0648 Verse 892

Original

अभ्यासात्प्रतिभाहेतुः सर्वः शब्दः समासतः ।
बालानां च तिरश्चां च यथाऽर्थप्रतिपादने ॥ ८९२ ॥

abhyāsātpratibhāhetuḥ sarvaḥ śabdaḥ samāsataḥ |
bālānāṃ ca tiraścāṃ ca yathā’rthapratipādane || 892 ||

In short, all words are productive of intuition, through repeated usage; as is found in the case of making things known to children and animals.—(892).

Kamalaśīla

(f) Others have held that—“By repeated usage Word comes to produce an intuition, and it does not actually denote any external object”.—This view is set forth in the following—[see verse 892 above]

‘Repeated usage’,—finding the word applied to a certain object again and again.

‘Intuition’,—is a mental capacity which tends to bring about the notion of a certain activity as due to a certain cause; this capacity is produced by the word as associated with frequent usage; it varies with each sentence and with each person; as its diversity is illimitable, on account of the usage of words being endless, it cannot be described; hence all that is said is that it is like making things known to children and animals;—the stroke of the driving Hook, used for making things known to the elephant, comes to produce an Intuition in the animal; in the same manner all expressive words,—such as ‘tree’, etc. etc.—through repeated usage, come ultimately to produce only an Intuition and they do not actually denote anything directly. Otherwise, how could there be mutually contradictory interpretations of Texts? How too could there be any imaginary stories and other compositions which speak of things created by the imagination of the writer?—(892)