Department of Oriental Sanskrit, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India.
The entire humanity across the word expresses itself by tire medium of words. Though signs, symbols, signals and gestures are used to pass on the message in specific situations, the actual meaning of expression is known only through words. Words and their meaning have been studied very seriously in Indian Philosophy. Grammar and other fields of knowledge have always used accurate words. The meaning of a verb and its prefixe and suffix can be described, explained or, understood only through grammatical traditions of meaning. The word gets its significance only with their meaning. So the relationship between words are called shabd vritti. There are three kinds of shabd vritti: shakti, lakshana and vyanjana; and shakti takes the first place, which has always been a point of discussion among the academicians and grammarians. For example the Naiyayiks assume that the shakti is the desire of the God whereas the Mimansakas consider it as cognition of denotation. The old Vaiyakarans, Konbhatta et al, accept it as the field of denotative structure but the new grammarians, Nagesh Bhatta et al, propose that there is always a specific and dynamic relationship between the words and its meaning which finally defines the shakti. In this article I have determined the form of shabd shakti after having taken a close look at the above mentioned discussions.
