The Philosophy of Sanskrit Grammar achieved its acme after the advent of Nagesa Bhatta who belonged to the end of the 17th Century and start of the 18th Century and whose works were in Navya Nyaya style. His three versions of Manjusa viz. Vaiyakarana Siddhanta Manjusa, Vaiyakarana Siddhanta Laghu Manjusă and Parama Laghu Manjusa, Sphotavada and Mahabhasya Pradipodhyota occupies a prominent place in the Philosophy of Sanskrit Grammar. The term "Manjusa" implies that it includes all the doctrines of Panini and other previous Grammarians. But Nagesa besides supporting the viewpoint of his previous Grammarians, has also de novo modified the Philosophy of Grammar by including new theories and ideas.
Nagesa while establishing his theories, has projected the Mīmamsakas's view as Prima Facie. In addition to this, he has also discussed several Mimaṁsa sutras, adhikaranas, sentences and maxims. Our primary objective of the present work is to analyze Nagesa's exposition of Mīmamsa doctrines in all the three versions of Manjusa (viz. Vaiyakarana Siddhanta Manjusa, Vaiyakarana Siddhanta Laghu Manjusa and Parama laghu Manjusa) and Sphotavada.
The main objective of Mimamsa Philosophy is to work out a set of principles of interpretation of the various mantras in the Vedas by which the real meaning of the Vedas may be understood and so applied to human action, duty or Dharma. Mīmamsa is also known as Vakyasastra. The present work aims at unvieling and exploring this Sentence aspect of Mīmamsa in connection with the Philosophical discussion of Sentence Meaning, as projected by Nagesa Bhatta in his works. While undertaking this strenuous task, we have also tried to focus the Mimamsa view in its proper perspective by referring to the Cardinal text of Mimamsa. Further an effort has also been taken to check Nagesa's reference of Mimamsaka's view in its original source.
Several renowned Scholars have done considerable amount of commendable research highlighting the semantic aspect of Philosophy of Language viz. Prof Gaurinath Sastri's Philosophy of Word and Meaning, Dialectics of Sphota and Philosophy of Bhartrhari, P.C.Chakravarti's Linguistic speculation of the Hindus and Philosophy of Sanskrit Grammar, K.Kunjunni Raja's Indian Theories of Meaning, Harold Coward's Sphota Theory of Language and K.A.S. Iyer's Bhartrhari etc The above researches primarily concentrate on the Grammatical School of thought.
There have also been few researches concerning specific topic of Sanskrit Grammar. Prof. S.D. Joshi and Jayashree. A. Gune have respectively translated some of the portions viz. Sphoța and Lakararthanirnaya section of Kaundabhatta's Vaiyakaranabhusanasara into English. Pt. Bhimsena Sastri has also translated the Dhatvartha section into Hindi. But these works mainly concentrate on the sara of Kaundabhatta. M.S. Murti in his Sanskrit Compound, has dealt with the Meaning of Compound. Dr. Veluri Subba Rão in his book Philosophy of sentence and its parts, has analysed the semantic portion of Grammar to a great extent.
The contributions made by Prof. K.N. Chatterjee (Word and its Meaning), V.N.Jha (Philosophy of Injunctions) and V.P. Bhatta (Epistemology, Logic and Grammar and translation of Saktivada) are also significant and laudable. They have also dealt with several problems confronting Nyaya School with reference to the Philosophy of Language.
The remarkable researches done by Dr. Ganganath Jha (Purva Mīmaṁsa in its sources, Prabhakara School of Purva Mīmaṁsa translations of Sabara Bhasya, Slokavarttika and Tantravarttika), G.V.Devasthali (Mīmaṁsa the Vakyasastra of Ancient India) R.N. Sarma Mīmarmsa theory of Meaning) V.P. Bhatta (translation of Bhavanaviveka) in the field of Mimamsa Philosophy are also significant.
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