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XXIV] Kapila's philosophy in the Bhāgavata-purāṇa
43
(bala) of God consists in the fact that He is never tired or fatigued in spite of His eternal and continuous operation of creation; His energy (virya) consists in this, that, though His own power is split up as the material on which His power acts, He does not suffer any change on that account1. His lustre of self-completeness (tejas) consists in this, that He does not await the help of any instrument of any kind for His creative operations 2: and it is the self-spontaneity of this power that is described as His agency (kartṛtva) as the creator of the world. God is described as being both of the nature of pure consciousness and of the nature of power. It is the all-pervasive consciousness of Himself that constitutes the omniscience of God, and, when this stillness of omniscience and self-complete steady consciousness as pure differenceless vacuity dirempts itself and pulsates into the creative operation, it is called His power. It is on this account that the power (sakti) of God is described as thoughtmovement (jñāna-mūla-kriyātmaka). This power or consciousness may be regarded both as a part of God, and therefore one with Him, and also as His specific character or quality; it is this power which dirempts itself as consciousness and its object (cetya-cetana), as time and all that is measured by time (kalya-kāla), as manifest and unmanifest (vyaktāvyakta), as the enjoyer and that which is enjoyed (bhoktṛ-bhogya), as the body and that which is embodied (deha-dehin)3. The conception of purușa seems to indicate the view of a conglomeration of the individual selves into a colony or association of individual selves, like the honeycomb of the bees1. They are regarded as unchangeable in themselves (kūṭastha), but yet they are covered over with the dusty impurities of beginningless root-desires (vāsanā), and thus, though pure in themselves, they may be also regarded as impure5. In themselves they are absolutely unaffected by any kind of affliction, and, being parts of God's nature, are omniscient and eternally emancipated beings. These purușas are, however, through the will of God or rather of necessity through the creative operation of His power, differently affected by ignorance
1
tasyopādāna-bhāve'pi vikāra-viraho hi yaḥ
Ibid. 11. 60.
viryam nāma guṇaḥ so'yam acyutatvāparāhvayam. sahakary-anapekṣā yā tat tejaḥ samudāhṛtam. Ibid. 11. 61.
2
3 Ibid. v. 6-12.
4
5
sarvātmanām samaṣṭir yā kośo madhu-kṛtām iva. Ibid. VI. 33. suddhyaśuddhimayo bhāvo bhūteḥ sa puruṣaḥ smrtaḥ anādi-vāsanā-reņu-kunṭhitair ātmabhiś citaḥ. Ibid. VI. 34.
