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280 Controversy between Dualists and Monists [CH. works on the stuff to manufacture the illusions. Neither God nor the individual can be regarded as being such a producer; nor can the changeless Brahman be considered to be so. Again, avidyā, being beginningless, ought to be as changeless as Brahman. Moreover, if Brahman be regarded as the material cause of the world, there is no necessity for admitting the existence of avidyā; for under the Šankarite supposition Brahman, though not changing, may nevertheless well be the basis of the illusions imposed upon it. If that were not so, then avidyā, which needs a support, would require for the purpose some entity other than Brahman. It may be suggested that the supposition of avidyā is necessary for the purpose of explaining the changing substratum of illusion; for Brahman, being absolutely true, cannot be regarded as the material cause of the false illusion, since an effect must have for its cause an entity similar to it. But, if that is so, then Brahman cannot be regarded as the cause of the sky or other physical elements which are unreal in comparison with Brahman. It cannot be urged that, since the individual and the Brahman are identical in essence, without the assumption of avidyā the limited manifestation of bliss in the individual would be inexplicable; for the very supposition that Brahman and the individual are identical is illegitimate, and so there is no difficulty in explaining the unlimited and limited manifestation of bliss, in Brahman and the individual, because they are different.
Madhusūdana in reply to the above says that antaḥkaraņa (or mind) cannot be regarded as the material cause of illusion; first, because the antaḥkaraña is an entity in time, whereas illusions continue in a series and have no beginning in time; secondly, the antahkarana is in its processes always associated with real objects of the world, and would, as such, be inoperative in regard to fictitious conch-shell-silver--and, if this is so, then without the supposition of avidyā there would be no substratum as the material cause of avidyā. Brahman also, being unchangeable, cannot be the cause of such illusion. It cannot be suggested that Brahman is the cause of illusion in its status as basis or locus of illusion; for, unless the cause which transforms itself into the effect be admitted, the unchanging cause to which such effects are attributed itself cannot be established, since it is only when certain transformations have
na ca vivartādhisthānatvena sukty-āder ivopādāna tvam avidyām antareņātåttvikânyathā-bhāva-laksanasya vivartasysambhavāt. Advaita-siddhi, p. 573.
