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ETERNITY OR OTHERWISE OF A WORD
produces some speciality in the auditory organ, e.g. a speciality in the form of expelling the becalmed air from within this organ, then this organ should be in a position to hear all word whatsoever just as the removal of a curtain reveals whatever there is on the dramastage." Again, on your view the auditory organ is of the form of the sky which is one and impartite, so that once a speciality is produced in this organ all men should be in a position to hear whatever there is to hear. On the other hand, if a sound produces some speciality not in the auditory organ but in the word itself, then too since a word is supposed to be one, impartite and ubiquitous a word which is in a position to be heard at one place should be heard at every place; nor can it be said that à speciality is produced not in the word itself but in its locus, for if anything can act as a locus of a word it must be the sky which itself is one, impartite and ubiquitous, so that the difficulty urged remains as before." Then it is inconceivable how on the hypothesis of 'manifestation' a word should be loud or slow or how one word should suppress another, for these features cannot characterise a word supposed to be thoroughly uniform in nature, nor the 'speciality' alleged to be produced by a sound; and if they are supposed to characterise the sound concerned itself, then the difficulty is that this sound being of the form of air they in that case cannot be grasped by ear." The Mimamsaka replies: "Let us say that speciality in question is produced in the auditory organ, and yet one type of sound produced by one type of vocal effort produces one type of speciality just as on your view one type of vocal effort produces one type of word. Nor is it proper to say that everything that exists at the same place and is grasped by the same sense-organ should be made manifest all at once, for there is no such rule; for example, all smell exists in earth and is grasped through the olfactory sense-organ, and yet one smell is made manifest through a touch of fire, another through a touch of the sun's rays, a third through water-drenching.29 Certainly, by the speciality in question we do not mean a mere expelling of the becalmed air from within the auditory organ but some such speciality as is specific for the hearing of a specific word. Again, even if the auditory organ is of the form of sky, one man's auditory organ differs from another's depending on each man's good and evil past acts just as on your view; nay, we Mimāṁsakas are not committed
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