Apbharamsa Hindi Kosha

The Sanskrit Tradition of Grammar and Linguistics, along with its history, is presented in view of texts and trends, where structure and content of the Ashtadhyayi find their focus on rule formulation, interpretation, and interaction. My proposal of derivation is made in view of what Panini does (acarya-pravritti) with rules of the Ashtadhyayi, and what statements (vyakhyana) were made on a given topic by Patanjali.
My presentation is all tied in with the interpretive conventions # (2) yathoddeshah samjna-paribhasham, and # (3) karyakalam samjna-paribhasham (PS) of Nagesha. It yields two kinds of ekavakyata considerations where one facilitates interpretation of a rule within adhikakars, and the other facilitates ekavakyata across domains, with no anuvritti consideration. Finally the derivational history yields a string of definitions which not only offer direction to individual derivations but also projects what rules will apply when and on what kind of string. Why does Panini repeat the use of definition terms in the Ashtadhyayi, so that they can clearly chart the path of derivation, and facilitate reconstruction of history of derivation? This all is new, and is in consonance with the tradition. The last section of this book presents a comprehensive view of modern studies on Panini to modern times.

The essays in this volume deal with the nature of linguistic representations as distinguished from other types of representations, including mental representations. These study language and linguistic representations, examining crucial questions like nature of language and language as a source of knowledge, accommodating linguistic representations within the broad framework of truth-based semantics and hermeneutic interpretation of language. The essays focus on the structure and limits of linguistic representations from both the Indian and Western perspectives. The semantic problems of meaning, reference and truth constitute the main issues facing any theory of linguistic representations and, therefore, these issues have been discussed in-depth. Besides, there has been an effort to understand how to locate the language-reality relationships within a broad representationalist framework. The essays take up many specific topics, examining theories of linguistic representations, such as the anti-representationalist stand of Wittgenstein and Derrida, Grice’s theory of meaning, and perspectives of Indian classical schools such as the Naiyayikas’ perspective on testimonial knowledge. The essays specially focus on the Indian theories of grammar and linguistic representations to highlight how philosophy of language, whether classical or contemporary, can hardly get rid of the semantic locus of meaning and truth.
The volume will prove invaluable to scholars of philosophy, especially those concerned with language and linguistic representations.