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Effects of Matter
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reeds. The two vocal chords (membranes) are attached to muscles by which their tension and vibration frequently can be altered. The edges of the membranes are set into vibrations like reeds by the air from the lungs and thus sound is produced, the pitch of which can be altered by altering the tension of the vocal chords, and the quality of which depends upon the air cavities of the nose, throat and mouth, which act as resonators, the shape and the size of which can be varied by the speaker at will. It is similarly explained in the Bhagavatr Vyākhyāprajnapti that speech which is breaking forth while speaking is speech, but not that which was spoken nor that which dies out after the crossing of the speaking time.2
There are stated to be two kinds of vāk (speech), viz. dravyavāk and bhāvavāk (physical and psychical speeches). 3 Ācārya Pūjyapāda explains them in this way: There in the psychical speech is material, as it arises on the destructioncum-subsidence (kşayopaśama) of energy-obstructing karmas and sensory and scriptural knowledge-obscuring karmas, and on the rise of physique-making karmas of limbs and minor limbs. For in the absence of matter there can be no function of psychical speech. Matter prompted by the active soul endowed with this capacity takes the mode of speech. Hence physical speech is also material. Speech is the object of the sense of hearing. 4 “It is perceived through the senses composed of matter, it is obstructed by material objects like the wall and the others, it is intercepted by adverse wind, and it is overpowered by other material causes."5
In support of his predecessor Akalanka deals with the subject by explaining that psychical speech, being the effect (kārya) 1. Int. Physics, S. C. Ray, Chaudhury and D. B. Sinha, p. 571. 2. BhS., 13.7.493. 3. Vāk dvividhā dravyavākbhāvavāgiti, ss., p. 286;
see Višesāvaśyakabhāsya, 336, 337, 351, 352, 353, 354,
375, 377; N. 5. 6, 8, 9. 4. SS., p. 286. 5. Ibid.
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