起信論疏筆削記 3.21

3.21

In "Or only..." below, the second is sound alone. Because sound is the speech of the master of teaching, "sound" means the enunciated words of the Buddha. Through review, speech sounds, pathways of speech, karma of speech, and manifestation through speech, it is therefore called "sound." In "Apart from sound..." below, it explains this. Although names, sentences, and phonemes can directly express meanings and principles, they are merely inflectional marks upon sound, established conventionally and lacking intrinsic substance. Sound is a material dharma, and material dharmas are substantial, whereas names and the rest are conditioning forces not associated [with the mind], neither material nor mental, established conventionally only in relation to the states of matter and mind. For this reason, outside the substantial there is no conventional, and therefore, subsuming the conventional to follow the substantial, one takes only sound as the substance of the teaching; hence it says that apart from sound there are no separate names and the like. The Vibhāṣā-śāstra states: "The Buddha's teaching takes speech karma as its substance."