All this reasoning—­we, the Vedantins, reply—­is futile, because on account of the unity of the Self the relation, whose two terms are the causes of suffering, and the sufferer cannot exist (in the Self).—­Our doctrine would be liable to your objection if that which causes suffering and that which suffers did, while belonging to one and the same Self, stand to each other in the relation of object and subject.  But they do not stand in that relation just because they are one.  If fire, although it possesses different attributes, such as heat and light, and is capable of change, does neither burn nor illumine itself since it is one only; how can the one unchangeable Brahman enter with reference to itself into the relation of cause of suffering and sufferer?—­Where then, it may be asked, does the relation discussed (which after all cannot be denied altogether) exist?—­That, we reply, is not difficult to see[339].  The living body which is the object of the action of burning is the sufferer; the sun, for instance, is a cause of suffering (burning).—­But, the opponent rejoins, burning is a pain, and as such can affect an intelligent being only, not the non-intelligent body; for if it were an affection of the mere body, it would, on the destruction of the body, cease of itself, so that it would be needless to seek for means to make it cease.—­But it is likewise not observed, we reply, that a mere intelligent being destitute of a body is burned and suffers pain.—­Nor would you (the Sa@nkhya) also assume that the affection called burning belongs to a mere intelligent being.  Nor can you admit[340] a real connexion of the soul and the body, because through such a connexion impurity and similar imperfections would attach to the soul[341].  Nor can suffering itself be said to suffer.  And how then, we ask, can you explain the relation existing between a sufferer and the causes of suffering?  If (as a last refuge) you should maintain that the sattva-gu/n/a is that which suffers, and the gu/n/a called passion that which causes suffering, we again object, because the intelligent principle (the soul) cannot be really connected with these two[342].  And if you should say that the soul suffers as it were because it leans towards[343] the sattva-gu/n/a, we point out that the employment of the phrase, ‘as it were,’ shows that the soul does not really suffer.

If it is understood that its suffering is not real, we do not object to the phrase ‘as it were[344].’  For the amphisbena also does not become venomous because it is ‘a serpent as it were’ (’like a serpent’), nor does the serpent lose its venom because it is ‘like an amphisbena.’  You must therefore admit that the relation of causes of suffering and of sufferers is not real, but the effect of Nescience.  And if you admit, that, then my (the Vedantic) doctrine also is free from objections[345].