271. 302 CHAPTER V

302 CHAPTER V

ing the suggestible meaning. Mahima Bhatta attempts to show that it is wrong to use the word Dhvani in any one of the senses, given above : firstly because the words have no other power than to convey the conventional meanings: they, therefore, cannot suggest the suggestible : secondly because there is no suggestible meaning in the primary sense of the word, therefore, it is absurd to talk of the conventional meaning as suggestive of the suggestible: thirdly because the conception of Dhvani as a power of word (Abhivyakti) is illogical, therefore, to say that the words suggest the suggestible is meaningless: fourthly because there is no suggestible meaning : and fifthly because the poetic works do not admit of particularisation in terms of Dhvani. We will elaborate these points as we procced.

(I) HIS REFUTATION OF OTHER POWERS OF WORD THAN THE CONVENTIONAL.

Mahima Bhatta holds that words have only one power, that of arousing the conventional meaning ; accordingly they have only one function. Other functions, such as that of arousing the suggested, or more correctly, the inferred meaning, belong to the meaning only and not to the word. Words cannot be spoken of as possessing many powers. For, the powers, which have a common substratum, are independent of one another as well as of the law of succes- sion in the discharge of their functions, e. g. the powers of fire to burn and to illumine. But many powers, which are admitted by Ananda Vardhana and his followers to belong to words, are not seen to so discharge their functions, nor are they admitted to be capable of doing so by them; because consistently and regularly other powers are seen to function only after the power to arouse the conventional meaning. Hence the substratum of other powers has to