of their eminent religious merit, conversed with the gods face to face.  Sm/ri/ti also declares that ’from the reading of the Veda there results intercourse with the favourite divinity’ (Yoga Sutra II, 44).  And that Yoga does, as Sm/ri/ti declares, lead to the acquirement of extraordinary powers, such as subtlety of body, and so on, is a fact which cannot be set aside by a mere arbitrary denial.  Scripture also proclaims the greatness of Yoga, ’When, as earth, water, light, heat, and ether arise, the fivefold quality of Yoga takes place, then there is no longer illness, old age, or pain for him who has obtained a body produced by the fire of Yoga’ (Svet.  Up.  II, 12).  Nor have we the right to measure by our capabilities the capability of the rishis who see the mantras and brahma/n/a passages (i.e. the Veda).—­From all this it appears that the itihasas and pura/n/as have an adequate basis.—­And the conceptions of ordinary life also must not be declared to be unfounded, if it is at all possible to accept them.

The general result is that we have the right to conceive the gods as possessing personal existence, on the ground of mantras, arthavadas, itihasas, pura/n/as, and ordinarily prevailing ideas.  And as the gods may thus be in the condition of having desires and so on, they must be considered as qualified for the knowledge of Brahman.  Moreover, the declarations which Scripture makes concerning gradual emancipation[219] agree with this latter supposition only.

34.  Grief of him (i.e. of Jana/s/ruti) (arose) on account of his hearing a disrespectful speech about himself; on account of the rushing on of that (grief) (Raikva called him Sudra); for it (the grief) is pointed at (by Raikva).

(In the preceding adhikara/n/a) the exclusiveness of the claim of men to knowledge has been refuted, and it has been declared that the gods, &c. also possess such a claim.  The present adhikara/n/a is entered on for the purpose of removing the doubt whether, as the exclusiveness of the claim of twice-born men is capable of refutation, the Sudras also possess such a claim.

The purvapakshin maintains that the Sudras also have such a claim, because they may be in the position of desiring that knowledge, and because they are capable of it; and because there is no scriptural prohibition (excluding them from knowledge) analogous to the text, ‘Therefore[220] the Sudra is unfit for sacrificing’ (Taitt.  Sa/m/h.  VII, 1, 1, 6).  The reason, moreover, which disqualifies the Sudras for sacrificial works, viz. their being without the sacred fires, does not invalidate their qualification for knowledge, as knowledge can be apprehended by those also who are without the fires.  There is besides an inferential mark supporting the claim of the Sudras; for in the so-called sa/m/varga-knowledge he (Raikva) refers to Jana/s/ruti Pautraya/n/a, who wishes to learn from him, by the name of Sudra ’Fie, necklace and carnage be thine, O Sudra, together with the cows’ (Ch.  Up.  IV, 2, 3).  Sm/ri/ti moreover speaks of Vidura and others who were born from Sudra mothers as possessing eminent knowledge.—­Hence the Sudra has a claim to the knowledge of Brahman.