215. ABHINAVAGUPTA'S THEORY OF MEANING 239

ABHINAVAGUPTA'S THEORY OF MEANING 239

associated with its particular meaning, such an admission of the limited expressive power of individual expression, will land the opponent into difficulty. For, this would imply the necessity of some factor, which would be responsible for the arousal of the secondary meaning. If it were said that it is the impossibility of, or lack of coherence in the conventional meanings of the two words in a particular context, which is responsible for it, that would mean the admission of the secondary meaning as distinct from the suggestible, because in the case of the suggestible meaning1 no such impossibility is necessarily involved.

LAKŞAŅALAKŞAŅĀ AS SUBSTITUTE FOR DHVANI.

In the preceding paragraph, we have stated the position of the opponent, who holds that postulation of Dhvani is unnecessary. For, if the secondary power of the language be supposed to arouse all the ideas, which are associated, in any way, with the conventional meaning, the so called suggestible meaning also will come under the secondary. And in the course of its criticism, we pointed out that such a hypothesis would mean indefinite- ness in the meaning in all cases and that admission of any factor to account for definiteness in some cases such as "Gangayam ghosah" would mean the admission of the suggestive power. The opponent, therefore, tries to explain the definiteness by assuming a variety of Laksana, the secondary power, called Laksanalaksanā. His position may be stated as follows :- The ordinary secondary meaning is got out of a construction by simple Laksanā, for instance, the meaning of "Gangayam Ghosah" as "Gangatīre ghosah". But

1. Dh. L., 56.