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The general Conclusion is that the Vedanta-texts, whether referring to numbers or not, nowhere set forth the categories established in Kapila's system. Here the philosopher who holds the Pradhana to be the general cause comes forward with another objection.
The Vedanta-texts therefore cannot possess the strength to convince us, in open defiance of the two invariable rules, that the one Brahman is at the same time the material and the operative cause of the world; and hence we maintain that Brahman is only the operative but not the material cause, while the material cause is the Pradhana guided by Brahman. This prima facie view the Sutra combats.
There is here a legitimate ground for doubt, in so far as, although the general agreement of all Vedanta-texts is established, the Udgitha, and so on, are different in each Veda since the accents differ in the different Vedas The Purvapakshin declares that those meditations are limited each to its particular sakha; for, he says, the injunction 'Let him meditate on the Udgitha' does indeed, verbally, refer to the Udgitha in general; but as what stands nearest to this injunction is the special Udgitha of the sakha, in whose text this injunction occurs, and which shares the peculiarities of accent characteristic of that sakha, we decide that the meditation is enjoined on members of that sakha only.
The texts rather single out special stories only as suitable for that performance; on the general injunction quoted above there follows an injunction defining which stories are to be told, 'King Manu, the son of Vivasvat, &c. The stories told in the Vedanta-texts do not therefore form parts of the pariplava performance, but are connected with injunctions of meditations.
We therefore adhere to our conclusion that the world, being non- intelligent and hence essentially different in nature from Brahman, cannot be the effect of Brahman; and that therefore, in agreement with Smriti confirmed by reasoning, the Vedanta-texts must be held to teach that the Pradhana is the universal material cause. This prima facie view is met by the following Sutra. But it is seen.
Although the Vedanta-texts teach an intelligent principle to be the cause of the world, they do not present to us as objects of knowledge anything that could be the cause of the world, apart from the Pradhana and the soul as established by the Sankhya-system. Up.
But the text 'Non-being indeed this was in the beginning' calls the general cause 'something that is not'; how then can you say that we infer from the Vedanta-texts as the general cause of the world a Brahman that is all-knowing, absolutely realises its purposes, and so on? To this question the next Sutra replies. From connexion. Up.
And the undesirable consequence of this would be that contradictory attributes as predicated in different Vedanta-texts would have to be attributed to one and the same substance; cp. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up.
As to the contention raised by the Purvapakshin that on the basis of invariable experience it must be held that one and the same principle cannot be both material and operative cause, and that effects cannot be brought about by one agency, and that hence the Vedanta-texts can no more establish the view of Brahman being the sole cause than the command 'sprinkle with fire' will convince us that fire may perform the office of water; we simply remark that the highest Brahman which totally differs in nature from all other beings, which is omnipotent and omniscient, can by itself accomplish everything.
Moreover, to prove at first from the Vedanta- texts that Brahman is the material cause of the world, and from this that pots and the like possess potential consciousness, and therefrom the existence of non-manifested consciousness; and then, on the other hand, to start from the last principle as proved and to deduce therefrom that the Vedanta-texts prove Brahman to be the material cause of the world, is simply to argue in a circle; for that the relation of cause and effect should exist between things different in character is just what cannot be proved.
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