Essay on the Nature and Classification of Sabda

Sabda is the last pramana accepted by the Nyaya. Literally sabda means verbal knowledge. It is the knowledge of objects derived from words or sentences. All verbal knowledge, however, is not valid.

Hence sabda, as a pramana, is defined in the Nyaya as valid verbal testimony. It consists in the assertion of a trustworthy person.

A verbal statement is valid when it comes from a person who knows the truth and speaks the truth about anything for the guidance of another person.”

But it is a matter of common observation that a sentence or statement is not by itself sufficient to give us any knowledge of things. Nor again does the mere perception of the words of a sentence leads to any knowledge about objects.

It is only when one perceives the words and understands their meanings that he acquires any knowledge from a verbal statement.

Hence while the validity of verbal knowledge depends on its being based on the statement of a trustworthy person, its possibility depends on the understanding of the meaning of that statement.

Hence sabda or testimony, as a source of valid knowledge, consists in understanding the meaning of the statement of a trustworthy person.

There are two ways of classifying sabda or verbal knowledge. According to the one, there are two kinds of sabda, namely, that relating to perceptible objects (drstartha) and that relating to imperceptible objects (adrstartha).

Under the first head we are to include the trustworthy assertions of ordinary persons, the saints and the scriptures insofar as they bear on the perceptible objects of the world, e.g. the evidence given by witnesses in the law courts.

The statements of a reliable farmer about plants, the scriptural injunctions to perform certain rites to bring about rainfall, etc.

The second will include all the trustworthy assertions of ordinary persons, saints, prophets and the scriptures insofar as they bear on supersensible realities, e.g. the scientists’ assertions about atoms, ether, electrons, vitamins, etc., the prophets instructions about virtue and vice, the scriptural texts on God, freedom and immortality.

According to another classification, there are two kinds of testimony, the scriptural (vaidika) and the secular (laukika) in vaidika testimony we have the words of God.

Vaidika or scriptural testimony is thus perfect and infallible by its very nature. But laukika or secular testimony is not all valid.

It is the testimony of human beings and may, therefore, be true or false of laukika testimony, only that which proceeds from trustworthy persons is valid, but not the rest.

It will be observed here that the first classification of testimony (sabda) has reference to the nature of the objects of knowledge, the second to the nature of the source of knowledge.

But the two classifications, given by different Naiyayikas, agree in implying that testimony must always be personal, i.e. based on the words of some trustworthy person, human or divine.

In respect of their truth, however, there is no difference among the trustworthy statements of an ordinary person, a saint, a prophet, and the scriptures as revealed by God.