Sarvadarshanasangraha 12.41

12.41

To this the answer is stated: What is this author-dependence that you wish to prove? Is it merely having arisen from a person, as in the case of the Veda being recited day after day by people like us? Or is it having been composed to illuminate a meaning after apprehending it through another means of valid cognition, as in the case of a literary composition composed by people like us? On the first [view], there is no dispute. On the latter, is its proof established on the strength of inference or on the strength of scriptural tradition? Not the first, because it is inconclusive in the case of statements like those in the Mālatīmādhava. If you specify, 'provided that it is a means of valid cognition'—even that does not achieve clarity in the mind of a wise person. For a Vedic sentence is indeed a sentence that makes known an object that is beyond the scope of any other means of valid cognition. When it is sought to prove that it makes known an object within the scope of another means of valid cognition, there is the consequence of a contradiction, like saying, 'My mother is a barren woman.'