verybody knows that the
non-intelligent body of the spider ruled by intelligence is the source
of the threads; and so in the case of man also.--While, moreover, in the
case of the preceding Sutra, the pradhana hypothesis could not be
accepted, because, although some qualities mentioned, such as
invisibility and so on, agreed with it, others such as being the seer
and the like did not; we have here to do only with attributes such as
invisibility which agree with the pradhana, no attribute of a contrary
nature being mentioned.--But the qualities mentioned in the
complementary passage (Mu. Up. I, 1, 9), 'He who knows all and perceives
all,' do not agree with the non-intelligent pradhana; how, then, can the
source of all beings be interpreted to mean the pradhana?--To this the
purvapakshin replies: The passage, 'The higher knowledge is that by
which the Indestructible is apprehended, that which cannot be seen,'
&c., points, by means of the term 'the Indestructible,' to the source of
all beings characterised by invisibility and similar attributes. This
same 'Indestructible' is again mentioned later on in the passage, 'It is
higher than the high Imperishable.' Now that which in this latter
passage is spoken of as higher than the Imperishable may possess the
qualities of knowing and perceiving everything, while the pradhana
denoted by the term 'the Imperishable' is the source of all beings.--If,
however, the word 'source' (yoni) be taken in the sense of operative
cause, we may by 'the source of the beings' understand the embodied Self
also, which, by means of merit and demerit, is the cause of the origin
of the complex of things.

To this we make the following reply.--That which here is spoken of as
the source of all beings, distinguished by such qualities as
invisibility and so on, can be the highest Lord only, nothing
else.--Whereupon is this conclusion founded?--On the statement of
attributes. For the clause, 'He who is all-knowing, all-perceiving,'
clearly states an attribute belonging to the highest Lord only, since
the attributes of knowing all and perceiving all cannot be predicated
either of the non-intelligent pradhana or the embodied soul whose power
of sight is narrowed by its limiting conditions. To the objection that
the qualities of knowing and perceiving all are, in the passage under
discussion, attributed to that which is higher than the source of all
beings--which latter is denoted by the term 'the Imperishabl