Tattva 27 — Sound (Śabda)
Pure 'soundness': the subtle essence of audibility behind every actual sound.
Śabda, as a tattva, is the subtle element of sound — not any particular noise but the pure quality of audibility itself, the bare 'soundness' that the gross world's sounds are made of. It is the first of the five 'subtle elements' (tanmātras), the fine sensory essences that stand between the action-faculties and the gross physical elements. From it the gross element of space unfolds.
Key passages(7)
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
'Now as the sounds of a drum, when beaten, cannot be seized externally (by themselves), but the sound is seized, when the drum is seized, or the beater of the drum;
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Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)