As I discuss in this question, by far the most popular school of Hindu philosophy is the Vedanta school. But there are five other Astika or orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy: Purva Mimamsa, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, and Vaisheshika. My question is about the Nyaya school and the Vaishesika school. In contrast to the Purva Mimamsa school, which believed just as modern science does that sound is a vibration of air, the Nyaya school and the Vaishesika schools believed that sound was a phenomenon of Akasha or space, not a phenomenon of air. Here's what B.N. Seal says in this excerpt from the book "The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology"
The early Nyaya writers hold that the sound wave has its substrate in Akasha and not Vayu. Later writers add that sound itself is a phenomenon not to be conceived as a mode of motion, for Akasha, the substrate is, in the Nyaya view, incapable of motion. At the same time, the propagation of sound must be conceived on the analogy of waves in water Udyotakara in the Vartika, Vachaspati in the Tatparyyatika, and Jayanta in the Nyaya-Manjari controvert the three views current in the Mimansa school,— (1) that Nada, the physical basis of audible sound, is a specific quality of Vayu (air), (2) that sound in its physical aspect, is constituted by a series of air movements of the nature of a current, and (3) that it is not air currents but air waves, series of conjunctions and disjunctions of the air particles or molecules, that constitute the Nada, the sound physical, to which, in the case of significant sounds, the Mimansakas assign the function of manifesting the sphota, 'transcendental ' or 'intelligible' sound. — Against these views, the early Nyaya Doctors maintain that sound is a specific quality of Akasha (ether) and not of Vayu (air). At the same time, they admit that the impact which originates the sound phenomenon in Akasha does so by setting up a vibration in the molecules of the object struck, and that these vibrating molecules impinge against the air molecules in contacts. In other words, though Akasha is the substrate, the efficient cause of sound is to be found in the mechanical impact of vibrating molecules of sonorous bodies against contiguous molecules of air. As to the propagation of sound, the early Nyaya-Vaishesika writers content themselves with stating that the first sound thus produced in the substrate Akasha by the impact of the vibrating molecules against the contiguous molecules of air, produces a second sound in the contiguous Akasha, and the second sound, a third, and so on, in the same way as waves are generated in water, until the last sound sets up a vibration in the ear-drum. Of course, this propagation of sound-wave in Akasha is effected by means of the air-wave as its vehicle. This is the Nyaya-Vaiseshika hypothesis of an independent sound-wave.
My question is, what are the arguments of the Nyaya and Vausheshika schools for sound being a phenomenon of Akasha rather than air? I would check the three Nyaya works mentioned, namely Udyotakara's Nyaya Vartika, Vachaspati Mishra's Tatparya Tika, and Jayanta Bhatta's Nyaya Manjari, but so far as I can tell none of those works have been translated into English.
Note that I'm not looking for scientific speculation, I'm just interested in what arguments are given in Nyaya and Vaisheshika works.
