Sarvadarshanasangraha 12.15

12.15

that is incongruous, because even if mere understanding is possible, definitive ascertainment depends on inquiry. For example, in 'He places the smeared pebbles,' this ascertainment that it is with clarified butter alone and not with oil or the like cannot be obtained by grammar, Vedic citation, or etymology. Through the treatise of inquiry, however, the ascertainment of the meaning is obtained by virtue of the supplementary passage: 'Clarified butter, verily, is brilliance.' Therefore, the status of being enjoined by an injunction is established for the treatise of inquiry. Nor should it be thought that the text 'Having studied the Veda, one should take the ceremonial bath,' which aims at departing from the teacher's house and prevents intervening delay, would be contradicted; for just as in 'Having bathed, he eats,' there is only the apprehension of sequence and identity of agent, and no apprehension of immediate adjacency between study and the ceremonial return home. Therefore, solely by the force of the injunction, the Pūrvamīmāṃsā treatise, consisting of a thousand topical sections, must indeed be undertaken.