ature is
eternal luminousness--can impossibly stand in need of any instruments of
knowledge. The transmigrating soul (sa/m/sarin) indeed, which is under
the sway of Nescience, &c., may require a body in order that knowledge
may arise in it; but not so the Lord, who is free from all impediments
of knowledge. The two following Mantras also declare that the Lord does
not require a body, and that his knowledge is without any obstructions.
'There is no effect and no instrument known of him, no one is seen like
unto him or better; his high power is revealed as manifold, as inherent,
acting as knowledge and force.' 'Grasping without hands, hasting without
feet, he sees without eyes, he hears without ears. He knows what can be
known, but no one knows him; they call him the first, the great person'
(/S/v. Up. VI, 8; III, 19).

But, to raise a new objection, there exists no transmigrating soul
different from the Lord and obstructed by impediments of knowledge; for
/S/ruti expressly declares that 'there is no other seer but he; there is
no other knower but he' (B/ri/. Up. III, 7, 23). How then can it be said
that the origination of knowledge in the transmigrating soul depends on
a body, while it does not do so in the case of the Lord?--True, we
reply. There is in reality no transmigrating soul different from the
Lord. Still the connexion (of the Lord) with limiting adjuncts,
consisting of bodies and so on, is assumed, just as we assume the ether
to enter into connexion with divers limiting adjuncts such as jars,
pots, caves, and the like. And just as in consequence of connexion of
the latter kind such conceptions and terms as 'the hollow (space) of a
jar,' &c. are generally current, although the space inside a jar is not
really different from universal space, and just as in consequence
thereof there generally prevails the false notion that there are
different spaces such as the space of a jar and so on; so there prevails
likewise the false notion that the Lord and the transmigrating soul are
different; a notion due to the non-discrimination of the (unreal)
connexion of the soul with the limiting conditions, consisting of the
body and so on. That the Self, although in reality the only existence,
imparts the quality of Selfhood to bodies and the like which are
Not-Self is a matter of observation, and is due to mere wrong
conception, which depends in its turn on antecedent wrong conception.
And the consequence of the soul thus involv