Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s22.2

v2.c24.s22.2

Kaṇāda’s Sūtra does not openly refer to God. He traces the primal activities of the atoms and souls to the principle of adṛṣṭa.⁷ While he seemed to have been satisfied with the explanation of the universe by the principle of adṛṣṭa his followers felt that the principle of adṛṣṭa was too nebulous and unspiritual and made it dependent on God's will. God is the efficient cause of the world, while the atoms are the material cause. It is, however, hard to concede that Kaṇāda himself felt the need of a divine being. The famous passage¹ which occurs twice, and has been made to support theism by the later commentators, has no reference to God. Apparently Kaṇāda felt that the Vedas were the work of the seers, and not God. Praśastapāda does not make God central to his system, though he regards Īśvara as the cause of the world in the opening verse of his Padārthadharmasaṃgraha.² Śaṃkara's criticism³ in his commentary on the Vedānta Sūtra assumes that the system has no place for God, and that it believes in the eternal and uncreated nature of souls and atoms, and accounts for their varying states by the principle of adṛṣṭa.