7.1 Pratibhā and Vāk

[Full title: 7. The Concept of Pratibhā and its Implications, (1): Pratibhā and Vāk]

The whole second canto of Vākyapadīya highlights the semantic nature of Pratibhā, which has been discussed in detail. But Bhartṛhari treated the concept beyond its linguistic characteristics. He revealed the philosophic as well as psychological outlook of this concept. Bhartṛhari explains the process of cognising the meaning in a language act in two perspectives. He analyses the speech act both from the points of view of the speaker and the hearer. To him, a linguistic communication can be said complete when the speaker expresses his intention through sounds and the hearer understands what the speaker intends to mean. In this context, what K A S Iyer remarks, is relevant. He puts forth the view that Bhartṛhari perceives Pratibhā from two different dimensions i.e. from the point of view of the speaker's experience before utterance and that of the hearer's experience after hearing the utterance. When Pratibhā is analysed from the hearer's point of view, it is a linguistic entity, which gives rise to the cognition of the sentence-meaning. Pratibhā transforms the sentence heard into meaning. This explains the semantic feature of Pratibhā, where the sentence-meaning shines forth as a flash. When it is analysed from the speaker's angle, Pratibhā precedes the utterance. Here, Pratibhā is not conceived in the form of any language and thus the units of language, either in the form of sentence or words are not important. Coward identifies this state of Pratibhā with Paśyantī stage of Vāk, after which, comes the utterance (1980, p.14-15). TheVṛtti also points to this aspect of Pratibhā (Vākyapadīya, 1.14).

According to Bhartṛhari, the speech principle Vāk has three stages in the course of its manifestation viz. paśyantī, madhyamā and vaikharī (Vākyapadīya, 1.144, citation). Later grammarians like Nāgeśa and Kaundabhaṭṭa adds another division known as parā to this list. This fourfold classification of speech principle is developed in Tantraśāstra and the Pratyabhijñā School of philosophy. According to Bhartṛhari, parā and paśyantī are identical. Gaurinath Sastri argues that Bhartṛhari accepts no stage higher than paśyantī (See Gowrinath Sastri, 1959, chs.1-4). Among these three stages, Vaikharī form of speech is the first level of speech act, which is called as dhvani. This is the physical sound that which is really heard by the sense of hearing and can be differentiated as phonemes, words and sentences. This word is sequential in nature and all the peculiarities of speaker are also present in this state. As the name indicates, madhyamā form of speech is an 'intermediate' as it lies in between vaikharī and paśyantī. The language and the thought conveyed by it are undifferentiated in this state. Bhartṛhari says that it is located in the buddhi and is accompanied by prāṇa (breath). Thus it is psychological in its nature and can be comprehended by the intellect (Vākyapadīya, 1.144). This corresponds to Prākṛtadhvani described in the first chapter of Vākyapadīya. The third and supreme stage paśyantī is the śabdabrahman, which is explicated in the opening verse of Vākyapadīya. This purest as well as subtlest form of śabda is abstract in nature and has no sequence. It is indivisible and beyond worldly use. This has been identified with Pratibhā, the flash of insight.

Vṛṣabhadeva expounds this form of Vāk in his Paddhati, an ancient commentary of Vākyapadīya as:—comm. on Vākyapadīya, 1.14 reads as follows.

"Pratibhām iti -yeyaṃ samastaśabdārthakāraṇabhūtā buddiḥ, yaṃ paśyantītyāhuḥ, yataḥ śabdāḥ prāṇavṛttim anupatanti, tam anuparā iti anugacchati"
  —(Vākyapadīya, 1.14).

If one tempts to realise this stage of speech, he passes through various stages and ultimately arrives at an undifferentiated state known as Pratibhā. In this regard Kunjunni Raja observes that "the complete utterance or the vākyasphoṭa indicates this principle of consciousness, paśyantī or Pratibhā. There is no real distinction between speech and thought at this stage (1963, p.147-148).