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438
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
by the pradhana. If the analogy between the pradhana and the bodily organs were a complete one, it would follow that the Lord is affected by pleasure and pain no less than the transmigrating souls are.
Or else the two preceding Satras may be explained in a different way. Ordinary experience teaches us that kings, who are the rulers of countries, are never without some material abode, i.e. a body; hence, if we wish to infer the existence of a general Lord from the analogy of earthly rulers, we must ascribe to him also some kind of body to serve as the substratum of his organs. But such a body cannot be ascribed to the Lord, since all bodies exist only subsequently to the creation, not previously to it. The Lord, therefore, is not able to act because devoid of a material substratum; for experience teaches us that action requires a material substrate.- Let us then arbitrarily assume that the Lord possesses some kind of body serving as a substratum for his organs (even previously to creation).
-This assumption also will not do; for if the Lord has a body he is subject to the sensations of ordinary transmigratory souls, and thus no longer is the Lord.
41. And (there would follow from that doctrine) either finite duration or absence of omniscience (on the Lord's part).
The hypothesis of the argumentative philosophers is invalid, for the following reason also.—They teach that the Lord is omniscient and of infinite duration, and likewise that the pradhana, as well as the individual souls, is of infinite duration. Now, the omniscient Lord either defines the measure of the pradhana, the souls, and himself, or does not define it. Both alternatives subvert the doctrine under discussion. For, on the former alternative, the pradhana, the souls, and the Lord, being all of them of definite measure, must necessarily be of finite duration ; since ordinary experience teaches that all things of definite extent, such as jars and the like, at some time cease to exist. The numerical measure of pradhâna, souls, and Lord is
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