The source of all beings is the highest Lord, not either of the two others, viz. the pradhana and the individual soul, on account of the following reason also.  In the first place, the text distinguishes the source of all beings from the embodied soul, as something of a different nature; compare the passage (II, 1, 2), ’That heavenly person is without body, he is both without and within, not produced, without breath and without mind, pure.’  The distinctive attributes mentioned here, such as being of a heavenly nature, and so on, can in no way belong to the individual soul, which erroneously considers itself to be limited by name and form as presented by Nescience, and erroneously imputes their attributes to itself.  Therefore the passage manifestly refers to the Person which is the subject of all the Upanishads.—­In the second place, the source of all beings which forms the general topic is represented in the text as something different from the pradhana, viz. in the passage, ‘Higher than the high Imperishable.’  Here the term ‘Imperishable’ means that undeveloped entity which represents the seminal potentiality of names and forms, contains the fine parts of the material elements, abides in the Lord, forms his limiting adjunct, and being itself no effect is high in comparison to all effects; the whole phrase, ’Higher than the high Imperishable,’ which expresses a difference then clearly shows that the highest Self is meant here.—­We do not on that account assume an independent entity called pradhana and say that the source of all beings is stated separately therefrom; but if a pradhana is to be assumed at all (in agreement with the common opinion) and if being assumed it is assumed of such a nature as not to be opposed to the statements of Scripture, viz. as the subtle cause of all beings denoted by the terms ‘the Undeveloped’ and so on, we have no objection to such an assumption, and declare that, on account of the separate statement therefrom, i.e. from that pradhana, ‘the source of all beings’ must mean the highest Lord.—­A further argument in favour of the same conclusion is supplied by the next Sutra.

23.  And on account of its form being mentioned.

Subsequently to the passage, ‘Higher than the high Imperishable,’ we meet (in the passage, ‘From him is born breath,’ &c.) with a description of the creation of all things, from breath down to earth, and then with a statement of the form of this same source of beings as consisting of all created beings, ’Fire is his head, his eyes the sun and the moon, the quarters his ears, his speech the Vedas disclosed, the wind his breath, his heart the universe; from his feet came the earth; he is indeed the inner Self of all things.’  This statement of form can refer only to the highest Lord, and not either to the embodied soul, which, on account of its small power, cannot be the cause of all effects, or to the pradhana, which cannot be the inner Self