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Padajnana – Knowledge Of Words In Sentence

Padajnana is the knowledge of the words in a sentence. According to Navya Nyaya School of logic, Padajnana is the immediate cause for understanding the meaning of a sentence. Knowledge of the meanings of individual words is the means of understanding the sentence.

According to the Mimamsakas, the words in sentence convey their individual meanings and stop with that – the meanings of the words thus understood convey the meaning of the sentence.

There are two theories about the comprehension of the meaning of the sentence of the two schools of Purva Mimamsa – the Bhatta School and the Prabhakara School.

According to the Bhatta School (propounded by Kumarila Bhatta), the sentence meaning is understood gradually through the word meanings. There are two elements in sentence meanings – the individual word meanings and their syntactic relationship. The word meanings are known directly, and the syntactic relationship indirectly, through lakshana (implication). The Prabhakara School of Mimamsa believes that both these elements are conveyed by the word directly; thus the sentence meaning arises from the words themselves directly.

In the case of elliptical sentences, the Prabhakara School believes that the missing idea can be taken as understood, and the sentence meaning obtained; but the Bhatta School wants the missing word itself to be understood before understanding the meaning of the sentence. Otherwise, we may get the idea intended in the context, but it will not be verbal knowledge.