Vaiśeṣika Sūtra 2.2.43

2.2.43

saṃkhyābhāvaḥ sāmānyataḥ |

saṃkhyābhāvaḥ—the existence or application of Number; sāmānyataḥ—from Genus.

37. The existence of number (in Sound) is with reference to the Genus.

The meaning is that the existence of the number, fifty, etc., arises from the class notion of ka, ga, etc. Although there might be an infinity of ka’s, etc., the letters determined by the notions of ka, ga, etc., are fifty, three, or eight, in the same way as Substances, Attributes, etc.,' are nine, twenty-four, etc., although there may be an infinity of them according to differences within the group of each of them. This is th a import.

Candrakānta reads II. ii. 33 as simply sandigdhāḥ, supplying for himself the reason for the declaration there, and joins the latter part of it to II. ii. 37, and interprets it to mean that in spite of plurality of individual sounds, their definite enumeration is possible by means of reference to their genera or types.