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RELIGIOUS SECTS
VishŃu, who was alone, without a second, to multiply himself: he said, I will become many; and he was individually embodied as visible and etherial light. After that, as a ball of clay may be moulded into various forms, so the grosser substance of the deity became manifest in the elements, and their combinations: the forms into which the divine matter is thus divided, are pervaded by a portion of the same vitality which belongs to the great cause of all, but which is distinct from his spiritual or eterial essence; here, therefore, the Rámánujas again oppose the Vedantikas, who identify * the Paramátmá and Jivátmá, or etherial and vital spirit: this vitality, though endlessly diffusible, is imperishable and eternal, and the matter of the universe, as being the same in substance with the Supreme Being, is alike without beginning or end: PURUSHOTTAMA, or NÁRÁYAŃA, after having created man and animals, through the instrumentality of those subordinate agents whom he willed into existence for that purpose, still retained the supreme authority of the universe: so that the Rámánujas assert three predicates of the universe, comprehending the deity: it consists of Chit, or spirit, Achit, or matter, and Iswara, or God, or the enjoyer, the thing enjoyed, and the ruler and controller of both. Besides his primary and secondary form as the creator, and creation, the deity has assumed, at different times, particular forms and appearances, for the benefit
* [See, however, Colebr. M. E., London, 1858, p. 169.]
