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The Sankara School of Vedānta [CH. rope, the real nature of which is hidden from view, appears as a snake, so does ignorance by its creative power create on the hidden self the manifold world-appearance. As the ajñāna is supposed to veil by its veiling power (āvarana-sakti) only the self-cognizing and self-revealing aspect of the self, the other aspect of the self as pure being is left open as the basis on which the entire worldappearance is created by the creative power thereof. The pure consciousness, veiled as it is by ajñāna with its two powers, can be regarded as an important causal agent (nimitta), when its nature as pure consciousness forming the basis of the creation of the worldappearance is emphasized; it can be regarded as the material cause, when the emphasis is put on its covering part, the ajñāna. It is like a spider, which, so far as it weaves its web, can be regarded as a causal agent, and, so far as it supplies from its own body the materials of the web, can be regarded as the material cause of the web, when its body aspect is emphasized. The creative powers (viksepa-śakti) of ajñāna are characterized as being threefold, after the manner of Sāmkhya prakrti, as sattva, rajas and tamas. With the pure consciousness as the basis and with the associated creative power of ajñāna predominating in tamas, space (ākāśa) is first produced; from ākāśa comes air, from air fire, from fire water, from water earth. It is these elements in their fine and uncompounded state that in the Samkhva and the Purānas are called tan-mātras. It is out of these that the grosser materials are evolved as also the subtle bodies. The subtle bodies are made up of seventeen parts,
1 As to how the subtle elements are combined for the production of grosser elements there are two different theories, viz. the triort-karana and the pañcikaraņa. The trivst-karana means that fire, water and earth (as subtle elements) are each divided into two halves, thus producing two equal parts of each; then the three half parts of the three subtle elements are again each divided into two halves, thus producing two quarter parts of each. Then the original first half of each element is combined with the two quarters of other two elements. Thus each element has half of itself with two quarter parts of other two elements. Vācaspati and Amalānanda prefer triert-karuņa to pañci-karana; for they think that there is no point in admitting that air and ākāśa have also parts of other elements integrated in them, and the Vedic texts speak of trirrt-karana and not of panci-karama. The panci-karana theory holds that the five subtle elements are divided firstly into two halves, and then one of the two halves of these five elements is divided again into four parts, and then the first half of each subtle element is combined with the one-fourth of each half of all the other elements excepting the element of which there is the full half as a constituent. Thus each element is made up of one-half of itself, and the other half of it is constituted of the one-fourth of each of the other elements (i.e. one-eighth of each of the other four elements), and thus each element has at least some part of other elements integrated into it. This view is supported by the Vedānta-paribhāsā and its Sikhāmaņi commentary, p. 363.
