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for the reception of sound. It receives the sound and transmits it to the tongue. In actuality it is only the tongue which hears. To prove his contention he advances the following argument: One man is deaf. It is not necessary that the deaf man be dumb too. But one who is dumb is necessarily deaf also. The one who cannot talk with his tongue is dumb and the one who cannot hear with his ears is deaf. The one who is deaf may still be able to speak but the one who is dumb is neither able to speak nor hear. The one, whose tongue is not functioning, is dumb and he definitely cannot hear either. This is an unchanging rule.” The Acharya said: “The dumb man is deaf because his tongue is defective and he is not able to hear. The ear is functioning well, it receives the sound and transmits it to the tongue, but the tongue is not able to catch it and so the man is unable to hear. So it is inevitable that a dumb man is deaf. The tongue of the man who is not dumb has the power to hear. His ear, however, is defective. So the ear is not able to grasp the transmissions of the tongue. That is why he is not able to hear. Today's physiologists also say that the power of hearing is greater in the teeth bones than in the ear.
Acharya Mahaprajna
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