Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/454

 43 8 The Saizkara School of Vedanta [CH. 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 by the (imagina- tion of the) mind 1 ." The reasons that Sailkara adduces for the existence of Brahman may be considered to be threefold: (I) The world must have been produced as the modification of some- thing, but in the U pani!?ads all other things have been spoken of as having been originated from something other than Brahman, so Brahman is the cause from which the world has sprung into being, but we could not think that Brahman itself originated from something else, for then we should have a regresslts ad infi1litum (a1lavasthii). (2) The world is so orderly that it could not have come forth from a non-intelligent source. The intelligent source then from which this world has come into being is Brahman. (3) This Brahman is the immediate consciousness (siiki) which shines as the self, as well as through the objects of cognition which the self knows. It is thus the essence of us all, the self, and hence it remains undenied even when one tries to deny it, for even in the denial it shows itself forth. It is the self of us all and is hence ever present to us in all our cognitions. Brahman according to Sati.kara is the identity of pure intelli- gence, pure being, and pure blessedness. Brahman is the self of us all. So long as we are in our ordinary waking life, we are identifying the self with thousands of illusory things, with all that we call "I" or mine, but when in dreamless sleep we are absolutely without any touch of these phenomenal notions the nature of our true state as pure blessedness is partially realized. The individual self as it appears is but an appearance only, while the real truth is the true self which is one for all, as pure intelligence, pure blessedness, and pure being. All creation is illusory maya. But accepting it as maya, it may be conceived that God (Isvara) created the world as a. mere sport; from the true point of view there is no Isvara who creates the world, but in the sense in which the world exists, and we all exist as separate individuals, we can affirm the existence of Isvara, as engaged in creating and maintaining the world. In reality all creation is illusory and so the creator also is illusory. Brahman, the self, is at once the material cause (uPiidii1ta-kiira?ta) as well as the efficient cause (nimitta-kiira?ta) of the world. 1 Sailkara's commentary, 1. i. 2. See also Deussen's System of the Vediinta.