xisting word.

The process by which according to Prabhakara the meanings
of words are acquired maybe exemplified thus: a senior commands
a junior to bring a cow and to bind a horse, and the
child on noticing the action of the junior in obedience to the
senior's commands comes to understand the meaning of "cow"
and "horse." Thus according to him the meanings of words can
only be known from words occurring in injunctive sentences; he
deduces from this the conclusion that words must denote things
only as related to the other factors of the injunction (_anvitabhidhana
vada_), and no word can be comprehended as having any
denotation when taken apart from such a sentence. This doctrine
holds that each word yields its meaning only as being generally
related to other factors or only as a part of an injunctive sentence,
thus the word _gam_ accusative case of _go_ (cow) means that it is
intended that something is to be done with the cow or the bovine
genus, and it appears only as connected with a specific kind of
action, viz. bringing in the sentence _gam anaya_--bring the cow.
Kumarila however thinks that words independently express
separate meanings which are subsequently combined into a sentence
expressing one connected idea (_abhihitanvayavada_). Thus
in _gam anaya_, according to Kumarila, _gam_ means the bovine
class in the accusative character and _anaya_ independently means

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[Footnote 1: According to Nyaya God created all words and associated them
with their meanings.]

397

bring; these two are then combined into the meaning "bring the
cow." But on the former theory the word _gam_ means that it is
connected with some kind of action, and the particular sentence
only shows what the special kind of action is, as in the above
sentence it appears as associated with bringing, but it cannot
have any meaning separately by itself. This theory of Kumarila
which is also the Nyaya theory is called abhihitanvayavada [Footnote ref
1].

Lastly according to Prabhakara it is only the Veda that can
be called s'abda-prama@na, and only those sentences of it which
contain injunctions (such as, perform this sacrifice in this way
with these things). In all other cases the validity of words is
only inferred on the ground of the trustworthy character of the
speaker. But Kumarila considers the words of all trustworthy
persons as s'abda-prama@na.

The Prama@na of Non