The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c5.s3.t3.25

c5.s3.t3.25

But what are we to understand by “word” in this world-creating sense (p. 289, 9)?—Perhaps we might answer: the concepts corresponding to the words. But this answer the Indian cannot give, because he never reached a conscious separation of concept and perception. He answers in the first place: By word he understands 45 here the Sphoṭa (the bursting forth, the sudden coming to consciousness of the idea on hearing the letters of the word); and this conception leads to a discussion which is not without interest, and which, as a contribution to the Philosophy of Language, we here translate as accurately as possible in the form of an episode.