वेदार्थनिर्णय: Veda-artha-nirNaya - determining the meanings of Veda - 1

वेदार्थनिर्णय: Veda-artha-nirNaya - determining the meanings of Veda - 1

पद-अर्थ-निर्णय (meaning determination of a word)

1. नामादि - नाम, आख्यात, उपसर्ग, निपात - these four are Name, Action root, prefix, etc. the basic building blocks of language - each has some weightage when meanings are determined - again depending on each one's meaning with in a sentence and also based on the context

2. जात्यादि

First the word has to be understand within a context whether it refers to जातिः (genre /universal)  व्यक्तिः (individual /specific). E.g.: "Don't kill a cow" - here the word "cow" means the universal not just a specific cow but generally refers to the Cowhood or Cowness. "Bring a cow" here the word "cow" refers to the individual - a specific cow and not "cowness".  - this जातिवादः (मीमांसा)  and जातिविशिष्टव्यक्ति (न्याय) for word meaning determination.

In the above itself 2 more things are added for meaning determination - गुण (attributes/ qualities) क्रिया (capacity to perform a particular action) - example "we are not getting milk therefore we need to buy a cow" - here the word "cow" means not universal but a particular cow - but it does not stop there - it also means a Cow which is giving milk now (दोहार्हा गोः) - not some cow which stopped giving milk or which is just pregnant, etc. but specifically a cow which is giving milk - means she has just delivered a calf. Thus this statement means the "calf" is also included when the cow needs to be bought. Now another statement is added to the original statement "we are not getting milk therefore we need to buy a cow" like this "we can also sell milk to few other people" - now the word cow means not just a milking cow but high milk yielding cow - probably "sindhi" variety cow.

Now notice that the meaning of the word "Cow" differs depending on 4 parameters जाति, गुण, क्रिया, व्यक्ति - this is called जात्यादिचतुष्टयम् - thus while determining the word meaning one has to consider all four possibilities - this is जात्यादिचतुष्टयवादः

3. योगादि - योग, रूढ, योगरूढ, यौगिकरूढ - these are another entirely different classification of meaning determination - I am not going into the explanation of each one except that - Yoga means - the root+suffix meaning (as it is), rooDa means how the meaning has changed overtime based on usage. The famous example is that the word "kushala" - this means in yoga the 'one who brings the Kusha grass', in rooDa means 'the one who is capable'. How the original meaning got changed overtime is that - to bring the kusha (darba) grass one has to have certain capability (else the blade of grass can wound the hand) - the meaning of capability got superimposed on the meaning of grass. Now the word "kushala" means - healthy (health got superimposed onto capability - because only when one is healthy he/she is capable). 2 more mix categories.

4. वाचकद्योतकादि - वाचक द्योतक ज्ञापक - there categories of sound and its meaning - this will take more time to explain therefore I am not taking this.

5. शक्तिग्रहः व्याकरणोपमानादि  (न्यायमतानुसारम्) - Nyaya (Tarka) shastra says another 10 ways a word's meaning is determined - I am not explaining them here

6. संयोगादि -  वाक्यपदीयम्  in Vaakyapadiyam (a very important Terse Vyakarana Siddhanta text) - there are 14 methods to determine contextual meanings of words. 

The above are just for deriving word meanings. Now sentence meanings. What is a sentence = one has to study for many years to understand and determine a sentence meaningfully. Read Naom Chomsky, etc.

Still for Vedic sentences - they could be injunctions, arthavaada, or a prashamsaa, etc. for that the Mimamsa says some methods for meaning analysis 

7. पूर्वमीमांसानुसारः - उपक्रमादि  (Poorvameemamsa based method for Vedic sentence meaning)

उपक्रमोपसंहारौ अभ्यासोऽपूर्वता फलम् ।
अर्थवादोपपत्ती च लिङ्गं तात्पर्यनिर्णये ॥

After all these if one arrives at meaning for a Vedic passage - that could just be either अधिभौतिक - meaning just the Bhootaartha or physical meaning - but that is still not the purport or conception or signification (these 3 are themselves different from each other) of the Vedic passage

For prayoga (deployment), niyoga (employment) or viniyoga (usage based employment) in a Vedic rite one needs inquire on the 
अधिदैविक meaning of a Vedic passage

Finally to go to the ultimate purpose of the Vedic passage on has to contemplate and understand the अध्यात्मक meaning of a particular  Vedic passage - for this one has to go to the corresponding Upanishad also.

Now so far what I have explained is just "tip-of-the-iceberg" for the right kind of Veda-artha-vichara parampara.

If one really has the quest to understand Veda - then that person should study samhita paaTa, pada paaTa, krama paaTa, (gain mastery over PaaraayaNam) and then go for Vyakarana, Nyaya, Mimamsa studies (in short called as padavaakyapramaaNa shastra) and then Veda Bhashya studies. - totally it will take about 13+ years. One who has completed such a study under the tutelage of a Veda vidvan (ghana paaTi and then a Veda-shastrajna) can only correctly give the meaning of a Vedic passage. Simply being part of a mouse-clicking army or an arm-chair intellectual gang one can't give correct meaning to a Vedic passage. Also the meaning many-a-times is "subjective" (this is another twist). 

This are the reasons why I don't write about Veda - because I consider myself not qualified enough to comment on that. I am just onto my 8 year of studies in Shastra, it will take another 5 years to gain the depth and maturity to really understand Veda in the right perspective. When I wanted understand Sanskrit shastra - I didn't pick up the mouse and downloaded some stuff from the internet and build my knowledge - that kind of knowledge is always superficial. There are 1000s of G+, FB, Twitter, groups, forums, communities etc. for satisfying mouse-click warriors - my desire is not to make this one group also another one of such a forum

Also most importantly, We need not go to Veda for everything - that's why we have Bhagavadgita and many other shastra and smrti texts. What is said in Veda is also said in many shastras (the essence). Even in Puranas in metaphorical way.

The second part of this - very specific to Veda artha will be written in another piece