Uha

[Ashok Aklujkar]

Lars,

Uha becomes a technical term primarily in MImA.msA. In its use there, the
ultimate concern is with form. The chosen form of the expression may be
conditioned by the contextually required meaning, but the substitution
itself is not thought of as one of meaning. In Uha one changes the form of a
Vedic sentence (temporarily and without damaging the MImA.msA thesis of
eternality of Vedic sentences).

Following the MImA.msA, Uha is sometimes used for substitutions in non-Vedic
sentences (in the discussions in texts on poetics, grammar etc.), but there
too the ultimate interest is in the form.

In other words, we should distinguish between the technical and
non-technical uses. The technical arises out of the non-technical or
ordinary language use in the sense of 'guess, infer' as in the case of many
other technical terms in Skt, but is form-oriented and similar to adhyAhAra.
The KS use you mention is probably non-technical and similar to the ordinary
language use of tarka.

ashok


> From: Lars Martin Fosse <lmfosse at CHELLO.NO>
> Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:41:52 +0100

> However, it might perhaps be an idea to add "semantic":
> "context-sensitive semantic modification/adaptation/substitution".
> 
> My question relates to a passage in the Kamasutra, where "inferred meaning"
> would probably do as well, since the reader most likely would have other
> things to think about than the technicalities of linguistic terminology.