1.4.23
Mīmāṃsā Sūtra / Adhyāya 1 / 1.4.23
तत्सिद्धिः
tatsiddhiḥ
The line
The sense is settled by the accomplishment of the rite, and the sentence is praise.
नेपालीमा
अर्थ कर्मको सिद्धिले निश्चय हुन्छ, र वाक्य स्तुति हो।
Where it sits
A new sentence, after the Vaiśvānara (वैश्वानर) praise has been settled. tatsiddhiḥ (तत्सिद्धिः) names the ground: the reading is the one in which the performance is accomplished. The prastara and the one-potsherd are the cases. Later lines name other grounds of the same kind of decision.
Split: tad-siddhiḥ (तद्-सिद्धिः)
Sanskrit, in depth
The words
| Word | Grammar | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| tad-siddhiḥ (तद्-सिद्धिः) | nominative singular, feminine | the accomplishment of that |
The phrases
The sentences say the sacrificer is the prastara, the grass that is his seat, and the sacrificer is the one-potsherd cake. The doubt is whether this enjoins a quality or whether it is praise.
The first view says it enjoins, because it would make known something new, and praise would have nothing to do. That fails. If it were an injunction, the man would be assigned to the work of the grass-seat, or the grass-seat to the work of the man. The ladles are set on the prastara. They would be set on the man. The rite could not be done. The one-potsherd, if the man were assigned to its work, would be wholly offered in a way that drops the rest of the procedure. And the man cannot do the cake's work, nor the cake the man's.
Other injunctions already exist: he sets the prastara down to the north of the grass, and he makes the one-potsherd wholly offered. So this is not an injunction. The known thing is mentioned in order to praise. The word for one thing is used of the other through a quality. The accomplishment of the rite settles the sense. Only the praise-reading lets the acts already enjoined be done.
Sanskrit in this line
The line is one compound, tad plus siddhi, nominative feminine. tad is the rite's actually being carried out. Śabara (शबर)'s question under this word is how a word for one thing is applied to another. The answer he gives is a quality, not a second primary meaning.
Say it back
Say that the sacrificer is called the grass-seat by way of praise, because putting the ladles on the man would undo the rite.
Next
1.4.24. The brāhmaṇa (ब्राह्मण) is called Agni's by a shared origin, and the sentence is praise.