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words; for this proper learning is not connected invariably to any ritual as are the sacrificial ladles, etc.
47 |
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Proper memorization of one's proper texts is not obviously the only medium of liberative knowledge. Nevertheless, he continues, "the injunction to study as the proper preparation of one's proper texts makes it clear that this study is the approved means of sacred learning."48 Mere study, based on other means of access to texts, cannot be fruitful, and it must be assumed that there is some fruit to gaining knowledge in this particular way only. |
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Vacaspati then traces a dense Mimamsa-style argument as to whether study can have the desired resultrealization of Brahmaneven if undertaken independently of the approved mode of study in regard to the proper texts. Drawing on several Mimamsa siddhantas as examples, Vacaspati's purvapaksin argues that the intelligent appropriation of texts study can have the desired result, even if none is explicitly mentioned. It should therefore be recognized as a practice distinct from ritually- and caste-inscribed approved study, and even if sudras are deprived of the right to the approved form of study, the intelligent practice of reading will still be available to them.49 The siddhantin rejects this line of reasoning, insisting that only that proper study performed in relation to one's properly learned sacred texts is efficacious: |
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A fruitful understanding of ritual or of Brahman, resulting respectively in reward and liberation, is brought about by one's proper texts refined by proper study. If so, we can say that only to that person who has undertaken proper study will come that fruitful understanding of ritual and Brahman which brings about reward and salvation respectively, and not to anyone else [i.e., to others who study without the proper preparation.]50 |
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Proper study is possible only for him who has been prepared by investiture, and this person can come only from among the twice-born. Without investiture, that proper |
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