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VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
and energies dependent on those powers. Unity and manifoldness are therefore both true. Thus, a tree considered in itself is one, but it is manifold if viewed as having branches ; so the sea in itself is one, but manifold as having waves and foam ; so the clay in itself is one, but manifold if viewed with regard to the jars and dishes made of it. On this assumption the process of final release resulting from right knowledge may be established in connexion with the element of unity (in Brahman), while the two processes of common worldly activity and of activity according to the Veda--which depend on the karmakândamay be established in connexion with the element of manifoldness. And with this view the parallel instances of clay &c. agree very well.
This theory, we reply, is untenable because in the instance (quoted in the Upanishad) the phrase "as clay they are true' asserts the cause only to be true while the phrase 'having its origin in speech' declares the unreality of all effects. And with reference to the matter illustrated by the instance given (viz. the highest cause, Brahman) we read, 'In that all this has its Self;'and, again, 'That is true;' whereby it is asserted that only the one highest cause is true. The following passage again,' That is the Self; thou art that, O Svetaketu !' teaches that the embodied soul (the individual soul) also is Brahman. (And we must note that) the passage distinctly teaches that the fact of the embodied soul having its Self in Brahman is self-established, not to be accomplished by endeavour. This doctrine of the individual soul having its Self in Brahman, if once accepted as the doctrine of the Veda, does away with the independent existence of the individual soul, just as the idea of the rope does away with the idea of the snake (for which the rope had been mistaken). And if the doctrine of the independent existence of the individual soul has to be set aside, then the opinion of the entire phenomenal world--which is based on the individual soul-- having an independent existence is likewise to be set aside. But only for the establishment of the latter an eleinent of manifoldness would have to be assumed in Brahman, in
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