24. If it be said (that the two cases are not parallel), on account of the specialisation of abode (present in the case of the sandal-ointment, absent in the case of the soul); we deny that, on account of the acknowledgment (by scripture, of a special place of the soul), viz. within the heart.
This objection, the pûrvapakshin replies, is unfounded 'on account of the acknowledgment of a speciality of abode,' an abiding in one spot of the body being admitted in the case of the soul no less than in the case of a drop of ointment. For we read in the Vedânta-texts that the soul abides within the heart; cp. for instance, the information given (in Pr. Up. III, 6),'The Self is in the heart;' (Kh. Up. VIII, 3, 3), 'That Self abides in the heart;' (Bri. Up. IV, 3, 7), 'Who is that Self?--He who is within the heart, surrounded by the Prânas, the person of light, consisting of knowledge.'--As therefore the two cases compared are not devoid of parallelism, the argumentation resorted to in Sûtra 23 is unobjectionable.
39:1 We cannot reason as follows, 'The soul is atomic because it produces effects extending (over the whole body), like a drop of sandal-ointment;' for that reasoning would apply to the sense of touch (the skin) also, which we know not to be of atomic size.
