Arvācīna and Anarvācīna Pratyakṣa as Epistemological Terms

Aleksandar Uskokov, Yale University

Paper Delivered at the 234th Annual Meeting of

the American Oriental Society, March 22-25,
2024, Chicago IL.

§1. A classi��cation of perception is occasionally mentioned in Sanskrit epistemological

literature, a pair called arvācīna- and anārvācīna-pratyakṣa. In that precise form, it is
most commonly mentioned by Śrīvaiṣṇava philosophers and theologians, yet
associated expressions are used by authors of various doctrinal backgrounds. It is
unclear how best to translate the two terms speci��cally in an epistemological context—
sadly I myself can only approximate and rather paraphrase than translate, and
dictionaries do not note the epistemological sense in any case—yet it is entirely clear
that their most common translation as "recent" and "ancient," expressing a temporal
sense, isn't on the mark.
To foreground this, let us open with a locus that will be well known to a number
of specialists in Indian philosophy, the popular theological manual Yatīndra-mata-
dīpikā or "The Lamp of Rāmānuja's Doctrine" by the 17th century Śrīnivāsa Dāsa.
Having divided perception into conceptualized and non-conceptualized, Śrīnivāsa goes
on to class it further into arvācīna and anarvācīna—on HANDOUT #1. In Svāmī
Ādidevānanda's translation that is widely circulated by the Ramakrishna Mission, the
two are rendered as "modern" and "the ancient," even though this temporal sense
seems hardly justified in light of how Śrīnivāsa proceeds to define the pair—in
HANDOUT #2. Here not even forms of yogic perception are deemed deserving to be
anarvācīna, privy to which are only the liberated souls; the eternal residents of
Vaikuṇṭha or nitya-sūris; and God. Rather than temporal, it is a spatial connotation that
presents itself as intended, since the three constitute what Śrīvaiṣṇavas would call the
nitya-vibhūti or the eternal domain, i.e. Viṣṇu's Vaikuṇṭha.
Others outside the Śrīvaṣṇava tradition have also sought a temporal sense. Thus,
Satyanarayana Dasa in his recent translation of Jīva Gosvāmin's Bhagavat-sandarbha—
a passage that I will draw on later—renders arvācīna in terms of "recentness," "recent
appearance," and the like. 1 Occasionally the two are left untranslated.

1
Dasa, Satyanarayana. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī’s Śrī Bhagavat Sandarbha. Sanskrit Text with English Translation and Jīva-toṣaṇī
Commentary. Vrindavan, 2014: Jiva Institute of Vaishnava Studies.
§2. Now, the pair in that speci��c form and a clear epistemological sense seems to have
originated, as far as the available record allows us to reconstruct, with Rāmānuja's
student Parāśara Bhaṭṭar, whose Tattva-ratnākara is cited in Vedāntadeśika
Veṅkaṭanātha's Nyāya-pariśuddhi. Parāśara Bhaṭṭar allegedly de��ned and classi��ed
perception as on your HANDOUT #3. The de��nition that he provides is one that amounts
to omniscience: it is that kind of perception suitable for direct cognition of all objects
simultaneously and appertaining to those with some sort of special power. Unlike in
Śrīnivāsa's account, yogis here are included in the mix, presumably to the degree that
their cognition isn't dependent on the common faculties, i.e., insofar as it is not
"impermanent," anitya.
§3. I should now like to emphasize again that although the specific pair seems to be
typical of Śrīvaiṣṇavas, it has, in fact, a much wider currency. To appreciate this,
however, we must widen the ground of our inquiry, albeit to illustrate rather than to be
exhaustive. The key term here is arvāk, a directional adverb and adjectival base that
means "hitherward" or "toward this place." Its natural opposite in Sanskrit is paras,
"beyond," and the two together imply a demarcation point of separate domains. A verse
from the famous Rigvedic hymn on Speech (vāc), one of the few that Vedāntins
sporadically quote, puts arvāk and paras instructively together and is included as
HANDOUT #4. Sāyaṇa—on HANDOUT #5—explicitly connects arvā́k in the verse with
"this world that is downward directionally" and parás with the world of the gods, and
adds an epistemological context to them: it is ignoramuses (avidvāṁsaḥ) who associate
with Brahmins in neither of the two domains that do not know Speech, i.e., are not
devoted to the meaning of the Vedas.
In Madhva’s theory of perception—see HANDOUT #6—arvāc is the cut-off point
below the perception of divine agents (Viṣṇu and Lakṣmī) and the yogic cognition
(yogi-jñānam) of "proper yogis" that culminates in liberation. What is above arvāk
pertains, in other words, to all forms of perceptual awareness that are truly
supersensible and immutable, of the kind that not even the gods experience. Following
Jaina epistemology, Madhva calls it kevala-jñāna, pure cognition, i.e., awareness that is
not mediated by the cognitive faculties of ordinary agents. Such unmediated
awareness, when it is experienced by yogis, can be modulated by the senses, at which
point it takes a downturn (arvāk) and then subsumes all forms of sensory experience.
§4. In fact—see HANDOUT #7—already Buddhist philosophers have operated with
lexemes as arvāg-darśin and arvāg-darśana (in a bahuvrīhi sense), i.e., "a person of
limited vision" as Sara McClintock puts it, to denote ordinary cognitive agents who do
not have access to the supersensible (atīndriya), or properly the "radically inaccessible"
atyanta-parokṣa. 2 They have, in other words, talked about the same arvāk-paras divide,
and they have associated the access to the "radically inaccessible" with omniscience, in
particular with knowledge of dharma and adharma.
The next passage, coming from the 11th century Jain Prabhācandra, will amply
illustrate what precisely is at stake in perception being of the arvāk kind. Its context is a
refutation of Kumārila's argument about caste being known perceptually through the
recognition of lineage. Against Kumārila's claim, Prabhācandra argues that caste isn't
knowable perceptually because it isn't directly available to one whether their mother
had sex with a Brahmin or a Śūdra, that is, whether they are born of or out of wedlock.
Jāti is visible in the natural kinds, like donkeys and stallions, but that it isn't visible in
humans just means that caste isn't such a natural kind. And then Prabhācandra goes on
to say—in HANDOUT #8—that the caste of their parents isn't perceptually known to one
who is an arvāg-dṛś, which I gather refers to one who can perceptually witness only
what is coterminous with oneself, where birth is precisely the point where this may be
said to begin. In other words, one cannot perceptually know what their parents were up
to, or even who they were, insofar as one just wasn't in the world then.
This may seem like a temporal argument, but it is really an ontological one,
concerning a being or state of affairs that one isn't a part of.
§5. And this brings me to Jīva Gosvāmin, on whom I will focus the better part of the
remainder of this paper. Jīva does not talk about anarvācīna-pratyakṣa; his preferred
terms instead are vaiduṣa-pratyakṣa, vidvad-anubhava and related expressions, but
their opposite in his system, avaiduṣa-pratyakṣa, is used interchangeably with arvācīna,
so he does presuppose the same pair as the Śrīvaiṣṇavas.
Now, terms as arvācīna, arvāg-jana, and arvāg-dṛṣṭi occur in Jīva's Six
Sandarbhas and his auto-commentary the Sarva-saṁvādinī precisely in the context of
cognition. Arvācīnas include competing religionists who have "spoiled the Vedas" and
their social world with false doctrines and practices, but also those who are in the Vedic
fold yet cannot understand the meaning of the Purāṇas because their intellects are tiny.
Even the Vedic sages may be said to be arvāg-jana: in them the eternal Vedic word
enters in the beginning of creation such that the Vedas are properly intuited rather
than composed by them.
The most important passage among these textual loci, however, is the end of the
Bhagavat-sandarbha, where Jīva gives a long concluding definition of Bhagavān the
Lord as the central element of his theology and goes on to say that this has been

2
McClintock 2010, pp. 174-75.
"depicted in words whose meaning has been seen by the learned," i.e., through the
aforementioned vaiduṣa-pratyakṣa. Then to the "learned" he contrasts the "unlearned"
who do not trust such depictions because they have not seen anything with
comparable characteristics and cannot conceive how a thing like it could exist. These
"unlearned" are arvācīnas, "on this side" of the creation.
What is crucial of them—and see HANDOUT #9—is that they are products of the
mind‚ body, and faculties of Brahmā the creator, and include not only Brahmā, but also
the divinities that govern the faculties on macrocosmic and microcosmic level.
Arvācīna, put simply, are those whose cognitive faculties are on this side of creation.
They cannot cognize the transcendent Bhagavān, presumably insofar as they do so with
their arvācīna faculties. Likewise—and see HANDOUT #10—"those whose vision is on
this side" (arvāg-dṛṣṭi) do not have any experience with properties like those of
Bhagavān, yet the properties of Bhagavān are established by the perception of the
learned who are his devotees.
"This side," then, is the sensible, the created, and by that much the corruptible;
and, it is the domain of all agents whose faculties are created. They are the direct
opposite of the "learned," and since the "learned" are those whose cognition does not
depend on arvācīna faculties, they do perceive the supersensible.
§6. And now, in support of his argument, Jīva quotes the famous verse 6 from the
Nāsadīya-sūkta (i.e., Rigveda 10.129)—in HANDOUT #11—where the argument is that the
gods themselves cannot know whence this creation simply because their own origin is
predicated on it: arvā́g devā́ asyá visárjanena, or as Brereton and Jamison's translation
exactly captures, "The gods are on this side of the creation."
Jīva, in other words, makes the same argument as Prabhācandra, only on a grand
or macrocosmic scale: whatever is created, whatever has origin in time, cannot know
what—for itself—is beyond time, really, before time. Again, this is not a temporal
argument about what is recent or ancient: it is an argument about what is causally
posterior and thereby cannot directly witness what is ontologically prior to itself as its
ground.
Finally, Jīva's account tells us why forms of arvāk and arvācīna should assume an
epistemological sense at all: they come from a hallowed source of the Rigveda.
§7. Before I conclude, I would like to contrast this with a case where supersensory
perception does express the temporal sense of "ancient" and "modern." It comes from
Śaṅkara's refutation of Kumārila's rejection of yogic perception—or as he puts it,
"personal experience" or anubhava—as an origin of that set of scripture which is
subsumed under the category of smṛti. At the core of the disagreement between the
two is precisely scripture having a point of origin in time. Kumārila famously endorsed
a postulation (arthāpatti) of lost Vedic texts as the origin of smṛti with an appeal to
simplicity, a form of Occam's razor, against yogic perception. He argued, namely, that
in the case of lost Vedic texts, only one unseen factor must be postulated, the lost text
itself, whereas in the case of yogic perception two such factors are required: first, that
veridical supersensory experience had, indeed, taken place; and second, that the smṛti
authors such as Manu had cognitive powers that are contrary to the cognitive powers of
all man of the present. I draw your attention of Handout #12 and the expression
idānīṁtana-sarva-puruṣa-jāti-viparīta-sāmarthya.
In his refutation—and see Handout #13—Śaṅkara accepted both possibilities:
smṛti texts—and here specifically the itihāsa-purāṇa corpus, since the argument is
about whether the Vedas are strictly injunctive or primarily informative, and whether
they can provide knowledge about the Vedic divinities—may have origin in the mantra
and arthavāda parts of the Vedas; alternatively, they may originate in perception,
presumably of the supersensible. And here Śaṅkara directly charges at Kumārila—
Handout #14, which I will also read:

He who says, however, that the ancients were not able to transact with the gods just as the
moderns aren’t, he would deny diversity in the world, and he would have to say that in the
past there was no universal world ruler just as there isn't one today. Thereby he would hinder
the injunctions for rājasūya and he would have to acknowledge that varṇāśrama-dharma was
as unestablished for the most part in the past as it is today, rendering thereby the scripture
establishing varṇāśrama purposeless. Therefore, it is suggested that the ancients had direct
dealings with the gods thanks to the preponderance of their dharma.

§8. Note that Śaṅkara explicitly follows Kumārila in talking about the cognitive ability,
sāmarthya, of the moderns and the ancients, idānīntanāna and pūrva, and this is
evidently a cognitive ability exercised in time: it is of agents such as Manu and Vyāsa on
the one hand—he includes later in the comment the seers of the mantra and
brāhmaṇa texts of the Vedas—and his contemporaries on the other. But note also that
there isn't any essential difference between the ancient and the modern: nothing in
Śaṅkara's account precludes the modern from the possibility of having supersensible
cognitions like the ancients, for if he were to argue something of the kind, he would be
committing the same blunder he accused Kumārila of, precluding the possibility of
change.
 Something else entirely is involved in arvācīna, arvāg-dṛṣṭi and the related terms:
it isn't the cognition of the ancient or the modern, but the mystery of how agents in
time may perceive what is ontologically prior to them and beyond time. It may well be
that the alleged supersensible experiences are interchangeable, but their names and
notional content are not.
§9. To conclude, how does one translate arvācīna- and anarvācīna-pratyakṣa and their
related terms? Obviously, there aren't readily available choices. One could experiment
with "empirical" on the one hand and "transcendental" on the other, but that will
probably raise more Kantian ghosts, false ideas, and misunderstandings than is
otherwise beneficial. One can paraphrase—"perception on this side" and "perception
on the other side"—yet that too is not only ungainly but also imprecise. Arguably it
would be most accurate to say, "hitherward perception" and "thitherward perception,"
yet I won't hold my breath for this to catch on. Perhaps one should settle for Sara
McClintock's "perception of the radically inaccessible" and pair it with "perception of
the accessible."
Arvācīna and Anarvācīna Pratyakṣa as Epistemological Terms—Handout
Aleksandar Uskokov, Yale University

HANDOUT #1:
Śrīnivāsa Dāsa's Yatīndra-mata-dīpikā. Text and translation: Swāmī Ādidevananda, Madras, 1967: Sri Ramakrishna
Math:
1.16: nirvikalpaka-savikalpaka-bhinnaṁ pratyakṣaṁ dvividham—arvācīnam anarvācīnaṁ ceti.

HANDOUT #2:
Ibid:
arvācīnaṃ punar dvividham—indriya-sāpekṣaṁ tad-anapekṣaṁ ceti. tad-anapekṣaṁ ca dvividham—
svayaṁ siddhaṁ divyaṁ ceti. svayaṁ
siddhaṁ yoga-janyam. divyaṁ bhagavat-prasāda-janyam. anarvācīnaṃ tu indriyānapekṣaṁ mukta-
nityeśvara-jñānam.

HANDOUT #3:
Parāśara Bhaṭṭar's Tattrva-ratnākara, cited in Vedāntadeśika Veṅkaṭanātha in his Nyāya-pariśuddhi, ed.
Lakṣmaṇācārya Vidyābhūṣaṇa. Benares: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1923; pp. 82-3:
pratyakṣasya caivaṁ vibhāgo ’bhihitaḥ. dvividhaṁ caitat pratyakṣam arvācīnam anarvācīnaṁ ca
yugapad-aśeṣa-viṣaya-sākṣātkāra-kṣamam anarvācīnam. tad yogi-mukteśvarāṇām prabhāva-
viśeṣādhīnām upapādayiṣyata ityādi.

HANDOUT #4:
Rigveda 10.71.9
imé yé nā́rvā́ṅ ná paráś cáranti
ná brāhmaṇā́so ná sutékarāsaḥ |
tá eté vā́cam abhipádya pāpáyā
sirīś tántraṁ tanvate áprajajñayaḥ ||
"Who move neither close (arvā́k) nor far away (parás), who are not brahmins, and who
do not perform in the soma-pressing,
they, having fallen upon speech in a bad way, stretch streams of water
as their warp-thread, producing nothing."
(Translation Brereton and Jamison, Oxford and London: Oxford University Press,
2014, p. 1498.)

HANDOUT #5:
Sāyaṇa's commentary on Rigveda 10.71.9, in Ṛgveda-saṁhitā, with the commentary of Sāyaṇācārya. Edited by N.S.
Sontakke and C.G. Kashikar. In 5 Volumes. Poona: Vaidic Samsodhan Mandal, 1933-51:
ime ye avidvāṁsaḥ arvāk arvācīnam adho-bhāviny asmimḷ-loke brāhmaṇaiḥ saha na caranti ye paraḥ
parastāt devaiḥ saha na caranti te brāhmaṇāsaḥ brāhmaṇāḥ vedārtha-tatparāḥ na bhavanti.

HANDOUT #6:
From Roque Mesquita, Studies on Madhva Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya, New Delhi, 2016: Aditya Prakashan, pp.30-32, and
quoting Madhva's Pramāṇa-lakṣaṇa.
yathārthaṁ pramāṇam. tad dvividhaṁ kevalam anupramāṇaṁ ca. yathārtha-jñānaṁ kevalam. tat-
sādhanam anupramāṇam. kevalaṁ catur-vidham īśa-lakṣmī-yogy-ayogi-bhedena. pūrva-dvayam
anādi-nityam. svāntantrya-pāratantryābhyāṁ tad-viśeṣaḥ. pūrvaṁ sva-para-gatākhila-viśeṣa-viṣayam.
dvitīyam īśe 'nyebhyo 'dhikam asārvatrikam anyatra sarva-viṣayam. spaṣṭatve bhedaḥ. yogi-jñānaṁ
ṛjūnām anādi-nityam īśe jīvebhyo 'dhikam anyatrālocane sarva-viṣayam. krameṇa varddhamānam ā
muktes tato 'vyayam. tato 'rvak krameṇa hrasitam. sādi ca tāttvikebhyo 'nyatra. ayogi-jñānam utpatti-
nāśavad alpam.
"Valid means of knowledge [or knowledge itself makes known an existent object] as it is. They are
twofold: pure knowledge [i. e. without mediation of the sense organs] and subordinate knowledge.
Pure knowledge (kevalam) makes known an object as it is; subordinate knowledge has pure
knowledge as its (intellectual) cause. Pure knowledge is fourfold on account of the difference between
Īśvara, Lakṣmī, Yogi, and non-Yogi. The [pure knowledge] of the first two is eternal, without
beginning. [However,] there is a difference between them, [firstly] because [pure knowledge of Īśvara
is completely] independent, whereas [knowledge of Lakṣmī] is dependent [on Īśvara]. [Another
difference among them] is that the first [knowledge, namely of Īśvara] contains all characteristic
differences of [Īśvara] himself and of all other beings, and the second [knowledge, namely of Lakṣmī,
on the contrary] is not all-embracing with regard to Īśvara, although [her knowledge] is surpassing in
quantity as regards to other beings [as for instance in relation to the personal creator Brahmā]. The
[third] difference is due to [Īśvara's] clear [matchless perception]. Yogi-knowledge belongs to the real
yogis (ṛjūnām). [This knowledge also] is eternal, without beginning. In regard to Īśvara, it surpasses
[the knowledge] of [unreleased] souls in quality [and] it is comprehensive regarding the knowledge of
other [beings]. [Their knowledge regarding Īśvara] gradually grows up to [the everlasting] release.
Therefore, [in the state of release] it is immutable. From [the real Yogis] downwards, [the
knowledge regarding Īśvara and other beings] gradually [wanes]. [This process of waning] begins with
[human beings] who differ from real Yogis. The trifling knowledge of the non-Yogis arises and then
passes away."

HANDOUT #7:
From Sara McClintock's Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason, Boston, 2010: Wisdom Publications, pp.173-5,
and quoting Kamalaśīla's Pañjikā on Śāntarakṣita's Tattva-saṅgraha:
Pañjikā on TS 3267-68: na ca para-santāna-vartīni cetāṁsi sarvāṇi pratyakṣato 'sarvajñena
viṣayīkriyante kenacit, yena tatra sarvajñatvaṁ pratijñāyamānaṁ pratyakṣeṇa bādhyeta. sarveṣām
evārvag-darśitvāt; "And all the mental states occurring in others' mindstreams are not objects of
perception for any nonomniscient person, such that the omniscience being proposed would be
refuted through perception, because all of [those non-omniscient persons] are persons of limited
vision."
Pañjikā on TS 1208: praty-ātma-saṁvedanīyam evārvāg-darśanānāṁ jñānam. na hy anyadīya-jñānam
aparo 'para-darsanaḥ saṁvedayate; "The awareness of a person of limited vision is restricted by that
which is known by himself [alone], for another's awareness is not known by one who does not see
others' [minds]."
Pañjikā on TS 1640-42: asya caitrasya jīvane niścāyaka-pramāṇābhāvād arvāg-darśinaḥ saṁśaya eva;
"Because the person of limited vision has no means of trustworthy awareness that can ascertain that
Caitra is alive, it is just a matter of doubt [for him]."

HANDOUT #8:
From Eric Moses Gurevitch, "The Epistemology of Difference: Caste and the Question of Natural Kinds in the
Courts of Medieval India," Journal of South Asian Intellectual History (2023), pp.1-35, and quoting Prabhācandra's
Nyāya-kumuda-candra:
na tāvat pratyakṣataḥ. “ayam etasmād eva etasyām utpannaḥ” ity evaṃ-rūpasyārthasya arvāg-dṛśā
pratyakṣīkarttum aśakyatvāt.
Gurewitch translates:
"It is not, in the first instance, that that fact of one’s parents being non-promiscuous is cognizable
from direct perception, because it is impossible for a normal person with limited vision to directly
witness an object of the form 'this person was born from this mother and this very father.'"
I think the argument is stronger than reflected in the translation, insofar as the proximate
pronoun ayam is often used to refer to oneself, but it works even if that is not the case insofar as one
hasn't perceived a remote state of affairs and can only see what is "on this side" of the matter.

HANDOUT #9:
Jīva Gosvāmin's Bhagavat-sandarbha, ed. H. Śāstrī. Vrindavan: Śrī-Gadādhara-Gaurahari Press, 1984:
Anuccheda 102 [commenting on BhāgavataP 9.8.21]: apare ’rvācīnās tu kutas tvāṁ paśyeyur
budhyeran vā? arvācīnatve hetuḥ—tasya brahmaṇaḥ. manaś ca śarīraḥ ca dhīś ca sattva-tamo-rajaḥ-
kāryāṇi tābhir vividhā ye deva-tiryaṅ-narāṇāṁ sargās teṣu sṛṣṭāḥ.
"Others, those on this side [of creation], how could they see or understand you? The reason for their
being lower: they are products of the mind, body, intellect of Brahmā; and they are created in species
such as gods, animals, and men."

HANDOUT #10:
Ibid:
arvāg-dṛṣṭibhir asambhāvyamānam api tvayi tad-guṇakatvaṁ tad-bhakta-vidvat-pratyakṣa-siddham
asty eveti bhāvaḥ.
"Even though you having such qualities is inconceivable by those whose vision is on this side, it is
established by the perception of the learned who are your devotees."

HANDOUT #11:
Rigveda 10.129.6:
kó addhā́ veda ká ihá prá vocat
kúta ā́jātā kúta iyáṁ vísṛṣṭiḥ |
arvā́g devā́ asyá visárjanena
áthā kó veda yáta ābabhū́va ||
"Who really knows? Who shall here proclaim it?—from where was it born,
from where this creation?
The gods are on this side of the creation of this (world). So then who
 does know from where it came to be?"
(Translation Brereton and Jamison, p. 1609.)

HANDOUT #12:
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa's Tantra-vārttika on MS 1.3.2, Mīmāṁsā-Darśanam of Jaimini, with the Śabara-Bhāṣya of Śabara,
Prabhā of Śrī Vaidyanātha Śāstri, Tantra-Vārttika and Tupṭīkā of Kumārila Bhaṭṭa. In 7 Volumes, eds. Abhyankar,
K.V., and G.A. Joshi. Ānandāśrama Sanskrit Series. Poona: Ānandāśrama, 1929ff.
anubhave 'pi sa eva tāvad anubhavaḥ kalpayitavyaḥ. punaś cedānīṃtana-sarva-puruṣa-jāti-viparīta-
sāmarthya-kalpanā manvādeḥ.

HANDOUT #13:
Śaṅkara's Brahma-sūtra-bhāṣya on 1.3.33, The Works of Sri Sankaracharya, in 20 volumes. Srirangam: Sri Vani Vilas
Press, 1910; Vol. I, pp. 13-4:
itihāsa-purāṇam api vyākhyātena mārgeṇa sambhavan-mantrārthavāda-mūlakatvāt prabhavati
devatā-vigrahādi sādhayitum. pratyakṣādi-mūlam api sambhavati. bhavati hy asmākam apratyakṣam
api cirantanānāṁ pratyakṣam. tathā ca vyāsādayo devādibhiḥ pratyakṣaṁ vyavaharantīti smaryate.

HANDOUT #14:
Ibid:
yas tu brūyāt—idānīntanānām iva pūrveṣām api nāsti devādibhir vyavahartuṁ sāmarthyam iti, sa
jagad vaicitryaṁ pratiṣedhet. idānīm iva ca nānyadāpi sārvabhaumaḥ kṣatriyo ’stīti brūyāt, tataś ca
rājasūyādi-codanā uparundhyāt. idānīm iva ca kālāntare ’py avyavasthita-prāyān varṇāśrama-
dharmān pratijānīta, tataś ca vyavasthā-vidhāyi śāstram anarthakaṁ kuryāt.
"He who says, however, that the ancients were not able to transact with the gods just as the moderns
aren’t, he would deny diversity in the world, and he would have to say that in the past there was no
universal world ruler just as there isn't one today. Thereby he would hinder the injunctions for
rājasūya and he would have to acknowledge that varṇāśrama-dharma was as unestablished for the
most part in the past as it is today, rendering thereby the scripture establishing varṇāśrama
purposeless."