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336 Philosophy of the Rāmānuja School of Thought [CH. If it is argued that māyā is not a defect of Brahman but a quality, then it may be said that if it were so then no one would be anxious to remove it. If, again, māyā were a quality of Brahman and served the purpose of such a mighty person, how could the poor individual selves dare it? And if they could, they would be able to injure the practical interests of an Omnipotent Being, for māyā being a quality would certainly be of great use to Him. Māyā cannot be destroyed by itself without any cause, for that would land us in the doctrine of momentariness. If the māyā were eternal and real, that would be an admission of dualism. If māyā be regarded as being included in Brahman, then Brahman, being only selfmanifesting, and māyā being included within it would not have the power of producing the world-delusions which it is supposed to produce. Again, māyā being eternal cannot also be false. Again, if the manifestation of māyā from Brahman be regarded as real, then the ignorance of Brahman becomes also real; if it is a false manifestation from Brahman, then it would be meaningless to suppose that Brahman should be using the māyā as an instrument of play. It is absurd to suppose that Brahman would be playing with false reflected images, like a child. Again, if the jīvas and Brahman be identical, then it is unreasonable to suppose that the ignorance of the jīvas would not imply the ignorance of Brahman. If, again, the jīvas and the Brahman be really different, then how can there be any emancipation by the knowledge of their identity? So the conception of a māyā and an avidyā different from it is wholly incomprehensible.
Forty-third Objection. It is held by the Sankarites that a knowledge of monistic identity produces emancipation. Now such a knowledge cannot be different from the Brahma-knowledge; for if it is a contentless entity, then it would be no knowledge, since the Sankarites hold that knowledge can only be a mental state associated with a content (vrtti-rūpam hi jñānam savisayam era iti bhavatām api siddhāntaḥ). It cannot also be identical with Brahmaknowledge, for if such a knowledge can produce emancipation the pure Brahma-knowledge would have done the same. It may be held that in the case of the illusion of conch-shell-silver, when there is a true shining regarding the nature of the "this" in its own character, then that is equivalent to the contradiction of the illusory appearance of silver, and the manifestation of identity showing the
