I-3 Śrī Bhāshya | Rāmānuja | 13

We have to supply 'on account of designation' from the preceding Sūtra. Because the text designates the highest Self as something different from the individual Self in the state of deep sleep as well as at the time of departure, the highest Self is thus different. For the Vājasaneyī, after having introduced the individual Self in the passage 'Who is that Self?--He who consisting of knowledge is among the prāṇas,' etc. (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 7), describes how, in the state of deep sleep, being not conscious of anything it is held embraced by the all-knowing highest Self, embraced by the intelligent Self it knows nothing that is without, nothing that is within' (IV, 3, 21). So also with reference to the time of departure, i.e. dying 'Mounted by the intelligent Self it moves along groaning' (IV, 3, 35). Now it is impossible that the unconscious individual Self, either lying in deep sleep or departing from the body, should at the same time be embraced or mounted by itself, being all-knowing. Nor can the embracing and mounting Self be some other individual Self; for no such Self can be all-knowing.--The next Sūtra supplies a further reason.

That embracing highest Self is further on designated by terms such as Lord, and so on. 'He is the Lord of all, the master of all, the ruler of all. He does not become greater by good works, nor smaller by evil works. He is the lord of all, the king of beings, the protector of beings. He is a bank and a boundary so that these worlds may not be confounded. Brāhmaṇas seek to know him by the study of the Veda. He who knows him becomes a Muni. Wishing for that world only, mendicants leave their homes' (IV, 4, 22). 'This indeed is the great unborn Self, the strong, the giver of wealth,--undecaying, undying, immortal, fearless is Brahman' (IV, 4, 24; 25). Now all the qualities here declared, viz. being the lord of all, and so on, cannot possibly belong to the individual Self even in the state of Release; and we thus again arrive at the conclusion that the ether evolving forms and names is something different from the released individual soul. The declarations of general Unity which we meet with in the texts rest thereon, that all sentient and non- sentient beings are effects of Brahman, and hence have Brahman for their inner Self. That this is the meaning of texts such as 'All this is Brahman,' etc., we have explained before. And the texts denying plurality are to be understood in the same way.--Here terminates the Adhikaraṇa of 'the designation of something different, and so on.'