1.2.10

The words

The phrases

Praise was said to commend the thing the injunction sets down. Sometimes the sentence praises something else. A reed branch and the water-plant avakā (अवका) are laid down for dragging the fire. The waters are what the text praises: the waters are calm. Reed and avakā (अवका) are born from water. Praising the source praises what comes from it, as a man feels praised when his family is praised.

The same account covers the weeping. 'He wept' is the remainder of the prohibition 'silver is not to be given on the barhis,' the grass strewn as a seat for the offering. The words still expect that prohibition. Silver is spoken of as born of tears, so the man who gives it on the grass meets weeping within the year. The words are figurative. They qualify the prohibition by the absence of weeping. They do not command anyone to weep, and they do not report a history of Rudra's eye.

Prajāpati (प्रजापति)'s cut omentum is the remainder of the injunction that a man who wants offspring or cattle should offer the barren goat to Prajāpati (प्रजापति). The story praises the power of that offering. The moment the omentum was offered, the goat arose, and so offspring and cattle come. A story that did not happen is told because the praise is the point, not the news.

Sanskrit in this line

Guṇa (गुण) here is the secondary, figurative application of a word, not only a ritual subsidiary. Vāda (वाद) is a statement. The compound names this way of reading the sentence.

Say it back

Gloss guṇavāda (गुणवाद) with the reed and the water: the waters are praised, and the plants that come from water are the things enjoined.