onnexion with their
eternal sense (i.e. the ak/r/itis denoted), the accomplishment of such
individual things as are capable of having those words applied to them
is called an origination from those words.

How then is it known that the world originates from the word?--'From
perception and inference.' Perception here denotes Scripture which, in
order to be authoritative, is independent (of anything else).
'Inference' denotes Sm/r/iti which, in order to be authoritative,
depends on something else (viz. Scripture). These two declare that
creation is preceded by the word. Thus a scriptural passage says, 'At
the word these Prajapati created the gods; at the words were poured out
he created men; at the word drops he created the fathers; at the words
through the filter he created the Soma cups; at the words the swift ones
he created the stotra; at the words to all he created the /s/astra; at
the word blessings he created the other beings.' And another passage
says, 'He with his mind united himself with speech (i.e. the word of the
Veda.--B/ri/. Up. I, 2, 4). Thus Scripture declares in different places
that the word precedes the creation.--Sm/r/ti also delivers itself as
follows, 'In the beginning a divine voice, eternal, without beginning or
end, formed of the Vedas was uttered by Svayambhu, from which all
activities proceeded.' By the 'uttering' of the voice we have here to
understand the starting of the oral tradition (of the Veda), because of
a voice without beginning or end 'uttering' in any other sense cannot be
predicated.--Again, we read, 'In the beginning Mahe/s/vara shaped from
the words of the Veda the names and forms of all beings and the
procedure of all actions.' And again, 'The several names, actions, and
conditions of all things he shaped in the beginning from the words of
the Veda' (Manu I, 21). Moreover, we all know from observation that any
one when setting about some thing which he wishes to accomplish first
remembers the word denoting the thing, and after that sets to work. We
therefore conclude that before the creation the Vedic words became
manifest in the mind of Prajapati the creator, and that after that he
created the things conesponding to those words. Scripture also, where it
says (Taitt. Bra. II, 2, 4, 2) 'uttering bhur he created the earth,'
&c., shows that the worlds such as the earth, &c. became manifest, i.e.
were created from the words bhur, &c. which had become manifest in the
mind (of Prajapa