Manava Dharmashastra 1.3.4

1.3.4

athavā kāryaśabdaḥ pradarśanārtho vidheḥ pratiṣedhasya ca | etāvadeva vedasya tattvarūpaḥ pāramārthiko'rthaḥ | yastvitivṛttasaṃvarṇanarūpaḥ “so'rodīdyadarodīttadrudrasya rudratvamiti” sa na tattvārthaḥ, vidhyantareṇaikavākyatvātpraśaṃsāparatvena svārthaniṣṭhatvābhāvāt | asti hyatra vidhyantaram 'tasmādbarhiṣi rajataṃ na deyamiti' | 'so'rodīdi' tyādīni 'purā'sya saṃvatsarādgṛhe rodanaṃ bhavatī' tyantāni tadekavākyatāpannāni barhiṣi rajatadānanindayā tatpratiṣedhaṃ stuvanti | taduktaṃ 'sādhye'rthe vedaḥ pramāṇaṃ, na siddharūpe' | arthavādānāṃ hi siddharūpo'rthaḥ | na hi tadarthasya kartavyatā pratīyate | vidhyupadeśaparatvaṃ ca pratīyate | yadi ca svārthaparā api syustadā vidhiparatvaṃ vyāhanyeta | tataśca pratīyamānaikavākyatā bādhyata | na ca saṃbhavatyekavākyatve vākyabhedo nyāyyaḥ | na ca sādhyasya siddhārthaparatvenaikavākyatā ghaṭate | tathāhi na kiṃcidvedenopadiśyate kartavyam | ataścāpramāṇameva vedaḥ syāt | vidhyarthatā cāvagamyamānā liṅādīnāṃ tyaktā syāt | tasmātkāryarūpo vedasya tattvārtha iti manurbhagavānnāha | jaimininā'pyuktam kārye'rthe vedaḥ pramāṇam 'codanālakṣaṇo'rtho dharma' iti | ataśca niravaśeṣapadārthaparijñānātiśayayogāddharmapravacanasāmarthyaṃ siddhavadupādāya prabho ityāmantraṇam—he prabho dharmābhidhānaśakta tvamanubrūhi dharmāniti | evamanayā triślokyā dharmān pṛṣṭa uttareṇa ślokena pratijajñe | 134) iti dīrghaḥ | 'pūruṣa iti' yathā | athavā sāmūhiko'ṇ |

Or, the word ‘Kārya’ may be taken as indicating the Injunction and the Prohibition; as these alone form the essence of the Veda; the other parts of it, which are merely descriptive of certain happenings,—such passages for instance as ‘he wept, and because he wept, he became known as Rudra,’—are not true; they are not meant to be taken in their literal sense, they are meant to be construed along with an injunctive passage and serving the purpose of commending what has been laid down in that injunctive passage. For instance, the descriptive passage just quoted—beginning with ‘he wept’ and, ending with ‘there is weeping in his house within a year’—is to be construed with the injunctive passage—‘Therefore silver should not be placed on the grass;’ and being deprecatory of the placing of silver, it serves the purpose of commending the prohibition of that placing of silver. This is what is meant by the dictum—‘the Veda is an authoritative source of knowledge in regard to what has to be accomplished, and not what is already accomplished and what is mentioned in the Arthavāda or Descriptive Passages is what is already accomplished; and what is already accomplished cannot be cognised as something to be done; what however is cognised is that the description is supplementary to some injunction; if then it were taken to be true in its own literal sense, it could not be supplementary to any injunction; and this would militate against the syntactical connection between the two passages—descriptive and injunctive; and so long as two passages can be taken as syntactically connected and constituting a single compound sentence, it is not right to take them as two distinct sentences. [The reverse process of taking the injunction as supplementary to the description would not be right; for] as a matter of fact, what is yet to be accomplished could not be subservient to what is already accomplished; specially because, if this were so (and the in junction itself were not literally true), then the Veda would contain no injunction of anything at all; and it would thereby cease to be an authoritative source of knowledge. This would involve the further incongruity, that we would have to deny the well-recognised fact of the injunctive and other words denoting injunction. It is with a view to all this that the revered Manu has declared ‘something to be done’ as the ‘essence’ of the Veda. Jaimini also in the Pūrvamīmānsā-Sūtra (1.1.2)—‘Duty is that desirable tiling which is prescribed by the Vedic injunction’—has distinctly declared that the Veda is an authoritative source of knowledge in regard to what is to be done.

The term of address ‘Lord’ has been used on the understanding that the personage addressed is well-known to be possessed of the capacity to expound duty,—such capacity being due to his being endowed with a high degree of knowledge of all things. The meaning thus is—‘O Lord, may you, who are fully able to expound Duty, explain the Duties to us.’

Being thus questioned by means of the first three verses, he promised, in the following verse, what he was asked to do. (3)