Philosophy of language in the Five Nikayas
by K.T.S. Sarao | 2013 | 141,449 words
This page relates ‘Contexts of Language and Meaning in the Five Nikayas� of the study of the Philosophy of language in the Five Nikayas, from the perspective of linguistics. The Five Nikayas, in Theravada Buddhism, refers to the five books of the Sutta Pitaka (“Basket of Sutra�), which itself is the second division of the Pali Tipitaka of the Buddhist Canon (literature).
7. Contexts of Language and Meaning in the Five ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹²õ
There are totally four major issues concerning to the theory of language to be emerged in the Five ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹²õ.
The first issue is a requirement of language comprehension and language production in the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right View (²õ²¹³¾³¾Äå»å¾±á¹á¹³ó¾±).
The Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹, Sutta number 43.13 points out the two necessary conditions to arrive right view; that is,
- ‘voice of another� (paratoghosa), and
- ‘wise attentionâ€� (²â´Ç²Ô¾±²õ´Ç³¾²¹²Ô²¹²õ¾±°ìÄå°ù²¹).
These two conditions require the process of language comprehension.
The Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹, Sutta number 43.14 announces that apart from two conditions above, right view is assisted by other five factors:
- virtue,
- learning,
- discussion,
- serenity, and
- insight.
Among these five, the middle two factors; that is, learning and discussion, require both the process of language comprehension and process of language production while the last two are the cultivation of mind.
The second issue is found in Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹, Sutta number 44.13-5 at which it points out three kinds of formation, those are:
- body formation,
- verbal formation, and
- mental formation.
The verbal formation is defined as “applied thought and sustained thought� whereas mental formation is as “perception and feeling.�
The third issue is the language behaviour which comprises of four emergent topics:
(i) cultivating right speech and abandoning wrong speech; this point is showed in Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹, Sutta number 27.13, 41.9, 13, 47.14, 51.14, 54.4-8; 141.26;
(ii) the attitude to other’s abuse and honour as exposed in Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹, Sutta number 21.6; 22.39;
(iii) training and maintaining loving-kindness in verbal acts as showed in Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹, Sutta number 21.11; 48.6; and
(iv) kinds of speech that one should and should not utter as described in Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹, Sutta number 58.1-8; 139.3-12.
The fourth issue is the silent language of the Buddha which is showed in the Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹, Sutta number 63; 72. This issue opened the door for the establishment of the ²ÑÄå»å³ó²â²¹³¾¾±°ì²¹ dialectic, a great system of Buddhist philosophy.
The central idea of the Five ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹²õ in general the Majjhima ±·¾±°ìÄå²â²¹ in particular is the cultivation and development of mind. The subject of mind, therefore, appears in all discourses of the Collections.