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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
letter-sounds does is to manifest one inarticulate soundessence called sphoța which is the real unity of a word and brings about the cognition of the object said to be meant by the word. Like the genus, the sphoța is an eternal essence which is common to all the utterances of a word. Corresponding to every word there is such a sphota or sound-essence which is gradually unfolded by the letters of a word. When a particular word is uttered, its sphoța or unitary principle is manifested and that directly presents the meaning of the word. Hence the sphota is the real word that means an object and there is no such thing as a word of letters meaning things.'
The theory of sphota has been justly repudiated by many right-thinking philosophers The sphota is not only, as Thibaut remarks, a grammatical fiction, but is also useless as an explanation of the unity of words. It has been severely criticised and rejected by Sarkara, Kumārıla, Vācaspati and others? It cannot be denied that words mean objects and that they consist of letters or syllables arranged in a definite order. When a thing is expressed by a word, all that we perceive are letters and no sphoța Even if there be such a thing as the sphota, we do not understand how it can mean an object when it is gradually unfolded by the letters of a word. If a series of successive sounds called letters cannot form a single word, how can the successive stages of the manifestation of the sphoța or sound-essence be synthesised into a unitary whole? The theory of the sphota does not bring us nearer the solution of the problem as to how there can be a simultaneous perception of successive facts as we find it in the perception of a word. Neither the Naiyāyikas nor the Vedāntists give a satisfactory answer to this question. They forget that a synthesis of the letters
1 Vide NVT, 2 2 57; Sankara-Bhagya, 1 8 28
? Vide Sarkara-Bhasya, 1.3 28, NVT, 2 2 57 ; Sastradipika, pp 95-97.; Sloka. vårttıka, pp 610-44
