The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c8.s6.t3.7

c8.s6.t3.7

The *Prāṇas* mentioned (*Manas*, *Buddhi-indriyas*, and *Karma-indriyas*) are minute (*aṇu*) which means that they are 1) subtle (*sūkshma*), 2) limited (*paricchinna*), but not that they are of atomic size (*paramāṇu-tulya*), “because in this case the per- “vading of the whole body would be impossible.” ¹¹⁶ Their subtlety is deducible from the fact that otherwise (if they were *sthūla*, coarse, material) they would necessarily be seen at the time of death, when the soul passes from the body, by the bystanders, just as a snake is seen which glides from its hole (p. 715, 6); and they must be limited and not (like the soul free from *Upādhis*) infinitely great, because for the infinitely great no passing, going and return would be possible (p. 715, 7). “If you maintain that the infinitely great can by reason of “its function (*vṛitti*) be at a given spot in the body, we must “remark that the organs [of the soul] are altogether mere “functions; for the function or whatever it is, that brings about “perception we call an organ; the dispute is therefore only “about names and the assumption of omnipresence a purpose- “less one” [the *Prāṇas* enter into the question only in respect of what they are in the body, even if we call them here organs or functions, and assume as their bearers infinitely great organs]. Therefore the *Prāṇas* are to be regarded as the functions or faculties of seeing, hearing, feeling, grasping, going, etc. which, as they cleave to the soul, are not annihilated at death with the corresponding parts of the body but produce them again and again from themselves as seed produces plants.