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The Vedanta Sutras, commentary by Sankaracharya (SBE34), tr. by George Thibaut [1890] at sacred-texts.com


3. On the other hand, as (those qualities) are not possible (in it), the embodied (soul is) not (denoted by manomaya, &c.).

The preceding Sûtra has declared that the qualities mentioned are possible in Brahman; the present Sûtra states that they are not possible in the embodied Self. Brahman only possesses, in the manner explained, the qualities of consisting of mind, and so on; not the embodied individual soul. For qualities such as expressed in the words, 'He whose purposes are true, whose Self is the ether, who has no speech, who is not disturbed, who is greater than the earth,' cannot easily be attributed to the embodied Self. By the term 'embodied' (sârîra) we have to understand 'residing' in a body. If it be objected that the Lord also resides in the body 1, we reply, True, he does reside in the body, but not in the body only; for sruti declares him to be all-pervading; compare, 'He is greater than the earth; greater than the atmosphere, omnipresent like the ether, eternal.' The individual soul, on the other

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hand, is in the body only, apart from which as the abode of fruition it does not exist.


Footnotes

111:1 Because he is vyâpin.


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