On closeness to prescription and the validity of commendatory statements

Commendatory statements (arthavāda) are said by Mīmāṃsakas to be valid in so far as they are to be supplemented to a nearby prescription. Interestingly enough, a Śaiva author who wishes to prove the independent epistemic value of commendatory statements explains the role of closeness to prescriptions in a different way: the very fact that, close to a prescription they become meaningful means that they are in themselves meaningful. A collection of meaningless parts, in fact, does not produce a meaningful whole, just like a collection of grains of sand does not produce what a single grain of sand cannot produce. In the words of Jayaratha (commentary on Abhinavagupta's Tantrāloka, §IV, text out of KSS):

A [commendatory statement] does not have a true meaning only when autonomous, but even when heteronomous. Hence [Abhinavagupta] stated:

Or, although reaching the condition of member of another prescriptive sentence, |

this (commendatory statement) is not without meaning, because of closeness (sannidhi) [with the prescription] like [the phonemes] ga, ja, ḍa. etc.. || 237 ||

This commendatory statement, although reaching the condition of member of a prescriptive sentence, being a prescription or a prohibition, because of the proximity can not be without meaning. In this regard there is an example: like [the phonemes] ga, ja, ḍa, etc. Like indeed the phonemes which are close through being member of a word or [a sentence] are not without meaning, so also this [commendatory statement]. In fact, if the phonemes were meaningless, no different meaning would be understood when the phonemes are changed, like: gajaḥ (elephant), jaḍaḥ (inanimate), gaḍaḥ (screen)¹. Even a collection [of meaningless phonemes] would not have any meaning, since if the parts are meaningless also the aggregate is meaningless. Like a single grain of sand (sikatā) cannot yield any oil and a collection of them, that is, a mass, is also unable [to yield it], in the same way if the commendatory statement were meaningless, in case of a prescribed or prohibited meaning there would not be an attentive initiation of action or cessation of it through its closeness. In case of [the commendatory statement] beginning with “He cried”, in fact, the silver originating out of crying is said to be so in order [for one] to despise [it], so that one would attentively give up giving it on a bed of kuśa grass (being sacred). Even ordinary people, indeed, do not become buyers just because of “this cow has to be bought”, like through such words of praise: “This [cow] gives very fat milk, is well=disciplined and has feminine, faultless progeny”. So, this meaning [of the commendatory statements] has as witness one's own experience. || 237 ||

For this very reason [Abhinavagupta] stated:

The fact that it (commendatory statement) conveys its meaning appears through one's own awareness |

[in case one would deny it], its negation would be made also in regard to prescriptions and prohibitions || 238 ||

Or, if this [conveying of a meaning by commendatory statements] is forcibly negated, then the negation of a meaning can be made also in regard to a prescriptive sentence, being a prescription or a prohibition. Hence he said its negation etc. || 238 ||

In this regard one's own awareness alone is not the only instrument of knowledge establishing it, but there is even reason (yukti). Hence [Abhinavagupta] stated:

And in case of these [commendatory] sentences, in regard to their [conveying a meaning] there is one's own awareness, non invalidated, which ascertains the reality of a ruby in all its aspects (artha), and also reason || 239 ||

1The text has “ṣoḍaḥ (?)” (sic!), my emendation is due to the fact that it would not make sense to introduce other phonemes, the argument pointing to the fact that a different order of the same phonemes conveys different meanings.