Is Sound Eternal, as the Mimansa Philosophers Believe It to Be or Is It Transitory as the Nyaya Says?

Type :

School essay

Pages :

3 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

01/04/2008

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Humanities/philosophy

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Summary :

Introduction
The argument used by the Nyaya philosophers
Sound seems to be multiplied by the number of people who make the sound
An answer for nearly all the objections
The arguments for the eternality of sound
Conclusio
Bibliography

Abstract

Behind the claim that sound is eternal appears to be the idea that it must be eternal because the utterance of the word is for the purpose of another. Without this eternality, one person could not make anything known to another, because once the word was spoken, it would no longer exist. Another reason why sound is seen as eternal is to validate the authority of the Vedic scripture, and to show that it is itself eternal.
In this essay I will examine this claim that the word (or sound) is eternal, as set out in the mimansa, and also the objections to this as set out in the nyaya (Sourcebook, 1957, pp488-501). I believe that the mimansa view makes a lot of sense, and although it perhaps seems strange to say that sound is eternal, it does explain how we can form relations between words and groups of words. It also explains how we know a word is the same word each time we hear an utterance of it, and do not believe it to be a new and different word.