Śaṅkaraon Brahma Sūtra 3.3.40

We read in the A’//andogya under the heading of the Vai^vanara-vidycl, ' Therefore the first food which comes is in the place of Homa. And he who offers that first oblation should offer it to Pra;/a, saying Sv&htl’ (Kh. Up. V, 19, i). The text thereupon enjoins five oblations, and later on applies to them the term ‘ Agnihotra ; * ‘ He who thus knowing this offers the agnihotra/ and ’As hungry children here on earth sit round their mother, so do all beings sit round the agnihotra’ (V, 24, 2 ; 4). Here the doubt arises whether the agnihotra offered to the pra;/as is to be omitted when the eating itself is omitted or not.— As, according to the clause, ‘ The first food which comes,^ &c., the oblation is connected with the coming of food, and as the coming of food subserves the eating, the agnihotra offered to the pra;/as is omitted when the eating — is omitted. Against this conclusion the Sutra (embodying — the purvapaksha) declares, ‘It is not omitted.’ Why? ‘ On account of the respect.* This means : In their vension of the Vauvanara-vidya the G'abalas read as follows: ‘He (i. e. the host) is to eat before his guests ; for (if he would make them eat first) it would be as if he without having himself offered the agnihotra offered that of another person.’ This passage, which objects to the priority of the eating on the part of the guests and establishes priority on the part of the host, thereby intimates respect for the agnihotra offered to the pra//as. For as it does not allow the omission of priority it will allow all the less the omission of that which is characterised by priority, viz. — the agnihotra offered to the prawas. But (as mentioned — above) the connexion established by the AV/andogya- — — passage of the oblation with the coming of food which subserves the eating— establishes the omission of the ob- lation in the case of the eating being omitted ! —Not so, the purvapakshin replies. The purpose of that passage is to enjoin some particular material (to be offered). For the fundamental agnihotra certain materials, such as milk and so on, are exclusively prescribed. Now, as through the term ‘agnihotra’ (which the text applies to the offering to the prdwas) all the particulars belonging to the funda- mental agnihotra are already established for the secondary agnihotra also (viz. the oblation made to the pra;/as), just as in the case of the ayana of the Ku;/rfapayins ^ ; the clause, ‘the first food which comes,’ &c., is meant to enjoin, for the pra;/agnihotra, some particular secondary matter, viz. the circumstance of food constituting the material of the oblation^. Hence, considering the Mimdw^si principle that the omission of a secondary matter does not involve the omission of the principal matter, we conclude that even in the case of the omission of eating, the agnihotra offered to the pra;/as has to be performed by means of water or some other not altogether unsuitable material, according to the Mimii/;/sa principle that in the absence of the prescribed material some other suitable material may be substituted. To this purvapaksha the next Siltra replies.