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inanimate things to act in accordance with His wish ?"; and he is told : "Just as the inanimate body acts in accordance with the concerned soul's wish, so also atoms act in accordance with God's wish.". The atheist's third question was as to what is God's purpose behind worldcreation. He is first told that it is the very nature of God that He now creates the world, now destroys it just as it is the very nature of the sun to daily rise in time and set in time. 5. Then it is even conceded that God acts out of playfulness, this involving no.sort of lack on God's part. Lastly, it is likewise conceded that God acts out of compassion for the beings. The suggestion that before creation the beings stand in no need of compassion is rejected on the ground that the worldcourse being beginningless the beings always stand in such a need, the idea being that the world is created so that the beings might enjoy off their accumulated past acts and thus attain moksa, while the world is destroyed from time to time so that they might get occasional rest.5+. The atheist's fourth question was as to how God can create the entire world all at once and destroy it all at once so long as past acts of the beings are there to play their role. He is told that at the time of world-destruction these past acts are brought to suspense by God while they are reactivised by Him at the time of the next world-creation." In this connection the general rule is formulated that the past acts being something inanimate they need being guided by a conscious agent like God.56 The suggestion that these past acts can be guided by the concerned soul itself is rejected on the ground that so many souls as there are cannot coordinate their acts unless working under over-all guidance of a super-Soul like God, just as worldly people work under the over-all guidance of a leader or a king, building-workers under that of a chief mason.57 To this is added that thus is also explained why there ought to be not more than one God.58 Lastly, it is argued that not only at the time of world-destruction and world-creation but at other times too souls act only under the guidance of God.59 The objection that in that case the hypothesis of past acts becomes redundant is rejected on the ground that the diversity of worldphenomena remains unaccounted for unless past acts are posited-éven if God's omnipotence is in no way limited by the circumstance that He naturally acts taking into consideration these past acts. This last set of arguments is not logically much weighty but it is this that gives a real clue to the working of the Purānic-Brahmanist's mind. For Purānic-Brahmanism was essentially a theological movement while
