understanding of words, since their number is infinite, as divided into proper and improper words.[317] Thus there is a tradition that Bṛihaspati for a thousand divine years taught to Indra the study of words as used in their individual forms when the Veda is read word by word,[318] and still he came not to the end. Here the teacher was Bṛihaspati, the pupil was Indra, and the time of study a thousand years of the gods; and yet the termination was not reached,--how much less, then, in our day, let a man live ever so long? Learning is rendered efficient by four appropriate means,--reading, understanding, practising, and handing it on to others; but in the proposed way life would only suffice for the bare time of reading; therefore the reading word by word is not a means for the knowledge of words, and consequently, as we said at first, the desired end is not established." We reply, however, that it was never conceded that the knowledge of words was to be attained by this reading word by word. And again, since general and special rules apply at once to many examples, when these are divided into the artificial parts called roots, &c. (just as one cloud rains over many spots of ground), in this way we can easily comprehend an exposition of many words. Thus, for instance, by the general rule (iii. 2, 1), _karmaṇi_, the affix _aṇ_ is enjoined after a root when the object is in composition with it; and by this rule we learn many words, as _kumbhakára_, "a potter," _káṇḍaláva_, "a cutter of stems," &c. But the supplementary special rule (iii. 2, 3), _áto 'nupasarge kaḥ_, directing that the affix _ka_ is to be used after a root that ends in long _á_ when there is no _upasarga_, shows how impracticable this reading word by word would be [since it would never teach us how to distinguish an _upasarga_]. "But since there are other _aṅgas_, why do you single out grammar as the one object of honour?" We reply, that among the six _aṅgas_ the principal one is grammar, and labour devoted to what is the principal is sure to bear fruit. Thus it has been said-- "Nigh unto Brahman himself, the highest of all religious austerities, "The wise have called grammar the first _aṅga_ of the Veda." Hence we conclude that the exposition of words is the direct end of the rules of grammar, but its indirect end is the preservation, &c., of the Veda. Hence it has been said by the worshipful author of the great Commentary [quoting a Várttika], "the end (or motive) is preservation, inference, scripture, facility, and assurance."[319] Moreover prosperity arises from the employment of a correct word; thus Kátyáyana has said, "There is prosperity in the employment of a word according to the _śástra_; it is equal to the words of the Veda itself." Others also have said that "a single word thoroughly understood and rightly used becomes in Swarga the desire-milking cow." Thus (they say)--