Page:New Light Upon Indian Philosophy.pdf/41



the treatment of the supreme question of the nature of God, neither Meikanda Deva nor Swedenborg set out with a proof of His existence; they take that for granted.

The first sutra of Sivajnanabotham says that as the universe which is divided, and pointedly known as the Series, he, she, and it, undergoes the three changes, viz., origin, development and decay, it must be an entity that was caused to appear by some One. When it makes its appearance again from God in whom it disappeared during Sambaram, it does so to remove the Anavamala which is still conjoined to it, but has not disappeared; and the sutra concludes that Hara who is the cause of Samharam is the First Cause. The first argument to the sutra establishes the fact that the universe undergoes the three changes from the fact that origin and destruction are found side by side in the seen universe. The illustrative stanza points out that the universe while existing is always followed by destruction and reproduction. But if it is objected that the universe as a whole does not undergo the changes noted above, we may answer that we have seen particular species in nature being subject to wholesale reproduction and