indeed may be ’eternal, although changing’ (pari/n/aminitya), viz. those, the idea of whose identity is not destroyed, although they may undergo changes; such, for instance, are earth and the other elements in the opinion of those who maintain the eternity of the world, or the three gu/n/as in the opinion of the Sa@nkhyas.  But this (moksha) is eternal in the true sense, i.e. eternal without undergoing any changes (ku/ta/sthanitya), omnipresent as ether, free from all modifications, absolutely self-sufficient, not composed of parts, of self-luminous nature.  That bodiless entity in fact, to which merit and demerit with their consequences and threefold time do not apply, is called release; a definition agreeing with scriptural passages, such as the following:  ’Different from merit and demerit, different from effect and cause, different from past and future’ (Ka.  Up.  I, 2, 14).  It[72] (i.e. moksha) is, therefore, the same as Brahman in the enquiry into which we are at present engaged.  If Brahman were represented as supplementary to certain actions, and release were assumed to be the effect of those actions, it would be non-eternal, and would have to be considered merely as something holding a pre-eminent position among the described non-eternal fruits of actions with their various degrees.  But that release is something eternal is acknowledged by whoever admits it at all, and the teaching concerning Brahman can therefore not be merely supplementary to actions.

There are, moreover, a number of scriptural passages which declare release to follow immediately on the cognition of Brahman, and which thus preclude the possibility of an effect intervening between the two; for instance, ‘He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman’ (Mu.  Up.  III, 2, 9); ’All his works perish when He has been beheld, who is the higher and the lower’ (Mu.  Up.  II, 2, 8); ’He who knows the bliss of Brahman fears nothing’ (Taitt.  Up.  II, 9); ’O Janaka, you have indeed reached fearlessness’ (B/ri/.  Up.  IV, 2, 4); ’That Brahman knew its Self only, saying, I am Brahman.  From it all this sprang’ (B/ri/.  Up.  I, 4, 10); ‘What sorrow, what trouble can there be to him who beholds that unity?’ (Is.  Up. 7.) We must likewise quote the passage,—­B/ri/.  Up.  I, 4, 10, (’Seeing this the Rishi Vamadeva understood:  I was Manu, I was the sun,’) in order to exclude the idea of any action taking place between one’s seeing Brahman and becoming one with the universal Self; for that passage is analogous to the following one, ‘standing he sings,’ from which we understand that no action due to the same agent intervenes between the standing and the singing.  Other scriptural passages show that the removal of the obstacles which lie in the way of release is the only fruit of the knowledge of Brahman; so, for instance, ’You indeed are our father, you who carry us from our ignorance to the other shore’ (Pr.  Up.  VI, 8); ’I have heard from men like you that he who knows the Self overcomes