ble.

29. And from this very reason there follows the eternity of the Veda.

As the eternity of the Veda is founded on the absence of the remembrance
of an agent only, a doubt with regard to it had been raised owing to the
doctrine that the gods and other individuals have sprung from it. That
doubt has been refuted in the preceding Sutra.--The present Sutra now
confirms the, already established, eternity of the Veda. The eternity of
the word of the Veda has to be assumed for this very reason, that the
world with its definite (eternal) species, such as gods and so on,
originates from it.--A mantra also ('By means of the sacrifice they
followed the trace of speech; they found it dwelling in the /ri/shis,'
/Ri/g-veda Sa/m/h. X, 71, 3) shows that the speech found (by the
/ri/shis) was permanent.--On this point Vedavyasa also speaks as
follows: 'Formerly the great /ri/shis, being allowed to do so by
Svayambhu, obtained, through their penance, the Vedas together with the
itihasas, which had been hidden at the end of the yuga.'

30. And on account of the equality of names and forms there is no
contradiction (to the eternity of the word of the Veda) in the
renovation (of the world); as is seen from /S/ruti and Sm/ri/ti.

If--the purvapakshin resumes--the individual gods and so on did, like
the individual animals, originate and pass away in an unbroken
succession so that there would be no break of the course of practical
existence including denominations, things denominated and agents
denominating; the connexion (between word and thing) would be eternal,
and the objection as to a contradiction with reference to the word
(raised in Sutra 27) would thereby be refuted. But if, as /S/ruti and
Sm/ri/ti declare, the whole threefold world periodically divests itself
of name and form, and is entirely dissolved (at the end of a kalpa), and
is after that produced anew; how can the contradiction be considered to
have been removed?

To this we reply: 'On account of the sameness of name and form.'--Even
then the beginninglessness of the world will have to be admitted (a
point which the teacher will prove later on: II, 1, 36). And in the
beginningless sa/m/sara we have to look on the (relative) beginning, and
the dissolution connected with a new kalpa in the same light in which we
look on the sleeping and waking states, which, although in them
according to Scripture (a kind of) dissolution and origination take
place, do not give rise to