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INDIAN LOGIC
that that is possible because a sound is produced not in a concealed sky-portion but in an unconcealed one.
The Mimārsaka has also contended that a word cannot be a quality of some substance; by way of countering this Jayanta shows how so many positions maintained by his school on the question are mutually interconnected and yet do not involve a mutual dependence. Thus he argues that a sound is a quality because it resides in one substance viz. sky and produces another sound; for all this precludes the possibility that a sound is either a substance or an action-not a substance because a substance is either independent or it resides in more than one substance, not an action because an action does not produce another action. The opponent objects : “Thus while seeking to prove that a sound is a quality you already presuppose that it resides in sky; but it is by presupposing that a sound is a quality that you argue that it must reside in sky because it cannot reside in earth etc.93 Similarly, you argue that a sound produces another sound because it is a quality-while a quality, produced here cannot be cognised at another place unless it moves upto that place in a wave-like fashion; but it is by presupposing that a sound producing another sound proceeds in a wave-like fashion that you preclude the possibility that a sound is an action, it being impossible for an action to produce another action.""94 Jayanta replies : “Neither 'mutual dependence' thus urged vitiates our position. For we do not argue that a sound resides in sky because it is a quality, nor that a sound producing another sound proceeds in a wave-like fashion because it is a quality. Thus according to us a sound resides in sky because it is grasped through ear which is itself of the form of a sky-portion, it being impossible for ear thus conceived to grasp a sound unless it resides in sky; similarly, according to us a sound producing another sound proceeds in a wave-like fashion because it cannot be grasped by ear thus conceived unless it proceeds from the place where it is produced upto the ear which grasps it.'*95 Thus Jayanta starts with the supposition that ear is of the form of a sky-portion, then argues that an ear thus conceived cannot grasp a sound unless a sound resides in sky and a sound producing another sound proceeds in a wave-like fashion, and lastly concludes that a sound thus behaving must be a quality of sky. Thus for Jayanta the very fact that a sound is an object of auditory cognition implies his whole thesis on the question, and if we recall that he has argued that
