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TRANSLATION
attained by a mass of righteous deeds, have to bear the spark of the fire of pain brought about by the element of sin ( involved in the rituals ). (11) It will not be right to argue that the generic law
-"Kill not any animal," is set aside by The impurity of the specific one, "Kill the animal dedicated animal slaughter in a sacrifice to Agni-Soma "-because they do not conestablished
tradıct each other; and it is only when two
laws are mutually contradictory, that the stronger sets aside the weaker. In the present instance, how. ever, there is no contradiction, the two laws treating of two entirely different subjects. For the negative law " Kill not etc.," only declares that killing is productive of sin or evil ( and hence pain ); but it does not deny the fact of its being necessary for the performance of sacrifices; and in the same manner, the injunction “ Kill the animal etc., " declares that the killing of animal helps in the performance of sacrifice, but does not negative the fact of its being productive of sin. If it did so, there would be a syntactical split [. e. the sentence “Kill the animal etc., " would bear two predicates (1) 'The killing is helpful in the performance of sacrifice,' (2) and that it is not conducive to sin ]. Nor is there any contradiction between the productivity of sin and the capability of helping the performance of a sacrifice. Animal-slaughter can produce sin in the man, and at the same time quite consistently help the performance of the sacrifice. (12) The properties—' decay' and 'inequality '-belong
really to the effect; but are here attributed Decay and ex- to the means. This liability to decay is inferred cess shown to apply to the ro- from the fact of Heaven being a positive sults of Vedic action
identity and a product. Further, the Jyotistoma
and other sacrifices are the means to the attainment of Heaven only, whereas the Vājapeya and others lead to the attainment of the kingdom of Heaven (or ‘self
