We therefore advance the following final refutation of the opponent’s objection.—The declaration of the difference of the embodied Self and the internal ruler has its reason in the limiting adjunct, consisting of the organs of action, pre¬ sented by Nescience, and is not absolutely true. For the Self within is one only; two internal Selfs are not possible. But owing to its limiting adjunct the one Self is practically treated as if it were two; just as we make a distinction between the ether of the jar and the universal ether. Hence there is room for those scriptural passages which set forth the distinction of knower and object of knowledge, for per¬ ception and the other means of proof, for the intuitive knowledge of the apparent world, and for that part of Scripture which contains injunctions and prohibitions. In accordance with this, the scriptural passage, ‘ Where there is duality, as it were, there one sees another, 5 declares that the whole practical world exists only in the sphere of Nescience; while the subsequent passage, ‘ But when the Self only is all this, how should he see another? 5 declares that the practical world vanishes in the sphere of true knowledge.
21. That which possesses the attributes of invisi¬ bility and so on (is Brahman), on account of the declaration of attributes.
Scripture says, ‘The higher knowledge is this by which the Indestructible is apprehended. That which cannot be seen nor seized, which is without origin and qualities, without eyes and ears, without hands and feet, the eternal, all-pervading, omnipresent, infinitesimal, that which is im¬ perishable, that it is which the wise regard as the source of all beings 5 (Mu. Up. I, 1, 5; 6).—Here the doubt arises whether the source of all beings which is spoken of as characterised by invisibility, &c. be the pradhana, or the embodied soul, or the highest Lord.
We must, the purvapakshin says, understand by the source of all beings the non-intelligent pradhana because (in the passage immediately subsequent to the one quoted) only non-intelligent beings are mentioned as parallel in¬ stances. ‘As the spider sends forth and draws in its thread, as plants grow on the earth, as from the living man hairs spring forth on the head and the body, thus everything arises here from the Indestructible. 5 —But, it vedanta-sOtras.
may be objected, men and spiders which are here quoted as parallel instances are of intelligent nature.—No, the purvapakshin replies; for the intelligent being as such is not the source of the threads and the hair, but everybody knows that the non-intelligent body of the spider ruled by intelligence is the source of the threads; and so in the case of man also.—While, moreover, in the case of the preceding Sutra, the pradhana hypothesis could not be accepted, because, although some qualities mentioned, such as invisibility and so on, agreed with it, others such as being the seer and the like did not; we have here to do only with attributes such as invisibility which agree with the pradh&na, no attribute of a contrary nature being men¬ tioned.—But the qualities mentioned in the complementary passage (Mu. Up. I, 1,9), ‘He who knows all and perceives all, 5 do not agree with the non-intelligent pradhana; how, then, can the source of all beings be interpreted to mean the pradhana?—To this the purvapakshin replies: The passage, ‘ The higher knowledge is that by which the Indestructible is apprehended, that which cannot be seen/ &c., points, by means of the term ‘ the Indestructible/ to the source of all beings characterised by invisibility and similar attributes.
This same ‘ Indestructible 5 is again mentioned later on in the passage, c It is higher than the high Imperishable/ Now that which in this latter passage is spoken of as higher than the Imperishable may possess the qualities of knowing and perceiving everything, while the pradMna denoted by the term ‘the Imperishable 5 is the source of all beings.—If, however, the word ‘ source 5 (yoni) be taken in the sense of operative cause, we may by ‘ the source of the beings 5 understand the embodied Self also, which, by means of merit and demerit, is the cause of the origin of the complex of things.
To this we make the following reply.—That which here is spoken of as the source of all beings, distinguished by such qualities as invisibility and so on, can be the highest Lord only, nothing else.—Whereupon is this conclusion founded?—On the statement of attributes. For the clause, r He who is all-knowing, all-perceiving/ clearly states an attribute belonging to the highest Lord only, since the attributes of knowing all and perceiving all cannot be predicated either of the non-intelligent pradhana or the embodied soul whose power of sight is narrowed by its limiting conditions. To the objection that the qualities of knowing and perceiving all are, in the passage under discussion, attributed to that which is higher than the source of all beings—which latter is denoted by the term ‘the Imperishable 5 —not to the source itself, we reply that this explanation is inadmissible because the source of all beings, which—in the clause, ‘ From the Indestructible every¬ thing here arises ’—is designated as the material cause of all created beings, is later on spoken of as all-knowing, and again as the cause of all created beings, viz. in the passage (I, i, 9), ‘From him who knows all and perceives all, whose brooding consists of knowledge, from him is bom that Brahman, name, form, and food.’ As therefore the Indestructible which forms the general topic of dis¬ cussion is, owing to the identity of designation, recognised (as being referred to in the later passage also), we understand that it is the same Indestructible to which the attributes of knowing and perceiving all are ascribed.—We further maintain that also the passage, ‘ Higher than the high Imperishable, 5 does not refer to any being different from the imperishable source of all beings which is the general topic of discussion. We conclude this from the circum¬ stance that the passage, ‘He truly told that knowledge of Brahman through which he knows the imperishable true person,’ (I, 2, 13; which passage leads on to the passage about that which is higher than the Imperishable,) merely declares that the imperishable source of all beings, distinguished by invisibility and the like—which formed the subject of the preceding chapter—will be discussed. The reason why that imperishable source is called higher than the high Imperishable, we shall explain under the next Sutra.—Moreover, two kinds of knowledge are enjoined there (in the Upanishad), a lower and a higher one. Of the lower one it is said that it comprises the is’zg-veda and so on, and then the text continues, ‘ The higher knowledge vedanta-sOtras.
is that by which the Indestructible is apprehended/ Here the Indestructible is declared to be the subject of the higher knowledge. If we now were to assume that the Indestructible distinguished by invisibility and like qualities is something different from the highest Lord, the know¬ ledge referring to it would not be the higher one. For the distinction of lower and higher knowledge is made on account of the diversity of their results, the former leading to mere worldly exaltation, the latter to absolute bliss; and nobody would assume absolute bliss to result from the know¬ ledge of the pradhana.— Moreover, as on the view we are controverting the highest Self would be assumed to be something higher than the imperishable source of all beings, three kinds of knowledge would have to be ac¬ knowledged, while the text expressly speaks of two kinds only.—Further, the reference to the knowledge of every¬ thing being implied in the knowledge of one thing—which is contained in the passage (I, 1, 3), ‘ Sir, what is that through which if it is known everything else becomes known?’—is possible only if the allusion is to Brahman the Self of all, and not either to the pradhana which com¬ prises only what is non-intelligent or to the enjoyer viewed apart from the objects of enjoyment.—The text, moreover, by introducing the knowledge of Brahman as the chief subject—which it does in the passage (I, 1, 1), i He told the knowledge of Brahman, the foundation of all knowledge, to his eldest son Atharvan 5 —and by afterwards declaring that out of the two kinds of knowledge, viz. the lower one and the higher one, the higher one leads to the com¬ prehension of the Imperishable, shows that the knowledge of the Imperishable is the knowledge of Brahman. On the other hand, the term ‘ knowledge of Brahman 5 would become meaningless if that Imperishable which is to be comprehended by means of it were not Brahman. The lower knowledge of works which comprises the AYg-veda, and so on, is mentioned preliminarily to the knowledge of Brahman for the mere purpose of glorifying the latter; as appears from the passages in which it (the lower know¬ ledge) is spoken of slightingly, such as (I, 3, 7), ‘ But frail indeed are those boats, the sacrifices, the eighteen in which this lower ceremonial has been told. Fools who praise this as the highest good are subject again and again to old age and death.’ After these slighting remarks the text declares that he who turns away from the lower knowledge is prepared for the highest one (I, 2, 12), ‘ Let a Brahma^a after he has examined all these worlds which are gained by works acquire freedom from all desires. Nothing that is eternal (not made) can be gained by what is not eternal (made). Let him in order to understand this take fuel in his hand and approach a guru who is learned and dwells entirely in Brahman.’—The remark that, because the earth and other non-intelligent things are adduced as parallel instances, that also which is compared to them, viz. the source of all beings must be non-intelligent, is without foundation, since it is not necessary that two things of which one is compared to the other should be of absolutely the same nature. The things, moreover, to which the source of all beings is compared, viz. the earth and the like, are material, while nobody would assume the source of all beings to be material.—For all these reasons the source of all beings, which possesses the attributes of invisibility and so on, is the highest Lord.
22. The two others (i. e. the individual soul and the pradhana) are not (the source of all beings) be¬ cause there are stated distinctive attributes and difference.
The source of all beings is the highest Lord, not either of the two others, viz. the pradh&na and the individual soul, on account of the following reason also. In the first place, the text distinguishes the source of all beings from the embodied soul, as something of a different nature; compare the passage (II, 1, 2), ‘That heavenly person is without body, he is both without and within, not produced, with¬ out breath and without mind, pure.’ The distinctive attri¬ butes mentioned here, such as being of a heavenly nature, and so on, can in no way belong to the individual soul, which erroneously considers itself to be limited by name and form as presented by Nescience, and erroneously imputes their attributes to itself. Therefore the passage manifestly refers to the Person which is the subject of all the Upanishads. —In the second place, the source of all beings which forms the general topic is represented in the text as something different from the pradhdna, viz. in the passage, ‘ Higher than the high Imperishable. 5 Here the term ‘ Imperishable 5 means that undeveloped entity which represents the seminal potentiality of names and forms, contains the fine parts of the material elements, abides in the Lord, forms his limiting adjunct, and being itself no effect is high in com¬ parison to all effects; the whole phrase, ‘ Higher than the high Imperishable,’ which expresses a difference then clearly shows that the highest Self is meant here.—We do not on that account assume an independent entity called pradhana and say that the source of all beings is stated separately therefrom; but if a pradhana is to be assumed at all (in agreement with the common opinion) and if being assumed it is assumed of such a nature as not to be opposed to the statements of Scripture, viz. as the subtle cause of all beings denoted by the terms ‘the Undeveloped’ and so on, we have no objection to such an assumption, and declare that, on account of the separate statement therefrom, i. e.
from that pradhdna, ‘ the source of all beings 5 must mean the highest Lord.—A further argument in favour of the same conclusion is supplied by the next Sutra.
23. And on account of its form being mentioned.
Subsequently to the passage, ‘ Higher than the high Imperishable,’ we meet (in the passage, ‘ From him is born breath,’ &c.) with a description of the creation of all things, from breath down to earth, and then with a statement of the form of this same source of beings as consisting of all created beings, ‘ Fire is his head, his eyes the sun and the moon, the quarters his ears, his speech the Vedas dis¬ closed, the wind his breath, his heart the universe; from his feet came the earth; he is indeed the inner Self of all things. 5 This statement of form can refer only to the highest Lord, and not either to the embodied soul, which, on account of its small power, cannot be the cause of all effects, or to the pradhana, which cannot be the inner Self of all beings. We therefore conclude that the source of all beings is the highest Lord, not either of the other two.— But wherefrom do you conclude that the quoted declara¬ tion of form refers to the source of all beings?—From the general topic, we reply. The word ‘he 5 (in the clause, ‘ He is indeed the inner Self of all things ’) connects the passage with the general topic. As the source of all beings consti¬ tutes the general topic, the whole passage, from ‘ From him is born breath, 5 up to, ‘ He is the inner Self of all beings, 5 refers to that same source. Similarly, when in ordinary conversation a certain teacher forms the general topic of the talk, the phrase, ‘ Study under him; he knows the Veda and the Ved&ngas thoroughly, 5 as a matter of course, refers to that same teacher.—But how can a bodily form be ascribed to the source of all beings which is characterised by invisi¬ bility and similar attributes?—The statement as to its nature, we reply, is made for the purpose of showing that the source of all beings is the Self of all beings, not of showing that it is of a bodily nature. The case is analogous to such passages as, ‘ I am food, I am food, I am the eater of food 5 (Taitt.
Up. Ill, 10, 6).—Others, however, are of opinion 1 that the statement quoted does not refer to the source of all beings, because that to which it refers is spoken of as something produced. For, on the one hand, the immediately pre¬ ceding passage (‘ From him is born health, mind, and all organs of sense, ether, air, light, water, and the earth, the support of all 5 ) speaks of the aggregate of beings from air down to earth as something produced, and, on the other 1 Vrzftikrzdvyakhyam dftshayati, Go. An.; ekadednazzz dushayati, Ananda Giri; tad etat paramatenakshepasamadhanabhyazzz vyakhyaya svamatena vya^ash/e, puna^,rabdo*pi pftrvasmad vbeshazzz dyotayann asyesh/atazzz sft/$ayati, Bhamati.—The statement of the two former commentators must be understood to mean—in agree¬ ment with the Bhamati—that Aarikara is now going to refute the preceding explanation by the statement of his own view. Thus Go. An. later on explains ‘ asmin pakshe 5 by ‘svapakshe. 5 vedanta-sOtras.
hand, a passage met with later on (‘From him comes Agni, the sun being his fuel,’ up to ‘ All herbs and juices ’) ex¬ presses itself to the same purpose. How then should all at once, in the midst of these two passages (which refer to the creation), a statement be made about the nature of the source of all beings?—The attribute of being the Self of all beings (which above was said to be mentioned in the passage about the creation,‘ Fire is his head, 5 &c., is not mentioned there but) is stated only later on in a passage subsequent to that which refers to the creation, viz. ‘ The Person is all this, sacrifice,’ &c. (II, i, io).—Now, we see that miti as well as smrz’ti speaks of the birth of Pra£*&pati, whose body is this three¬ fold world; compare A?zg-veda Samh. X, 131, 1, ‘ Hira^yagarbha arose in the beginning; he was the one born Lord of things existing. He established the earth and this sky; to what God shall we offer our oblation? ’ where the expres¬ sion ‘ arose ’ means c he was born.’ And in snmti we read, ‘ He is the first embodied one, he is called the Person; as the primal creator of the beings Brahman was evolved in the beginning.’ This Person which is (not the original Brahman but) an effect (like other created beings) may be called the internal Self of all beings (as it is called in II, 1, 4), because in the form of the Self of breath it abides in the Selfs of all beings.—On this latter explanation (according to which the passage, ‘ Fire is his head,’ &c., does not describe the nature of the highest Lord, and can therefore not be referred to in the Sutra) the declaration as to the Lord being the ‘nature 5 of all which is contained in the passage, ‘ The Person is all this, sacrifice,’ &c., must be taken as the reason for establishing the highest Lord, (i. e. as the passage which, according to the Sutra, proves that the source of all beings is the highest Lord 1.)
1 The question is to what passage the ‘ rupopanyasat ’ of the Sfitra refers.—According to the opinion set forth first it refers to Mu. Up. II, 1, 4 ff.—But, according to the second view, II, 1, 4 to II, 1, 9, cannot refer to the source of all beings, i. e. the highest Self, because that entire passage describes the creation, the inner Self of which is not the highest Self but Pra^apati, i. e. the Hirawyagarbha or Sfitratman of the later Vedanta, who is himself an 24. VaLvanara (is the highest Lord) on account of the distinction qualifying the common terms (VaLvanara and Self).
(In Kh. Up. V, 11 ff.) a discussion begins with the words, ‘What is our Self, what is Brahman? 5 and is carried on in the passage,‘You know at present that Vauvanara Self, tell us that; 5 after that it is declared with reference to Heaven, sun, air, ether, water, and earth, that they are con¬ nected with the qualities of having good light, &c., and, in order to disparage devout meditation on them singly, that they stand to the Vahvanara in the relation of being his head, &c., merely; and then finally (V, 18) it is said, ‘But he who meditates on the VaLvanara Self as measured by a span, as abhivimana 1, he eats food in all worlds, in all beings, in all Selfs. Of that VaLvanara Self the head is Sute^as (having good light), the eye VLvarupa (multiform), the breath Przthagvartman (moving in various courses), the trunk Bahula (full), the bladder Rayi (wealth), the feet the earth, the chest the altar, the hairs the grass on the altar, the heart the Garhapatya fire, the mind the Anv&harya fire, the mouth the Ahavaniya fire. 5 —Here the doubt arises whether by the term ‘VaLvanara 5 we have to understand the gastric fire, or the elemental fire, or the divinity presiding over the latter, or the embodied soul, or the highest Lord.—But what, it may be asked, gives rise to this doubt?—The circumstance, we reply, of ‘ VaLrvanara 5 being employed as a common term for the gastric fire, the elemental fire, and the divinity of the latter, while ‘Self 5 is a term applying to the embodied soul as well as to the highest Lord. Hence the doubt arises which meaning of the term is to be accepted and which to be set aside.
Which, then, is the alternative to be embraced?—Vai- .rvanara, the purvapakshin maintains, is the gastric fire, because we meet, in some passages, with the term used in 8 effect/ and who is called the inner Self, because he is the breath of life (pra/za) in everything.—Hence the Sutra must be connected with another passage, and that passage is found in II, 1,10, where it is said that the Person (i. e. the highest Self) is all this, &c.
1 About which term see later on.
that special sense; so, for instance (B ri. Up. V, 9), ‘Agni VaLyvanara is the fire within man by which the food that is eaten is cooked. 5 —Or else the term may denote fire in general, as we see it used in that sense also; so, for instance ( Rig -veda Sa/7zh. X, 88, 12), 8 For the whole world the gods have made the Agni VaLvanara a sign of the days. 5 Or, in the third place, the word may denote that divinity whose body is. fire. For passages in which the term has that sense are likewise met with; compare, for instance, Rtg-vt da Sa^h. I, 98,1, 8 May we be in the favour of Vauvanara; for he is the king of the beings, giving pleasure, of ready grace; 5 this and similar passages properly applying to a divinity endowed with power and similar qualities. Perhaps it will be urged against the preceding explanations, that, as the word VaLvanara is used in co-ordination with the term 8 Self, 5 and as the term 8 Self 5 alone is used in the intro¬ ductory passage (‘What is our Self, what is Brahman? 5 ), Vauv&nara has to be understood in a modified sense, so as to be in harmony with the term Self. Well, then, the purvapakshin rejoins, let us suppose that Vauvanara is the embodied Self which, as being an enjoyer, is in close vicinity to the VaLyvandra fire, 1 (i. e. the fire within the body,) and with which the qualification expressed by the term, 8 Measured by a span, 5 well agrees, since it is restricted by its limiting condition (viz. the body and so on).—In any case it is evident that the term Vauvanara does not denote the highest Lord.
To this we make the following reply.—The word VaLsvcinara denotes the highest Self, on account of the distinction qualifying the two general terms.—Although the term 8 Self, 5 as well as the term 8 VaLyvanara/ has various meanings— the latter term denoting three beings while the former denotes two—yet we observe a distinction from which we conclude that both terms can here denote the highest Lord only; viz. in the passage, 8 Of that VaLyvanara Self the head is Sute^as, 5 &c. For it is clear that that passage refers to the highest Lord in so far as he is distinguished by having heaven, and so on, for his head and limbs, and in so far as 1 Sartre laksha;zaya vahvanarajabdopapattim aha tasyeti. An. Gi.
*45 he has entered into a different state (viz. into the state of being the Self of the threefold world); represents him, in fact, for the purpose of meditation, as the internal Self of everything. As such the absolute Self may be represented, because it is the cause of everything; for as the cause virtually contains all the states belonging to its effects, the heavenly world, and so on, may be spoken of as the members of the highest Self.—Moreover, the result which Scripture declares to abide in all worlds—viz. in the passage, ‘ He eats food in all worlds, in all beings, in all Selfs’—is possible only if we take the term VaLvanara to denote the highest Self.— The same remark applies to the declaration that all the sins are burned of him who has that knowledge, ‘ Thus all his sins are burned,’ &c. ( Kh. Up. V, 24, 3). —Moreover, we meet at the beginning of the chapter with the words ‘ Self’ and ‘Brahman;’ viz. in the passage, ‘What is our Self, what is Brahman? ’ Now these are marks of Brahman, and indicate the highest Lord only. Hence he only can be meant by the term Vauvanara.
25. (And) because that which is stated by Smmi (i. e. the shape of the highest Lord as described by Smrzti) is an inference (i. e. an indicatory mark from which we infer the meaning of.Sruti).