Here the Sa@nkhya comes forward with a new objection.  The word ‘Self,’ he says, may be applied to the pradhana, although unintelligent, because it is sometimes figuratively used in the sense of ’that which effects all purposes of another;’ as, for instance, a king applies the word ‘Self’ to some servant who carries out all the king’s intentions, ‘Bhadrasena is my (other) Self.’  For the pradhana, which effects the enjoyment and the emancipation of the soul, serves the latter in the same way as a minister serves his king in the affairs of peace and war.  Or else, it may be said, the one word ‘Self’ may refer to non-intelligent things as well as to intelligent beings, as we see that such expressions as ‘the Self of the elements,’ ’the Self of the senses,’ are made use of, and as the one word ‘light’ (jyotis) denotes a certain sacrifice (the jyotish/t/oma) as well as a flame.  How then does it follow from the word ‘Self’ that the thinking (ascribed to the cause of the world) is not to be taken in a figurative sense?

To this last argumentation the Sutrakara replies: 

7. (The pradhana cannot be designated by the term ‘Self’) because release is taught of him who takes his stand on that (the Sat).

The non-intelligent pradhana cannot be the object of the term ‘Self’ because in the passage Ch.  Up.  VI, 2 ff., where the subtle Sat which is under discussion is at first referred to in the sentence, ’That is the Self,’ and where the subsequent clause, ‘That art thou, O Svetaketu,’ declares the intelligent Svetaketu to have his abode in the Self, a passage subsequent to the two quoted (viz. ’a man who has a teacher obtains true knowledge; for him there is only delay as long as he is not delivered, then he will be perfect’) declares final release.  For if the non-intelligent pradhana were denoted by the term ‘Sat’ and did comprehend—­by means of the phrase ’That art thou’—­persons desirous of final release who as such are intelligent, the meaning could only be ‘Thou art non-intelligent;’ so that Scripture would virtually make contradictory statements to the disadvantage of man, and would thus cease to be a means of right knowledge.  But to assume that the faultless sastra is not a means of right knowledge, would be contrary to reason.  And if the sastra, considered as a means of right knowledge, should point out to a man desirous of release, but ignorant of the way to it, a non-intelligent Self as the real Self, he would—­comparable to the blind man who had caught hold of the ox’s tail[96]—­cling to the view of that being the Self, and thus never be able to reach the real Self different from the false Self pointed out to him; hence he would be debarred from what constitutes man’s good, and would incur evil.  We must therefore conclude that, just as the sastra teaches the agnihotra and similar performances in their true nature as means for those who are desirous of the heavenly world, so the passage ’that