Grammar. Philosophy and Epistemology

Harsha Dehejia harshadehejia at HOTMAIL.COM
Thu Oct 12 08:50:02 UTC 2006


Freinds:

While I respectfully agree with Madhav Despande's grammatical exposition of 
Sanskrit terms pazya and dRz I am not totally convinced that one can totally 
dismiss the connection between grammar and philosophy.

Pazya means to see and drz is vision or insight. Seeing does not 
automatically lead to vision, it requires contemplation.

Sanskrit grammar is naunced with many implications.

Regards.

Harsha
Harsha V. Dehejia
Professor of Indian Studies, Carleton University
Ottawa, ON. Canada.


>From: "Deshpande, Madhav" <mmdesh at UMICH.EDU>
>Reply-To: Indology <INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk>
>To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Indian epistemic terms
>Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:36:05 -0400
>
>Dear Harsha,
>
>      'pazya' and 'dRz' have a suppletive relationship in Sanskrit like'go' 
>and 'went' in English.  Both 'pazya' and 'dRz' taken separately have 
>incomplete paradigms, but in the actual usage of the language, these two 
>roots complement each other.  So the passive form corresponding to pazyati 
>is dRzyate, and so on.  The Rgvedic passage uta tvaH pazyan na dadarza 
>vAcam uta tvaH zRNvan na zRNoty enAm exhibits this suppletive behavior.
>
>Madhav M. Deshpande
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Indology on behalf of Harsha Dehejia
>Sent: Wed 10/11/2006 5:08 PM
>To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Indian epistemic terms
>
>Friends:
>
>An important concept that is overlooked by epistemologists is that of
>DRISHTI or visual knowledge.
>
>While PASHYATI is a verb there is no verb like DRASHYATI. This is  the
>beginning of an inquiry into visual knowledge.
>
>I am trying to develop this concept further.
>
>Regareds.
>
>Harsha
>Harsha V. Dehejia
>Professor of Indian Studies, College of Humanities
>Carleton University, Ottawa, ON. Canada.





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