If bone of an animal is impure, how you can place it in the Deities' room? And if bone of an animal is pure, then what is the meaning of becoming impure and take bath? You'll find similar contradiction in the Vedic injunctions. But because it is said by the Vedas that bone of an animal is impure, you have to accept. But this bone of an animal, conchshell, is pure. Just like sometimes our students are perplexed when we say that onion is not to be taken, but onion is a vegetable.
So śabda-pramāṇa means the Vedic evidence should be taken in such a way that no argument. There is meaning; there is no contradiction. There is meaning. Just like several times I have told you that cow dung. Cow dung is, according to Vedic injunction, is pure. In India it is actually used as antiseptic. In villages especially, there is large quantity of cow dung, and they're, all over the house they have smeared to make the house antiseptic.
And actually, after smearing cow dung in your room, when it is dried, you'll find refreshed, everything antiseptic. It is practical experience. And one Dr. Ghosh, a great chemist, he examined cow dung, that why cow dung is so much important in the Vedic literature. He found that cow dung contains all the antiseptic properties. In Āyur-veda, cow dung dried and burned into ashes is used as toothpowder. It is very antiseptic toothpowder.
Similarly, there are many things, many injunctions in the Vedas, which may apparently appear as contradiction, but they are not contradiction. They are on experience, on transcendental experience. Just like a father says to his child that, "My dear child, you take this food. It is very nice." And the child takes it, believing the father, authority. The father says . . . the child knows that, "My father . . ." He is confident that "My father will never give me anything which is poison."
Therefore he accepts it blindly, without any reason, without any analysis of the food, whether it is pure or impure. You have to believe in such a way. You go to a hotel because it is licensed by the government. You have to believe when you take foodstuff there it is nice, it is pure, or it is antiseptic, or it is . . . but how do you know it? The authority. Because this hotel is authorized by the government, it has got license, therefore you believe.