64 PRASNOPANISHAD-BHASHYA . (VI. 8. essentially non-different from it? If it does not know it, Brahman's omniscience has to be abandoned. If, on the other hand, it knows it, theu Brahman is conscious of the pains of the soul which is non-different from Brahman as its own pains : and from this necessarily follows an imperfection, viz that Brahman does not create what is beneficial and does create what is non-beneficial to itself. If, again, it be said that the difference of the soul and Brahman is due to Nescience and that the texts declaring difference refer to difference of this kind, the assumption of Nescience belonging to the soul leads us to the very altervatives just stated and to their respective results. Should the ajnāna, on the other hand, belong to Brahman, we point out that Brahman, whose essential nature is self-luminedness, cannot possibly be cous. cious of ajñana and the creation of the world effected by it. And if it be said that the light of Brahman is obscured by ajñāna we point to all the difficulties previously set forth which follow from this hypothesis-to obscure light means to make it cease, and to make cease the light of Brahman, of whom light is the essential nature, means no less than to destroy Brahman itself. This view of Brahman being the cause of the world thus shows itself to be untenable. This prima facie view the next Sūtra refutes. II, 1, 22 But (brahman is) distinct on account of the mention of difference. Śri Bhāşya : "The word 'but' sets aside the prima facie view. To the individual soul capable of connexion with the various kinds of pain there is distinction' from Brahman. On what ground ? owing to the declaration of difference' For Brahman is spoken of as different from the soul in the following texts:.' He who dwells in the self and within the 1. Here the words in the Thibaut's transl 'ou the part of both' hay been deleted as out of place. 2 Thibaut: has it as additional' (adhikam) but the mes ping is reali distinct %. Thibaut has it as declaration
