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Slokavārtika-a study,
he would not even mind if two cases of pronouncing the same letter are treated as a case of two particulars falling under the same universal; for all that he is interested in maintaining is that an entity existing everywhere and always is made manifest whenever one and the same letter is pronounced now here now there, a position defensible on the hypothesis of an unitary letter as also on that of a letter-universal (vv. 63-64). [In the mean-while (vv. 31-62) Kumārila discusses various ways how the unitary character of a vowel is to be defended-for it is admitted on all hands that a vowel is of three types. viz, short, long, double long. But the discussion is unimportant.] Then Kumārila investigates the nature of a word as against that of a letter (vv. 65-90). Here Kumāila's main endeavour is to demonstrate how the constituent letters of a word pronounced successivly manage to yield a unitary cognition of this word. His simple argument is that it is the very nature of certain things that they cooperate in producing the same result by existing simultaneously while it is the very nature of certain other things that they do so by existing successively (v. 73)-the constituent letters of a word producing a unitary cognition of this word belonging to the latter category. By way of example it is said that the various steps of a ritual successively performed lead to the total result, one reading after another of a text leads to the mastery of this text (v. 74); it is also suggested that the entire period during which the successive acts in question take place can be treated as one grand present (vv. 79-82) Lastly. it is argued that the constituent parts of an apparatus - bullock cart, say - cannot be said to be useless simply on the ground that none of them taken singly is in a position to perform the function undertaken by this apparatus (v. 86); this even on the supposition that no contribution of this or that from among these constituent parts can be pointed out but as a matter of fact even such pointing out is not impossible (vv. 87-90). Much that Kumārila had said at the time of introducing the present section of his text and much that he has just said by way of describing the nature of a word make clear sense only in the context of his refutation of the doctrine of sphoța which be now starts and continues upto the end of the present section (vv. 91-137 ) Kumārila had earlier said that a sabda is what is an object of auditory perception and that it is either of the form of a letter or of the form of a word. As against this, the doctrine of sphoța maintains that a word is not only an eternal and ubiquitous entity but also an impartito entity, so that the letters alleged to be the constituent units of a word are not really its constituent units but just the agents that make this word manifest at the time when they are pronounced; ( it is the word thus understood which is called sphoța-to be more precise, padasphota ). So when Kumārila says that a word is an object of auditory perception he means to hint that a word understood as sphoța, since it is admittedly no object of auditory perception, is no word at all, ( a spho'a is no object of auditory perception because letters which are in fact an object of auditory perception are supposed only to make it manifest ). Similarly, when Kumārila in the end says that a word is made up of the letters concerned he means to hint that a word understood as sphota,
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