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Page 147
3. Prescribing Renunciation
As might be expected in light of the Mimamsa position on the interconnection of word and ritual which shapes the Vedanta discourse, the balance between the unrestricted simplicity of Vedanta knowledge and the complexity of the Uttara Mimamsa's Textual knowledge is thus replicated in the balance between that simple knowledge and the complex ritual context within which someone is readied for the renunciation of action: the competent performer of rituals is the person for whom independence from ritual becomes a real possibility.
The rest of UMS III.4 (28-31, 36-51) prescribes/describes the indescribable, unlimited renunciant; it is devoted to drawing boundariesof definition, legitimation and limitationaround the life of the Advaitin who desires to know Brahman (who is brahmajijñasin), and around the life of the renunciant who has already attained knowledge (who is brahma-jña). This boundary-drawing protects the radicality of fully realized knowledge while at the same time determining what is appropriate to the achieved state of knowledge and the moments leading up to it. I summarize the adhikaranas as follows:
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1. UMS III.4.28-31 There is a text, "For the man who thus knows the vital breath, nothing is uneatable." (Chandogya 5.2.1) Against the prima facie view that this abrogates the usual restrictions on food, Sankara argues that the text is not injunctive, and hence lacks force. In emergencies, all foods are acceptable, whether or not one is a renunciant. Otherwise, the seeker and the renunciant must both abide by the accepted restrictions.
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2. UMS III.4.36-39 Widowers and others who are not competent for the normal practice of the means which help toward knowledge may still meditate and so reach the goal, full knowledge. 63
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3. UMS III.4.40 Once one has progressed from one state of life to the next, there is no possibility of reversion to a prior state of life. Realized renunciants too are bound by

 
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