A History of Indian Philosophy v2.c19.s2.1

v2.c19.s2.1

The world as such never existed in the past, nor exists now, nor will exist hereafter; so it has no production or destruction in any real sense¹. But yet there is the appearance, and its genesis has somehow to be accounted for. The ultimate entity is, of course, of the nature of pure cessation (*śānta*), as described above. The order of moments leading to the manifestation of the world-appearance can be described in this way: At first there is something like a self-reflecting thought in the ultimate entity, producing some indescribable objectivity which gives rise to an egohood. Thus, on a further movement, which is akin to thought, is produced a state which can be described as a self-thinking entity, which is clear pure intelligence, in which everything may be reflected. It is only this entity that can be called conscious intelligence (*cit*). As the thought-activity becomes more and more concrete (*ghana-saṃvedana*), other conditions of soul (*jīva*) arise out of it. At this stage it forgets, as it were, its subject-objectless ultimate state, and desires to flow out of itself as a pure essence of creative movement (*bhāvanā-mātra-sāra*). The first objectivity is *ākāśa*, manifested as pure vacuity. At this moment arise the ego (*ahaṃtā*) and time (*kāla*). This creation is, however, in no sense real, and is nothing but the seeming appearances of the self-conscious movement (*sva-saṃvedana-mātrakam*) of the ultimate being. All the network of being is non-existent, and has only an appearance of existing. Thought (*saṃvit*), which at this moment is like the *ākāśa* and the ego and which is the seed (*bīja*) of all the conceivings of thought (*bhāvanā*), formulates by its movement air². Again,