The hypothesis of him who maintains that the letters are the word may therefore be finally formulated as follows. The letters of which a word consists--assisted by a certain order and number--have, through traditional use, entered into a connexion with a definite sense. At the time when they are employed they present themselves as such (i.e. in their definite order and number) to the buddhi, which, after having apprehended the several letters in succession, finally comprehends the entire aggregate, and they thus unerringly intimate to the buddhi their definite sense. This hypothesis is certainly simpler than the complicated hypothesis of the grammarians who teach that the spho/t/a is the word. For they have to disregard what is given by perception, and to assume something which is never perceived; the letters apprehended in a definite order are said to manifest the spho/t/a, and the spho/t/a in its turn is said to manifest the sense. Or let it even be admitted that the letters are different ones each time they are pronounced; yet, as in that case we necessarily must assume species of letters as the basis of the recognition of the individual letters, the function of conveying the sense which we have demonstrated in the case of the (individual) letters has then to be attributed to the species. From all this it follows that the theory according to which the individual gods and so on originate from the eternal words is unobjectionable. 29. And from this very reason there follows the eternity of the Veda. As the eternity of the Veda is founded on the absence of the remembrance of an agent only, a doubt with regard to it had been raised owing to the doctrine that the gods and other individuals have sprung from it. That doubt has been refuted in the preceding Sutra.--The present Sutra now confirms the, already established, eternity of the Veda. The eternity of the word of the Veda has to be assumed for this very reason, that the world with its definite (eternal) species, such as gods and so on, originates from it.--A mantra also ('By means of the sacrifice they followed the trace of speech; they found it dwelling in the /ri/shis,' /Ri/g-veda Sa/m/h. X, 71, 3) shows that the speech found (by the /ri/shis) was permanent.--On this point Vedavyasa also speaks as follows: 'Formerly the great /ri/shis, being allowed to do so by Svayambhu, obtained, through their penance, the Vedas together with the itihasas, which had been hidden at the end of the yuga.' 30. And on account of the equality of names and forms there is no contradiction (to the eternity of the word of the Veda) in the renovation (of the world); as is seen from /S/ruti and Sm/ri/ti.