Sarvadarshanasangraha 12.10

12.10

The established conclusion, however, is: let there not be the status of an injunction of the unobtained, since it is obtained from elsewhere; yet the position that it is a restrictive injunction cannot be set aside even by one wielding the thunderbolt! To explain: in 'One's Vedic recitation is to be studied,' the gerundive suffix -tavya conveys the verbal efficient force, another term for instigation, which is to be actualized by the human efficient force consisting of human activity. That human efficient force requires an object to be actualized. Study, which is expressed in the very same word, does not satisfy the requirement as the object to be actualized, because the meaning of the word 'study'—the operation of speech and mind consisting in the capability of independent recitation, which involves hardship—cannot possibly be an object to be actualized. Nor is the recitation expressed in the same sentence [the object to be actualized], because the meaning of the word 'recitation,' namely the collection of phonemes, is eternal and all-pervading, so that the four fruits of action, beginning with origination, are impossible for it. Therefore, comprehension, obtained through semantic capability, stands as the object to be actualized. By the principle that 'One who is desirous, capable, and learned is qualified,' the injunctions of the New- and Full-Moon sacrifices, requiring the comprehension of their own subject matter, employ the Vedic recitation toward the knowledge of their own meaning. And the injunction of Vedic study makes known that the Vedic recitation has been sanctified by study to the exclusion of reading a written text and the like. And thus, just as the ultimate unseen potency generated by the New- and Full-Moon sacrifices postulates the intermediate unseen potency generated by threshing and the like, so the collection of unseen potencies generated by all the sacrifices will postulate the unseen potency generated by the restriction of study, which is the means to the knowledge of the sacrifices. If the unseen effect of the restriction were not accepted, the hearing of the injunction would result in futility. Nor is the postulation of a fruit by the principle of the Viśvajit plausible, because when there is a seen fruit, namely the comprehension of meaning, the postulation of another fruit is improper.