negations and their names

[Birgit Kellner]

> On Mon, 16 Feb 1998, jonathan silk wrote:
>
> > I recently was warned by Katsura Shoryu that it is incorrect to write a
> > hyphen in the expression Paryudasa- and Prasajya-pratisedha. According to
> > Katsura,  "there is no cp. like 'paryudasa-pratisedha'. 'paryudasa' means
> > 'negation.'"
> >
> > However, I have found the term in Mahavyutpatti 4510; to this Katsura
> > suggests it may be a retranslation from Tibetan. OK. Again, I pointed out
> > that in Frits Staals' Reader in the Skt. Grammarians, p. 496, note 55,  so
> > great an authority as Louis Renou uses the same term. OK. Even Homer nods.
> >
> > QUESTION: does the compound paryudaasa-pratis.edha exist in actual Sanskrit
> > texts? (I would expect that if it comes up, it would be in grammar or
> > logic, but any actual attestation would be of interest. )

I have never come across the compound paryudaasa-pratis.edha in a
Sanskrit text, that is, in Buddhist writings on the subject-matter of
apoha or anupalabdhi, and in related discussions (about abhaava and
anupalabdhi) in Nyaaya or Miimaam.saa-treatises.

It seems to me that the lexical asymmetry between the two technical
terms
paryudaasa and prasajyapratis.edha was definitely perceived, and
occasionally deemed problematic. However, the commonly followed strategy
to
balance it out was cutting off the "pratis.edha" of prasajyapr. (which
leads to constructions such as "paryudaasapaks.e ...., prasajyapaks.e tu
...", or other occurrences of "prasajya" in the sense of
"prasajyapratis.edha"). The other option, that is, adding "pratis.edha"
to "paryudaasa", does not seem to have been realized.

The Tibetan translations "ma yin dgag" and "med dgag" (for
paryudaasa/prasajyapratis.edha) are based on conceptual content rather
than on an analysis of the terms into component parts, and I think
Katsura is justified in considerind MVy 'paryudaasa-pratis.edha' as a
retranslation (and not a good one at that).

It might be of interest that Prof. Kajiyama has raised the same question
at the last Dharmakiirti-conference (November last year in Hiroshima),
and to my
recollection, nobody could come up with a reference for
"paryudaasapratis.edha".

--
Birgit Kellner
Department for Indian Philosophy
Hiroshima University