6. Requisites (d): Tātparya (Import)

[Full title: 6. Requisites for Understanding the Sentence-Meaning, (d): Tātparya (Import)]

Apart from the three auxiliary causes of knowing the sentence meaning, described, some Indian Schools of thought like Nyāya, Vedanta etc accept the knowledge of the intention of speaker as the fourth cause. Generally, it can be defined as being uttered with the desire of producing a certain meaning. It is to be noted that different philosophers maintain different views in accepting tātparya or speaker's intention as the cause of comprehending the sentence-meaning. This difference is due to their views as to the nature of the knowledge derived from language. Naiyāyikas give great importance to the speaker's intention in fixing the meaning of an utterance. The reason is that, they accept śabda as one of the means of valid knowledge, only when it is uttered by a trustworthy person. Thus, the intention of the trustworthy person is important for them. According to them, in Vedic sentences as well as in ordinary sentences, it is the intention that precedes the cognition of meaning.

In the case of Vedic sentences, they assume the intention of God (even in the case of the parrot, imitating the utterance of people, Naiyāyikas assume the intention of God;

"śukavākye bhagavadicchaiva gatiḥ",
  —(Nyāyakośa, 1978, p.326)

It is again mentioned that, in ordinary sentences, the meaning is associated to the word by intention.

The word 'ghaṭa' in the sentence ' ghaṭamānaya' signifies pot by the intention of the speaker.

pare tu ghaṭādiśabdasthale' pi ghaṭapadam kumbhaparam lakṣaṇayā paṭaparam veti samśaye ghaṭaśābdabodhābhāvāt sarvatra tātparyaniścayaḥ kāraṇamityāhuḥ,
  —(Nyāyakośa, 1978, p.327).

If this extreme view is accepted, the normal signification of words would always depend on the intention of the speaker, which makes the linguistic communication impossible.

Thus, Vedāntins and Mīmāṃsakas reject this view of Naiyāyikas. They maintain that every word has an inherent capacity to express its meaning. Similarly a sentence is also capable of expressing a unified sense in the form of the mutual association of the word-meanings. Generally, Mīmāṃsakas believe in the theory of ' apauruṣeya', in which, the verbal comprehension has no reference to the speaker at all. They also maintain that the interconnection between word and meaning is inherent. Hence a sentence, though unintelligible to the speaker, has an inherent capacity to convey its meaning (Raja, 1974, p.213). Though the Vedāntins are against the views of Naiyāyikas, they admit, however, the role of speaker's intention in knowing the sentence-meaning. According to them, the speaker's intention has a vital role in comprehending the meaning of ambiguous sentences. Thus it can be assumed that, by the term ' tātparya', Naiyāyikas refer to the meaning intended by the speaker. While Mīmāṃsakas and Vedāntins use the term to denote the meaning conveyed by the capacity of the words themselves.