The Arctic Home in the Vedas c16.27.7

c16.27.7

Jaimini, the author of Mîmâmsâ Sutras, therefore, further deduces (I, 1, 5) the eternity of the Vedas from the relation or connection between words and their meanings, which he holds to be eternal (autpattika) and not conventional. A word is defined to be an aggregate of letters in a particular order, and its sense is said to be conveyed by these letters following each other in a definite succession. But Grammarians are not satisfied with this view, and maintain that the sense of a word is not expressed by the aggregate of its constituent letters which are transient, but by a certain super-sensuous entity, called sphoṭa (i. e., manifester, from sphuṭ), which supervenes the aggregate of the letters as soon as they are pronounced, and reveals their meaning. Jaimini denies that there are words in the Vedas which denote any transient objects, and as the Vedic words and their sense are eternal, it follows, according to him, that the Vedas are self-demonstrative, or that they shine, like the sun, by their own light, and are, therefore, perfect and infallible. If particular parts of the Vedas are designated after some Ṛiṣhis, it does not, we are told, prove those sages to have been their authors, but merely the teachers who studied and handed them down.