Purva-Mimamsa in its Sources c19.3

c19.3

The comprehension of this Denotation of Words is not got at through the Sense-organs; because the Sense-organ brings about the perception of only the Letter-Sounds. In the Letters themselves, however, there is a certain potency which brings about the apprehension of the Denotation of the Word composed of those Letters. It is for this reason that Letters have been held to be the Means of Verbal Cognition. ‘The Word is nothing more than the Letters—ga and the rest,—and it is this that is spoken of as Shabda, Word, and there is nothing apart from the Letters’,—says the Bṛhatī (p. 63).—But the Word alone, as composed of the Letter-Sounds, is not sufficient to bring about the comprehension of the meaning; it is only the Sentence composed of such words that brings about the Cognition; and what is eternal too is only the relation of the Sentence with its meaning. (*Ṛjuvimalā*, p. 135.)