Establishment of Brahman 3.51

3.51

If sentences of the Veda that are devoted to an injunction have independence because another means of valid cognition is impossible with respect to the effect which is the object of the injunction, then secular utterances devoted to an effect—such as 'One desiring to be free from fever should drink this medicine', or 'One desiring heaven should eat sand'—would also attain independence and validity. If [it is countered that] the relation of means and end there is preceded by a person's intention to speak, and therefore dependence exists there, whereas in the Veda even the relation of means and end is not preceded by a person's intention to speak, and hence there is independence; or that the connection between the object, the person enjoined, and the injunction is constructed by human intellect in secular speech, whereas in the Veda the injunction alone is not preceded by human intellect, and therefore it is independent—we reply: