Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s18: XXVII Īśvara or Personal God

Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s18

Language: English

XXVII Īśvara or Personal God

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Īśvara, according to Śaṃkara, is the determinate (saguṇa) Brahman regarded as the supreme personality. Śaṃkara believes that the question of God’s existence is an absurd one. If God exists, then he must exist as other objects do, which would be to reduce God to the level of the finite, making him simply a unit in the indefinite multiplicity of objects, distinct from them all, even as they are distinct from each other, or merging him in the totality of existence in a pantheism which will be practically indistinguishable from atheism. To state the question of God in terms of existence removes in advance all possibility of solving it. If the rigidity of reason is any security for the attainment of truth, we should have arrived at it long ago. As a matter of fact we find different schools, each pretending to be logical, in conflict with the rest. Śaṃkara takes up the so-called proofs for the existence of God, the epistemological, the cosmological and the physico-theological, and shows their futility, as Kant did at a much later day.

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The ideal of logic compels us to assume the reality of a perfect subject, to whom all existence is related as an object. Truth as systematic harmony means the reality of a divine experience. That events are interconnected in a system is the assumption of common sense and science, which is increasingly confirmed by experience, though never realised in its entirety. For there is much in the world which never directly enters into our experience. We seem to know much, though even in this limited region our knowledge is imperfect. Only a complete apprehension of reality as a whole can justify the hypothesis that God is and he is the creator of all. Our human experience is incapable of apprehending the world in its entirety, achieve a harmony of pure being with restless

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When the terms are capable of endless subdivisions, and when their relations are capable of infinite permutations, a whole view of terms and relations is impossible. The putting together of the appearances does not lead us to truth. The real is beyond appearances and truth is beyond thought.

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infinitude.¹ However much we might simplify and order our experience and reduce its complexity to the single prakṛti, the puruṣa, or the subject, would still remain the outside observer of its lonely flight through space and history. If the universe is small enough for our little minds to explore, if we can tell whence it comes and whither it goes, can understand its origin, nature and destiny, then we are not finite and we do not demand an infinite. The logical belief that all facts belong to a system and express the mind of God is only an idea.

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¹ Cp. "For God alone sits high enough above To speculate so largely."

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The cosmological argument employs the concept of cause, which is not adequate even in the empirical world, and turns out altogether useless when we try to relate the world of experience to the ultimate reality, which is said to manifest itself through it. The different lines in the phenomenal series cannot explain one another. We cannot admit within the world of phenomena an uncaused cause. The question of an absolute beginning of the phenomenal series, saṁsāra, is a self-contradictory one. To seek for it is to seek in time for that which is the condition of the very being of time. It is the essence of saṁsāra that it has no beginning. The infinite to which we rise by the mere negation of the finite is another idea requiring explanation. When the argument from causality, which has its validity confined to the world of changing phenomena, is applied to the real, the latter is misconceived, since it is made an object of knowledge, and that which we infer as the cause of the world belongs also to the world of experience. We can infer only a finite creator from a finite world, even if we assume the universality of the principle that every effect has a cause.² The first cause must be a unity of the same order of being as the objects of experience, since the latter are brought into relation with it. If Īśvara is the cause of the world, he must be within the space-time framework, a vastly magnified man whose self-consciousness is defined by the instrumentality of a body and a mind analogous to our own. If such a being exists, no foreseeable extension of our knowledge could enable us to determine his nature and existence. Such a God, moreover, working through instruments analogous to the human ones, is neither infinite nor omnipotent.

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² Yat kāryaṁ tat sakartṛkam.

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The moral argument that the context of things is adapted to the soul of man and shows the workmanship of a benevolent God is quite unsatisfactory. However the matter be turned, in a real world the responsibility for sin and evil falls on God.¹ If, to relieve him of the authorship of evil, we accept something like the mythology of Persia and make Satan responsible for it, then the oneness of God disappears and we reinstate a dualism between God and Satan. Again, if the soul is a part of God, God must feel the pain of the soul also, even as, when one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers with it. It follows that the sufferings of God are much greater than those of the individual souls, and it is better for us to remain self-enclosed individuals with our limited sufferings than rise to the level of God and take upon ourselves the burden of the whole world.

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¹ The solution suggested by the Hebrew prophet, " I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil, I the Lord do all these things," finds an echo in some passages of the Upaniṣads. " For he makes those do good works whom he will guide out from this world, and he makes those do evil whom he will guide downwards; he is the guardian of the world, he is the ruler of the world, he is the lord of the world" (Kauṣītaki Up., iii. 8).

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A perfect God does not require the world for his satisfaction. If it is said that the world is for his enjoyment, then God is no God but only a saṃsārin. If we say that God has determinations, guṇas, like personality, perfection, etc., it is difficult to conceive how these can coexist with absoluteneness. The attempt to conserve the characters of personality (guṇa) and absoluteness (Brahman) seems to be wellnigh impossible for logic.

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The lesson which Śaṃkara derives from these inadequate proofs for the existence of God is that the question has no meaning in reality and arises only within the world of experience. When we realise the relative character of the world, we shall see that the problem of creation and the answer to it both belong to our logical world and not to reality as it is. To set aside the logical proofs is not to deny the existence of Īśvara. Śaṃkara’s point is that no purely rational argument for the existence of God as a personal supreme being is finally acceptable. At best the "proofs" only tell us that God is a possibility. The reality of God transcends our rational powers of conceiving as well as comprehending¹; only if we resort to the spiritual insight of seers as recorded in the scriptures can we be certain of God. The reality of Īśvara, in Śaṁkara’s philosophy, is not a self-evident axiom, is not a logical truth, but an empirical postulate which is practically useful. Śruti is the basis for it.² Īśvara is the supreme spirit, all-knowing (sarvajña), and possessed of all powers (sarvaśaktisamanvitam). He is the soul of nature, the principle of the universe, its animating breath and actuating spring, the source and end of all existent modes. What is based on scriptural testimony is not necessarily opposed to reason. To accept śruti is to accept belief for which there are no disproofs, though there are not adequate proofs. In the logical account we render to ourselves of the world we reach a point where we require help from another source. Before we rise to intuition, we resort to śruti. Regarding the creatorship of Īśvara, scripture is our only means of knowledge.³ It declares that "the cause from which (proceeds) the origin, substance and dissolution of the world, which is extended in names and forms, which includes many agents and enjoyers, which contains the fruit of works, specially determined according to space, time and cause, a world which is formed after an arrangement inconceivable even for the mind—this omniscient and omnipotent cause is Brahman (i.e. Īśvara)."⁴ All the perfections, metaphysical and moral, are ascribed to him. He is said to be raised above all evil.¹ He is the immanent spirit (antaryāmin) pervading the object and the subject worlds, seen in the interior of the sun (object) as well as in the interior of the eye (subject).² He is the creator, ruler and destroyer of the universe.³

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¹ Cp. Schweitzer: "If we take the world as it is, it is impossible to explain it in any way which will give meaning to the ends and aims of the activities of men and of humanity. We can discover no trace in the world of any purposive development which might lend significance to our actions" (Preface, xii, *Civilisation and Ethics*, pt. ii).

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² Though Kant is regarded as the first philosophical thinker in Europe who sought to establish the futility of logical proofs, it must be said in fairness to Plato that he recognised it. "Therefore it is an impossible task to discover the Creator and father of this whole universe and publish the discovery of him in words for all to understand" (*Timæus*, 28, C.). Cp. Bishop Gore: "I acknowledge that human reason could never by its unassisted efforts have arrived at this conception of God the Creator" (*Belief in God*, p. 152), and so he asks us to turn to Revelation. So St. Thomas Aquinas. Cp. S.B. on *Kena Up.*, i. 4.

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³ B.S., i. I. 3.

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⁴ S.B., i. I. 2.

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¹ Chān., i. 6; S.B., i. 1. 20.

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² S.B., i. 1. 20; Bṛh. Up., iii. 7. 9.

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³ See S.B., i. 1. 18-20, 22; i. 3. 39, 41; i. 2. 9-10.

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Śaṃkara takes great pains to prove that the reality of Īśvara, when once it is ascertained from the scripture, can be reconciled with the demands of reason. We only perceive the effect, so that it cannot be decided whether the world is connected with Īśvara as its cause or with something else, since the same effect can have different causes. So we must accept the statement of the scriptures that Īśvara is the cause of the world. Īśvara is the first cause, since he has no origin (asambhava). Īśvara as pure being (sanmātram) cannot have sprung from pure being, since the relation of cause and effect cannot exist without a certain superiority in the cause.⁴ Īśvara cannot have sprung from differentiated being, since experience tells us that differences arise from the non-differenced, and not vice versa. He cannot have sprung from non-being, since it is essenceless (nirātmaka). Scripture also rejects this view, for it asks, How can being come out of non-being? Nor can Īśvara be a modification, since this would land us in infinite regress.⁵ Īśvara is unproduced, has no cause, and is no effect. If Īśvara were an effect, then every effect from ākāśa downwards would be essenceless and we should embrace nihilism.⁶ That which gives reality to all modifications is Īśvara.

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⁴ Since nothing superior to Īśvara can be conceived, therefore Īśvara exists uncaused. Cp. with this Descartes's ontological argument.

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⁵ S.B., ii. 3. 9.

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⁶ S B ii. 3. 7.

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Admitting the principle that every effect has a cause, may not the cause be the atoms, or the prakṛti, or non-being, or an individual agent, or spontaneity?⁷ Śaṃkara refutes all these possibilities. Nature is not dead, but is alive and animated from within. The scene of nature is well adapted for the drama of the soul-life. "In the world, no non-intelligent object without being guided by an intelligence brings forth from itself the products which serve to further given aims of man. For example, houses, palaces, beds, seats, pleasure-gardens and the like are contrived in life by intelligent artists in due time for the purpose of obtaining pleasure and averting pain. It is exactly the same with this whole world. For when one sees how, for example, the earth serves the end of the enjoyment of the fruit of the manifold works, and how, again, the body within and without by possessing a given arrangement of parts suitable to the different species and determined in detail that it may form the place of enjoyment of the fruit of the manifold works . . . how should this arrangement proceed from the non-intelligent pradhāna? . . . Clay, also, for example, is formed, as experience teaches, to different shapes only so long as it is guided by the potter, and exactly in the same way must matter be guided by another intelligent power."'¹ The purpose of creation is to serve as the stage for the reward of the deeds of earlier existences which stretch back for each individual ad infinitum. Unconscious prakṛti is not the explanation of nature or the subjective aspect of the world and the working of the law of karma. Consciousness and activity must belong to the cause of the world.² The regularity and adaptation (racana) of the world indicate a conscious director. The same is implied by the co-operation of several means for one end.³ Śaṁkara notices the theory of the Pūrva Mīmāṁsā that not God but apūrva accounts for the ordered way in which men reap the fruits of their deeds. He criticises it on the ground that apūrva is unspiritual and cannot operate unless it is moved by something spiritual. The extra-cosmic God of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika is inadequate, since he is not the material cause of the universe. Were the individual the creator, he would have produced what is beneficial to himself, and not things of a contrary nature such as birth, death, old age, disease, etc. For "we know that no free person will build a prison for himself and take up his abode in it."⁴ Chance, atoms, prakṛti and the Nyāya God are larger and more impossible demands than what the scripture makes. So the omniscient, all-powerful, eternal, all-pervading Īśvara is the cause of the world.⁵

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⁷ S.B., i. 1. 2.

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¹ S.B., ii. 2. 1.

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² If the mere presence of Brahman is enough to move the world as a magnet does iron, will not the mere vicinity of puruṣas suffice for the activity of prakṛti? Again, avidyā naturally tends to creation and is in need of no purpose. "Avidyā ca svabhāvata eva, kāryonmukhī na prayojanam apekṣate" (Bhāmatī).

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³ S.B., i. 3. 39.

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⁴ Na hi kaścid aparatantro bandhanāgāram ātmanaḥ kṛtvā'nupraviśati (ii. 1. 21). Cp. Descartes: "If I were myself the author of my being, I should have bestowed on myself every perfection of which I possess the idea, and I should thus be God" (Meditations, p. iii).

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⁵ See S.B., ii. 1. 22; iv. 1. 23 and 24.

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Īśvara is said to be the material as well as the efficient cause of the world. To the objection that in experience material causes do not possess knowledge, Śaṁkara answers: "It is not necessary that it should be here the same as in experience; for this subject is known by revelation and not inference.'' When we rely on scriptural statements, it is not necessary for us to conform to experience.¹ An efficient cause, according to the Nyāya philosophy, is that whose knowledge, desire and effort are necessary to bring about the product. The Vedāntin admits only knowledge which is self-sufficient and not desire and effort which assume a prior desire and a prior effort ad infinitum. It is argued that Īśvara cannot be the cause of the world since there is a difference of nature (vilakṣaṇatvam) between the cause and the effect. A piece of gold cannot be the cause of a vessel of clay; so Īśvara pure and spiritual cannot be the cause of the world, which is impure and unspiritual.² Śaṃkara replies that unconscious objects frequently take their rise from conscious beings, such as hairs and nails from men. From the inanimate dung, the animate dung-beetle comes forth. If it is urged that in these cases, in spite of apparent diversity, there is fundamental identity, since both of these spring from the earth, Śaṃkara replies that Īśvara and the world have the common characteristic of being, or sattā. The two are not totally different, and if Īśvara has a certain superiority (atiśaya), it is not surprising, since the cause everywhere has this feature.³

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¹ Na avaśyaṃ tasya yathādṛṣṭam eva sarvam abhyupagantavyam. See also D.S.V., pp. 92-93. ² S.B., ii. I. 4. ³ S.B., ii. I. 6. ⁴ Sthaulya, sāvayavatva, cetanatva, paricchinnatvāśuddhyādi. ⁵ S.B., ii. I. 9. ⁶ S.B., ii. I. 9. ⁷ S.B., ii. I. 9.

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Another objection states that if the world issues from and returns to Īśvara, then, on its return, the qualities of the world such as materiality, compositeness, non-intelligence, limitedness, impurity, etc., must defile Īśvara.⁴ Śaṃkara says in reply that when the effects return to their causes, they lose their specific qualities and merge in their cause, as when gold ornaments return to gold. It is not a true return, if the effect retains its qualities, even when withdrawn into the cause.⁵ If it is said that, as the world loses its special qualities and gets absorbed into Īśvara, there is then no reason for it to go forth again, differentiated into the enjoyers and the enjoyed which we have in every new world-period, Śaṃkara answers this objection by an analogy. '' As the soul in deep sleep and meditation returns (temporarily) into its original unity, but on waking from these states returns to its individual existence so long as it is not free from avidyā, so also is it with the return into Īśvara.''⁶ The force of differentiation continues in Īśvara, though it is not manifested, when the world is withdrawn into him. The basis of the recurring return of the world into existence is in the works performed in former lives which require to be atoned for. The liberated do not return since the condition of rebirth, viz., false knowledge, is absent in their case.⁷ Strictly speaking, there is no creation at all since saṃsāra is beginningless and endless. Creation and destruction are stages in the process of saṃsāra which is from eternity to eternity. At the beginning of every kalpa (world period) we have the unpacking of the original complex which contains within itself the whole range of diversity. There is continuity between the past and the present, between the state of destruction and the state of creation which succeeds it. If the supreme Īśvara and the individual jīva are related as whole and part, the former should be subject to pain, whenever the jīva suffers. To get over this difficulty, the relation of whole and part is interpreted as one of original and reflection. Any injury to the reflection does not affect the original.

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It is said that God cannot be the cause of the world where some are treated well and some ill, and he who inflicts such varying lots on his creatures is unjust and cruel.¹ The difficulty is overcome by the recognition of the law of karma. God does not act arbitrarily, but acts with reference to the good and evil works of each creature in its earlier births. God brings about a creation suited to the deeds of men. Since the world is only a scene of atonement for the works of an earlier existence, the rôle of God as creator is a secondary one. We cannot attribute to the gardener what is due to the vital forces of the plant. Śaṁkara compares God to rain which helps the plants to grow, while what they grow into depends not on the rain but on the nature of the seed. Each individual's new life is determined by the moral quality of his acts.² But it may be asked, Why did not God create a world free from suffering, misery, at the very beginning, when there was neither merit nor demerit in the individuals to determine his action. This leads to circular reasoning. Śaṁkara says: "Without merit and demerit, no one can come into existence; again, without an individual no merit and demerit can exist, so that on the doctrine of the world having a beginning we are led into a logical see-saw."³ The world is beginningless (anādi).⁴ Each existence in it owes its nature to some prior existence. Even in periodical creations and returns the law of karma is observed, and saṁsāra in a subtle or gross form subsists in the nature of God. Prakṛti, or the principle of the world, which is itself no effect and is therefore superior to all effects,⁵ exists in him. The spring has no source outside Īśvara, and so māyā or prakṛti is made a part of the nature of God. Īśvara, i.e. Brahman associated with prakṛti, is the efficient and the material cause of the world. The world as the effect of Īśvara persists even before it is created in the form of the causal self (kāraṇātmanā), even as it persists through his power in creation.⁶ Even prior to creation the nāmarūpa (name and form) is the object of Īśvara's knowledge.⁷

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¹ S.B., ii. I. 34. ² S.B., i. 3. 39. ³ S.B., ii. I. 36. ⁴ S.B., ii. 3. 42. ⁵ Sarvasmād vikārāt paro yo 'vikāraḥ (S.B., i. 2. 22). ⁶ S.B., ii. I.

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⁶ See S.B. on Kaṭha Up., iii. 11; Chān., viii. 14. 1. ⁷ S.B., i. I. 5

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The Upaniṣads believe in the immanence of God. They declare that God is not separated from the individual soul, but, by means of it, he himself has entered into nature. "As the absolutely pure he would not enter the impure body with his own self, and even if he had done so, he would leave it remembering that he himself had made it. Without any trouble, the soul in whose form God entered the world would put an end to the world, even as the magician does to the glamour produced by himself. Since this does not occur, it follows that the world is not created by a spiritual being who knows what is good for himself."¹ Śaṃkara answers this objection by pointing to the production of different kinds of effects from one cause. The same earth brings forth many kinds of stones, costly jewels as well as ordinary stones. So also from one God a variety of souls and effects follow.²

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¹ S.B., ii. I. 21.

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² S.B., ii. I. 23.

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Īśvara creates without implements. He is able to transform himself into manifold effects by his great powers.³ No outside co-operation is necessary for God who possesses all the necessary powers perfect within himself. It is said that God and the ṛṣis can create many things through the sheer force of meditation, without the aid of anything external.⁴ His work of creation is not like human acts.⁵ By the specific quality of his nature, God transforms himself into the world even as milk is changed into curd.⁶ Since the manifold world arises from Īśvara, the latter is assigned a multiplicity of powers.⁷ If Īśvara is essentially free, he cannot be under any compulsion to create. God has no imperfections, no unfulfilled desires. The attribution of any motive (prayojana) to God conflicts with his all-sufficiency.⁸ If the world issued for some purpose or expressed some desire or fulfilled some want, then it would betray a sense of need and incompleteness in the Supreme. If he created with no definite aim, then his acts would be no better than a child's. If God were the sole cause, the whole effect should have been present at once; but, as a matter of fact, we have a slowly unfolding growth which seems to indicate different causes for different stages. It is said in reply that action is not necessarily determined from without. It may be determined by motives intrinsic to the activity itself. So it is said that "the activity of the Lord may be supposed to be mere sport (līlā) proceeding from his own nature, without reference to any purpose."⁹ The creative activity of Īśvara is the undesired overflow of his perfection, which cannot rest sterilely in itself. The conception of līlā conveys a number of suggestions. The act of creation is not motivated by any selfish interest. It is the spontaneous overflow of God's nature (svabhāva), even as it is the nature of man to breathe in and out.¹ God cannot help creating. The work of the world is not the result of chance or thoughtlessness, but is simply the outcome of God's nature. Out of the fulness of his joy, God scatters abroad life and power.² Śaṁkara does not regard the infinite as something which exists in itself first and then feels itself under a necessity to go out into the finite. He creates out of the abundance of his joy and for the fulfilment of the demands of morality. By looking upon creation as the cosmic game in which the Supreme indulges, Śaṁkara brings out the purposiveness, rationality, ease and effortlessness with which the creation is sustained. The liberated are called upon to share the joy of Īśvara. The finite centres are distinguishable not from but within the whole, and the whole is also the ideal for the selves to attain to. Even things that seem to be unspiritual and unreasonable belong to the whole. The life of Īśvara throbs in all parts unifying and containing all. "All living creatures from Brahmā down to plants are regarded as my body."³ Īśvara and the world, the cause and the effect, are identical. They are not identical as forms or modifications, but are identical in their fundamental nature of Brahman. The world in creation is developed in name and form, while it is in an undeveloped state in dissolution. Creation is the expression in the plane of space-time of what exists already in God.⁴ At the end of each of the world periods (kalpas) Īśvara takes back the whole world, *i.e.* the material world becomes merged in non-distinct prakṛti, while the individual souls, free for the time being from actual connection with upādhis, lie in deep slumber as it were. But the consequences of their deeds are not yet exhausted, they have again to enter an embodied existence as soon as Īśvara sends forth a new material world. Then the old round of birth, action and death, etc., begins anew.⁵

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³ Paripūrṇaśaktikam (S.B., ii. I. 24).

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⁴ ii. I. 25, 31.

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⁵ S.B., i. 4. 27.

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⁶ Kṣīravad dravyasvabhāvaviśeṣāt (S.B., ii. I. 24). The analogy of milk is unsound, since the change of milk into curds requires the association of warmth.

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⁷ S.B., ii. I. 30.

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⁸ Nityapariṭṛptatvam (S.B., ii. I. 32-33). Brahman is prāptakāmaḥ of realised purpose, and so the teleology of finite consciousness cannot apply to him.

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⁹ S.B., ii. I. 33.

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¹ S.B., ii. i. 33.

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² Cp. with this the Plotinian conception of Spirit as overflowing perfection.

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³ Upadeśasāhasrī, ix. 4; Dakṣiṇāmūrti Stotra, p. 9.

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⁴ Cp. Emily Brontë:

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⁵ The one supreme Lord is called Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva according as he is creating, preserving and withdrawing the whole universe. Creation (sṛṣṭi) is the function of Īśvara enveloped in sattva or Brahmā. Withdrawal (pralaya) is the function of Īśvara enveloped in tamas or Śiva, while subsistence (sthiti), with its upward and downward tendencies, is the function of Īśvara enveloped in rajas or Viṣṇu.

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The individual souls which are different from one another are regarded as parts of Īśvara, which are, however, not confused. The

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"Though earth and man were gone;
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee."

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works and fruits of different souls, which at death return to their source and proceed out again to a new existence,¹ do not intermingle.² The individual soul as identified with the material body is the jīva, or the dehin, or the embodied. The unity of all these jīvas, the collective or cosmic self in the waking state, is Virāj or Vaiśvānara. As identified with the subtle body as in the dream state, the individual is the liṅgin, or the taijasa. The unity of all the taijasas or subtle selves is Hiraṇyagarbha or Sūtrātman.³ Lastly, as identified with the kāraṇa-śarīra, the individual is called prājña, and the unity of all prājñas is Īśvara. The individual in the state of dreamless sleep has still the element of duality. He has buddhi, the spring of thought and volition. Īśvara, in the state of withdrawal, is like the jīva in suṣupti, connected with the principle of duality, though it is not manifested. Īśvara is Brahman enclosed in pure buddhi. He has the three guṇas, and is also said to transcend them. He is said to be invested with a transparent body of pure sattva. From Īśvara to Virāj, from dreamless sleep to waking, from prājña to dehin is the order of sṛṣṭi (creation), or progressive materialisation, the reverse being that of pralaya, or progressive idealisation. Śaṃkara admits actual transformation (pariṇāma) in the phenomenal world, though he employs the conception of appearance (vivarta) to indicate the relation of the world to Brahman.

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¹ Chān. Up., vi. 10.

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² S.B., ii. 3. 49.

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³ S.B., ii. 3. 15.

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A material cause is that which brings about a product not different from the cause.⁴ The world is not different from Brahman, which as the existent (sadrūpeṇa) appears to undergo change; it is also different from avidyā, which as the non-intelligent (jaḍena) undergoes change. The world thus is a mixture of Brahman and māyā. While Śaṃkara is explicit that Īśvara is the efficient as well as the material cause of the universe,⁵ in later Advaita differences arise. According to the Vedāntaparibhāṣā, the cause of the evolution of the world is māyā and not Brahman.⁶ Vācaspati holds that while Brahman is the cause, māyā is the auxiliary (sahakārī). Brahman looked at as an object by the individuals affected by māyā is the non-intelligent world, and is said to be the cause of it.⁷ But this view takes for granted the māyā which affects the jīvas. The insentience (jaḍatā) of the world must be due to something else than Brahman pure and simple, and it is perhaps better to say that the world with its finite-infinite nature is to be traced to Brahman-māyā; and since we are not in a position to account for the relation of the world to Brahman, we may say that Brahman is the substratum of the world which is a product of māyā. This view is adopted by Padārthatattvanirṇaya.¹ The author of Siddhāntamuktāvali feels strongly against subjecting Brahman to any kind of relation, and so holds that māyā alone is the cause of the world. The author of Saṃkṣepaśārīraka regards the absolute Brahman as the material cause of the world, since all that is must belong to the one reality. Others who decline to attribute any kind of relation to Brahman, look upon Īśvara, i.e. Brahman as related to māyā, as the material cause.² If material causality is attributed to the absolute Brahman, it is only accidentally (taṭasthatayā). Vidyāraṇya holds that the cause which changes into the world is māyā,³ while that which is the basis of the world is the pure consciousness limited by māyā.⁴ There are thinkers who believe that the gross objective world is the effect of Īśvara’s māyā, while the subtle world of mind, sense, etc., is the product of the individual jīva, aided by the māyā of God.⁵ There are others who attribute the subjective world to the force of avidyā, and do not find any necessity for the co-operation of Īśvara’s māyā, assigning to the latter only the elemental universe. When we look at the question from the two different points of view, objective and subjective, Brahman is the basis on which the objective world is imposed, while Ātman is the basis on which the subjective is imposed. While the ultimate reality is the material cause of the entire practical world of sense and activity, the jīva is the material cause of the world of apparent things and of the dream world. While all these views refuse to make the world the product of the individual subject or the jīva, there are some thinkers who are of opinion that the jīva is the material cause of all, projecting within itself the whole order of things from Īśvara downwards, even as it projects a dream world.⁶

Cites (9)

Chāndogyopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Kauṣītakibrāhmaṇopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Brahmasūtra — Bādarāyaṇa, Sanskrit
Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Upadeśasāhasrī — Śaṅkara, Sanskrit
Vedāntaparibhāṣā — Dharmarāja Adhvarin 1550, Sanskrit
Dakṣiṇāmūrtistotra — Śaṅkara, Sanskrit
Saṃkṣepaśārīraka — Sarvajñātman, Sanskrit
Brahmasūtra Śāṅkarabhāṣya (Śaṅkara) — Śaṅkara, Sanskrit