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ETERNITY OR OTHERWISE OF A WORD
Jadhyatra simply means that the latter word can be used in place of the former two."
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(5) When pronounced with a greater effort a word does not become bigger; what becomes bigger is the sound that makes it manifest.10
Then it is argued that a child learns word-meaning by observing how his elders behave differently when different words are pronounced in their presence, and since such learning is a time-consuming process the words in question cannot be fleeting entities."! And granting that the same word continues to exist for the entire period that is required to learn its meaning, this meaning cannot be put to use at a later occasion unless this very word is pronounced and heard at that occasion. The suggestion that the later heard word is just similar to that originally heard one not the same as the latter-is rejected on the ground that in that case a word must change beyond recognition within the space of several generation." To this is added that in that case the use of the same word at two occasions should be a case of error, just like inferring fire from vapour which just happens to be similar to smoke that is the actual probans needed." The opponent pleads: "A smoke is different at different places.and yet it everywhere acts as probans for inferring fire; similarly, a word is different when heard on different occasions and yet it always conveys the same meaning"; the Mimämsaka retorts: "The two cases are not similar. For there is the universal 'smokeness' to reside in all smoke, but there. is no universal to reside in all cases of a pronounced word. Take for example the word 'go' (Sanskrit for cow). In its case a universal like 'wordness' will obviously not do, but a universal like 'go-(word-)ness' is likewise inconceivable. For in this word one letter is gone while another is pronounced, so that here there is no composite whole where the proposed universal might be said to reside; certainly, the universal 'cloth-ness' cannot reside in the individual threads that go to constitute a piece of cloth. Nor can it be said that an appropriate universal reside in the individual letters that go to constitute the word 'go'. For a letter is absolutely the same whenever and by whomsoever it is pronounced, it thus being unlike, for example, cows which are different in different cases and yet a common seat of the same universal 'cowness'. Nay. even when the same speaker pronounces a letter twice (e.g. the letter ga in the word ganga) what he pronounces is the very same letter and
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