(literally "bursting, opening") is an important concept in Indian grammatical tradition, relating to the problem of speech production, how the mind orders linguistic units into coherent discourse and meaning. The theory of ' is associated with (fl. 6th or 7th century), an early figure in Indic linguistic theory, mentioned in the 670s by Chinese traveller Yi-Jing. is the author of the ' ("[treatise] on words and sentences"). The work is divided into three books, the ', (or Āgama-samuccaya… (More on Sphota)