8. But on account of the teaching of the different one, Badarâyana's (view is valid); as this is seen.
Knowledge by itself benefits man; since Scripture teaches that the object of knowledge is the highest Brahman which, as it is of an absolutely faultless and perfect nature, is other than the active individual soul.
Badarâyana, therefore, holds that knowledge has an independent fruit of its own. Let the inferential marks (referred to by the Pûrvapakshin) be; the direct teaching of the texts certainly refers to a being different from the
p. 690
[paragraph continues] Self that acts; for we clearly see that their object is the highest creative Brahman with all its perfections and exalted qualities, which cannot possibly be attributed to the individual Self whether in the state of Release or of bondage: 'Free from evil, free from old age,' &c. &c. In all those texts there is not the slightest trace of any reference to the wretched individual soul, as insignificant and weak as a tiny glow-worm, implicated in Nescience and all the other evils of finite existence. And the fruit of that knowledge of the highest Person the texts expressly declare, in many places, to be immortality--which consists in attaining to Him. The view of knowledge by itself benefitting man therefore is well founded.--The Sûtras proceed to dispose of the so-called inferential marks.
