26); 'It is neither coarse nor fine' (B/ri/.
Up. III, 8, 8). For to the one Brahman the two qualities of being
subject to modification and of being free from it cannot both be
ascribed. And if you say, 'Why should they not be both predicated of
Brahman (the former during the time of the subsistence of the world, the
latter during the period of reabsorption) just as rest and motion may be
predicated (of one body at different times)?' we remark that the
qualification, 'absolutely changeless' (ku/t/astha), precludes this. For
the changeless Brahman cannot be the substratum of varying attributes.
And that, on account of the negation of all attributes, Brahman really
is eternal and changeless has already been demonstrated.--Moreover,
while the cognition of the unity of Brahman is the instrument of final
release, there is nothing to show that any independent result is
connected with the view of Brahman, by undergoing a modification,
passing over into the form of this world. Scripture expressly declares
that the knowledge of the changeless Brahman being the universal Self
leads to a result; for in the passage which begins, 'That Self is to be
described by No, no,' we read later on, 'O Janaka, you have indeed
reached fearlessness' (B/ri/. Up. IV, 2, 4). We have then[285] to accept
the following conclusion that, in the sections treating of Brahman, an
independent result belongs only to the knowledge of Brahman as devoid of
all attributes and distinctions, and that hence whatever is stated as
having no special fruit of its own--as, for instance, the passages about
Brahman modifying itself into the form of this world--is merely to be
applied as a means for the cognition of the absolute Brahman, but does
not bring about an independent result; according to the principle that
whatever has no result of its own, but is mentioned in connexion with
something else which has such a result, is subordinate to the
latter[286]. For to maintain that the result of the knowledge of Brahman
undergoing modifications would be that the Self (of him who knows that)
would undergo corresponding modifications[287] would be inappropriate,
as the state of filial release (which the soul obtains through the
knowledge of Brahman) is eternally unchanging.

But, it is objected, he who maintains the nature of Brahman to be
changeless thereby contradicts the fundamental tenet according to which
the Lord is the cause of the world, since the doctrine of absolute uni