The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s2.t2: 2. Brahman is the efficient and at the same time the material Cause of the World

The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c7.s2.t2

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2. Brahman is the efficient and at the same time the material Cause of the World

Brahman was defined at the outset of this work (1, 1, 2) as "that by which the world originates, etc. (subsists, and perishes)," (cf. the definitions above p. 123), and therefore as the cause of the world. The word "Cause", however, may mean two things, either the material cause (*prakṛiti*, *upâdânam*), or the efficient cause (*nimittam*); so the cause of the vessel is, on one hand, the clay, and on the other the potter, that of the golden ornament is on one hand the gold,

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it is the inner destination of this world to become the stage for the reward of the deeds of an earlier existence, and the chain of these existences stretches back for each individual *ad infinitum*. According to these earlier deeds alone, God apportions weal and woe; and in them alone is to be sought the reason that he must create the world anew after each disappearance; for the fruit of deeds done outlasts that disappearance and requires each time a new creation for their explanation.

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and on the other the goldsmith (p. 396, 10).—The question is, in which sense is Brahman to be regarded as the cause of the world?

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It might be thought that Brahman can only be held to be the efficient cause of the world, because it is said of him, before he proceeds to create: "he intended" (above p. 135), and because he is called "the Lord" (īçvara); both these seem only to apply to an efficient cause (p. 397, 5, 8).—To this is added, that cause and effect must be of like nature; the world, however, is manifold, unspiritual, and unclean (p. 397, 10), which does not apply to Brahman and seems to require a material cause besides him, which shall possess these qualities.

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The answer to these considerations is, that Brahman is both the efficient and material cause of the world (p. 398, 3).

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The proof of this assertion, in the introductory passage of the Cosmology which we here treat of, is purely theological (based on references to passages of the Vedas) and, from the point of view which we now occupy, cannot be otherwise, because (quite apart from the consideration raised, as to the unlikeness of nature of the world and Brahman, which is here passed over by our author, and only taken up again, and brought under consideration, in a later discussion, cf. Chap. XVIII, 1, a) a solution of the idea of matter, from the empirical standpoint, which we have not yet transcended here, is impossible, for the only true consequence of this standpoint would be the eternal duration of matter.

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Under these circumstances, it is comprehensible that Çaṅkara here contents himself with references to the scripture according to which, with the knowledge of Brahman, all is known, and in which Brahman is compared to the clay, all the transformations of which are also clay; as, for example, it is expressly said: Before the beginning of creation, there was one only, without a second, Brahman desired to become manifold, he himself made himself, he is the birthplace of beings, he limits them from himself, and reabsorbs them into himself, as the spider with her thread, etc. etc. (p. 398—403). In conclusion, our author disposes of the objections given above, and the appeals to experience, by the explanation (translated above p. 93), that we need not here remain in accord with experience, for here we have not to do with an object of rational knowledge (anumânam), but with revelation (403, 7), and further refers to subsequent investigations.

Linked texts (1)

Brahmasūtra — Bādarāyaṇa, Sanskrit