  Here again, Kumārila’s arguments relate closely to linguistic preoccupations in light of which the point he makes can seem more interesting than it might at first. With respect, then, to the question of what, in the Vedic texts, refers to the obscure “apūrva” he has thus posited, Kumārila holds that this should finally be understood as the referent of verbs; for nouns essentially denote already present things, whereas it is verbs in virtue of which injunctive sentences enjoin actions that are always to be completed. (See, e.g., Tantravārttika 2.2.1, ff.; and Ślokavārttika, vākyādhikaraṇa, 330, ff.) Kumārila’s arguments here track, then, an often-cited hermeneutical maxim favored by Mīmāṃsakas:  “what exists conduces to what is to be brought into being” (bhūtaṃ bhavyāya kalpate). It is, in other words, the state of affairs whose “realization” (bhāvanā) is expressed by the verb that should be judged predominant particularly in the injunctive sentences that represent, for Mīmāṃakas, the most important parts of the Vedas. (See McCrea 2000.) So, just insofar as they refer to already-present things, nouns refer to things that are essentially subordinated to the realization (the bhāvanā, or “making real”) of the acts that are what such sentences primarily enjoin; insofar, then, as it is reasonable to think that verbs, too, must have referents, and insofar as these referents are always essentially yet to be realized, Kumārila thinks it necessary to posit apūrva (the temporally remote consequence of ritual acts) as being, as it were, the “referents” of verbs. (See Clooney 1990, 239, ff.; Halbfass 1991, 300–307)