वेदान्त पारिजात सौरभ (भगवद् निम्बार्काचार्य - द्वैताद्वैत वेदान्त ब्रह्मसूत्र भाष्य सटीक)

[SŪ 3. 3. 44.
680 VEDĀNTA-KAUSTUBHA ADH. 20.]
Vedānta-kaustubha
Now (the author) states the prima facie view
This “may be” “an alternative form”, i.e. a mode, of the same
“preceding fire”, enjoined in the passage: “With bricks he piles up
the fire”. Why? “On account of the context,” i.e. because pre-
viously in the passage “The non-existent, verily, was thus in the
beginning” (Śat Br 6.1.1, 1 ¹), the fire, piled up by bricks, is men-
tioned.
If it be argued that it has been said that context is weaker than
indicatory mark,—(we reply.) no, since the stated indicatory marks,
being contained in the descriptive portion and as such concerned with
the glorification of the mentioned imaginary fires, form a coherent
whole with the injunction, and are hence not true in their own literal
sense. Hence the fact that they are subsidiary parts of a sacrifice
consisting in meditation is set aside by the context. Therefore these
fires too, which have the form of meditation, are really of the form
of action, “as in the case of the mental (vessel)” That is, just as the
offering of the mental vessel on the tenth day of the twelve-days’
sacrifice, mentioned in the passage “With this (earth) as the jug,
with the sea as the juice, he takes the mental cup, offered to Prajāpati,
for you” ², though of the form of meditation, is yet of the form of
action because of being the subsidiary part of a sacrifice consisting
in action, so is the case here.
Baladeva
This is sūtra 46 in his commentary He begins a new adhikaraṇa
here (two sūtras), concerned with an entirely different topic, viz.
meditation on the self as identical with the Lord (So'ham). Hence
the sūtra: “(The meditation on the self as identical with the Lord)
may be an optional form of the former (viz. devotion) on account of
1 P. 499, line 1.
2 A similar passage is found in Āp. Ś.S. 21.10.2.
The sense is that on the tenth day of the Soma sacrifice, lasting twelve
days, a cup is offered mentally to Prajāpati, the earth being imagined to be the
cup and the sea the soma-juice. Now, all operations connected with this cup
are mental, yet the offering of the cup is taken to be a real, and not an imaginary
action, since it is connected with a real sacrifice. In the same way, the fires
built up by the mind and so on, though mental, are to be taken as parts of real
sacrifices, so says the prima facie objector. Vide Ś.B. 3.3.46, pp. 832-833