te 80: Whence it follows that it is not something to be avoided
like transitory things.]

[Footnote 81: That, for instance, in the passage 'he is to sacrifice
with Soma,' the word 'soma,' which does not denote an action, is devoid
of sense.]

[Footnote 82: I.e. for the purpose of showing that the passages
conveying information about Brahman as such are justified. You have (the
objector maintains) proved hitherto only that passages containing
information about existent things are admissible, if those things have a
purpose; but how does all this apply to the information about Brahman of
which no purpose has been established?]

[Footnote 83: It is 'naturally established' because it has natural
motives--not dependent on the injunctions of the Veda, viz. passion and
the like.]

[Footnote 84: Elsewhere, i.e. outside the Veda.]

[Footnote 85: The above discussion of the prohibitory passages of the
Veda is of a very scholastic nature, and various clauses in it are
differently interpreted by the different commentators. /S/a@nkara
endeavours to fortify his doctrine, that not all parts of the Veda refer
to action by an appeal to prohibitory passages which do not enjoin
action but abstinence from action. The legitimacy of this appeal might
be contested on the ground that a prohibitory passage also, (as, for
instance, 'a Brahma/n/a is not to be killed,') can be explained as
enjoining a positive action, viz. some action opposed in nature to the
one forbidden, so that the quoted passage might be interpreted to mean
'a determination, &c. of not killing a Brahma/n/a is to be formed;' just
as we understand something positive by the expression 'a
non-Brahma/n/a,' viz. some man who is a kshattriya or something else. To
this the answer is that, wherever we can, we must attribute to the word
'not' its primary sense which is the absolute negation of the word to
which it is joined; so that passages where it is joined to words
denoting action must be considered to have for their purport the entire
absence of action. Special cases only are excepted, as the one alluded
to in the text where certain prohibited actions are enumerated under the
heading of vows; for as a vow is considered as something positive, the
non-doing of some particular action must there be understood as
intimating the performance of some action of an opposite nature. The
question as to the various meanings of the particle 'not' is discussed
in all treatises on the Purva