I, 4, 5

5. And if you maintain that the text does speak (of the pradhāna as an object of knowledge) we deny that; for the intelligent (highest) Self is meant, on account of the general subject-matter.

Here the Sāṅkhya raises a new objection, and maintains that the averment made in the last Sūtra is not proved, since the text later on speaks of the pradhāna--which had been referred to as the Undeveloped--as an object of knowledge. 'He who has perceived that which is without sound, without touch, without form, without decay, without taste, eternal, without smell, without beginning, without end, beyond the great and unchangeable, is freed from the jaws of death' (Ka. Up. II, 3, 15). For here the text speaks of the pradhāna, which is beyond the great, describing it as possessing the same qualities which the Sāṅkhya-smṛti ascribes to it, and designating it as the object of perception. Hence we conclude that the pradhāna is denoted by the term avyakta.

To this we reply that the passage last quoted does represent as the object of perception not the pradhāna but the intelligent, i.e. the highest Self. We conclude this from the general subject-matter. For that the highest Self continues to form the subject-matter is clear from the following reasons. In the first place, it is referred to in the passage, 'Beyond the person there is nothing, this is the goal, the highest Road;' it has further to be supplied as the object of knowledge in the passage, 'The Self is hidden in all beings and does not shine forth,' because it is there spoken of as difficult to know; after that the restraint of passion, &c. is enjoined as conducive to its cognition, in the passage, 'A wise man should keep down speech within the mind;' and, finally, release from the jaws of death is declared to be the fruit of its knowledge. The Sāṅkhyas, on the other hand, do not suppose that a man is freed from the jaws of death merely by perceiving the pradhāna, but connect that result rather with the cognition of the intelligent Self.--The highest Self is, moreover, spoken of in all Vedānta-texts as possessing just those qualities which are mentioned in the passage quoted above, viz. absence of sound, and the like. Hence it follows, that the pradhāna is in the text neither spoken of as the object of knowledge nor denoted by the term avyakta.