ing itself in the
transmigratory state is that its thought depends on a body and the like.

The averment that the pradhana, because consisting of several elements,
can, like clay and similar substances, occupy the place of a cause while
the uncompounded Brahman cannot do so, is refuted by the fact of the
pradhana not basing on Scripture. That, moreover, it is possible to
establish by argumentation the causality of Brahman, but not of the
pradhana and similar principles, the Sutrakara will set forth in the
second Adhyaya (II, 1, 4, &c.).

Here the Sa@nkhya comes forward with a new objection. The difficulty
stated by you, he says, viz. that the non-intelligent pradhana cannot be
the cause of the world, because thought is ascribed to the latter in the
sacred texts, can be got over in another way also, viz. on the ground
that non-intelligent things are sometimes figuratively spoken of as
intelligent beings. We observe, for instance, that people say of a
river-bank about to fall, 'the bank is inclined to fall (pipatishati),'
and thus speak of a non-intelligent bank as if it possessed
intelligence. So the pradhana also, although non-intelligent, may, when
about to create, be figuratively spoken of as thinking. Just as in
ordinary life some intelligent person after having bathed, and dined,
and formed the purpose of driving in the afternoon to his village,
necessarily acts according to his purpose, so the pradhana also acts by
the necessity of its own nature, when transforming itself into the
so-called great principle and the subsequent forms of evolution; it may
therefore figuratively be spoken of as intelligent.--But what reason
have you for setting aside the primary meaning of the word 'thought' and
for taking it in a figurative sense?--The observation, the Sa@nkhya
replies, that fire and water also are figuratively spoken of as
intelligent beings in the two following scriptural passages, 'That fire
thought; that water thought' (Ch. Up. VI, 2, 3; 4). We therefrom
conclude that thought is to be taken in a figurative sense there also
where Being (Sat) is the agent, because it is mentioned in a chapter
where (thought) is generally taken in a figurative sense[94].

To this argumentation of the Sadkhya the next Sutra replies:

6. If it is said that (the word 'seeing') has a figurative meaning, we
deny that, on account of the word Self (being applied to the cause of
the world).

Your assertion that the term 'Being' denotes t