The earliest Indian thinking about language, found in Vedas (Arapura and Raja 1990), is speculative, but later discussions involve sophisticated arguments among various schools of thought. These discussions, which concern speech units (Sanskrit śabda, "sound, speech element, word") and associated meanings (artha), share certain themes. One is epistemological. Sounds are evanescent; an instant after they are pronounced they disappear. Consequently, the question arises: How can one rightly speak of complex units like words (pada) and sentences (vākya) as perceptible entities? Similarly, though one speaks of actions and things involved in them, it is also arguable that acts and things which are thought to be perceived as wholes actually are not so; there is a stream of instants, none of which lasts long enough to enable a qualified cognition of complex external entities. How, then, can one maintain that speech units...