Let us then—­the Bhagavatas may say—­understand by Sa@nkarsha/n/a, and so on, not the individual soul, the mind, &c., but rather Lords, i.e. powerful beings distinguished by all the qualities characteristic of rulers, such as pre-eminence of knowledge and ruling capacity, strength, valour, glory.  All these are Vasudevas free from faults, without a substratum (not sprung from pradhana), without any imperfections.  Hence the objection urged in Sutra 42 does not apply.

Even on this interpretation of your doctrine, we reply, the ‘non-exclusion of that,’ i.e. the non-exclusion of the impossibility of origination, can be established.—­Do you, in the first place, mean to say that the four individual Lords, Vasudeva, and so on, have the same attributes, but do not constitute one and the same Self?—­If so, you commit the fault of uselessly assuming more than one Lord, while all the work of the Lord can be done by one.  Moreover, you offend thereby against your own principle, according to which there is only one real essence, viz. the holy Vasudeva.—­Or do you perhaps mean to say that from the one highest Being there spring those four forms possessing equal attributes?—­In that case the objection urged in Sutra 42 remains valid.  For Sa@nkarsha/n/a cannot be produced from Vasudeva, nor Pradyumna from Sa@nkarsha/n/a, nor Aniruddha from Pradyumna, since (the attributes of all of them being the same) there is no supereminence of any one of them.  Observation shows that the relation of cause and effect requires some superiority on the part of the cause—­as, for instance, in the case of the clay and the jar (where the cause is more extensive than the effect)—­and that without such superiority the relation is simply impossible.  But the followers of the Pa/nk/aratra do not acknowledge any difference founded on superiority of knowledge, power, &c. between Vasudeva and the other Lords, but simply say that they all are forms of Vasudeva, without any special distinctions.  The forms of Vasudeva cannot properly be limited to four, as the whole world, from Brahman down to a blade of grass, is understood to be a manifestation of the supreme Being.

45.  And on account of contradictions.

Moreover, manifold contradictions are met with in the Bhagavata system, with reference to the assumption of qualities and their bearers.  Eminence of knowledge and ruling capacity, strength, valour, and glory are enumerated as qualities, and then they are in some other place spoken of as Selfs, holy Vasudevas, and so on.—­Moreover, we meet with passages contradictory of the Veda.  The following passage, for instance, blames the Veda, ’Not having found the highest bliss in the Vedas Sa/nd/ilya studied this sastra.’—­For this reason also the Bhagavata doctrine cannot be accepted.

Notes: 

[Footnote 314:  The characteristics of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness, the three constituent elements (gu/n/a) of the pradhana.  Sa.  Ka. 12, 13.]