The purvapakshin maintains that the /S/udras 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 /S/udra is unfit for sacrificing' (Taitt. Sa/m/h. VII, 1, 1, 6). The reason, moreover, which disqualifies the /S/udras 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 /S/udras; 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 /S/udra 'Fie, necklace and carnage be thine, O /S/udra, together with the cows' (Ch. Up. IV, 2, 3). Sm/ri/ti moreover speaks of Vidura and others who were born from /S/udra mothers as possessing eminent knowledge.--Hence the /S/udra has a claim to the knowledge of Brahman. To this we reply that the /S/udras have no such claim, on account of their not studying the Veda. A person who has studied the Veda and understood its sense is indeed qualified for Vedic matters; but a /S/udra does not study the Veda, for such study demands as its antecedent the upanayana-ceremony, and that ceremony belongs to the three (higher) castes only. The mere circumstance of being in a condition of desire does not furnish a reason for qualification, if capability is absent. Mere temporal capability again does not constitute a reason for qualification, spiritual capability being required in spiritual matters. And spiritual capability is (in the case of the /S/udras) excluded by their being excluded from the study of the Veda.--The Vedic statement, moreover, that the /S/udra is unfit for sacrifices intimates, because founded on reasoning, that he is unfit for knowledge also; for the argumentation is the same in both cases[221].--With reference to the purvapakshin's opinion that the fact of the word '/S/udra' being enounced in the sa/m/varga-knowledge constitutes an inferential mark (of the /S/udra's qualification for knowledge), we remark that that inferential mark has no force, on account of the absence of arguments. For the statement of an inferential mark possesses the power of intimation only in consequence of arguments being adduced; but no such arguments are brought forward in the passage quoted.[222] Besides, the word '/S/udra' which occurs in the sa/m/varga-vidya would establish a claim on the part of the /S/udras to that one vidya only, not to all vidyas. In reality, however, it is powerless, because occurring in an arthavada, to establish the /S/udras' claim to anything.--The word '/S/udra' can moreover be made to agree with the context in which it occurs in the following manner. When Jana/s/ruti Pautraya/n/a heard himself spoken of with disrespect by the