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256
VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
10. And on account of the statement of the assumption (of a metaphor) there is nothing contrary to reason (in agâ denoting the causal matter); just as in the case of honey (denoting the sun) and similar cases.
The word agå neither expresses that fire, water, and earth belong to the goat species, nor is it to be explained as meaning'unborn;' it rather expresses an assumption, i.e. it intimates the assumption of the source of all beings (which source comprises fire, water, and earth), being compared to a she-goat. For as accidentally some she-goat might be partly red, partly white, partly black, and might have many young goats resembling her in colour, and as some he-goat might love her and lie by her, while some other he-goat might leave her after having enjoyed her; so the universal causal matter which is tri-coloured, because comprising fire, water, and earth, produces many inanimate and animate beings similar to itself, and is enjoyed by the souls fettered by Nescience, while it is abandoned by those souls which have attained true knowledge.—Nor must we imagine that the distinction of individual souls, which is implied in the preceding explanation, involves that reality of the multiplicity of souls which forms one of the tenets of other philosophical schools. For the purport of the passage is to intimate, not the multiplicity of souls, but the distinction of
views of the Sûtra writer and Sankara. Govindânanda notes that according to the Bhashyakrit agâ means simply mâyâ—which interpretation is based on prakarana-while, according to the Satrakrit, who explains aga on the ground of the K'handogya-passage treating of the three primary elements, agâ denotes the aggregate of those three elements constituting an avântaraprakriii.-On Sankara's explanation the term agâ presents no difficulties, for mâyâ is agå, i.e. unborn, not produced. On the explanation of the Satra writer, however, agâ cannot mean unborn, since the three primary elements are products. Hence we are thrown back on the rûdhi signification of agâ, according to which it means she-goat. But how can the avântara-prakriti be called a she-goat? To this question the next Sûtra replics.
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