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34 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
“That it is not eternal, on account of its transitoriness, i.e., because after a moment it ceases to be perceived.”
“Because, we employ in reference to it the expression ‘making’ i.e., we speak of ‘making’ a sound.”
“Because it is perceived by different persons at once, and is consequently in immediate contact with the organs of sense of those, both far and near, which it could not be if it were one and eternal.”
“Because sounds have both an original and a modified form; as e.g., in the case of dadhi atra, which is changed into dadhy atra, the original letter ‘ i ’ being altered into ‘ y ’ by the rules of permutation. Now, no substance which undergoes a change is eternal.”
“Because sound is augmented by the number of those who make it. Consequently the opinion of the Mimansaka, who say that sound is merely manifested, and not created, by human effort, is wrong; since even a thousand manifesters do not increase the object which they manifest, as a jar is not made larger by a thousand lamps.”
These objections against the Mimansaka theory that sound is manifested, and not created, by those who utter it, are now answered by Jaimini. Says Jaimini:
“But, according to both schools, viz., that which holds sound to be created, and that which regards it as merely manifested, the perception of it is alike momentary. But of these two views, the theory of manifestation is shown in the next aphorism to be the correct one.”
“The non-perception at any particular time, of sound, which, in reality, perpetually exists, arises from the fact that the utterer of sound has not come into contact with his object i.e., sound. Sound is eternal, because we recognize the letter ‘k’, for instance, to be the same sound which we have always heard, and because it is the simplest method of accounting for the phenomenon to suppose that it is the same. The still atmosphere which interferes with the perception of sound, is removed by the conjunctions and disjunctions of air issuing from a speaker’s mouth, and thus sound (which always exists, though unperceived) becomes perceptible. This is the reply to the objection of its ‘transitoriness’.
“The word, ‘making’ sounds; merely means employing or uttering them.”
“One sound is simultaneously heard by different persons, just as one Sun is seen by them at one and the same time, Sound like the Sun is a vast, and not a minute object, and thus may be perceptible by different persons, though remote from one another.”