Sarvadarshanasangraha 12.50

12.50

that too possesses no elegance, for since there is no means of valid cognition for a difference among the individual instances of the letter 'g', there is no means of valid cognition for assuming that it has a universal such as 'g-ness' as its object. Just as, to one who does not know cowness, that single [universal] appears as if in different places, as if small, as if large, as if long, or as if short, under the influence of the adjuncts of individual instances that differ in place, size, and shape, so too, to one who does not know the individual letter 'g', even though it is one, it appears connected with various properties on account of differences in the manifesting agents. By this, [the argument] that difference is established through the superimposition of contradictory properties is answered. For therein, is the superimposition of contradictory properties intended to establish difference as natural, or as apparent? On the first [view], it is unestablished; otherwise, if natural difference were accepted, the cognition would be 'Caitra pronounced ten g's', but not 'ten times the letter g'. On the second [view], however, natural difference is not established. For natural oneness is not destroyed by a difference of extraneous adjuncts; let there not be a natural difference even of space due to differences of adjuncts such as pots. There, the differentiated verbal usage is caused by sound. That has been said by the teachers: