they remove the erroneous opinion of
the Self being liable to transmigration.--We reply that this might be so
if just as the mere hearing of the true nature of the rope dispels the
fear caused by the imagined snake, so the mere hearing of the true
nature of Brahman would dispel the erroneous notion of one's being
subject to transmigration. But this is not the case; for we observe that
even men to whom the true nature of Brahman has been stated continue to
be affected by pleasure, pain, and the other qualities attaching to the
transmigratory condition. Moreover, we see from the passage, /Bri/. Up.
II, 4, 5, 'The Self is to be heard, to be considered, to be reflected
upon,' that consideration and reflection have to follow the mere
hearing. From all this it results that the sastra can be admitted as a
means of knowing Brahman in so far only as the latter is connected with
injunctions.

To all this, we, the Vedantins, make the following reply:--The preceding
reasoning is not valid, on account of the different nature of the fruits
of actions on the one side, and of the knowledge of Brahman on the other
side. The enquiry into those actions, whether of body, speech, or mind,
which are known from /S/ruti and Sm/ri/ti, and are comprised under the
name 'religious duty' (dharma), is carried on in the Jaimini Sutra,
which begins with the words 'then therefore the enquiry into duty;' the
opposite of duty also (adharma), such as doing harm, &c., which is
defined in the prohibitory injunctions, forms an object of enquiry to
the end that it may be avoided. The fruits of duty, which is good, and
its opposite, which is evil, both of which are defined by original Vedic
statements, are generally known to be sensible pleasure and pain, which
make themselves felt to body, speech, and mind only, are produced by the
contact of the organs of sense with the objects, and affect all animate
beings from Brahman down to a tuft of grass. Scripture, agreeing with
observation, states that there are differences in the degree of pleasure
of all embodied creatures from men upward to Brahman. From those
differences it is inferred that there are differences in the degrees of
the merit acquired by actions in accordance with religious duty;
therefrom again are inferred differences in degree between those
qualified to perform acts of religious duty. Those latter differences
are moreover known to be affected by the desire of certain results
(which entitles the