Bhartrhari: Language, Thought and Reality

This volume is the outcome of the international seminar on Bhartrhari: Thought, Language and Reality held in New Delhi on 12-14 December 2003 as a part of the centenary celebrations of Motilal Banarsidass. In this seminar, scholars from all over the world presented their interpretations of Bhartrhari's philosophy, some in the light of the modern trends in philosophy and linguistics, others in the backdrop of Indian tradition. This volume contains almost all the papers pesented at the seminar along with some other papers invited from scholars who could not participate in the seminar to make it comprehensive. The papers discuss the metaphysics of Bhartrhari and his ideas about questions concerning language and reality. Some of the papers compare Bhartrhari with Western philosophers and linguists like Wittgenstein, Grice, Searle, Humboldt, Chomsky and Goldberg, thus showing his relevance to problems in contemporary philosophy and linguistics. It is clear that after the initial efforts in the fourth to sixth decades of the twentieth century, Bhartrhari studies have now gained a significant momentum. The volume succeeds in highlighting the importance of Bhartrhari as a philosopher of language as well as a metaphysician and the immense areas of research which lie ahead.