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I ADHYÂYA, I PÂDA, 1.
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something beneficial to man, we conclude that it will be enjoyed later on.-But, we ask, what is the authoritative doctrine establishing such an apurva beneficial to man? Not, in the first place, ordinary, i. e. non-Vedic doctrine; for such has for its object action only which always is essentially painful. Nor, in the next place, Vedic texts; for those also enjoin action only as the means to bring about certain results such as the heavenly world. Nor again the Smriti texts enjoining works of either permanent or occasional obligation; for those texts always convey the notion of an apūrva only on the basis of an antecedent knowledge of the apårva as intimated by Vedic texts containing terms such as svargakamah. And we, moreover, do not observe that in the case of works having a definite result in this life, there is enjoyment of any special pleasure called apdrva, in addition to those advantages which constitute the special result of the work and are enjoyed here below, as e. g. abundance of food or freedom from sickness. Thus there is not any proof of the apūrva being a pleasure. The arthavada-passages of the Veda also, while glorifying certain pleasurable results of works, as e. g. the heavenly world, do not anywhere exhibit a similar glorification of a pleasure called apdrva.
From all this we conclude that also in injunctory sentences that which is expressed by imperative and similar forms is only the idea that the meaning of the root-as known from grammar-is to be effected by the effort of the agent. And that what constitutes the meaning of roots, viz. the action of sacrificing and the like, possesses the quality of pleasing the highest Person, who is the inner ruler of Agni and other divinities (to whom the sacrifices are ostensibly offered), and that through the highest Person thus pleased the result of the sacrifice is accomplished, we shall show later on, under Sa. III, 2, 37.-It is thus finally proved that the Vedanta-texts give information about an accomplished entity, viz. Brahman, and that the fruit of meditation on Brahman is something infinite and permanent. Where, on the other hand, Scripture refers to the fruit of mere works, such as the käturmasya-sacrifices,
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