Is Word-Meaning Denoted or Remembered? Salikanatha's Cornerstone in Defence of Anvitabhidhana

The role of memory in one's cognition of sentential meaning is a pivotal topic in Indian philosophical debates on the nature of language. The Bha??a Mimamsakas claim in their doctrine of abhihitanvaya that words denote word-meanings which in turn lead one to sentential meaning, with memory playing only a limited role in this process. The Prabhakara Mimamsakas however assign memory a central role and assert that each word in a sentence denotes the connected sentential meaning. This paper is a philosophical and philological study of the arguments presented by the influential Prabhakara thinker Salikanatha in his Vakyarthamatrka-I (VM-I) in order to substantiate the role of memory as part of the doctrine of anvitabhidhana. The VM-I commences these discussions with an objection of the Bha??a purvapaksin against this Prabhakara doctrine (often quoted even in recent scholarship), and thereafter proceeds to refute this objection by demonstrating the role of memory, specifically in regard to word-meaning. Salikanatha lays out his refutation by means of several layers of intricate argumentation, and this paper attempts to follow the text closely and present cogently his philosophical reasoning. The aim of this paper is thus to not only demonstrate the early pre-empting of this Bha??a objection by Salikanatha himself but also his own responses to this, thereby enabling one to understand with greater clarity a cornerstone of the elaborate doctrine of anvitabhidhana.