ti).

Of what nature then is the 'word' with a view to which it is said that
the world originates from the 'word?'--It is the spho/t/a, the
purvapakshin says.[198] For on the assumption that the letters are the
word, the doctrine that the individual gods, and so on, originates from
the eternal words of the Veda could not in any way be proved, since the
letters perish as soon as they are produced (i.e. pronounced). These
perishable letters are moreover apprehended as differing according to
the pronunciation of the individual speaker. For this reason we are able
to determine, merely from the sound of the voice of some unseen person
whom we hear reading, who is reading, whether Devadatta or Yaj/n/adatta
or some other man. And it cannot be maintained that this apprehension of
difference regarding the letters is an erroneous one; for we do not
apprehend anything else whereby it is refuted. Nor is it reasonable to
maintain that the apprehension of the sense of a word results from the
letters. For it can neither be maintained that each letter by itself
intimates the sense, since that would be too wide an assumption;[199]
nor that there takes place a simultaneous apprehension of the whole
aggregate of letters; since the letters succeed one another in time. Nor
can we admit the explanation that the last letter of the word together
with the impressions produced by the perception of the preceding letters
is that which makes us apprehend the sense. For the word makes us
apprehend the sense only if it is itself apprehended in so far as having
reference to the mental grasp of the constant connexion (of the word and
the sense), just as smoke makes us infer the existence of fire only when
it is itself apprehended; but an apprehension of the last letter
combined with the impressions produced by the preceding letters does not
actually take place, because those impressions are not objects of
perception.[200] Nor, again, can it be maintained that (although those
impressions are not objects of perception, yet they may be inferred from
their effects, and that thus) the actual perception of the last letter
combined with the impressions left by the preceding letters--which
impressions are apprehended from their effects--is that which intimates
the sense of the word; for that effect of the impressions, viz. the
remembrance of the entire word, is itself something consisting of parts
which succeed each other in time.--From all this it follows that