Mbh 12.321.5a

"'"Sulabha said, 'O king, speech ought always to be free from the nine verbal faults and the nine faults of judgment. It should also, while setting forth the meaning with perspicuity, be possessed of the eighteen well-known merits.[1688] Ambiguity, ascertainment of the faults and merits of premises and conclusions, weighing the relative strength or weakness of those faults and merits, establishment of the conclusion, and the element of persuasiveness or otherwise that attaches to the conclusion thus arrived at,--these five characteristics appertaining to the sense--constitute the authoritativeness of what is said. Listen now to the characteristics of these requirements beginning with ambiguity, one after another, as I expound them according to the combinations. When knowledge rests on distinction in consequence of the object to be known being different from one another, and when (as regards the comprehension of the subject) the understanding rests upon many points one after another, the combination of words (in whose case this occurs) is said to be vitiated by ambiguity.[1689] By ascertainment (of faults and merits), called Sankhya, is meant the establishment, by elimination, of faults or merits (in premises and conclusions), adopting tentative meanings.[1690] Krama or weighing the relative strength or weakness of the faults or merits (ascertained by the above process), consists in settling the propriety of the priority or subsequence of the words employed in a sentence. This is the meaning attached to the word Krama by persons conversant with the interpretation of sentences or texts. By Conclusion is meant the final determination, after this examination of what has been said on the subjects of religion, pleasure, wealth, and Emancipation, in respect of what particularly is what has been said in the text.[1691] The sorrow born of wish or aversion increases to a great measure.