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The Philosophy of Vijñāna Bhikṣu
CH.
The Brahman and the World according to
| Vijñānā-meta-bhāsya. The production, existence, maintenance, modification, decay and destruction of the world are from Brahman as God. He holds within Himself all the energies constituting the prakrti and purusas, and manifests Himself in other diverse forms; Brahman as pure consciousness is associated with the conditioning factor of His own being, the māyā as pure sattva quality in all this creative activity, so from that great Being who is devoid of all afflictions, karmas and their fruits are also produced. The fact that the Brahma-sūtra, 11. 2, says that Brahman is that from which the world has come into being and is being maintained implies that the world as it is in its own reality is an eternal fact in the very being of the ultimately real and the unmanifested. The production, the transformation and the destruction of the world are only its phenomenal aspectl. Brahman is here regarded as the adhisthāna-kāraña. This means that Brahman is the basis, the ground, the ādhāra (container) as it were of the universe in which it exists as undivided and as indistinguishable from it and which also holds the universe together. Brahman is the cause which bolds together the material cause of the universe so that it may transform itself into it? Brahman is the principle of ultimate cause which renders all other kinds of causality possible. In the original Brahman, the prakrti and the puruṣas exist in the eternal consciousness and as such are held together as being one with it. The Brahman is neither changeable nor identifiable with prakrti and puruṣa. It is because of this that, though Brahman is of the nature of pure consciousness and unchangeable, yet it is regarded as being one with the universe and as the material cause. The material cause or upādāna-kārana is the name which is given to changing material cause (the vikāri-kārana) and to the ground cause or the adhişthāna-kārana. The underlying principle of both the ground cause (adhisthāna-kārana) and the material cause (upādāna-kārana) is that the effect is held in it as merged in it or
1 atra cai'tad yata ity'anuktvā janmā-dyasya yata iti vacanād avyaktarūpena jagan nityam cva ity ācāryyā-sayaḥ. Vijñāna-mrta-bhāşya, 1. 1. 2.
? kim punar adhisthāna-kāranatvam ucyate tad etă' dhisthāna-kāranam yatra' vibhaktam yeno' pastabdham ca sad upādānā-kāraṇam karya-karena pāriņamate. Ibid.
