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The Net Essence of the Various Positions Regarding God
4. Among all the authors of a bhāṣya on Brahmasutra-from Sankara onwards-one tendency seems to be commonly visible and it is that while establishing Brahman in the form of an original element and treating the same as a material-cause as well as an efficient cause of the world they are unable to propound their position in a systematic fashion without taking recourse to the Sankhya concept of prakṛti and prakṛti-born effects. In other words, one can say that the basic non-dualist position adopted by these advocates of the doctrine of Brahman can be offered an apparently rational support only with the help of the element prakṛti posited by the Sankhya. If from within the supporting argumentation advanced by an advocate of the doct. rine of Brahman the Sankhya procedure is taken away then no doctrine of Brahman is left with legs to stand on. From all this one can conclude that the very same qualities like being an efficient-cause not different from the material-cause which were attributed to pradhana by the Sankhya thinkers positing pradhana as the sole original element were denied to prakṛti and attributed to Brahman by the advocates of the doctrine of Brahman, who while positing, in one form or other and under one designation or other, prakṛti as conceived by the Sankhya, denied independent actorship to it on the testimony of Upanisads as well as reasoning.
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