The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c9.s3.t3.2

c9.s3.t3.2

The soul with the organs of conscious and unconscious life (*Indriyas, Manas, Prâṇa*) which have entered into it, further needs in order to be able to withdraw from the body a vehicle (*âçraya*) of material nature, since without such, without a material basis, as experience shows, nothing living can move or stand (p. 744, 9). This basis is the subtle body, *sûkṣmam çarîram* (p. 341, 3. 1097, 14), or, as Çaṅkara usually paraphrases it: *deha-vijâni bhûta-sûkṣmâṇi* (p. 740, 8. 741, 3. 744, 2; cf. 1095, 10. 1092, 10), that is, "the fine parts of the elements which form the seed of the body."¹²⁷ In order hereafter to attain a body consisting of the different elements, the soul must take with it the seed of this body, and this seed, not of heat alone, but of all the elements, is to be understood, when in the fundamental passage, Chând. 6, 8, 6, it is said: Life enters into heat. For the scripture says (Brih. 4, 4, 5): "(this "soul is) of the nature of earth, water, air, ether, heat" (p. 1093, 12), and the Smriti (Manu 1, 27) declares: