Note (return) — SA@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION (continued 4)

Perhaps our opponent will argue against all this in the following style.—The gods and other beings, whom you have quoted as parallel instances, are really of a nature different from that of Brahman. For the material causes operative in the production of palaces and other material things are the bodies of the gods, and not their intelligent Selfs. And the web of the spider is produced from its saliva which, owing to the spider's devouring small insects, acquires a certain degree of consistency. And the female crane conceives from hearing the sound of thunder. And the lotus flower indeed derives from its indwelling intelligent principle the impulse of movement, but is not able actually to move in so far as it is a merely intelligent being303; it rather wanders from pond to pond by means of its non-intelligent body, just as the creeper climbs up the tree.—Hence all these illustrative examples cannot be applied to the case of Brahman.