Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

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THE KARMA-MIMAMSA
dadhy atro is not a modification of the letters, but the substitution of a quite different form; increase of magnitude refers to the tone, not to the word itself. Positive arguments for the eternity of the word are not lacking. If it were not so, it would fail in its purpose, the conveying of a meaning to another. Again, we do find in point of fact that men recognise words as being the same when uttered on diverse occasions by diverse people. Language supports the Mīmāmsā case; when a word is repeated, we talk of ten repetitions of the word, not of ten words. Moreover, no cause for the destruction of words is adduced, and in noneternal things causes of destruction are always to be found Finally, there is Vedic authority for the doctrine and no Valid counter authority.
The word then exists ever, but only from time to time by effort on the part of some being is it made manifest to us. But effort is not enough; the deaf do not hear, and the effort must be supported by a suitable organ which aids in the cognition of the word Through the effort on the part of the speaker, the air from his lungs rises upwards and comes into contact with the vocal chords, by which it is modified in character. Passing, then, out from the mouth, it reaches the ears of those near enough to be affected, produces in their ears a change favourable to audition, and passes out, bringing to a close the audition. The ear cavity contains a layer of air, upon which the air current issuing from the speaker's mouth impinges, producing the condition on which audition supervenes. Thus the Mimāmsā rejects the primitive conception under which, as light from the eye travels to its object and brings back vision, so the sound travels in some form to the source of the sound, as held by the Jains, and the Sāṁkhya view that the sense of hearing, as allpervading, reaches the place of the sound. It also rejects the Buddhist view that actual contact is unnecessary for bearing, and the Nyāya-Vaiseșika doctrine of propagation of sound on the analogy of waves, or the filaments of the Kadamba flower, in the ether until it reaches the ether enclosed in the ear cavity, which, on that view, constitutes the organ of hearing. To this opinion Kurnāríla objects that, the ether being one and indivisible, if one ear is