1367 Verse 2087

Original

दोषाः सन्ति न सन्तीति पुंवाच्येषु हि शङ्क्यते ।
श्रुतौ कर्तुरभावान्नु दोषाशङ्कैव नास्ति नः ॥ २०८७ ॥

doṣāḥ santi na santīti puṃvācyeṣu hi śaṅkyate |
śrutau karturabhāvānnu doṣāśaṅkaiva nāsti naḥ || 2087 ||

“In the case of the assertion of human beings, it is always open to doubt whether or not there are defects (in the speaker); in the case of the revealed word, however, as there is no speaker, we can have no suspicion of there being any defects.”—(2087)

Kamalaśīla

In the following text, the Mīmāṃsaka shows that his Reason is not open to the charge of being ‘Inadmissible’:—[see verse 2087 above]

As a matter of fact, Defects reside in human beings only,—as they are their property; how then could they be there where their substratum is absent? If they could be there, they would be there without a substratum (baseless); in fact it is the very nature of the subsistent thing that it should follow in the wake of its substratum;—and Man—the doer, the compiler, the speaker—is the substratum of Defects; and any such author is not there in the case of the Veda; whence then could there be any suspicion of there being Defects?

This same argument has set aside also the charge of the Reason being ‘doubtful—hence inadmissible’.—(2087)