Shabda ( Sanskrit : शब्द , IAST : Śabda ), is the Sanskrit word for "speech sound". In Sanskrit grammar , the term refers to an utterance in the sense of linguistic performance .
31-632: [REDACTED] Look up sabda or शब्द in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Shabad may refer to: Shabad (hymn) or Shabda , term meaning word in Sanskrit Shabad, Telangana , a town in India Shabd (film) , 2005 Indian film Zemach Shabad (1864–1935), Lithuanian Jewish doctor and political activist See also [ edit ] Shahabad (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
62-417: A metaphysical setting, where he views sphoṭa as the language capability of man, revealing his consciousness. Indeed, the ultimate reality is also expressible in language, the śabda-brahman , or "Eternal Verbum". Early Indologists such as A. B. Keith felt that Bhartṛhari's sphoṭa was a mystical notion, owing to the metaphysical underpinning of Bhartṛhari's text, Vākyapādiya , where it is discussed. Also,
93-429: A single phoneme ( varṇa ) such as /k/, /p/ or /a/ is an abstraction, distinct from variants produced in actual enunciation. Eternal qualities in language are already postulated by Yāska , in his Nirukta (1.1), where reference is made to another ancient grammarian, Audumbarāyaṇa , about whose work nothing is known, but who has been suggested as the original source of the concept. The grammarian Vyāḍi, author of
124-504: Is an important concept in the Indian grammatical tradition of Vyakarana , relating to the problem of speech production, how the mind orders linguistic units into coherent discourse and meaning . The theory of sphoṭa is associated with Bhartṛhari ( c. 5th century ), an early figure in Indic linguistic theory, mentioned in the 670s by Chinese traveller Yijing . Bhartṛhari is the author of
155-399: Is considered to be the major Indian work of its time on grammar, semantics and philosophy." While the sphoṭa theory proper ( sphoṭavāda ) originates with Bhartṛhari , the term has a longer history of use in the technical vocabulary of Sanskrit grammarians, and Bhartṛhari may have been building on the ideas of his predecessors, whose works are partly lost. Sanskrit sphoṭa
186-437: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages sabda In classical Indian philosophy of language , the grammarian Katyayana stated that shabda ("speech") is eternal ( nitya ), as is artha "meaning", and that they share a mutual co-relation. According to Patanjali , the permanent aspect of shabda is sphoṭa ("meaning"), while dhvani ("sound, acoustics")
217-504: Is either spoken or written, but through Sabda (words). The reliability of the source is important, and legitimate knowledge can only come from the Sabda of reliable sources. The disagreement between the schools of Hinduism has been on how to establish reliability. Some schools, such as Carvaka , state that this is never possible, and therefore Sabda is not a proper pramana. Other schools debate means to establish reliability. In Sikhism ,
248-442: Is ephemeral to shabda . Om, or Aum , a sacred syllable of Hinduism , Buddhism , Jainism and Sikhism , is considered to be the first resonating vibrational sound within an individual being. It also denotes the non-dualistic universe as a whole. In Buddhism, Om corresponds to the crown chakra and white light. Bhartrihari , on the other hand, held a shabda- advaita position, identifying shabda as indivisible, and unifying
279-438: Is etymologically derived from the root sphuṭ 'to burst'. It is used in its technical linguistic sense by Patañjali (2nd century BCE), in reference to the "bursting forth" of meaning or idea on the mind as language is uttered. Patañjali's sphoṭa is the invariant quality of speech. The acoustic element ( dhvani ) can be long or short, loud or soft, but the sphoṭa remains unaffected by individual speaker differences. Thus,
310-413: Is particularly true for vakya-sphoṭa , where the entire sentence is thought of (by the speaker), and grasped (by the listener) as a whole. Bimal K. Matilal (1990) has tried to unify these views - he feels that for Bhartṛhari the very process of thinking involves vibrations, so that thought has some sound-like properties. Thought operates by śabdana or 'speaking', - so that the mechanisms of thought are
341-433: Is the causal root, the intention, behind an utterance, in which sense is similar to the notion of lemma in most psycholinguistic theories of speech production. However, sphoṭa arises also in the listener, which is different from the lemma position. Uttering the nāda induces the same mental state or sphoṭa in the listener - it comes as a whole, in a flash of recognition or intuition ( pratibhā , 'shining forth'). This
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#1732844728667372-547: The Vākyapadīya , the term sphoṭa takes on a finer nuance, but there is some dissension among scholars as to what Bhartṛhari intended to say. Sphoṭa retains its invariant attribute, but sometimes its indivisibility is emphasized and at other times it is said to operate at several levels. In verse I.93, Bhartṛhari states that the sphota is the universal or linguistic type — sentence-type or word-type, as opposed to their tokens (sounds). Bhartṛhari develops this doctrine in
403-688: The Vākyapadīya ("[treatise] on words and sentences "). The work is divided into three books, the Brahma-kāṇḍa , (or Āgama-samuccaya "aggregation of traditions"), the Vākya-kāṇḍa , and the Pada-kāṇḍa (or Prakīrṇaka "miscellaneous"). He theorized the act of speech as being made up of three stages: Bhartṛhari is of the śabda-advaita " speech monistic " school which identifies language and cognition. According to George Cardona , "Vākyapadīya
434-567: The shruti , Vedas . Hiriyanna explains Sabda-pramana as a concept which means reliable expert testimony. The schools of Hinduism which consider it epistemically valid suggest that a human being needs to know numerous facts, and with the limited time and energy available, he can learn only a fraction of those facts and truths directly. He must rely on others, his parent, family, friends, teachers, ancestors and kindred members of society to rapidly acquire and share knowledge and thereby enrich each other's lives. This means of gaining proper knowledge
465-660: The Audible Life Stream , Inner Sound , Sound Current or Word in English, the Shabd is the esoteric essence of God which is available to all human beings, according to the Shabd path teachings of Sant Mat , Surat Shabd Yoga , Eckankar , Vardankar (a split-off from Eckankar), and Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness . Sphota Sphoṭa ( Sanskrit : स्फोट , IPA: [ˈspʰoːʈɐ] ; "bursting, opening", "spurt")
496-525: The Shabad is Gurmukhi . Shabad is the term also used to refer to hymns within other Sikh scriptures, like Deh Siva Var Mohe . Shabad Vani is devotional singing of hymns from Sikh scriptures. The second use of the term Shabad in Sikhism is for the holy name of God, Waheguru . Esoterically, Shabd is the “Sound Current vibrating in all creation. It can be heard by the inner ears.” Variously referred to as
527-604: The genitive in Sanskrit and lectured on Sanskrit and Indo-European languages at the Paris and at the University of Geneva for nearly three decades. It is thought that he might have been influenced by some ideas of Bhartṛhari, particularly the sphoṭa debate. In particular, his description of the sign , as composed of the signifier and the signified, where these entities are not separable—the whole mapping from sound to denotation constitutes
558-552: The vācaka-vācya linkage is viewed as arbitrary and conventional, and not eternal. However, he agrees with Kumarila in terms of the compositionality of an utterance. Throughout the second millennium, a number of treatises discussed the sphoṭa doctrine. Particularly notable is Nageśabhaṭṭa's Sphotavāda (18th century). Nageśa clearly defines sphoṭa as a carrier of meaning, and identifies eight levels, some of which are divisible. In modern times, scholars of Bhartṛhari have included Ferdinand de Saussure , who did his doctoral work on
589-698: The Greek concept of logos . Language philosophy in Medieval India was dominated by the dispute of the "naturalists" to the Mimamsa school, notably defended by Kumarila , who held that shabda designates the actual phonetic utterance, and the Sphota school, defended by Mandana Mishra , which identifies sphota and shabda as a mystical "indivisible word-whole". Traditional Śabda (शब्द) means relying on word, testimony of past or present reliable experts, specifically
620-459: The first development of the sphoṭavāda to Sphoṭāyana . The account of the Chinese traveller Yijing places a firm terminus ante quem of AD 670 on Bhartṛhari. Scholarly opinion had formerly tended to place him in the 6th or 7th century; current consensus places him in the 5th century. By some traditional accounts, he is the same as the poet Bhartṛhari who wrote the Śatakatraya . In
651-418: The former, word meanings, if any, are arrived at after analyzing the sentences in which they occur. This debate had many of the features animating present day debates in language over semantic holism , for example. The Mīmāṃsakas felt that the sound-units or the letters alone make up the word. The sound-units are uttered in sequence, but each leaves behind an impression, and the meaning is grasped only when
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#1732844728667682-399: The last unit is uttered. The position was most ably stated by Kumarila Bhatta (7th century) who argued that the 'sphoṭas' at the word and sentence level are after all composed of the smaller units, and cannot be different from their combination. However, in the end it is cognized as a whole, and this leads to the misperception of the sphoṭa as a single indivisible unit. Each sound unit in
713-415: The lost text Saṃgraha , may have developed some ideas in sphoṭa theory; in particular some distinctions relevant to dhvani are referred to by Bhartṛhari. There is no use of sphoṭa as a technical term prior to Patañjali, but Pāṇini (6.1.123) refers to a grammarian named Sphoṭāyana as one of his predecessors. This has induced Pāṇini's medieval commentators (such as Haradatta ) to ascribe
744-488: The notion of "flash or insight" or " revelation " central to the concept also lent itself to this viewpoint. However, the modern view is that it is perhaps a more psychological distinction. Bhartṛhari expands on the notion of sphoṭa in Patañjali, and discusses three levels: He makes a distinction between sphoṭa , which is whole and indivisible, and nāda , the sound, which is sequenced and therefore divisible. The sphoṭa
775-532: The notions of cognition and linguistic performance, which is ultimately identical to Brahman . Bhartrhari recognised two entities, both of which may be referred to as shabda . One entity is the underlying cause of the articulated sounds, while the other entity is the functionality that is used to express meaning. Bhartrhari thus rejected the difference posited between the ontological and the linguistic by logicians . His concept of shabda-brahman which identified linguistic performance and creation itself ran parallel to
806-552: The same as that of language. Indeed, Bhartṛhari seems to be saying that thought is not possible without language. This leads to a somewhat whorfian position on the relationship between language and thought. The sphoṭa then is the carrier of this thought, as a primordial vibration. Sometimes the nāda-sphoṭa distinction is posited in terms of the signifier -signified mapping, but this is a misconception. In traditional Sanskrit linguistic discourse (e.g. in Katyāyana), vācaka refers to
837-463: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Shabad . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shabad&oldid=1155739869 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists Hidden categories: Short description
868-589: The signifier, and 'vācya' the signified. The 'vācaka-vācya' relation is eternal for Katyāyana and the Mīmāṃsakas , but is conventional among the Nyāya. However, in Bhartṛhari, this duality is given up in favour of a more holistic view - for him, there is no independent meaning or signified; the meaning is inherent in the word or the sphoṭa itself. Sphoṭa theory remained widely influential in Indian philosophy of language and
899-706: The term Shabad (Gurmukhi: ਸਬਦ) has two primary meanings. The first context of the term is to refer to a hymn or paragraph or sections of the Holy Text that appears in Guru Granth Sahib , the main holy scripture of the Sikhs. The Guru Granth Sahib is organised by chapters of ragas , with each chapter containing many shabads of that raga . The first Shabad in Guru Granth Sahib is the Mool Mantar . The script used for
930-456: The utterance is an eternal, and the actual sounds differ owing to differences in manifestation. The Nyāya view is enunciated among others by Jayanta (9th century), who argues against the Mīmāṃsā position by saying that the sound units as uttered are different; e.g. for the sound [g], we infer its 'g-hood' based on its similarity to other such sounds, and not because of any underlying eternal. Also,
961-527: Was the focus of much debate over several centuries. It was adopted by most scholars of Vyākaraṇa (grammar), but both the Mīmāṃsā and Nyāya schools rejected it, primarily on the grounds of compositionality . Adherents of the 'sphota' doctrine were holistic or non-compositional ( a-khanḍa-pakṣa ), suggesting that many larger units of language are understood as a whole, whereas the Mīmāṃsakas in particular proposed compositionality ( khanḍa-pakṣa ). According to