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Slokavārtika-a study
makes them manifest, and this in turn means that a word itself is a product of dhvani. So just as a jar-made-up-of-atoms is not eternal even if atoms are, a wordmade-up-of-letters is not eternal even if letters are. Certainly, a word can be treated as an eternal entity only by those philosophers who consider it to be something over and above letters and something devoid of a successive order.” Kumārila's first reaction is that a word is not of the form of successive order as such but of the form of successive order exhibited by letters (vv.284-87), but that was never denied by the opponent. He next observes that the successive order exhibited by a word is learnt by a learner from an elderly teacher, just as the relation of a word to its meaning is learnt by him from an elderly teacher (vv.281-89). But Kumarila has argued that the meaning-relation of a word can be learnt precisely because it already belongs to this word, and the point is whether he can similarly argue that its successive order already belongs to a word. Curiously, Kumārila concedes that the successive order exhibited by a word is not kūtasthanit ya i. e. eternal in its own right--but just vyavahäranit ya---i. e. eternal by way of an uninterrupted tradition (v.289). This is anomalous, for his claim always is that a word is kūtasthanit ya not just vyavahāranit ya, a claim repeated at the very beginning of the enquiry of the present section (v.4). As if to redeem the situation Kumārila emphasises that letters are nevertheless küțasthanit ya while a successive order makes its appearance in them just as a jar is constructed out of atoms that are eternal (vv.290--91). But as a matter of fact this position is the opponent's position and this analogy too is his analogy. Be that as it may, Kumārila makes another valiant effort to prove that the successive order exhibited by a word is eternal (vv.295-301). But now his essential point is that this order owes its Origin to dhvani which in turn is a product of a vocal organ like palate and that since this dhvani and this vocal organ are both possessed of an eternal universal this order too is somehow eternal. The difficulty is that Kumārila never concedes to the Nyāya-Vaiseșika philosophers the much simpler point that a word is eternal only in the sense that it as uttered on different occasions is possessed of an eternal universal: (to be sure, the point was once conceded but that was an isolated occurrence). Lastly. Kumārila argues that the various temporal properties exhibited by a word are in fact a case of Time being made manifest while Time is itself single and ubiquitous, which means that these properties do not affect the single and ubiquitous character of a word (vv.302-4). This too seems to be an argument of desperation.
(iv)
(vv.309-440) In this part of his text Kumārila urges certain ontological considerations of minor importance that are supposed to indicate the eternal character of a word. The occagion for them arises in connection with examining the rival inferences and in many cases they are just flimsy. Here are examples:
(1) A word is eternal because it yields the kņowledge of a universal based on the observation of a relationship, just like smoke-universal (which in an inference yields
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