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ETERNITY OR OTHERWISE OF A WORD
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Mimāmsaka who would be charged by him with repudiating the very logic on which the concept of 'universal' is based. The Mīmāṁsaka's defence is that differing features can be pointed out in two cows but not in two sounds made to pronounce the same letter; as regards the differing features like loudness, quickness etc. he says that the Naiyāyika himself does not take them into consideration while arguing that the sounds in question are somehow different because they are two different seats of the same 'universal'. Jayanta would plead that these two sounds must be somehow different even if their mutual difference is not noticeable, a plea the Mimāṁsaka rejects as ungrounded. Thus the Mimāṁsaka would argue that when a letter is heard on two occasions it is one and the same letter that is made manifest twice just as when two cows are seen it is one and the same universal 'cowness' that is made manifest twice, an argument Jayanta rejects as ungrounded. Thus the gravamen of the Mimarnsaka's charge against Jayanta is that the latter is seeing a non-existent difference between two sounds that are made to pronounce the same letter; and the gravamen of Jayanta's charge against the Mimāmsaka is that on the latter's logic one might as well say that the case of seeing two cows is a case of seeing one, cow twice. The only way to set this controversy at rest will be to reject the very concept of a ‘universal' supposed to be an entity standing over and above the relevant particulars. And then one can naturally maintain that two lettersounds, which are doubtless numerically different, are qualitatively the same in so far as they are mutually similar and qualitatively different in so far as they are mutually dissimilar; by positing an eternal ubiquitous ‘universal' to account for this qualitative sameness Jayanta plays into the hands of the Mimārsaka who posits an eternal ubiquitous letter to account for this very qualitative sameness. But let us see how Jayanta actually argues against the Mimāṁsaka.
Jayanta begins by throwing to the Mimāmsaka a challenge as follows: "If you can prove that 'there exists no universal' corresponding to a letter, then we are defeated; otherwise you are defeated. For here lies what constitutes a vital point for us. Certainly, if there.exists no 'universal' corresponding to a letter then one cannot find anything common between two cases of pronouncing this letter and hence between two cases of pronouncing a word containing this letter, so that there will be no sense in saying that a word yields the
