The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48

s Brahman, omniscient, and so on. The present S?tra and the following S?tras now add that thos

many, may I grow forth.- It sent forth fire' (VI, 2, 1 ff.)-Here a doubt arises whether the cause of the world den

its effected state the same constitutes its essential nature in the causal state also. Now the effect, in our case, is made up of the three elements Goodness, Passion and Darkness; hence the cause is the Pradhana which consists in an equipoise of those three elements. And as in this Pradhana all distinctions are merged, so that it is pure Being, the Chandogya text refers to it as 'Being, one only, without a second.' This establishes the non-difference of effect and cause, and in this way the promise that through the knowledge of one thing

. r. II, 4, 1, 2); 'He thought he sent forth Prana' (Pr. Up. VI, 3); and others.-But it is a rule that as a cause we must assume only what corresponds to the effect!-Just so; and what corresponds to the total aggregate of effects is the highest Person, all-knowing, all- powerful, whose purposes realise themselves, who has minds and matter in their subtle state for his body. Compare the texts 'His high power is revealed as manifold, as inherent, acting as force and knowledge' (Svet. Up. VI, 8); 'He who is all-knowing, all-perceiving' (Mu. Up. I, 1, 9); 'He of whom the Unevolved is the body, of whom the Imperishable is the body, of whom Death is the body, he is the inner Self of all things' (Subal. Up. VII).-This point (viz. as to the body of the highest Person) will be est

sense which there is ascribed to the Pradhana in the same way as in passages immediately following it is ascribed to fire and water-'the fire saw'; 'the water saw' (Ch. Up. VI, 2, 3). The transference, to non-