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THE TERMINOLOGY OF THE VEDAS
T
he question of the origin, nature and eternity of
Shabda—human
articulate and inspired speech - has been a very important
question in Sanskrit literature. The highly philosophical character
of this question can not be doubted, but the peculiar characteristic,
which attracts the attention of every Sanskrit scholar, is the all-
pervading nature of the influence it exerts on other departments of
human knowledge. It is not only the
Nairuktilcas
and the
Vaiyakaranis,
the grammarians, etymologists and philologists of
ancient Sanskrit times, that take up this question; but even the actue
and subtle philosopher — the last and the best Sanskrit
metaphysician—the disciple of the learned Vyasa — the founder of
one of the six schools of philosophy — the religious aphorist Jaimini
cannot isolate the treatment of his subject from the influence of this
question. He runs in the very beginning of his Mimansa
(dissertation) into this question and assigns a very considerable part
(proportionately) of his treatise to the elucidation of this question.
It is not difficult for a reader of modern philology, well-versed in
discussions on onomatopoeian and other artificial theories of human
speech, to perceive the amount of wrangling which such questions
give rise to. We have mentioned the position assigned to this
question in Sanskrit literature not so much with a view to put an
end to all this wrangling, which, perhaps, is unavoidable, but with
a view to take up, in a brief way, another and a more practical
question involved therein,
i.e.,
the question of the interpretation of
Vedic terminology.
Up to this time all the plans that have been adopted for the
interpretation of Vedic terminology have been based on some pre-
conceived notions. The philosophy of the subject requires that these
pre-conceived notions should be carefully examined, studied and
pruned of the extraneous matter liable to introduce error, whereas
new and more rational methods should be sought after and