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178 Saiva Philosophy in some Important Texts [ch. is, though He always remains the ultimate substratum. The world is thus not illusion but reality, and of the nature of Siva Himself. This is the central idea which is most generally expanded, as we shall see. Brahman thus appears in two forms: as pure consciousness and as the unconscious material world, and this view is supported by the scriptural texts. Brahman is thus with form and without form. It is the pure Brahman that appears as this or that changing entity, as pleasure or pain, or as cause and effect. Such an explanation would fit in with our experience, and would also be perfectly reconcilable with the scriptural texts.
The suggestion of the opponents, that Iśvara or God is an illusory God, is also untenable, for no one is justified in trusting an illusory object for showing devotion to him. Such a God would seem to have the same status as any other object of illusion. Moreover, how can an illusory God bestow benefits when He is adored and worshipped by the devotee?
Sripati then tries to refute the idea of the pure differenceless Brahman, and summarises the arguments given by Rāmānuja as we have described them in the third volume of the present work; and we are thus introduced to the second sūtra, which describes Brahman as that from which the production of the world has come about.
Śrīpati, in commenting upon Brahma-sūtra 1. 1. 2, says that the pure consciousness as the identity of being and bliss is the cause of the production and dissolution of the world, as well as its fundamental substratum. The Brahman, who is formless, can create all things without the help of any external instrument, just as the formless wind can shake the forest or the self can create the dreams. It is in the interest of the devotees that God takes all the forms in which we find Him? He also refers to some of the scriptural texts of the bhedābheda type, which considers the relation between God and the world as similar to the relation between the ocean and the waves. Only a part of God may be regarded as being transformed into the material world. In this way Siva is both the instrumental and the material cause. A distinction has to be made between the concept that there is no difference between the instrumental and
i bhaktānugrahārtham ghrta-kāțhinyavad-divya-mangala-vigraha-dharasya maheśvarasya mürtāmürta-prapanca-kalpane apy adoşah. Srīkara-bhāsva, p.30.
