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Wellsprings
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.