is tri-coloured, because comprising fire, water, and earth, produces many inanimate and animate beings similar to itself, and is enjoyed by the souls fettered by Nescience, while it is abandoned by those souls which have attained true knowledge.—­Nor must we imagine that the distinction of individual souls, which is implied in the preceding explanation, involves that reality of the multiplicity of souls which forms one of the tenets of other philosophical schools.  For the purport of the passage is to intimate, not the multiplicity of souls, but the distinction of the states of bondage and release.  This latter distinction is explained with reference to the multiplicity of souls as ordinarily conceived; that multiplicity, however, depends altogether on limiting adjuncts, and is the unreal product of wrong knowledge merely; as we know from scriptural passages such as, ’He is the one God hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the Self in all beings,’ &c.—­The words ‘like the honey’ (in the Sutra) mean that just as the sun, although not being honey, is represented as honey (Ch.  Up.  III, 1), and speech as a cow (B/ri/.  Up.  V, 8), and the heavenly world, &c. as the fires (B/ri/.  Up.  VI, 2, 9), so here the causal matter, although not being a she-goat, is metaphorically represented as one.  There is therefore nothing contrary to reason in the circumstance of the term aja being used to denote the aggregate of fire, water, and earth.

11. (The assertion that there is scriptural authority for the pradhana, &c. can) also not (be based) on the mention of the number (of the Sankhya categories), on account of the diversity (of the categories) and on account of the excess (over the number of those categories).

The attempt to base the Sa@nkhya doctrine on the mantra speaking of the aja having failed, the Sa@nkhya again comes forward and points to another mantra:  ’He in whom the five “five-people” and the ether rest, him alone I believe to be the Self; I who know believe him to be Brahman’ (B/ri/.  Up.  IV, 4, 17).  In this mantra we have one word which expresses the number five, viz. the five-people, and then another word, viz. five, which qualifies the former; these two words together therefore convey the idea of five pentads, i.e. twenty-five.  Now as many beings as the number twenty-five presupposes, just so many categories the Sankhya system counts.  Cp.  Sa@nkhya Karika, 3:  ’The fundamental causal substance (i.e. the pradhana) is not an effect.  Seven (substances), viz. the Great one (Intellect), and so on, are causal substances as well as effects.  Sixteen are effects.  The soul is neither a causal substance nor an effect.’  As therefore the number twenty-five, which occurs in the scriptural passage quoted, clearly refers to the twenty-five categories taught in the Sa@nkhya-sm/ri/ti, it follows that the doctrine of the pradhana, &c. rests on a scriptural basis.