History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.70

v7.c95.70

The description of the creation of the universe and its dissolution are valid only on the practical plane. In *Advaita Vedānta*, Sattā (reality) is said to be of three kinds, viz. Pāramārthikī (the highest, the absolute), vyāvahārikī (of practical life) and prātibhāsikī (apparent or illusory). The first is the province of *parā-vidyā* which teaches that only the Ātman exists, that the cosmos exists within the Ātman and nothing else has intrinsic reality apart from it. From this high metaphysical standpoint there is in reality no creation nor dissolution, the individual self is not really in bondage, therefore none is liberated. The 2nd kind of reality is empirical and practical and the dogmas of the creation and dissolution of the world, of the individual self, its bondage, transmigration and final liberation are valid only for the *aparā-vidyā*. Most religions postulate three fundamental entities viz God, individual self and the external world. These three are true but only up to a certain limit (only so long as a man holds his own ego as a separate reality) but these three are not the ultimate Truth. Even in this lower kind of reality, a man who is in deep sleep becomes (for a time) united with (or absorbed in) the True as stated by the Chān. Up. VI. 8. 1 (yatraitat puruṣaḥ svapiti nāma satā somya tadā sampanno bhavati). The third kind of reality pertains to dream state. One may have experience of pleasure and pain and misery from what one sees in a dream, which are real as long as the dream lasts, but all this that is seen in a dream vanishes the moment the man is awake. As stated above (p. 1485 and note 2434) the descriptions of the creation of the world have only this in view that there is non-difference between cause and effect and that they all lead to a correct understanding about *brahman*. Śaṅkarācārya on V. S II. 3. 30 extends the same reasoning to individual selves (to be quoted later on under 'Karma and transmigration').