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362 The Philosophy of Vallabha
[CH. the parts of God, exist in Him. The difference between the causal and the effect state is that in the latter certain qualities or characters become manifest. The duality that we perceive in the world does not contradict monism; for the apparent forms and characters which are mutually different cannot contradict their metaphysical character of identity with God'. So Brahman from one point of view may be regarded as partless, and from another point of view as having parts.
There is a difference, however, between the prapañca and the manifold world and samsāra, the cycle of births and rebirths. By the concept of samsāra we understand that God has rendered Himself into effects and the jīvas and the notion of their specific individuality as performers of actions and enjoyers of experience. Such a notion is false; there is in reality no cause and effect, no bondage and salvation, everything being of the nature of God. This idea has been explained in Vallabha Gosvami's Prapañca-samsārabheda. Just as the sun and its rays are one and the same, so the qualities of God are dependent upon Him and identical with Him; the apparent contradiction is removed by the testimony of the scriptural texts.
Regarding the process of creation Puruşottama, after refuting the various views of creation, says that Brahman as the identity of sat, cit, and ānanda manifests Himself as these qualities and thereby differentiates Himself as the power of being, intelligence and action, and He is the delusive māyā. These differentiated qualities show themselves as different; they produce also the notion of difference in the entities with which they are associated and express themselves in definite forms. Though they thus appear as different, they are united by God's will. The part, as being associated with the power of action, manifests itself as matter. When the power of intelligence appears as confused it is the jīva. From the point of view of the world the Brahman is the vivartakāraña; from the point of view of the self-creation of God, it is pariņāma".
sysți-dašāyām jagad-brahmanoh kārya-kārana-bhāvāj jagajivayor amsāmsibhāvāc ca upacāriko bhavan näpi na vastavābhedam nihanti. tenedānim api bheda-sahişnur evā'bhedah. Vādāvali, p. 20.
2 vādakathā of Gopeśvarasvāmi in Vādāvali, p. 31. 3 See Puruşottama's Systibhedavāda, p. 115.
evam ca antarā-srştim prati vivartopādānatvam ātma-srstim prati pariņāmyupādānatvam brahmanah. Ibid. p. 113.
