The text beginning 'And as a great king,' &c., declares that 'the Self
taking the pranas moves about in its own body, according to its
pleasure' (Bri. Up. II, 1, 18), i.e. it teaches that the Self is active
in taking to itself the prânas and moving about in the body.
35. And on account of the designation (of the Self as the agent) in
actions. If not so, there would be change of grammatical expression.
Because in the text 'Knowledge performs the sacrifice, it performs all
works' (Taitt. Up. II, 5) the Self is designated as the agent in all
worldly and Vedic works, for this reason also the Self must be held to
be an agent. And should it be said that the word 'knowledge' in that
text denotes not the Self, but the internal organ or buddhi, we point
out that in that case there would be a change of grammatical expression,
that is to say, as the buddhi is the instrument of action, the text
would exhibit the instrumental case instead of the nominative case 'by
knowledge, and so on' (vijñânena instead of vijñânam).
36. (There would be) absence of definite rule, as in the case of
consciousness.
The Sûtra points out a difficulty which arises on the view of the Self
not being an agent. Sûtra 32 has declared that if the Self were all-
pervading it would follow that there would be no definite determination
with regard to consciousness. Similarly, if the Self were not an agent
but all activity belonged to Prakriti it would follow that as Prakriti
is a common possession of all souls, all actions would result in
enjoyment (experience) on the part of all souls, or else on the part of
none; for as each Self is held to be omnipresent, they are all of them
in equal proximity to all parts of the Pradhâna. For the same reason it
could not be maintained that the distribution of results between the
different souls depends on the different internal organs which are
joined to the souls; for if the souls are omnipresent, no soul will be
exclusively connected with any particular internal organ.