________________
NYAYA AND JAINA EPISTEMOLOGY
When the relation between a word and its meaning is established by authorities, it is called technical meaning of a word or paribhāṣā. The secondary meaning of word is its indirect or implied meaning called laksanā. The primary meaning is retained in the implied meaning. The meanings of words can be learnt by different ways such as grammar, dictionaries etc. which show that the relation between a word and its meaning is a conventional relation.
Import of Words
As regards the import of words, Nyāya view is that the primary meaning of a word is all the three namely, the individual, the universal and a particular form or the configuration. All the three factors are present in the primary meaning of a word though with different degrees of prominence. This is the view held by old Naiyāyikās. Some of the modern Nyāya philosophers are of the opinion that a word means an individual as characterized by the universal while others maintain that it means an individual as qualified by both the universal and the configuration. It is clear that in Nyāya logic non-connotative terms of western logic have no place.
A word is a collection of letters and the unity of the word is due to memory.
The Nyāya philosophy held that sabda is lingustic utterance and is only a collection of sounds which are produced by the movements of the vocal organs of speech. “The sounds vanish as soon as they are produced and, therefore, are ephemeral. The Nyāya does not accept permanent letters as the Mīmāṁsakās do; instead, Naiyāyikās explain the recognition of the letters when
