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Updated: May 14, 2025
Of the next sloka, 'Because the Lord has knowledge for his essential nature, the meaning is 'Because of the Lord who abides as the Self of all individual souls, the essential nature is knowledge only while bodies divine, human, &c., have no part in it , therefore all non-intelligent things, bodies human and divine, hills, oceans, &c., spring from his knowledge, i.e. have their root in the actions springing from the volitions of men, gods, &c., in whose various forms the fundamental intelligence manifests itself.
In the same way as the consciousness of an intelligent being is not perceived when it is in the states of deep sleep, swoon, &c., so the intelligent nature of jars and the like also is not observed, although it really exists; and it is this very difference of manifestation and non-manifestation of intelligence on which the distinction of intelligent and non-intelligent beings depends.
And as the attributes which the texts ascribe to the general cause, viz. thought and so on, are attributes of intelligent beings only, we arrive at the conclusion that what constitutes the cause of the world is the non-intelligent Pradhana guided by the intelligent soul.
But it ought to have been taken into account that this non-intelligent cause, which produces such beautiful things in the grains and seeds of plants and animals, and effects the actions of bodies as the will ordains them, was formed by the hand of God: and God is infinitely more skilful than a watchmaker, who himself makes machines and automata that are capable of producing as wonderful effects as if they possessed intelligence.
Well, we reply, then the knowership of the Self also is not false; for that also is not sublatcd. But all this is unfounded, since the internal organ is, like the body, non-intelligent, an effect of Prakriti, an object of knowledge, something outward and for the sake of others merely; while being a knowing subject constitutes the special essential nature of intelligent beings. To explain.
In that Imperishable, O Gargi, the ether is woven, warp and woof. Here the declaration as to the Imperishable being what sees, hears, &c. excludes the non-intelligent Pradhana; and the declaration as to its being all- seeing, &c. while not seen by any one excludes the individual soul.
The final purport of the whole section thus is that everything different from the highest Self, whether of intelligent or non-intelligent nature, constitutes its body, while that Self alone is the non-conditioned embodied Self.
The reasons for this decision are as follows: Colour and so on reside in the gross forms of non-intelligent matter, viz. the elements, earth, and so on. When, therefore, visibility and so on are expressly negatived, such negation suggests a non-sentient thing cognate to earth, &c., but of a subtle kind, and such a thing is no other than the Pradhana.
For, as the soul is eternally released and above all change, it never sees Prakriti, nor does it attribute to itself her qualities; and Prakriti herself does not see herself since she is of non-intelligent nature; nor can she wrongly impute to herself the soul's seeing of itself as her own seeing of herself, for she herself is non-intelligent and the soul is incapable of that change which consists in seeing or knowing.
And as all intelligent and non-intelligent beings are thus mere modes of the highest Brahman, and have reality thereby only, the words denoting them are used in co- ordination with the terms denoting Brahman. This point has been demonstrated by me in the Vedarthasamgraha. Summary statement as to the way in which different scriptural texts are to reconciled.
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