With reference again to the assertion that Brahman is not fully determined in its own nature, but stands in a complementary relation to injunctions, because the hearing about Brahman is to be followed by consideration and reflection, we remark that consideration and reflection are themselves merely subservient to the comprehension of Brahman. If Brahman, after having been comprehended, stood in a subordinate relation to some injunctions, it might be said to be merely supplementary. But this is not the case, since consideration and reflection no less than hearing are subservient to comprehension. It follows that the Sastra cannot be the means of knowing Brahman only in so far as it is connected with injunctions, and the doctrine that on account of the uniform meaning of the Vedanta-texts, an independent Brahman is to be admitted, is thereby fully established. Hence there is room for beginning the new Sastra indicated in the first Sutra, ’Then therefore the enquiry into Brahman.’ If, on the other hand, the Vedanta-texts were connected with injunctions, a new Sastra would either not be begun at all, since the Sastra concerned with injunctions has already been introduced by means of the first Sutra of the Purva Mima/m/sa, ‘Then therefore the enquiry into duty;’ or if it were begun it would be introduced as follows: ’Then therefore the enquiry into the remaining duties;’ just as a new portion of the Purva Mima/m/sa Sutras is introduced with the words, ’Then therefore the enquiry into what subserves the purpose of the sacrifice, and what subserves the purpose of man’ (Pu. Mi. Su. IV, 1, 1). But as the comprehension of the unity of Brahman and the Self has not been propounded (in the previous Sastra), it is quite appropriate that a new Sastra, whose subject is Brahman, should be entered upon. Hence all injunctions and all other means of knowledge end with the cognition expressed in the words, ‘I am Brahman;’ for as soon as there supervenes the comprehension of the non-dual Self, which is not either something to be eschewed or something to be appropriated, all objects and knowing agents vanish, and hence there can no longer be means of proof. In accordance with this, they (i.e. men knowing Brahman) have made the following declaration:—’When there has arisen (in a man’s mind) the knowledge, “I am that which is, Brahman is my Self,” and when, owing to the sublation of the conceptions of body, relatives, and the like, the (imagination of) the figurative and the false Self has come to an end[87]; how should then the effect[88] (of that wrong imagination) exist any longer? As long as the knowledge of the Self, which Scripture tells us to search after, has not arisen, so long the Self is knowing subject; but that same subject is that which is searched after, viz. (the highest Self) free from all evil and blemish. Just as the idea of the Self being the body is assumed as valid (in ordinary life), so all the ordinary sources of knowledge (perception and the like) are valid only until the one Self is ascertained.’


