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Updated: May 25, 2025
Is this departure of the soul common to him who knows and him who does not know? It belongs to him only who does not know, the Purvapakshin holds. Up. This view the Sutra sets aside. For him also who knows there is the same way of passing out up to the beginning of the path, i.e. previously to the soul's entering the veins. Up.
So far the Sutras have declared that the Brahman which forms the object of enquiry is different from the non-intelligent Pradhana, which is merely an object of fruition for intelligent beings. Up. It is that inner Self, the Purvapakshin contends.
It thus remains a settled conclusion that Brahman is to be meditated upon as constituting the Self of the meditating Devotee. Here terminates the adhikarana of 'meditation under the aspect of Self. Up. Up. The Purvapakshin holds the former view.
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.
Hence there is after all no essential difference in nature between sentient and so-called non- sentient beings. To this objection the Purvapakshin replies in the next Sutra. The word 'but' is meant to set aside the objection started. In texts such as 'to him the earth said, the terms 'earth' and so on, denote the divinities presiding over earth and the rest. How is this known?
It is not possible, the Purvapakshin maintains; for Scripture declares, 'no work the fruits of which have not been completely enjoyed perishes even in millions of aeons. What the texts, quoted above, say as to the non- clinging and destruction of works occurs in sections complementary to passages inculcating knowledge as the means of final Release, and may therefore be understood as somehow meant to eulogize knowledge.
The following point is next enquired into. Up. The Purvapakshin holds the former view, on the ground that the text declares the Udgitha to be the best of all essences in so far as being a constituent element of the sacrifice.
The doubt here arises whether the being spoken of as the abode of heaven, earth, and so on, is the individual soul or the highest Self. The Purvapakshin maintains the former alternative.
In agreement with the use made of this passage by the Purvapakshin, vijnana must here be understood in the sense of avidya. Vijnanasabdena vividham jnayate-neneti karanavyutpattya-vidya-bhidhiyate. Sru. The distinction is illustrated by the different views Perception and Inference cause us to take of the nature of the flame of the lamp.
It now becomes a matter for discussion whether the individual soul also originates in the same way or not. It does so originate, the Purvapakshin maintains. For on this assumption only the scriptural statement as to the cognition of all things through the cognition of one thing holds good, and moreover Scripture declares that before creation everything was one.
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