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The Nimbārka Scho
[CH.
essence is destroyed, and this would almost be the same as the māyā doctrine of the Sankarites, who hold that the essential nature of both God and souls is destructible.
It is wrong to suppose that individuals are but parts of which a structural Brahman is constituted, for in that case, being made up of parts, the Brahman would be itself destructible. When the scriptures speak of the universe and the souls as being but a part of Brahman, the main emphasis is on the fact that Brahman is infinite and the universe is but too small in comparison with it. It is also difficult to imagine how the minds or the antahkaranas can operate as conditions for limiting the nature of the Brahman. How should Brahman allow these so-called conditions to mutilate its nature? It could not have created these conditions for the production of individual souls, for these souls were not in existence before the conditions were in existence. Thus the Bhāskara doctrine that the concept of distinction and unity of Brahman is due to the operation of conditions (aupādhika-bhedābheda-vāda) is entirely false.
According to the Nimbārka view, therefore the ference that exist between the individuals and Brahman is natural (svābhārika) and not due to conditions (aupādhika) as in the case of Bhāskara. The coiling posture (kundala) of a snake is different from the long snake as it is in itself and is yet identical with it in the sense that the coiling posture is an effect; it is dependent and under the absolute control of the snake as it is and it has no separate existence from the nature of the snake as it is. The coiled state of the snake exists in the elongated state but only in an undifferentiated, unperceivable way; and is nothing but the snake by which it is pervaded through and through and supported in its entirety. So this universe of matter and souls is also in one aspect absolutely identical with God, being supported entirely by Him, pervaded through and through by Him and entirely dependent on Him, and yet in another aspect different from Him in all its visible manifestations and operations. The other analogy through which the Nimbarkists try to explain the situation is that of thesunandits rays which are at once one with it and are also perceived as different from it.
1 yathā kundalā-tasthä-pannasya aheh kundalan 7'Vaktu-pannattūt pratyakşapramcīņa-gocaram tad-bhedaspa stūbhārikatiūt lambājumānī-7'usthuyām tu sarpawatā-t'acchinna-sarūpenn kundalasya tatra sattue'pi uz lakta-rūma-rūpatu-pattya pratyaksă-gocarattam sarri-makatra-tad-ūdheyatva-tad-7''prattu-dină tadaprthak-siddhatvād abhedasyā'pi stābhārikatram. Para-paksa-giri-rapra, p. 361.
