣānu(mitiśliṣṭamākāraṃ bāhyabhāvataḥ |
vyavastatoḥ pravṛtti)ścettadevāsmanmataṃ punaḥ || 909 ||

“When two persons think of the form figuring in the ‘desire to speak’ and in the ‘inference’ as something external, then the word becomes applied to it”;—if this view be held, then that again is exactly our opinion.—(909)

 

Kamalaśīla’s commentary (tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā):

It has been asserted above by the Author that if words denote things that figure in the ‘desire to speak’, then they cannot apply to external objects. The following Text anticipates the Opponent’s answer to this:—[see verse 909 above]

“The ‘Desire to speak’ is present in the ‘Chain’ of the Speaker, and the Inference’ based upon that Desire is present in the ‘chain’ of the Hearer; the form that is connected with these two,—i.e. which figures in these;—when the two persons—the Speaker and the Hearer—think of the object as so figuring,—then the Word comes to be applied to that external object. That is to say, though in reality what the speaker is cognisant of is what is figuring in his own consciousness, yet he thinks that he is speaking to the other man of an external object; and the Hearer also has the impression that ‘this man is speaking to me of an external object’; hence, just as two men suffering from defective vision see two moons, so also is all this use of words.”

If this is so, then, you have fallen on our side; and all your argumentation is futile.

‘Again’,—i.e. once you had come to our side when you postulated the ‘Intuition’ as the ‘Import of words’,

It is thus established that the Reason (put forward by the Author)—‘because no Convention can be made’,—cannot be regarded as ‘unproven’, The idea that it may be ‘Inconclusive’ or ‘Contradictory’ has been already rejected before.—From all this it follows that all that is brought about by words is the ‘Apoha’, ‘Exclusion of others’,—(909)