IV, 4, 11
The Vedanta Sutras of Badarayana, Commentary by Sankara (SBE38), tr. by George Thibaut [1896] at sacred-texts.com
11. The presence (of a body and senses) Gaimini (asserts); because the text records option (of the released person multiplying himself).
The teacher Gaimini is of opinion that the released person possesses a body and sense-organs as well as a mind. For passages like 'He is onefold, he is threefold' (Kh. Up. VII, 26, 2) declare that the Self has the option of manifold existence which cannot be brought about without manifoldness of body.--The capability of optionally multiplying one's self is, indeed, mentioned in the knowledge of plenitude (bhûman) which refers to Brahman as devoid of qualities, but this lordly power which is valid only for the qualified state is there mentioned only in order to glorify the knowledge of the (unqualified) plenitude; and it therefore presents itself as constituting the fruit of qualified knowledge 1.
Footnotes
- 412:1
Manifoldness of the Self is mentioned in a vidyâ referring to the highest Brahman; but its introduction there is not due to the wish of teaching something about that state, but merely of, rhetorically, glorifying it. We, therefore, are entitled to view that passage as teaching something about him who possesses the lower knowledge.