not parallel.—­This objection too, we reply, is not valid; for as a matter of fact we speak of the Sun as an agent, saying ‘the sun shines’ even without reference to any object illuminated by him, and hence Brahman also may be spoken of as an agent, in such passages as ‘it thought,’ &c., even without reference to any object of knowledge.  If, however, an object is supposed to be required (’knowing’ being a transitive verb while ‘shining’ is intransitive), the texts ascribing thought to Brahman will fit all the better.—­What then is that object to which the knowledge of the Lord can refer previously to the origin of the world?—­Name and form, we reply, which can be defined neither as being identical with Brahman nor as different from it, unevolved but about to be evolved.  For if, as the adherents of the Yoga-sastra assume, the Yogins have a perceptive knowledge of the past and the future through the favour of the Lord; in what terms shall we have to speak of the eternal cognition of the ever pure Lord himself, whose objects are the creation, subsistence, and dissolution of the world!  The objection that Brahman, previously to the origin of the world, is not able to think because it is not connected with a body, &c. does not apply; for Brahman, whose nature is eternal cognition—­as the sun’s nature is eternal luminousness—­can impossibly stand in need of any instruments of knowledge.  The transmigrating soul (sa/m/sarin) indeed, which is under the sway of Nescience, &c., may require a body in order that knowledge may arise in it; but not so the Lord, who is free from all impediments of knowledge.  The two following Mantras also declare that the Lord does not require a body, and that his knowledge is without any obstructions.  ’There is no effect and no instrument known of him, no one is seen like unto him or better; his high power is revealed as manifold, as inherent, acting as knowledge and force.’  ’Grasping without hands, hasting without feet, he sees without eyes, he hears without ears.  He knows what can be known, but no one knows him; they call him the first, the great person’ (Sv.  Up.  VI, 8; III, 19).

But, to raise a new objection, there exists no transmigrating soul different from the Lord and obstructed by impediments of knowledge; for Sruti expressly declares that ’there is no other seer but he; there is no other knower but he’ (B/ri/.  Up.  III, 7, 23).  How then can it be said that the origination of knowledge in the transmigrating soul depends on a body, while it does not do so in the case of the Lord?—­True, we reply.  There is in reality no transmigrating soul different from the Lord.  Still the connexion (of the Lord) with limiting adjuncts, consisting of bodies and so on, is assumed, just as we assume the ether to enter into connexion with divers limiting adjuncts such as jars, pots, caves, and the like.  And just as in consequence of connexion of the latter kind such conceptions and terms as ’the hollow (space)