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not real, but neither is it unreal. It has an intermediate statusphenomenal reality or cosmic illusion. Both schools claim Sankara himself, but realism is the common doctrine of postSankarite orthodox Advaita. Malkani scorns this realism as "Advaita for the dull." While it may be true that God creates the world, this is true only cosmologically, not metaphysically, since God also is part of the illusion. The world as illusion is created, sustained, and destroyed by the self which has this illusioncreated by illusion, sustained by ignorance, destroyed by knowledge. The illusory being of things depends on their being perceived, not on their being created by God. There is no real difference between dream objects and waking objects, since neither exist. There is no ontological hierarchy among nonentities. The only significant distinction between dreaming and waking, states metaphysically indistinguishable, is pragmatic. My this-worldly goals are successfully attained by ignoring dream objects and acting as if waking objects were real. So far as the problem of reality in the phenomenal world is concerned, Malkani is a pragmatist.
If the self is real, the problem arises whether it is one or many. This problem divides subjectivist Advaitins into two sub-schools. All agree that the real self is one and that the illusory individuals (including bodies and minds) are many, but how about the self as subject of ignorance, the self which produces the illusory objects by perceiving them? According to monopsychism (ekajivavada, "one-individual-ism") there is only one subject, plurality being characteristic of objects. According to polypsychism (anekajivavada, "nong-one-individual-ism"), while there is only one real self (Atman, which is Brahman), the self as subject of ignorance (jiva) is manifold, the plurality of individual persons. The problem whether one individual can become free while others are still in bondage, together with the moral problem of the freed individual's obligation to those still in bondage, arises only in the context of anekajivavada. Malkani, however, insists that the two theories differ only theoretically, not practically, since the problem of the freed individual's relation to those still in bondage is never a practical problem for anybody. The theoretical difference depends on the question of the ground of ignorance. For anekajivavada this is the individual selves; but for ekajivavada, as
