The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s2.t4.8

c7.s2.t4.8

The Scripture (Çvet. 1, 3) leads to the assumption of one power of the highest God, which orders and creates the whole world (p. 358, 5). It is this godlike power not unfolded in name and form, which is the original state (*prāg-avasthā*) of names and forms (p. 358, 10); in this original state, the now manifested world existed before manifestation, in a state of seed-force (*vīja-çakti-avasthā*, p 341, 9); "if" (it is said on p. 342, 2 in the polemic against the Sāṅkhyas) "we acknowledged a self-subsisting original state of the world as cause, we should make room for the assumption of a material cause (of the world); we assume though that this original state of the world was not self-subsisting, but dependent on the highest God. Such we must of necessity take it to be, and on good grounds. For without it, the creative work of God is impossible, for an activity of God devoid of his powers is unthinkable... This unmanifested (*avyaktam*) seed-force, as it is called, resting in the highest God, is in its inherent character Ignorance (*avidyā*), a deep sleep produced by glamour (*māyā*) in which lie those wandering souls, who have “not awakened to the knowledge of their real nature [the “knowledge of their identity with Brahman].”