move.]

FOURTH PADA.

REVERENCE TO THE HIGHEST SELF!

1. If it be said that some (mention) that which is based on inference
(i.e. the pradhana); we deny this, because (the term alluded to) refers
to what is contained in the simile of the body (i.e. the body itself);
and (that the text) shows.

In the preceding part of this work--as whose topic there has been set
forth an enquiry into Brahman--we have at first defined Brahman (I, 1,
2); we have thereupon refuted the objection that that definition applies
to the pradhana also, by showing that there is no scriptural authority
for the latter (I, 1, 5), and we have shown in detail that the common
purport of all Vedanta-texts is to set forth the doctrine that Brahman,
and not the pradha/n/a, is the cause of the world. Here, however, the
Sa@nkhya again raises an objection which he considers not to have been
finally disposed of.

It has not, he says, been satisfactorily proved that there is no
scriptural authority for the pradhana; for some /s/akhas contain
expressions which seem to convey the idea of the pradhana. From this it
follows that Kapila and other supreme /ri/shis maintain the doctrine of
the pradhana being the general cause only because it is based on the
Veda.--As long therefore as it has not been proved that those passages
to which the Sa@nkhyas refer have a different meaning (i.e. do not
allude to the pradhana), all our previous argumentation as to the
omniscient Brahman being the cause of the world must be considered as
unsettled. We therefore now begin a new chapter which aims at proving
that those passages actually have a different meaning.

The Sa@nkhyas maintain that that also which is based on inference, i.e.
the pradhana, is perceived in the text of some /s/akhas. We read, for
instance, they say, in the Ka/th/aka (I, 3, 11), 'Beyond the Great there
is the Undeveloped, beyond the Undeveloped there is the Person.' There
we recognise, named by the same names and enumerated in the same order,
the three entities with which we are acquainted from the
Sa@nkhya-sm/ri/ti, viz. the great principle, the Undeveloped (the
pradhana), and the soul[228]. That by the Undeveloped is meant the
pradhana is to be concluded from the common use of Sm/ri/ti and from the
etymological interpretation of which the word admits, the pradhana being
called undeveloped because it is devoid of sound and other qualities. It
cannot therefore be asserted that there is no script