There remains one more important passage concerning the relation of the individual soul to the highest Self, a passage which attracted our attention above, when we were reviewing the evidence for early divergence of opinion among the teachers of the Vedanta. I mean I, 4, 20-22, which three Sutras state the views of A/s/marathya, Au/d/ulomi, and Ka/s/akr/ri/tsna as to the reason why, in a certain passage of the B/ri/hadara/n/yaka, characteristics of the individual soul are ascribed to the highest Self. The siddhanta view is enounced in Sutra 22, 'avasthiter iti Ka/s/ak/ri/tsna/h/' i.e. Ka/s/ak/ri/tsna (accounts for the circumstance mentioned) on the ground of the 'permanent abiding or abode.' By this 'permanent abiding' /S/a@nkara understands the Lord's abiding as, i.e. existing as--or in the condition of--the individual soul, and thus sees in the Sutra an enunciation of his own view that the individual soul is nothing but the highest Self, 'avik/ri/ta/h/ parame/s/varo jivo nanya/h/.' Ramanuja on the other hand, likewise accepting Ka/saak/ri/tsna's opinion as the siddhanta view, explains 'avasthiti' as the Lord's permanent abiding within the individual soul, as described in the antaryamin-brahma/n/a.--We can hardly maintain that the term 'avasthiti' cannot have the meaning ascribed to it by Sa@/n/kara, viz. special state or condition, but so much must be urged in favour of Ramanuja's interpretation that in the five other places where avasthiti (or anavasthiti) is met with in the Sutras (I, 2, 17; II, 2, 4; II, 2, 13; II, 3, 24; III, 3, 32) it regularly means permanent abiding or permanent abode within something. If, now, I am shortly to sum up the results of the preceding enquiry as to the teaching of the Sutras, I must give it as my opinion that they do not set forth the distinction of a higher and lower knowledge of Brahman; that they do not acknowledge the distinction of Brahman and I/s/vara in /S/a@nkara's sense; that they do not hold the doctrine of the unreality of the world; and that they do not, with /S/a@nkara, proclaim the absolute identity of the individual and the highest Self. I do not wish to advance for the present beyond these negative results. Upon Ramanuja's mode of interpretation--although I accept it without reserve in some important details--I look on the whole as more useful in providing us with a powerful means of criticising /S/a@nkara's explanations than in guiding us throughout to the right understanding of the text. The author of the Sutras may have held views about the nature of Brahman, the world, and the soul differing from those of /S/a@nkara, and yet not agreeing in all points with those of Ramanuja. If, however, the negative conclusions stated above should be well founded, it would follow even from them that the system of Badaraya/n/a had greater affinities with that of the Bhagavatas and Ramanuja than with the one of which the /S/a@nkara-bhashya is the classical exponent.