the passage under discussion, attributed to that which is higher than the source of all beings—­which latter is denoted by the term ’the Imperishable’—­not to the source itself, we reply that this explanation is inadmissible because the source of all beings, which—­in the clause, ’From the Indestructible everything here arises’—­is designated as the material cause of all created beings, is later on spoken of as all-knowing, and again as the cause of all created beings, viz. in the passage (I, 1, 9), ’From him who knows all and perceives all, whose brooding consists of knowledge, from him is born that Brahman, name, form, and food.’  As therefore the Indestructible which forms the general topic of discussion is, owing to the identity of designation, recognised (as being referred to in the later passage also), we understand that it is the same Indestructible to which the attributes of knowing and perceiving all are ascribed.—­We further maintain that also the passage, ’Higher than the high Imperishable,’ does not refer to any being different from the imperishable source of all beings which is the general topic of discussion.  We conclude this from the circumstance that the passage, ’He truly told that knowledge of Brahman through which he knows the imperishable true person,’ (I, 2, 13; which passage leads on to the passage about that which is higher than the Imperishable,) merely declares that the imperishable source of all beings, distinguished by invisibility and the like—­which formed the subject of the preceding chapter—­will be discussed.  The reason why that imperishable source is called higher than the high Imperishable, we shall explain under the next Sutra.—­Moreover, two kinds of knowledge are enjoined there (in the Upanishad), a lower and a higher one.  Of the lower one it is said that it comprises the Rig-veda and so on, and then the text continues, ’The higher knowledge is that by which the Indestructible is apprehended.’  Here the Indestructible is declared to be the subject of the higher knowledge.  If we now were to assume that the Indestructible distinguished by invisibility and like qualities is something different from the highest Lord, the knowledge referring to it would not be the higher one.  For the distinction of lower and higher knowledge is made on account of the diversity of their results, the former leading to mere worldly exaltation, the latter to absolute bliss; and nobody would assume absolute bliss to result from the knowledge of the pradhana.—­Moreover, as on the view we are controverting the highest Self would be assumed to be something higher than the imperishable source of all beings, three kinds of knowledge would have to be acknowledged, while the text expressly speaks of two kinds only.—­Further, the reference to the knowledge of everything being implied in the knowledge of one thing—­which is contained in the passage (I, 1, 3), ’Sir, what is that through which if it is known everything else becomes