MARIO PIANTELLI ATTENTION AND COMMUNICATION: SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF SANKARA TO THE LEXICON OF SANSKRIT AS A METALANGUAGE IN TAITTIRIYOPANISADBHASYA 2,1,1 If we consider metalanguage in a somewhat more elastic way than that in which logical Semantics uses it, namely as compassing not only fully formalized languages as its object languages, but also the whole range of facts, processes and problems relating to the relationship between verbal signs and their referents in daily uses, it is possible to discover many an interesting contribution on the part of Indian thought in such a field, albeit the central interest from which such contributions happen to develope themselves is often quite far from the motives governing modern logicians’ and linguists’ attitude in regard of such matters. I propose here to discuss in its general outlines a particularly stimulating instance of these contributions, which is represented by the configuration of relationship verbal sign-referent in the double mode of Visesana and Laksana on the part of Safikaracarya in his Taittiriyo- panisadbhasya, 2,1,1. We owe the introduction of this distinction to a conundrum arisen from the apophatical approach of the great advaitin to the core of Upanisadic teaching about Brahman. In fact, the problems implied by negative theology possess a sort of family-likeness even across the wide gaps separating different civili- zations and cultures: we are usually confronted by a more or less rich series of descriptions of a Divine Quid in terms of actual daily human experience, simultaneously with the peremptory denial that such a Quid can ever be the referent of any word, due to its being over and above human verbally-coloured articulate process of understanding and reconstructing the world of perception. Such a denial can be a purely metalinguistic proposition, as in the case of e.g, Kenopanisad 1,4, or a device of extolling the Divine Quid, in a way somewhat similar to the likewise denial of expressibility in the case of feelings connected with aesthetic or erotic experience: such is apparently the case of eg. Eccle- siasticus 43,30 ff. It is also possible that both these functions coexist, as in the pseudo-Aeropagitical Mystic Theology. The very fact that388 Mario Piantelli denial may be taken as praise, while does not necessarily prejudice the possibility of an exegetical construction ‘of it as an epistemological limitative statement, shows that a strong emotional aspect may be involved and explains the equally powerfully emotional reactions to negative theology from anthropomorphically-oriented exegetes in all cultures. The conflict is between the noble urgency to destroy every human limitation and misery on one side, and the preoccupation to save the letter of the sacred utterances to whose authority one is com- mitted on the other one. When such a conflict takes place inside the mind of a single thinker of great ingenuity and intelligence, the necessity of bridging somehow the abyss between the two diverging exigences can bring him to interesting achievements like the Scholastic theory of analogical application of positive predicates to the Divine Quid or the Palamite distinction between trinitary incomprehensible essence and kataphatical communicable energies in the same. It is a riddle of such kind that confronts Sankara in’ dependence upon his peculiar treatment of Nirgunatva in the Divine Quid,(@ngaging him ima fight to stretch the limits of the expressive powers of human language. On one hand, he is bound by his deepest experience to take in their full import the vakya-s stating the inaccessibility of Brahman to the scope of linguistic facts; on the other hand, his sense of concreteness in facé of exegetical reading of Sruti combined with his epistemological doctrine, recognizin; Sabda as an independent pramdna in its own right, compels re to desert the traditional positive descriptions. Sankara’s general position is made clear in this connexion by a very important passage of his Brhaddranyakopanisadbhasyan(2;3,6). Herephesmaintains that thelopera» tional efficacity of a verbal sign (sabdapravrtti) can subsist, or come into being, only through its association to some specific individuating feature (visesa) of the referent: to witness, either through association. with a designation possessed by the referent (which seems to be different from, albeit intimately connected with, the verbal sign expressing it, like De Saussure’s signified in respect of signifier), or through association with the peculiar appearance of the referent as apprehended by human perception, or through association with a specific connection with a known activity on the part of the referent, or through association with some distinctive character possessed by the referent in respect to other referents lacking it, or through association with the belonging of the referent to a class (this being only one instance of visesa, and not the only mode of it, as it would seem from Sankara’s discussion of proper names in his Brahmasitrabhasya, 1,3,28), or, again, through association with some intrinsic quality of the referent (« ... ndma va raipam vd karma va bhedo va jatir va guno va»). Such an inventory of the corresponden- ces between the verbal sign and the topological features of the object-Attention and communication 389 world is obviously indebted in some degree to the linguistic categories implicit in the morphological structure of Sanskrit (for a Western parallel, cfr. Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata, 5,11,81,3). It is instruc- tive the comparison with Sankara’s Bhagavadgitabhasya (On whose authorship cfr. our Sankara e la rinascita del Brahmanesimo, Fossano, 1974, pp. 193 £.; additional evidence, triumphingly proving the correct- ness of traditional attribution, is given by V. Raghavan, Bhaskara’s Gitabhasya, in Beitriige zur Geistesgeschichte Indiens, Festscrift fiir Erich Frauwaliner, WZKSO Band XII-XIII [1968-1969] pp. 281 ff.) 13,12, where the same list is to be found with minor changes: leaving aside designation, appearance and distinctive characters, Sankara puts forth the association with a connection or relationship (sambandha) of the referent with some other referent already known, exemplified as pos- session of wealth or cattle (dhani goman). When the verbal sign helps us in individuating a significative component in the external objective world, when it is somehow iconical (not in the sense of an onomato- poeia) in respect of such component, the primary function of the sign, viz. communication, is possible: when heard (Srizyamdnag ca Srotrbhih, Bh.Gi.Bh. 13, 12) (Gt leads attention towards the referent, ascertaining it through a notion (artham pratydyayati, ibidem). It is to such an end, that Safkara considers as an illumination of the referent, brought into the field of attention as something suddendly lighted up against a back- _ ground in dimness (arthaprakasanaya, ibidem), that the verbal sign is uttered. What in ‘Semantics is known as motivation in relationship between verbal sign and referent is apparently all-important in the Outlook of the great advaitin, The referent is object, in the process of verbal enunciation, of a descriptive specification (nirdesa, BrUp.Bh. 2,3,6). To utter is to describe, from the point of view of Sankara. Now, all these features are grasped by linguistic knowledge in objects inside the scope of normal dualepistemological pattern, but such a scope is not ultimate, such a pattern is but a temporary building of avidya. Brahman, albeit a condition of every epistemological level in human apprehension of the world, which cannot insanywease be done away with, does not fill up an objectificable position in the dual pattern. Since in the case of Brahman the perception of their very ground is impossible, individuating features are not susceptible of discovery, to serve as points d’appuisto a meaningful verbal portrayaleVerbal signs purporting to be nirdesa-s of the referent Brahman, being unanchored to actual experience of the object,can be taken only as dispensable articial disguises (upadhi-s) put on it. The actual svariipa of Brahman is not to be descriptively specified in any way («... yada punah svariiparn eva nirdidiksitam bhavati nirastasarvopadhivisesam tada na sakyate kenacid api prakarena nirdestum », ibidem). The fact that the referent—_-Mario-Piantelli as Sankara seems 1 PP. jn Journal Asiatique 7], pp. 371 ff.; J. F. Staal, The theory of definition in Indian Logic, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 81 [1961], pp. 122 ff.). It is keeping in mind this at least semi-definitional function of verbal sign, that we can better understand the reading of « Neti neti» on the part of Sankara: recurring to a metalinguistic approach, and treating as an object language the normal semantic level referring to dual experience of any given language, he employs as a device of nirdesa the very denial of applicability of verbal signs in their normal relation- ship of linguistic description to Brahman as a referent. He constructs a second level relationship between this negation at the metalinguistic level and Brahman as a referent, understanding the fact of being a referent as the fact of being individuated in the semi-definitional way in which normally verbal signs should point out objects. Brahman can be recognized as it were by eliminating all other referents at the first level, that of object language. Instead of guiding the attention to a certain section of the world of objects, the vakya extrudes from the field of attention severally each object of such world, leaving Brahman alone as a not-objective subject. The warding off of all the descriptive specifications which may be given and of their referents (prdptinirdesa- pratisedha, Br.Up.Bh. 2,3,6) is the only ascertainable detail of the Divine Quid, It is possible that Safikara be indebted for this delimitative function of negation to the Vijfidnavada semantic doctrine of Apoha, rediscovered at phonemic level by De Saussure in the West, since the advaitin makes use of this very term in our context to express the removal of any objectual disguise suggested by verbal signs as opera- tional value of the Upanisadic negative statement (sarvopadhivisesa- pohena). But we must be cautious in the acknowledgement of this coincidence of approach between Sankara and Buddhists: in fact, he is prepared to take Apoka only in this specific connexion. Safkara refuses to accept its application whenever the individuating function through negation is to be exercised by a not negative verbal description. It is only the fact that all possible variables are included into refusal by «Neti neti», that legitimates us in taking it as a nirdesa of a sort («..Yad yat praptam tat tat nisidhyate tatha ca sati anirdistasanka brahmanah parihrta bhavati anyatha hi nakdradvayena prakrtadvaya- pratisedhe yad anyat prakrtat pratisiddhadvayat brahma tan na nirdi- stam kidrsam nu khalu ity aanka na nivartigyate tathd ca anarthakasAttention and communication 391 ca sa nirdesah », ibidem), whereas the alleged individuating efficacity of Apoha in other, and less comprehensive, instances, covering but an indefinite multitude of variables without any guarantee of all-inclusi- veness, is a logical impossibility. To quote Safkara’s Upadesasahasri 218,148): Apoho yadi bhinnanam vrttis tasya katham gavi / nabhava bhedakah sarve visesa va kathaficana // Such being the general perspective of his approach in regard of negative theology, Sankara is confronted in Taittiriyopanisad 2,1,1 with the famous vakya « Satyam jfidnam anantam brahma », He has to bring out the distinctive flavour of each designation in the Upanisadic descrip- tion, being well conscious that only one of them is susceptible of being constructed as a negative individuation («...Tatra anantasabdah anta- vattvapratisedhadvarena visesanam / satyajhanasabdau tu svarthasamar- panenaiva visesane bhavatah //»), and in the same time to keep on denying the applicability of these designations to Brahman. He succeeds in this difficult task inter alia by sketching the distinction between the two different modes of relationship between verbal sign and referent about which we are concerned here. Sankara begins with pointing out that the verbal signs in the vakya are normally associated with individuating features (« ... Visesanarthani padani », ibidem). As referent (vigesya) of them, Brahman can be object of a legitimate psychological pulsion to apprehend it by verbal means (vivaksitatva), and so the Sruti is in its own right meaningful. As in worldly contexts, we are here in a situation in which our attention is brought on the referent by distinguishing it from a background of other referents (« vigesyantarebhyo nirdharyate », ibidem), and such is the proper function of every verbal description. The difficulty is, as Sankara himself admits, that we cannot treat the relationship between Brahman and its background as the one between other referents and the same: Brahman is not on the stage, if we can use this metaphor, but the spectator of it, and the only one besides that. The so-called visesya is such in a way so wholly different from other ones, that one might even doubt its being a visesya at all. As Suresvaracarya cleanly puts it, Nanu vyabhicarad vastu syad visesyam visesanaih | brahmdntarad rte tv atra kuto briihi visesyata // (Laittirtyopanisadbhasyavartika 2,49). The pirvapaksin in Sankara con- tends that there can be meaningfulness in the operation of verbally enucleating a referent (visesanasyarthattvam) when, and only when, our attention is thereby fixed on a member of a given class, arresting, as it were, our scanning over the class as a complex of possible referents, each one susceptible of being individuated by apt specification (« yada hy anekani dravyani ekajatiyany anekavigesanayogini ca >, Tai. Up. Bh. 2,1,1). But Brahman is totally set apart, as the sun in respect of the objects that it illuminates. The uttarapaksin answers by introducing392 Mario Piantelli the distinction between Visesana and Laksana. With Brahman we have not an instance of simple de-finition, individuation, taking away of the referent from a collection of more or less similar objects, it is true. We must apprehend it in itself, without any reference to background, in its concrete irreplaceable peculiarity, An D e Divine Quid. Sankar: aware that every possible positive predicate is susceptible to be just as the negation of the symmetrically contrary negative predicate, without implying any adfirmation of its own (such is the case with the instrumental pratijfa on the part of Madhyamika-s, and we find the very same negative approach in Kevaladvaitavada, for.instance in Vacaspati- migra's treatment of ananyatva in Bhdmati, 2,1,14), and he suggests that even in this way the Upanisadic descriptions could be disentangled. by the riddie of the apparent application to Brahman on their part of illegitimate visesana-s, conveyed through verbal signs. But such an exe- getical treatment, so like the Buddhist attainment of Laksanasanyata, would imply to the eyes of the great advaitin a price seemingly too high, as one can understand from the objection put in the mouth of the piirvapaksin that verbal signs simply negative in their function cannot have any referent, as in the case of the witty nonsense Sloka: Mrgatrsnambhasi snatah khapuspakrtasekharah / esa vandhyasuto yati Sasasrigadhanurdharah //. He states in the answer to such a remark that Sruti’s descriptions conserve their power of restricting somehow to their referent the range of their designative function (visesyaniyantrtva). Even if their original semantic function is to be substituted with a new, different one, artha- vattva is to be conserved. We could say that the fact of having a referent, of being meaningful in respect of it, is the minimum commune factor between the two different functions given by Sankara to verbal signs. The new function is called by him « Laksana ». This term has many technical meanings in Sanskrit uses. Saikara delimits its particular import in his metalinguistic construction by distinguishing the structure laksana-laksya from the normal one visesana-visesya in respect of the scope of delimitation by verbal means. A laksaya-description is universal as the negative individuation by the « Neti neti» vakya, it forms its positive counterpart as contrasted with the normal conveying of indivi- ° duating features on the part of language: both metalinguistic apoha and laksana are opposed to vigesaya under such aspect. But here the simi- larity stops. While the negation is not bringing our awareness on any particular referent, but only drawing it away from any referent known,Attention and communication 393 laksana concentrates immediately our awareness on the referent, while the rest of the universe is left out. The scanning on the part of attention of the series of possible referents is eliminated in both instances, but whereas in the first one such scanning is prevented by the utter denial of its efficacity, in the second one it is replaced by a shifting in verbal sign’s appeal to attention. I would like to make use here of a photogra- phical metaphore for the sake of clearness. Laksana has the same ratio to vigesana as a blown-up picture to a normal one: the interesting detail fills the entire screen, making from the very beginning of cognitive process unnecessary to point out it, as it would be the case with a more complex image, containing several details barring out the possibility of immediate individuation of every one of them. In laksana, verbal com- munication, instead of guiding with its descriptive role the listener’s awareness in its search for the referent, brings such awareness to the referent with not-delayed, lightning-like, immediacy. Its appeal to awa- reness implies a different process of apprehension that one would be tempted to call intuition, if such a term were not conveying a note of lack of clearness utterly extraneous to brahmanubhati. The example given by Sankara to illustrate this kind of anapeksa pointing out of referent is the description apparently semi-tautological of akasa as avaka- Sapradatr, which speaks to our feelings of room-awareness without any relationship to a background of objectual experience. By making use of the term «Laksana», Satikara shows his keen semantic sensibility: whether one be commited to derive it from the root Laks or from the root V Lag, its import of device whose operational efficacity is to bring on immediate attention on the part of observer-listener is unmi- stakable, when we take into account its semantic interplay with the cognate or phonetically convergent term «Laksa», whose figurative force as a pointer out as target/mark has never been lessened by technical uses. One must admit that very often « Laksana» stands in normal Indian uses for what Sankara calls « Visesana» (such is the case, for instance, with svalaksana-s as datation features in Dhanyavisnu’s inscription on the great Gupta Varaha at Eran, on which cfr. Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum vol. III, p. 159, line 2 f.; with the sense of « individuating marks » that is to be found already in Kautilya (cfr. 1,12,1; 2,7,33; 2,10,40; 2,11,116; 2,14,7; 2,18,4; 2,29,11; 7,6,41 [near to the sense of the perhaps related term « Liriga » in its logical meaning of sign in the process of anumdanal; 7,9,12. But in 3,1,15 the sense is more akin to Sankara’s one — I owe the signalling of these passes to the courtesy of Prof. Oscar Botto —; with the very terminology of logic definition, in its relational context; with the designation of laksana given to pheno- menization of Glayavijiiéna in Lankavatarasaitra 37,10 ff. and 38,5 ff. with the same designation given to secondary characteristics in Pata- fijali’s Yogasutra 3,13; with the sense of grammatical rules embodied in siltra-s [cfr. Renou, Terminologie grammaticale du sanskrit, Paris, 1957, pp. 261 and 483], and so on).394 ~~ Mario Piantelli A very near disciple of Safikara as Padmapada is so aware of this fact, that he substitutes his teacher's visesana with visesalaksana, distin- guishing from it Sankara’s laksana specified as upalaksana (cfr. Pajica- padika, varnaka 5,2 [Madras Government Oriental Series n. 155, p. 296]). In delineating the new relationship between verbal sign and referent, Sankara takes into account also the alteration of meaning undergone by the normal verbal. picture_in_its. becoming_instrumental_to_laksana:_its original descriptive function is in fact eliminated by such redirection (« .. laksanarthapradhanani viesanani na visesanapradhandny eva », Tai. Up. Bh. 2,1,1). The proper referents of verbal signs as visesana-s, in this case a buddhidharma for « Jiidna » and bahyasattasadmdnya for « Satya », are subordinated to the individuation of a collective referent, in regard of which every verbal sign is not enunciative, but indicative (tal laksyate na ca ucyate, ibident): if arthavattva of words is rescued, avakydrthatva of Brahman must be saved too. Saiikara knows quite well the semantic device of laksana as suggestive indirect use of the verbal sign (cfr. for instance. his_Brahmasiitrabhasya, .3,1,22.and_4,1,6, where he states that it is based on connection in some degree between two different refe- rents: « laksand ca yathdsambhavam samnikrstena viprakrstena va svar- thasambandhena pravartate /». He is somewhat less strict in this respect than Kuméarila (on whose views, cfr. the clear exposition by Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat, Le Prataparudriya de Vidyanatha, Pondichéry 1963, pp. 303 ff.), and it is possible that his laksaya feels the effects of such familiarity. The indicative function in our text is nevertheless diffe- rent than in the case of laksana in Satikara’s time (here we must dissent from the reading by Hong-Sy-Quy, Le moi qui me dépasse selon le Vedanta, Saigon, 1971, p. 108 ff.). It shall be brought inside laksand as a broader category later as jahadajahallaksana (cfr. the brilliant synthesis by Veermani Prasad Upadhyaya, Lights on Vedanta, Chowkhamba S.S.S. vol. 6, 1959, p. 233 f.), but for Saiikara it is a new, autonomous way of employing verbal description: his emphasis is not on the simple change of meaning on the part of verbal sign, but on a richer and subtler se- mantic phenomenon, namely that of collective relationship with a referent (on which argument see our: Sankara cit., pp. 128; for some instances of such a phenomenon, characteristic of Sankara’s exegesis, cfr. Chan- dogyopanisadbhasya 5,11,1 and Upadesasahasri 2,18,181 ff. and 195 ff, where the anvayavyatireka approach is clearly exposed). Such relationship is not a change of meaning, but a mutual revelation of semantic hues .that verbal signs left alone could never have explicited: each one enters a superior Gestalt in which the sum is someting new and different from the parts. To put it in the beautiful form of Upadegasahasri 2,18,173, Svarthasya hy aprahanena visistarthasamarpakau / pratyagdtmavagatyantau nanyo 'rtho ’rthad virodhyatah //. It has been suggested that Visesana and Laksana anticipate the two kinds of relationship between word and meaning introduced by John Stuart Mill, namely connotation and denotation. But such comparisonAttention and communication 395 is misleading: on one hand, there is no distinction between sense and referent in Visesana, while such distinction emerges in Laksana; on the other hand, denotation seems to be exactly corresponding to the visesana through association with designation in Sankara’s typology. Not being an object, Brahman could not enter inside the scope of designation any more than inside that of connotation. To sum things up, the contribution to Sanskrit lexicon as a metalanguage on the part of Sankara that we have been here briefly taking into account is an entirely new and vital contribution to metalinguistics in general, and it proves once more how deep and supple an instrument of thinking Sanskrit Janguage can afford us.