The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c8.s3.t4.3

c8.s3.t4.3

The extension of the world and the plurality of wandering souls, this hybrid which is neither Being nor non-Being (tattva-anyatvâbhyâm anirvacanîyam) and comparable to an hallucination or to a dream, is produced by Ignorance by virtue of the Upâdhis, the limitations, literally "the ascription" (with the secondary idea of the unpermitted) by means of which we "ascribe" to Brahman what does not naturally belong to him, and through which, as we shall show in detail, he becomes 1) a personal God, 2) the world, 3) the individual soul. All this depends on the Upâdhis, and the Upâdhis on Avidyâ. Avidyâ alone is the cause of the origin of the Upâdhis (they are avidyâ-kṛita p. 1133, 12, avidyâ-nimitta p. 692, 14, avidyâ-pratyupasthâpita pp. 199, 5. 690, 5) and is the cause of their persistence so far as the essence of Avidyâ is the non-discrimination of Brahman from the Upâdhis (upâdhi-aviveka p. 473, 17. 689, l. 98, 8, cf. 185, 10); Brahman himself on the other hand is not in the least affected or changed by the Upâdhis, just as little in fact as the crystal by the red colour with which it is painted p. 265, 7. 803, 14. It is in this sense that a contact of the Upâdhis (upâdhi-samparka p. 389, 2. 794, 7) and a contamination (p. 389, 2) by them is spoken of. Brahman is merged in the Upâdhis (upâdhi-antarbhâva p. 811, 5. 9) and thereby his nature is hidden (svarûpa-tirobhâva p. 837, 2) and his natural omniscience (in his existential form as soul) suffers a limitation (the knowledge of the soul is *upâdhi-paricchinna* p. 231, 1).