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This thesis examines the revival of the sphoṭa doctrine in early modern Benares and Śeṣakṛṣṇa's Sphoṭattvanirūpaṇa as an influential work in that revival. The sphoṭa doctrine is the richest contribution of the grammarians to the philosophy of language, but its semantic significance was not highlighted until late, because its theological implication was stronger. Śeṣakṛṣṇa was a renowned Sanskrit grammarian who flourished in sixteenth-century Benares. He also wrote poetry and Dharmasastric works, and played an important role as a juridical authority. Despite his illustrious career, Śeṣakṛṣṇa encountered criticism for his works from contemporary critics. The only work he wrote solely on the philosophy of language was the Sphoṭattvanirūpaṇa. As the first discrete work on sphoṭa by a grammarian, the Sphoṭattvanirūpaṇa represented an important landmark in the later expositions of the doctrine of sphoṭa particularly because it renewed the later grammarians' interest in sphoṭa, which then resulted in a series of individual works of a similar sort. The revival of the sphoṭa doctrine in early modern Benares coincided with that of the philosophy of language, which was caused by a number of social and intellectual factors in different proportions and phases. Śeṣakṛṣṇa's Sphoṭattvanirūpaṇa emerged on the eve of that revival, and can be recognized as a pioneer work in terms of its revitalization of the grammarians' interpretation of sphoṭa after a period of dormancy, and its influence on later works on sphoṭa.

This thesis is an investigation of smara. Smara is a Sanskrit word and means memory and desire. It has no equivalent in the English language and so the attempt to understand smara becomes both a linguistic and an ontological task. / The reader is introduced to the similarities and idiosyncrasies between Western and Indian notions of memory and desire and then invited into the search for the junction between memory and desire in Indian thought. / Analysis of anthropological and philosophical texts as well as a semantic mapping of Kalidasa's masterpiece entitled Sakuntala: The Ring of Recollection, reveals not only the co-existence of memory and desire in smara but also the notion of smara as a process.

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