Abstract

The whole of the premodern Indian world appears shot through with language. The analysis of language, first undertaken to preserve the sacred texts of the Brahmins, achieved such conceptual sophistication that it served as the model, directly or indirectly, for almost all traditions of systematic thought, regardless of religious affiliation. Language was implicated in all the most important philosophical debates, regarding the nature of reality and the foundations of knowledge, and became an object of philosophical debate itself. Given the enormous tangle of sources that address these issues, spanning several traditions of thought, and given their complexity, if not abstruseness, it would be difficult for anyone to...