The fact of the sacred texts declaring that the Self reflected likewise shows that it is the operative as well as the material cause.  Passages like ‘He wished, may I be many, may I grow forth,’ and ’He thought, may I be many, may I grow forth,’ show, in the first place, that the Self is the agent in the independent activity which is preceded by the Self’s reflection; and, in the second place, that it is the material cause also, since the words ‘May I be many’ intimate that the reflective desire of multiplying itself has the inward Self for its object.

25.  And on account of both (i.e. the origin and the dissolution of the world) being directly declared (to have Brahman for their material cause).

This Sutra supplies a further argument for Brahman’s being the general material cause.—­Brahman is the material cause of the world for that reason also that the origination as well as the dissolution of the world is directly spoken of in the sacred texts as having Brahman for their material cause, ’All these beings take their rise from the ether and return into the ether’ (Ch.  Up.  I, 9, 1).  That that from which some other thing springs and into which it returns is the material cause of that other thing is well known.  Thus the earth, for instance, is the material cause of rice, barley, and the like.—­The word ‘directly’ (in the Sutra) notifies that there is no other material cause, but that all this sprang from the ether only.—­Observation further teaches that effects are not re-absorbed into anything else but their material causes.

26. (Brahman is the material cause) on account of (the Self) making itself; (which is possible) owing to modification.

Brahman is the material cause for that reason also that Scripture—­in the passage, ‘That made itself its Self’ (Taitt.  Up.  II, 7)—­represents the Self as the object of action as well as the agent.—­But how can the Self which as agent was in full existence previously to the action be made out to be at the same time that which is effected by the action?—­Owing to modification, we reply.  The Self, although in full existence previously to the action, modifies itself into something special, viz. the Self of the effect.  Thus we see that causal substances, such as clay and the like, are, by undergoing the process of modification, changed into their products.—­The word ‘itself’ in the passage quoted intimates the absence of any other operative cause but the Self.

The word ‘pari/n/amat’ (in the Sutra) may also be taken as constituting a separate Sutra by itself, the sense of which would be:  Brahman is the material cause of the world for that reason also, that the sacred text speaks of Brahman and its modification into the Self of its effect as co-ordinated, viz. in the passage, ’It became sat and tyat, defined and undefined’ (Taitt.  Up.  II, 6).

27.  And because Brahman is called the source.