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5. Should it be said that (the text) declares (it); we say, not so; for the intelligent Self (is meant), on account of subject-matter.
'He who has meditated on that which is without sound, without touch, without form, without decay, without taste, eternal, without smell, without beginning, without end, beyond the Great, unchangeable; is freed from the jaws of death' (Ka. Up. II, 3,15), this scriptural text, closely following on the text under discussion, represents the 'Unevolved' as the object of knowledge!--Not so, we reply. What that sloka represents as the object of meditation is (not the Unevolved but) the intelligent Self, i.e. the Supreme Person. For it is the latter who forms the general subject-matter, as we infer from two preceding passages, viz. 'He who has knowledge for his charioteer, and who holds the reins of the mind, he reaches the end of his journey, the highest place of Vishnu'; and 'That Self is hidden in all beings and does not shine forth, but it is seen by subtle seers through their sharp and subtle intellect.'
For this reason, also, the clause 'Higher than the person there is nothing' cannot be taken as meant to deny the existence of an entity beyond the 'purusha' in the Sânkhya sense. That the highest Self possesses the qualities of being without sound, &c., we moreover know from other scriptural texts, such as Mu. Up. I, 1, 6 'That which is not to be seen, not to be grasped,' &c. And the qualification 'beyond the Great, unchangeable' is meant to declare that the highest Self is beyond the individual Self which had been called 'the Great' in a previous passage 'beyond the intellect is the Great Self.'
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