Sarvadarshanasangraha 13.47

13.47

then all this is like clutching at grass-stalks, because the alternatives are untenable. Is the support of the cognition of a word merely phonemes, or a collection of phonemes? Not the first, for in a series of phonemes distinct from one another, a single ground cannot be found, just as a cognition of a garland cannot occur regarding flowers without a string; thus the apprehension 'this is one word' is untenable. Nor the second, because phonemes that have been uttered and perished cannot form a collection. For the designation 'collection' applies to those things that are experienced as many by standing together in a single place—as the designation 'collection' applies to dhava, khadira, palāśa, and other trees experienced as standing together in a single place, or as in the case of elephants, men, horses, and the like. And those phonemes are not experienced in that way, because they perish as soon as they arise. Even on the view of manifestation, manifestation occurs only sequentially, since a collection is impossible. Nor can a fictional collection be imagined in the phonemes, because it would entail mutual dependence: once expressiveness of a single meaning is established, the cognition of wordhood in phonemes arises on that condition; and once that is established, expressiveness of a single meaning is established. Therefore, because the expressive capacity of phonemes is impossible, sphoṭa must be accepted.