Tattvabindu of Vachaspati Mishra (study)
by Kishor Deka | 2024 | 49,069 words
This page relates ‘concept of Sannidhi or Asatti (contiguity)’ of the English study of the Tattvabindu by Vachaspati Mishra (study)—a significant text in the Mimamsa philosophy which addresses the concept of verbal knowledge (shabdabodha) and identifies the efficient cause behind it, examining five traditional perspectives. These are Sphota-Vada, Varna-Vada, Varnamala-Vada, and Anvitabhidhana-Vada and Abhihitanvaya-Vada, with the Tattvabindu primarily endorsing the Abhihitanvayavada view.
Go directly to: Footnotes.
Part 2.3 - The concept of Sannidhi or Āsatti (contiguity)
[Full title: The causes of verbal knowledge in Mīmāṃsā (3) Sannidhi]
The third factor for understanding the sentence-meaning is sannidhi or āsatti (contiguity). It is generally explained as the condition that the words in a sentence should be contiguous in time.[1] This contiguity or proximity is the uninterrupted utterance or unbroken apprehension of words when they are in juxtaposition. Words uttered at long intervals cannot produce the knowledge of any interrelation among them, even if there be ākāṅkṣā and yogyatā. If the words are separated by the intervention of irrelevant words, then also the connection of the meaning cannot be understood.
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa distinguishes[2] between sannidhi and mere immediate sequence of utterance (anantaraśruti). He explains sannidhi as the continuous moving about of the words or their meaning in the mind.[3] Śālikanātha also explains it in the same way.[4] According to the Bhāṭṭa school of Mīmāṃsā, the lack of sannidhi is of two kinds: not being uttered together and not being signified by words.[5] No syntactic relation is possible in the case of the words ‘bring … the cow’ uttered at different times. And a sentence such as ‘tie up the cow’ cannot have syntactic affinity with the word ‘horse’, even though the horse is seen in front as requiring to be tied up.[6] Thus they hold that syntactic relation is possible only for what have been comprehended through words.[7] On the other hand, the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas believes[8] that sannidhi is the only proximity of cognition of the sense and not necessarily of words actually uttered and it is caused by the words only is not the auxiliary cause in respect of the sentence-meaning. Śālikanātha, in his Vākyārthamātṛkā states that sannidhi is the transformation of the intellect from a meaning subsequent to the hearing of a meaning to another meaning with the help of expectancy and compatibility.[9] But this transformation of the intellect is not based on words only.
Again, according to the Prābhākara school, sannidhi does not mean simultaneous mental comprehension of the words; as in the case of ākāṅkṣā it works step by step in the order of sequence in which they are cognized.[10] The mutual connection of the meanings of words is comprehended step by step along with the knowledge of ākāṅkṣā, yogyatā and sannidhi. In the sentence ‘Bring the cow, which is white, with a stick’ (gām ānaya śuklāṃ daṇḍena), first the word ‘cow’ is known as related to the verb ‘bring’; then this connected sense is related to the meaning of the next word ‘white’ and later with that of the next. This is on the basis of the anvitābhidhāna theory. Some of the Naiyāyikas also seem to favour this view.[11]
The Navya-Naiyāyikas defines āsatti or sannidhi as an immediate recollection of the meanings of words through their expressive power or lakṣaṇā;[12] even if the words are separated, as it sometimes happens in a verse, there is āsatti, if the meanings of the words are recollected without any interruption. This āsatti itself is the cause of verbal comprehension, not the knowledge of āsatti as the early Naiyāyikas believed.[13] This recollection is explained as collective cognition. The perception of each word leaves its impression on the mind, and when the last word is uttered, its last letter acts as a stimulus, and a collective recollection follows. It is a single cognition arising out of the contact of the senses with a collection of objects.[14]
It may be mentioned here that the Prābhākara Mīmāṃsakas understand sannidhi as the immediate association of the idea of the meaning of a related word. They do not favour the definition of sannidhi as the proximity of word. There lies difference between the Bhaṭṭas and the Prābhākaras in respect of their conception of sannidhi, while the Bhaṭṭas understand sannidhi as the contiguity of a word or the idea of the words, the Prābhākaras accept it only as the contiguity of the idea of the meaning of a word.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
(a) padānām avilambenoccāraṇaṃ sannidhiḥ / Tarkasaṃgraha , p. 30
(b) avyavadh ānena padajanyapadārthopasthitiḥ āsattiḥ / Tantrasiddhānta-ratnāvalī , p. 65
[2]:
ākāṅkṣā sannidhānaṃ ca yogyatā ceti ca trayam /
sambandhakāraṇatvena kḷptaṃ nānantaraśrutiḥ // Tantravārttika , p. 455
[3]:
Ibid.
[5]:
[6]:
‘gāṃ badhāna’ ity atra bandhanāpekṣasya dṛśyamānasyāśvasya śabdābodhitatvād evānanvayaḥ / Ibid., p. 100
[8]:
sannidhiḥśabdajanmaiva vyutpattau nopalakṣaṇam /
adhyāhṛtenāpy arthena loke saṃbandhadarśanāt // Vākyārthamātṛkā-vṛtti , p. 9
[9]:
atha sannidhiḥ kaḥ? yasyārthasya śravaṇamākāṅkṣāyogyatābhyāmarthāntare buddhiviparivṛttiḥ / Ibid., p. 389
[10]:
ākāṅkṣāvac ca sannidhāv api sannidhāpakakrameṇaiva kramo veditavyaḥ / Ibid., p. 9
[11]: