Śaṅkaraon Brahma Sūtra 3.3.35

The Vfi^asaneyins record, in the questions asked by Ushasta and by Kahola, the same passage twice in succession, ‘Tell me the Brahman which is present to intuition, not —hidden j the Self who is within all ’ (Br/. Up. Ill, 4, i The question here presents itself whether the two sections introduced -by the questions constitute one vidya only or two separate vidyas. Two separate vidyas, the pfirvapakshin maintains ; owing to the force of repetition. For if the second passage added nothing to —or took nothing away from—the contents of the first, the repetition would be altogether meaningless. We therefore conclude that the repetition intimates the separateness of the two vidyas, just as in the Piirva Mimawsa repetition shows two sacrificial actions to be separate. As both texts To this we make the following reply. equally declare tlie Self to be within all, they must be taken as constituting one vidya only. In both passages question and answer et[ually refer to a Self \vhich is within everything. For in one body there cannot be two Selfs, each of which is inside everything else. One Self indeed may without difficulty be within everything, but of a second one this could not be predicated, not any more than of the aggregate of the elements; i.e. the case of that second Self is analogous to that of the aggregate of the five elements, i.e. the body. In the body the element of water is indeed within the element of earth, and the element of fire within the element of water ; but each of these elements is ‘ within all ’ in a relative sense only, not in the literal sense of the phrase.—Or else the ‘ like the aggregate of the elements (or beings) ’ of the Sutra has to be taken as pointing to another scriptural passage, viz. Sve, Up. VI, ir, MIc is the one god, hidden in all beings, all- pervading, the Self within all beings.* As this mantra re- cords that one Self lives within the aggregate of all beings, the same holds good with regard to the two Brdhma;m- passages. And the object of knowledge being one, the vidya also is one only.