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I 2 The Bhāgavata-purāņa
[CH. God, is sustained in Him and is ultimately dissolved in Him, is but an inessential description of an accidental phenomenon which does not reveal the real nature of God.
God is called by different names, e.g. Brahman, Paramātman and Bhagavat, but, by whatever name He may be called, His pure essence consists of pure formless consciousness (arūpasya cidātmanaḥ)". He creates the world by His māyā-power, consisting of the three guņas. Underlying the varied creations of māyā, He exists as the one abiding principle of reality which bestows upon them their semblance of reality. The māyā represents only His external power, through which He creates the world with Himself as its underlying substratum. But in His own true nature the māyā is subdued, and as such He is in His pure loneliness as pure consciousness. Sridhara in his commentary points out that God has two powers called vidyā-sakti and avidyā-sakti. By His vidyā-sakti God controls His own māyā-sakti in His own true nature as eternal pure bliss, as omniscient and omnipotent. T'he jīva or the individual soul can attain salvation only through right knowledge obtained through devotion. On this point Śrīdhara tries to corroborate his views by quotations from Visnusvāmin, who holds that Isvara a being, intelligence, and bliss (saccid-ānanda īśvara) is pervaded with blissful intelligence (hlādinī samvit), and that the māyā is under his control and that his difference from individual souls consists in the fact of their being under the control of māyā. The individual souls are wrapped up in their own ignorance and are therefore always suffering from afflictions (klesa). God in His own nature as pure consciousness transcends the limits of māyā and prakrti and exists in and for Himself in absolute loneliness; and it is this same God that dispenses all the good and bad fruits of virtue and vice in men under the influence of māyās. That God in His own true
| Bhāgavata-purāņa, 1. 3. 30. 2 Ibid. 1. 7. 6 (Sridhara's comment):
tad uktam vişnu-svāminā hlādinyā samvidāśliştah sac-cid-ānanda iśvarah
svavidya-samurto jivah samkleśa-nikarākarah tathā sa iso yad-vase māyā sa jīvo yas tayārditaḥ, etc.
Jiva quotes the same passage and locates it in Sarvajña-sukti Şat-sandarbha, p. 191.
tvam ādyah puruṣaḥ sāksõd īśvaraḥ prakrteh parah māyām vyudasya cic-chaktyä kaivalye sthita ātmani sa eva jīva-lokasya māyā-mohita-cetaso
vidhatse svena vīryena śreyo dharmādi-laksanam. Ibid. 1. 7. 23, 24.
