Hence it follows that the full meaning of the sentence in question (of the _Mahábháshya_) is that "it is to be understood that the rules of grammar which may be taken as a synonym for 'the exposition concerning words' are now commenced." "Well, then, for the sake of directly understanding this intended meaning, it would have been better to have said 'now comes grammar,' as the words 'now comes the exposition of words' involve a useless excess of letters." This objection cannot, however, be allowed, since the employment of such a word as _śabdánuśásanam_, the sense of which can be so readily inferred from its etymology, proves that the author intends to imply an end which shall establish that grammar is a subordinate study (_aṅga_) to the Veda.[315] Otherwise, if there were no such end set forth, there would be no consequent application of the readers to the study of grammar. Nor may you say that this application will be sufficiently enforced by the injunction for study, "the Veda with its six subordinate parts must be read as a duty without any (special) end,"[316] because, even though there be such an injunction, it will not follow that students will apply to this study, if no end is mentioned which will establish that it is an _aṅga_ of the Veda. Thus in old times the students, after reading the Veda, used to be in haste to say-- "Are not Vaidic words established by the Veda and secular by common life, "And therefore grammar is useless?" Therefore it was only when they understood it to be an _aṅga_ of the Veda that they applied themselves to its study. So in the same way the students of the present day would not be likely to apply themselves to it either. It is to obviate this danger that it becomes necessary to set forth some end which shall, at the same time, establish that grammar is an _aṅga_ of the Veda. If, when the end is explained, they should still not apply themselves, then, being destitute of all knowledge of the true formation of secular words, they would become involved in sin in the course of sacrificial acts, and would consequently lose their religious merit. Hence the followers of sacrifice read, "One who keeps up a sacrificial fire, on using an incorrect word, should offer an expiatory offering to Saraswatí." Now it is to declare this end which establishes that it is an _aṅga_ of the Veda that he uses the words _atha śabdánuśásanam_ and not _atha vyákaraṇam_. Now the rules of grammar must have an end, and a thing's end is determined by men's pursuit of it with a view thereto. Just as in a sacrifice undertaken with a view to heaven, heaven is the end; in the same way the end of the exposition of words is instruction concerning words, _i.e._, propriety of speech. "But," an objector may say, "will not the desired end be still unattained for want of the true means to it? Nor can it be said that reading the Veda word by word is the true means; for this cannot be a means for the