Mahabharata 12.211.28

12.211.28

reto vaṭakaṇīkāyāṃ ghṛtapākādhivāsanam |
jātismṛtirayaskāntaḥ sūryakānto'mbubhakṣaṇam || 28 ||

Whatever be the topic, cease to reason on inference alone. There is nothing else called jiva than this body. In a banian seed is contained the capacity to produce leaves and flowers and fruits and roots and bark. From the grass and water that is taken by a cow are produced milk and butter, substances whose nature is different from that of the producing causes. Substances of different kinds when allowed to decompose in water for some time produce spirituous liquors whose nature is quite different from that of those substances that produce them. After the same manner, from the vital seed is produced the body and its attributes, with the understanding, consciousness, mind, and other possessions. Two pieces of wood, rubbed together, produce fire. The stone called Suryakanta, coming in contact with the rays of the Sun, produces fire. Any solid metallic substance, heated in fire, dries up water when coming in contact with it. Similarly, the material body produces the mind and its attributes of perception, memory, imagination, etc. As the loadstone moves iron, similarly, the senses are controlled by the mind. Thus reason the sceptics. The sceptics, however, are in error. For the disappearance (of only the animating force) upon the body becoming lifeless (and not the simultaneous extinction of the body upon the occurrence of that event) is the proof (of the truth that the body is not the Soul but that the Soul is something separate from the body and outlives it certainly.