Saying the Unsayable

A number of traditional philosophers and religious thinkers advocated an ineffability thesis to the effect that the ultimate reality cannot be expressed as it truly is by human concepts and words. But this thesis has been criticized and dismissed by some modern scholars. This article intends to show the consistency of this thesis. After introducing certain criticisms set forth by the critics and examining the disputable solution offered by John Hick, the author attends to Bhartr hari's solution to tackle the main problem here. This fifth-century Indian grammarian-philosopher's strategy, based on the imposition-cum-negation method, is then enlarged and supplemented to deal with the criticisms and related issues.