inguishing characteristic is stated, and Agni as well as the
individual soul and the highest Self is observed to form, in that
Upanishad, the subjects of questions[141].

The purvapakshin maintains that the eater is Agni, fire being known from
Scripture as well (cp. B/ri/. Up. I, 4, 6) as from ordinary life to be
the eater of food. Or else the individual soul may be the eater,
according to the passage, 'One of them eats the sweet fruit' (Mu. Up.
III, 1, 1). On the other hand, the eater cannot be Brahman on account of
the passage (which forms the continuation of the one quoted from the Mu.
Up.), 'The other looks on without eating.'

The eater, we reply, must be the highest Self 'because there is
mentioned what is movable and what is immovable.' For all things movable
and immovable are here to be taken as constituting the food, while death
is the condiment. But nothing beside the highest Self can be the
consumer of all these things in their totality; the highest Self,
however, when reabsorbing the entire aggregate of effects may be said to
eat everything. If it is objected that here no express mention is made
of things movable and things immovable, and that hence we have no right
to use the (alleged) mention made of them as a reason, we reply that
this objection is unfounded; firstly, because the aggregate of all
living beings is seen to be meant from the circumstance of death being
the condiment; and, secondly, because the Brahmans and Kshattriyas may
here, on account of their pre-eminent position, be viewed as instances
only (of all beings). Concerning the objection that the highest Self
cannot be an eater on account of the passage quoted ('the other looks on
without eating'), we remark that that passage aims at denying the
fruition (on the part of the highest Self) of the results of works, such
fruition being mentioned in immediate proximity, but is not meant to
negative the reabsorption of the world of effects (into Brahman); for it
is well established by all the Vedanta-texts that Brahman is the cause
of the creation, subsistence, and reabsorption of the world. Therefore
the eater can here be Brahman only.

10. And on account of the topic under discussion. That the highest Self
only can be the eater referred to is moreover evident from the passage
(Ka. Up. I, 2, 18), ('The knowing Self is not born, it dies not'), which
shows that the highest Self is the general topic. And to adhere to the
general topic is the prope