hindu-cosmosWe're still mapping where this idea was first discussed. Key passages and related ideas below.
Tattva 17 — Hearing (Śrotra)
The power to hear: the subtle faculty of perceiving sound, first of the five senses.
Śrotra is the capacity for hearing — not the physical ear but the subtle power of perceiving sound that works through it. It is the first of the five 'knowing-faculties,' the senses by which the mind takes in the world. In the descent of the tattvas, these subtle sense-powers unfold from the ego-principle as the means by which the embodied self contacts its surroundings.
Key passages(3)
High
High
High
'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;
Tap to expand