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I ADHYAYA, 4 PÂDA, 22.
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And where Scripture relates the creation of fire and the other elements, it does not at the same time relate a separate creation of the individual soul; we have therefore no right to look on the soul as a product of the highest Self, different from the latter.-In the opinion of the teacher Kåsakritsna the non-modified highest Lord himself is the individual soul, not anything else. Asmarathya, although meaning to say that the soul is not (absolutely) different from the highest Self, yet intimates by the expression, 'On account of the fulfilment of the promise'-which declares a certain mutual dependence-that there does exist a certain relation of cause and effect between the highest Self and the individual soul'. The opinion of Audulomi again clearly implies that the difference and non-difference of the two depend on difference of condition 2. Of these three opinions we conclude that the one held by Kâsakritsna accords with Scripture, because it agrees with what all the Vedanta-texts (so, for instance, the passage, 'That art thou') aim at inculcating. Only on the opinion of Kâsakritsna immortality can be viewed as the result of the knowledge of the soul; while it would be impossible to hold the same view if the soul were a modification (product) of the Self and as such liable to lose its existence by being merged in its causal substance. For the same reason, name and form cannot abide in the soul (as was above attempted to prove by means of the simile of the rivers), but abide in the limiting adjunct and are ascribed to the soul itself in a figurative sense only. For the same reason the origin of the souls from the highest Self, of which Scripture speaks in some places as analogous to the issuing of sparks from the fire, must be viewed as based only on the limiting adjuncts of the soul.
The last three Sûtras have further to be interpreted so as to furnish replies to the second of the purvapakshin's arguments, viz. that the Brihadâranyaka passage represents as
1 And not the relation of absolute identity. 2 I.e.
upon the state of emancipation and its absence.
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