in space is on fire).  The same objection and refutation apply to the case of those also who teach the existence of more than one omnipresent Self.  In reply to the assertion, that because Brahman is one and there are no other Selfs outside it, Brahman must be subject to fruition since the individual soul is so, we ask the question:  How have you, our wise opponent, ascertained that there is no other Self?  You will reply, we suppose, from scriptural texts such as, ‘That art thou,’ ‘I am Brahman,’ ‘There is no other knower but he,’ and so on.  Very well, then, it appears that the truth about scriptural matters is to be ascertained from Scripture, and that Scripture is not sometimes to be appealed to, and on other occasions to be disregarded.

Scriptural texts, such as ‘that art thou,’ teach that Brahman which is free from all evil is the Self of the embodied soul, and thus dispel even the opinion that the embodied soul is subject to fruition; how then should fruition on the part of the embodied soul involve fruition on the part of Brahman?—­Let, then, the unity of the individual soul and Brahman not be apprehended on the ground of Scripture.—­In that case, we reply, the fruition on the part of the individual soul has wrong knowledge for its cause, and Brahman as it truly exists is not touched thereby, not any more than the ether becomes really dark-blue in consequence of ignorant people presuming it to be so.  For this reason the Sutrakara says[140] ‘no, on account of the difference.’  In spite of their unity, fruition on the part of the soul does not involve fruition on the part of Brahman; because there is a difference.  For there is a difference between false knowledge and perfect knowledge, fruition being the figment of false knowledge while the unity (of the Self) is revealed by perfect knowledge.  Now, as the substance revealed by perfect knowledge cannot be affected by fruition which is nothing but the figment of false knowledge, it is impossible to assume even a shadow of fruition on Brahman’s part.

9.  The eater (is the highest Self) since what is movable and what is immovable is mentioned (as his food).

We read in the Ka/th/avalli (I, 2, 25), ’Who then knows where He is, He to whom the Brahmans and Kshattriyas are but food, and death itself a condiment?’ This passage intimates, by means of the words ‘food’ and ‘condiment,’ that there is some eater.  A doubt then arises whether the eater be Agni or the individual soul or the highest Self; for no distinguishing characteristic is stated, and Agni as well as the individual soul and the highest Self is observed to form, in that Upanishad, the subjects of questions[141].

The purvapakshin maintains that the eater is Agni, fire being known from Scripture as well (cp.  B/ri/.  Up.  I, 4, 6) as from ordinary life to be the eater of food.  Or else the individual soul may be the eater, according to the passage, ‘One of them eats the sweet fruit’ (Mu.  Up.  III, 1, 1).  On the other hand, the eater cannot be Brahman on account of the passage (which forms the continuation of the one quoted from the Mu.  Up.), ‘The other looks on without eating.’