17. The (living) Self is not (produced) as there is no scriptural statement, and as it is eternal according to them (i.e. scriptural passages).
There is a Self called the living one (the individual soul), which rules the body and the senses, and is connected with the fruits of actions. With regard to that Self the conflict of scriptural passages suggests the doubt, whether it is produced from Brahman like ether and the other elements, or if, like Brahman itself, it is unproduced. Some scriptural passages, by comparing it to sparks proceeding from a fire and so on, intimate that the living soul is produced
30:1 That the word bhâvâh 'beings' here means 'individual souls,' we conclude from their being said to have the same nature as the Imperishable. 32:1 Hence the phrase, 'there is no more knowledge,'--which seems to contradict the term 'a mass of knowledge,'--only means that, on the limiting adjuncts being dissolved, there is no longer any knowledge of distinctions.
