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22
Ślokavårtika-aisiady
(ii) la vv.229-277 it it argued how the establishment of relation between a word and its meaning becomes impossible in case a word is not an eternal entity.
(iii) In vv.278-308, it is argued how not only a letter but a word too is an eternal entity.
(iv) la vv.309-14), there are put forth certain minor ontological considerations 10 support of the eternality of a wɔrd, the occasion arising in connection with the formal examination of certain rival inferances.
We take up these four parts one by one.
(vv.8-228 ) Kumārila begins by posing in brief the opponent's case which is as follows: (vv,8-18) “A word is simultaneously observed at different places and that is because it is simultaneously produced at these different places; had the word been a single eternal entity this simultaneous observation would have been illusory (vv.9-14). It cannot be said that here is a case of one single word being made manifest at different places, for a manifesting agent like lamp when employed in number does not change from one into many a manifested entity like jar (v.15). Moreover, a word is found to be loud or slow under different conditions, but a manifesting agent like lamp when employed in number does not increase the size of a manifested entity like jar (v.16). Again, one impartite sky being the locus of all the words and all the alleged manifesting agents of the form of dhvani (=air-vibration) a word made manifest at one place should not be simultaneously made manifest at any other place (v.16). Lastly. there are cases (e g. in a word-conjunction) where one letter is transformed into annther (e.g. i into ya), and this means that a word is a perishing entity. (v. 17)" Kumärila launches his counter-attack by first pointing out that even rival philosophers. concede the possiblity of an entity existing there all right but being made manifest only under certain conditions. For example, the Vaišeșika puilosophers posit a universal which while existing always and everywhere is made manifest only at a place where the relevant particular is available (v.21). Similarly the Sankhya philosphers maintain that a soul is ever possessed of consciousness---which means that in the states of sleep, swoon etc. consciousness is present in an unmanifested form (v.21). Lastly, the Buddhist philosophers maintain that a thing undergoes destruction every moment but that this destruction becomes observable only when it assumes a gross dimension-- which means that destruction not of a gross dimension exists there in an unmanifested form (vv.24-29). To all this is added the observation that even sky which oxists always and everywhere becomes invisible when covered by a mass of water or a mass of earth and becomes visible again when this coverage is removed (vv.30-31). Kumārila's point is that a word exists always and everywhere and is only made manifest now here, now there (vv.33-36). He further remarks that the activity supposed to produce a word is nothing but the activity of pronouncing this word, aa activity which only reveals this word :
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