Sarvadarshanasangraha 12.27

12.27

vedasyādhyayanaṃ sarvaṃ gurvadhyayanapūrvakam/

But [ask the Mīmāṃsakas] may it not be assumed that "all study of the Veda was preceded by an earlier study of it by the pupil's preceptor, since the study of the Veda must always have had one common character which was the same in former times as now;" and therefore this uninterrupted succession has force to prove the eternity of the Veda? This reasoning, however [the Naiyāyikas answer], cannot rise to the height of proof, for it has no more validity than such obviously illusory reasoning, as "All study of the Mahābhārata was preceded by an earlier study of it by the pupil's preceptor, since it is the study of the Mahābhārata, which must have been the same in former times as now." But [the Mīmāṃsakas will ask whether there is not a difference between these two cases, since] the Smṛti declares that [Viṣṇu incarnate as] Vyāsa was the author of the Mahābhārata, in accordance with the line, "Who else than the lotus-eyed Viṣṇu could be the maker of the Mahābhārata?" [while nothing of this sort is recorded in any Smṛti in regard to the Veda]. This argument, however, is pithless, since those words of the Puruṣasūkta (Rig V., x. 90), "From him sprang the Ṛch and Sāman verses; from him sprang the Metres; from him the Yajus arose;" prove that the Veda had a maker.