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Updated: May 5, 2025
During a pralaya this causal substance abides self-luminous, with all the distinctions of consciousness of pleasure and pain gone to rest, comparable to the soul of a man held by dreamless sleep, different however in nature from mere non-sentient matter.
We have proved that Brahman, which the Vedanta-texts teach to be the sole cause of the world, must be an intelligent principle other than the non-sentient pradhana, since Brahman is said to think.
That which does not rest on Scripture, i.e. the Pradhana, which rests on Inference only, is not what is intimated by the texts referring to the origination of the world; for the text exhibits the root 'iksh' which means 'to think' as denoting a special activity on the part of what is termed 'Being. 'It thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. 'Thinking' cannot possibly belong to the non-sentient Pradhana: the term 'Being' can therefore denote only the all-knowing highest Person who is capable of thought.
According to our view, on the other hand, Brahman, which has for its body all sentient and non-sentient beings, whether in their subtle or their gross state, is always in its effected as well as in its causal condition free from all shadow of imperfection, and a limitless ocean as it were of all exalted qualities.
So far the Sutras have given instruction about a Brahman, the enquiry into which serves as a means to obtain what is the highest good of man, viz. final release; which is the cause of the origination, and so on, of the world; which differs in nature from all non-sentient things such as the Pradhana, and from all intelligent beings whether in the state of bondage or of release; which is free from all shadow of imperfection; which is all knowing, all powerful, has the power of realising all its purposes, comprises within itself all blessed qualities, is the inner Self of all, and possesses unbounded power and might.
For there is not even the shadow of a possibility that essential capability of seeing and ruling all things, and being the Self of all, and immortality should belong either to the non-sentient Pradhana or to the individual soul. The last two Sutras have declared that the mentioned qualities belong to the highest Self, while they do not belong to the individual soul.
The crust of cooled earth, on which we walk, is thick enough to bear man and all his works, but there comes a time when it will crack. The world will not be flooded again, but we forget, what Noah did not know, that it will be burned. The parties to the covenant must be noticed. God recognises obligations to all living things, and even to the dumb, non-sentient earth.
But, a further objection is raised, Scripture itself declares in many places that things generally held to be non-sentient really possess intelligence; compare 'to him the earth said'; 'the water desired'; 'the pranas quarrelling among themselves as to their relative pre-eminence went to Brahman. And the writers of the Puranas ako attribute consciousness to rivers, hills, the sea, and so on.
At other times the body of Brahman is constituted by all sentient and non-sentient beings in their gross, manifest state, owing to which they admit of being thought and spoken of as having distinct names and forms: Brahman then is in its 'effected' state. The effect, i.e. the world, is thus seen to be non-different from the cause, i.e. the highest Brahman.
The repetition of the word 'explained' is meant to indicate the termination of the adhyaya. The first adhyaya has established the truth that what the Vedanta-texts teach is a Supreme Brahman, which is something different as well from non-sentient matter known through the ordinary means of proof, viz.
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