Book Title: History of Indian Philosophy
Author(s): Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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Page 2342
________________ 30 Literature of Southern Saivism [CH are in the state of operation, we have the state of creation, and the experience of it is called bhoga. The point arises that if the bindu is itself active in creation, then its relation with Siva becomes redundant. On the other hand, if the bindu is moved by Siva to active operation, Siva becomes changeable. The reply is that an agent can affect any material in two ways, either by his simple desire or by his organised effort, as in the case of the making of a pot by the potter. Siva moves the bindu simply by His samkalpa, and therefore He does not suffer any change. In the case of the action of the potter also, it is by the wish of Śiva that the potter can act. Therefore, Siva is the sole agent of all actions performed by animate beings or by inanimate matter. It may be said that Siva is wholly unconditioned, and therefore He can remain the sole agent without undergoing any change. Another tentative answer is that in the presence of Siva, the bindu begins to work without any causal efficiency (compare the movement of praksti in the presence of puruṣa). The bindu has sometimes been described as śāntyatīta and other times as the material cause of the creation. This difficulty is explained on the assumption that part of the bindu is śāntyatīta and the other part is responsible for being the material cause of the world. The third category including the bindu and Siva is called Isvara. Siva produces commotion in bindu merely by His presence. In this way Siva is not only the instrumental agent of all happenings in the inanimate, but He also is responsible for all actions of the human body which are seemingly produced by the human will. Knowledge and activity are in essence identical, and for that reason, when there is action (vyāpāra), we may feel as if we are the agents of those actions. The element of action that seems to express itself is thus something more than the action, and it is called the adhikāra-kriyā. The action and that which is acted upon is the result of guna-samkalpa. Śiva stands as the citi-sakti which makes all energies dynamic, as the sun makes the lotus bloom from a distance without any actual interference. In further explaining the philosophical situation Siva says that a part of the bindu is in the transcendental (śāntyatīta) state, while the other part is responsible for the creative action. This second category, that is, the lower half of the bindu, is supposed to be moved by Siva. The energies are often classified under different

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