1.2.4
Mīmāṃsā Sūtra / Adhyāya 1 / 1.2.4
अन्यानर्थक्यात्
anyānarthakyāt
The line
Because the other rites would be useless.
नेपालीमा
अरू कर्म बेकामे हुने भएकाले।
Where it sits
Ānarthakya (आनर्थक्य) from 1.2.1 is now said of anya, the other rites, if one fruit-sentence is taken as a real command. The corpus is still what is being pressed.
Split: anya-ānarthakyāt (अन्य-आनर्थक्यात्)
Sanskrit, in depth
The words
| Word | Grammar | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| anya-ānarthakyāt (अन्य-आनर्थक्यात्) | ablative singular, neuter | because of the uselessness of the others |
The phrases
A sentence says that by the pūrṇāhuti (पूर्णाहुति) one obtains all desires. The pūrṇāhuti (पूर्णाहुति) is the completing oblation, a full spoon of butter poured at the end of a sequence. Another says that the man who offers the animal offering wins all worlds, and that the man who offers the aśvamedha (अश्वमेध), the horse sacrifice, crosses death and crosses the killing of a brahmin, and so does the man who knows the rite thus.
If these are real injunctions of fruits, the other rites are useless. People do not offer the agnihotra, the daily milk offered morning and evening, without also making the completing oblation. They do not press soma without the cake for Agni and Soma. The objector compares it to honey found on the path: no one who has the honey still climbs the mountain for it. One sentence that promised everything would leave the rest of the corpus idle.
Sanskrit in this line
Anya in the compound is the other, the rite that is not the one just credited with every fruit. The ablative continues the list of reasons.
Say it back
Keep the charge on the pūrṇāhuti (पूर्णाहुति): if that one oblation got every desire, say what would become of the other rites.
Next
1.2.5. A prohibition is aimed at what was never going to be done.