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The Views Regarding God and the Doctrine of Brahman
03
require the services of an impelling cause. The Jaina, Buddhist and Mimamsaka too-cach in his own manner--attributes to a karman itself a capcity to yield fruit without depending on God. This constitutes the level of thinking common to all the systems barring those advocating the doctrine of Brahman.
The Views Regarding God Maintained by the Systems Advocating the Doctrine of Brahman,
Let us now consider systems advocating the doctrine of Brahman, Barring Madhva, they are in general all an advocate of the doctrine of one single basic element. However, this single element is not prakrti or pradhāna posited by Sankhya but the element Brahman which is something different from the same. Thus while the el ment pradhāna is considered to be something basically non-conscious the clement Brahman is considered to be something basically of the form of consciousness. It seems that ever since the time of Vedas there did go on an investigation into some one element supposed to be acting as the basis for the visible multiplicity. Passing through various stages this investigation calminates in Upanisads and here there comes to be established a basic element of the form of existence, consciousness and bliss. But in the midst of these successive stages there seems to have once come into existence such a stage when in the form of a basic element there was also considered and established an element like pradhāna. Both these traditions are of course basically an advocate of some one single element but they have also necessarily to account for that non-conscious and conscious multiplicity which is einpi. rically established and is obvious to all ordinary people. Thus Sankhya, an advocate of the doctrine of pradhāna, did give to pradhana the sta us of an independent agent but it accounted for the real multiplicity through positing a multiplicity of souls; on the other hand, those who advocated the doctrine of one single basic element of the form of Brahman posited another element under the different titles like an associate of Brabman', 'an adjunct of Brahman', 'a qualification of Brahman' etc. etc. Thus both these traditions, even while being an advocate of the doctrine of one single element, went on accounting for the multiplicity and difference in their respective manners. Just as Sārkhya demonstrated through argu. mentation the independent actorship bclonging to prakrti, similarly many an advocate of the doctrine of prakrti did the same also through
this (ruition here there is no reference to God or to any such independently standing power. Even so, the fact remains that in the first chapter of the text in question God has actually been referred to. From this one might surmise that this reference pertains to God as an object of meditation on the part of a spiritual aspirant.
Sce the section 'Karmavicāra' in Introduction to 'Ganadharavāda'.
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