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VEDANTA-SUTRAS.
(as the Sankhya also must admit) at the time of reabsorption the differences of all the special effects are obliterated and pass into a state of general non-distinction, the special fixed conditions, which previous to reabsorption were the causes of the different worldly existence of each soul, can, at the time of a new creation, no longer be determined, there being no cause for them; and if you assume them to be determined without a cause, you are driven to the admission that even the released souls have to re-enter a state of bondage, there being equal absence of a cause (in the case of the released and the non-released souls). And if you try to avoid this conclusion by assuming that at the time of reabsorption some individual differences pass into the state of non-distinction, others not, we reply that in that case the latter could not be considered as effects of the pradhana '.—It thus appears that all those difficulties (raised by the Sânkhya) apply to both views, and cannot therefore be urged against either only. But as either of the two doctrines must necessarily be accepted, we are strengthened -by the outcome of the above discussion-in the opinion that the alleged difficulties are no real difficulties 2.
II. If it be said that, in consequence of the illfoundedness of reasoning, we must frame our conclusions otherwise; (we reply that) thus also there would result non-release.
In matters to be known from Scripture mere reasoning is not to be relied on for the following reason also. As the thoughts of man are altogether unfettered, reasoning which disregards the holy texts and rests on individual opinion only has no proper foundation. We see how arguments, which some clever men had excogitated with great pains, are shown, by people still more ingenious, to be fallacious, and how the arguments of the latter again are refuted in their turn
For if they are effects of the pradhâna they must as such be reabsorbed into it at the time of general reabsorption.
2 And that the Vedânta view is preferable because the nullity of the objections has already been demonstrated in its case.
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