पूर्वं तु बादरायणः, हेतुव्यपदेशात् ॥ ४१ ॥
pūrvaṃ tu bādarāyaṇaḥ, hetuvyapadeśāt || 41 ||
pūrvam—The former (i.e. the Lord); tu—but; bādarāyaṇaḥ—Badarayana; hetu-vyapadeśāt—on account of His being declared to be the cause (of the actions even).
41. But Badarayana (thinks) the former (the Lord, as the bestower of the fruits of actions) on account of His being declared to be the cause (of the actions even).
‘But’ refutes the view of Sutra 40. Both Karma and Apurva are insentient, and as such incapable of producing results without the intervention of an intelligent principle. For such a phenomenon is not experienced in the world. No one gets anything by worshipping stocks and stones. So the fruits of actions come only from the Lord, and this is all the more established, as the Lord Himself causes people to act one way or the other; and since the Jiva acts as directed by Him, He Himself is the bestower of the fruits of his actions according to his deserts. “He makes him whom He wishes to lead up from these worlds do a good deed” etc. (Kau. 3. 8); “Whichever divine form a devotee wishes to worship . . . and obtains from it the results he desires, as ordained by Me” (Gita 7. 21-22). Since the Lord has regard for the merit and demerit of the souls, the objection that a uniform cause is incapable of producing various effects does not stand.
In the last four topics the entity ‘That’ has been explained. Firstly, Brahman has been shown to be formless, self-effulgent, and without difference; secondly, by the denial of manifoldness in It it has been established that It is one without a second; and lastly, It has been proved to be the giver of the fruits of people’s actions in the relative world. Thus the two entities ‘thou’ and ‘That’ have been explained in these two sections.