Note 198 — SA@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION (continued 3)

Footnote 198:

(return)

The pûrvapakshin, i.e. here the grammarian maintains, for the reasons specified further on, that there exists in the case of words a supersensuous entity called sphota which is manifested by the letters of the word, and, if apprehended by the mind, itself manifests the sense of the word. The term sphota may, according as it is viewed in either of these lights, be explained as the manifestor or that which is manifested.—The sphota is a grammatical fiction, the word in so far as it is apprehended by us as a whole. That we cannot identify it with the 'notion' (as Deussen seems inclined to do, p. 80) follows from its being distinctly called vâkaka or abhidhâyaka, and its being represented as that which causes the conception of the sense of a word (arthadhîhetu).