________________
234
VEDANTA-SOTRAS.
In the sixth prapâthaka of the Brihadâranyaka there is given, in reply to the question, Who is that Self?' a lengthy exposition of the nature of the Self, 'He who is within the heart, among the prânas, the person of light, consisting of knowledge' (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 7). Here the doubt arises, whether the passage merely aims at making an additional statement about the nature of the transmigrating soul (known already from other sources), or at establishing the nature of the non-transmigrating Self.
The pûrvapakshin maintains that the passage is concerned with the nature of the transmigrating soul, on account of the introductory and concluding statements. For the introductory statement, 'He among the prânas who consists of knowledge,' contains marks indicatory of the embodied soul, and so likewise the concluding passage, 'And that great unborn Self is he who consists of cognition,' &c. (IV, 4, 22). We must therefore adhere to the same subjectmatter in the intermediate passages also, and look on them as setting forth the same embodied Self, represented in its different states, viz. the waking state, and so on.
6
In reply to this, we maintain that the passage aims only at giving information about the highest Lord, not at making additional statements about the embodied soul.-Why?— On account of the highest Lord being designated as different from the embodied soul, in the states of deep sleep and of departing from the body. His difference from the embodied soul in the state of deep sleep is declared in the following passage, 'This person embraced by the intelligent (prâgña) Self knows nothing that is without, nothing that is within.' Here the term, 'the person,' must mean the embodied soul; for of him it is possible to deny that he knows, because he, as being the knower, may know what is within and without. The 'intelligent Self,' on the other hand, is the highest Lord, because he is never dissociated from intelligence, i. e.-in his case-all-embracing knowledge. Similarly, the passage treating of departure, i. e. death (this bodily Self mounted by the intelligent Self moves along groaning '), refers to the highest Lord as different from the individual Self. There also we have to understand by the 'embodied one' the indi
Digitized by Google
