Vaiśeṣika Sūtra 3.2.16

3.2.16

nānā vyavasthātaḥ |

vyavasthātaḥ—from status; nānā—many.

20. Plurality of Souls is proved by status.

Souls are many. Why? Because of status. Status means several conditions, as one is rich, another miserable, one is happy, another unhappy, one is of high, another of low, birth, one is learned, another ignorant. These circumstances being impossible without a diversity of Souls, prove a diversity of Souls. It cannot be maintained that as the states of one and the same Soul is diversified by the difference of birth or by the difference of childhood, youth and old age, so also it will be in the case of the difference of the bodies of Caitra, Maitra, and others, for it is possible to impose contradictory attributes (on one and the same subject) by means of change of Time (i.e., at different times).—20.

He removes the apprehension, “nānā” means non-identity of the Souls, in other words, that the Jivātmā is not identical with Īśvara. Whence? because of the certainty of the existence of pleasure, pain, and knowledge, in the Soul. For pleasure, etc., are not properties of the mind, because the mind not having largeness or large size, pleasure etc., would be imperceptible; and minuteness or atom-ness or subtleness must be affirmed of the mind as determining the non-simultaneity of acts of knowing. The Śruti, “Desire, Resolution, etc.,” however, like “Life is clarified butter,” etc., demonstrates that the mind is the cause of desire, etc., but not that it is their receptacle, nor that it is identical with them.