the same moment by several persons, be at the same time of different nature, viz. accented with the udatta, the anudatta, and the Svarita and nasal as well as non-nasal * ? Or else2 — and this is the preferable explanation — we assume that the difference of apprehension is caused not by the letters but by the tone (dhvani). By this tone we have to understand that which enters the ear of a person who is listening from a distance and not able to distinguish the separate letters, and which, for a person standing near, affects the letters with its own distinctions, such as high or low pitch and so on. It is on this tone that all the distinctions of udatta, anudatta, and so on depend, and not on the intrinsic nature of the letters ; for they are recognised as the same whenever they are pronounced. On this theory only we gain a basis for the distinctive apprehension of the udatta, the anudatta, and the like. For on the theory first propounded (but now rejected), we should have to assume that the distinctions of udatta and so on are due to the processes of conjunction and disjunction described above, since the letters themselves, which are ever re- cognised as the same, are not different. But as those processes of conjunction and disjunction are not matter of perception, we cannot definitely ascertain in the letters any differences based on those processes, and hence the apprehension of the udatta and so on remains without a basis. — Nor should it be urged that from the dif- ference of the udatta and so on there results also a difference of the letters recognised. For a difference in one matter does not involve a difference in some other matter which in itself is free from difference. Nobody, for instance, thinks that because the individuals
1 'How should it be so?' i.e. it cannot be so; and on that account the differences apprehended do not belong to the letters themselves, but to the external conditions mentioned above.
2 With ' or else ' begins the exposition of the finally accepted theory as to the cause why the same letters are apprehended as different. Hitherto the cause had been found in the variety of the upadhis of the letters. Now a new distinction is made between articulated letters and non-articulated tone.
I Adhyaya, 3 Pada, 28. 2o9
are different from each other the species also contains a difference in itself.
The assumption of the spho/a is further gratuitous, be- cause the sense of the word may be apprehended from the letters. — But— our opponent here objects — I do not assume the existence of the spho/a. I, on the contrary, actually perceive it ; for after the buddhi has been impressed by the successive apprehension of the letters of the word, the spho/a all at once presents itself as the object of cognition. — You are mistaken, we reply. The object of the cognitional act of which you speak is simply the letters of the word. That one comprehensive cognition which follows upon the apprehension of the successive letters of the word has for its object the entire aggregate of the letters constituting the word, and not anything else. We conclude this from the circumstance that in that final comprehensive cognition there are included those letters only of which a definite given word consists, and not any other letters. If that cognitional act had for its object the spho/a — i.e. something different from the letters of the given word — then those letters would be excluded from it just as much as the letters of any other word. But as this is not the case, it follows that that final comprehensive act of cognition is nothing but an act of remembrance which has the letters of the word for its object. — Our opponent has asserted above that the letters of a word being several cannot form the object of one mental act. But there he is wrong again. The ideas which we have of a row, for instance, or a wood or an army, or of the numbers ten, hundred, thousand, and so on, show that also such things as comprise several unities can become the objects of one and the same cognitional act. The idea which has for its object the word as one whole is a derived one, in so far as it depends on the determination of one sense in many letters 1 ; in the same way as the idea of a
1 I. e. it is not directly one idea, for it has for its object more than one letter; but it maybe called one in a secondary sense because it is based on the determinative knowledge that the letters, although more than one, express one sense only.
2 I O VEDANTA-sftTRAS.
wood, an army, and so on. — But — our opponent may here object — if the word were nothing else but the letters which in their aggregate become the object of one mental act, such couples of words as ^ara and ra^a or pika and kapi would not be cognised as different words ; for here the same letters are presented to consciousness in each of the words constituting one couple. — There is indeed, we reply, in both cases a comprehensive consciousness of the same totality of letters ; but just as ants constitute the idea of a row only if they march one after the other, so the letters also constitute the idea of a certain word only if they follow each other in a certain order. Hence it is not contrary to reason that the same letters are cognised as different words, in consequence of the different order in which they are arranged.
The hypothesis of him who maintains that the letters are the word may therefore be finally formulated as follows. The letters of which a word consists — assisted by a certain order and number — have, through traditional use, entered into a connexion with a definite sense. At the time when they are employed they present themselves as such (i. e. in their definite order and number) to the buddhi, which, after having apprehended the several letters in succession, finally comprehends the entire aggregate, and they thus unerringly intimate to the buddhi their definite sense. This hypothesis is certainly simpler than the complicated hypothesis of the grammarians who teach that the spho^a is the word. For they have to disregard what is given by perception, and to assume something which is never perceived; the letters apprehended in a definite order are said to manifest the spho/a, and the spho/a in its turn is said to manifest the sense.
Or let it even be admitted that the letters are differ- ent ones each time they are pronounced ; yet, as in that case we necessarily must assume species of letters as the basis of the recognition of the individual letters, the function of conveying the sense which we have demon- strated in the case of the (individual) letters has then to be attributed to the species.
I Adhyaya, 3 Pada, 30. 211
From all this it follows that the theory according to which
the individual gods and so on originate from the eternal
words is unobjectionable.
29. And from this very reason there follows the eternity of the Veda.
As the eternity of the Veda is founded on the absence of the remembrance of an agent only, a doubt with regard to it had been raised owing to the doctrine that the gods and other individuals have sprung from it. That doubt has been refuted in the preceding Sutra. — The present Sutra now confirms the, already established, eternity of the Veda. The eternity of the word of the Veda has to be assumed for this very reason, that the world with its definite (eternal) species, such as gods and so on, originates from it. — A mantra also (' By means of the sacrifice they followed the trace of speech ; they found it dwelling in the rishis,9 Rig-veda. Samh. X, 71, 3) shows that the speech found (by the rishis) was permanent. — On this point Vedavyasa also speaks as follows : ' Formerly the great rishis, being allowed to do so by Svayambhu, ob- tained, through their penance, the Vedas together with the itihasas, which had been hidden at the end of the yuga.'
30. And on account of the equality of names and
forms there is no contradiction (to the eternity of
the word of the Veda) in the renovation (of the
world) ; as is seen from 6ruti and Smnti.
If — the purvapakshin resumes — the individual gods and so on did, like the individual animals, originate and pass away in an unbroken succession so that there would be no break of the course of practical existence including denominations, things denominated and agents denominating ; the con- nexion (between word and thing) would be eternal, and the objection as to a contradiction with reference to the word (raised in Sutra 27) would thereby be refuted. But if, as Sruti and Smriti declare, the whole threefold
212 vedanta-sOtras.
world periodically divests itself of name and form, and is entirely dissolved (at the end of a kalpa), and is after that produced anew ; how can the contradiction be considered to have been removed ?
To this we reply : ' On account of the sameness of name and form.' — Even then the beginninglessness of the world will have to be admitted (a point which the teacher will prove later on: 11,1,36). And in the beginningless sa/^- sara we have to look on the (relative) beginning, and the dissolution connected with a new kalpa in the same light in which we look on the sleeping and waking states, which, although in them according to Scripture (a kind of) dis- solution and origination take place, do not give rise to any contradiction, since in the later waking state (subse- quent to the state of sleep) the practical existence is carried on just as in the former one. That in the sleeping and the waking states dissolution and origination take place is stated Kaush. Up. Ill, 3, ' When a man being asleep sees no dream whatever he becomes one with that pra//a alone. Then speech goes to him with all names, the eye with all forms, the ear with all sounds, the mind with all thoughts. And when he awakes then, as from a burning fire, sparks proceed in all directions, thus from that Self the pr&zzas proceed, each towards its place ; from the pra^as the gods, from the gods the worlds.'
Well, the purvapakshin resumes, it may be that no contradiction arises in the case of sleep, as during the sleep of one person the practical existence of other persons suffers no interruption, and as the sleeping person himself when waking from sleep may resume the very same form of practical existence which was his previously to his sleep. The case of a mahapralaya (i. e. a general annihilation of the world) is however a different one, as then the entire current of practical existence is interrupted, and the form of existence of a previous kalpa can be resumed in a subsequent kalpa no more than an individual can resume that form of existence which it enjoyed in a former birth.
This objection, we reply, is not valid. For although a mahapralaya does cut short the entire current of practical