_Prabhākara._—Prabhākara also holds the same view; for according to him also the letters are pronounced in a definite order; though when individually considered they are momentary and evanescent, yet they maintain themselves by their potency in the form of a pāda or name, and thus signify an object. Thus Śāliknātha Miśra says in his _Prakaraṇa Pañcikā_, p. 89: “It is reasonable to suppose that since the later letters in a word are dependent upon the perception of a preceding one some special change is wrought in the letters themselves which leads to the comprehension of the meaning of a word.... It cannot be proved either by perception or by inference that there is any word apart from the letters; the word has thus for its constituents the letters.” _Śabara._—The views of Kamārila and Prahhākara thus explicated are but elaborate explanations of the view of Śabara who states the whole theory in a single line—_pūrvavarṇajanitasaṃskārasahito’ntyo varṇaḥ pratyāyakaḥ_. “The last letter together with the potency generated by the preceding letters is the cause of significance.” _Mahābhāshya and Kaiyaṭa._—After describing the view of those who are antagonistic to the sphoṭa theory it is necessary to mention the Vaiākaraṇa school which is in favour of it; thus we find that in explaining the following passage of Mahābhāshya, “What is then a word? It is that which being pronounced one can understand specific objects such as those (cows) which have tail, hoofs, horns, etc.” Kaiyata says: “The grammarians think that denotation belongs to words, as distinct from letters which are pronounced, for if each of the letters should denote the object, there would be no need of pronouncing the succeeding letters....” The vaiyakaraṇas admit the significant force of names as distinguished from letters. For if the significant force be attributed to letters individually, then the first letter being quite sufficient to signify the object, the utterance of other letters becomes unnecessary; and according to this view if it is held that each letter has the generating power, then also they cannot do it simultaneously, since they are uttered one after another. On the view of manifestation, also, since the letters are manifested one after another, they cannot be collected together in due order; if their existence in memory is sufficient, then we should expect no difference of signification or meaning by the change of order in the utterance of the letters; that is “_sara_” ought to have the same meaning as “_rasa_.” So it must be admitted that the power of signification belongs to the sphoṭa as manifested by the nādas as has been described in detail in _Vākyapadīya_.