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INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Dissolution. The reason given by him is as follows. If we accept that iśvara's citta gets dissolved into prakrti at the time of Dissolution and remains dissolved into prakrti during the entire period of Dissolution then we shall have to accept its conjunction with iśvara taking place at the end of the period of Dissolution. But the cause of the conjunction of prakrti and purusa is avidyā (Nescience). Thus Vācaspati's view involves contingency of iśvara's being infected with avidyā. But Patañjala Yoga philosophy does not accept the possibility of klešas, viz. avidyā etc. in iśvara. Again, Vācaspati's attempt to explain the rejoining of the citta with iśvara with the help of impression of the citta is also not proper because Patañjali has rejected the possibility of any impression (vāsanā, āśaya) in isvara's citta.27.
According to Vācaspati, isvara simply removes obstructions that are there in the process of proper fruits coming to living beings from their past actions at proper time 28 Even Vijñānabhikṣu seems to agree with Vācaspati on this point. Moreover, Vijñānabhiksu believes that though isvara has strong desire to remove all miseries of all living beings, he has to take into account deserts or past karmas of living beings.29
Vācaspati introduces the idea of iśvara as the creator and destroyer of the world.30 Vijñānabhiksu supports him.' Again, he clearly states that creative agitation (ksobha) - that is, breaking of prakti's state of homogeneous change (sāmyāvasthābhanga) - takes place as a result of iśvara's will. Someone may here raise a question as to how one can maintain that prakrti's independence is not at stake even though prakrti starts to evlove into the world at the will of iśvara. In answer Vācaspati and Vijñānabhikṣu both state that isvara simply removes obstacles that are there in the process of evolution. In other words, it is only prakrti that has the capacity to evolve into the world, and iśvara simply awakens or activates this capacity by removing obstacles. On the removal of obstacles, there takes place heterogeneous change in place of homogeneous change in prakrti giving rise to diverse effects. 32
While presenting the Patañjala yoga conception of iśvara, Vijñanabhikṣu discusses the relation obtaining between isvara and jiva (individual ordinary soul). According to him, there obtains the relation of amsa-amsin (part-whole) between them. He gives an illustration of fire and sparks to explain the relation. Jīvas are the parts of which iśvara is the whole. Jivas are sparks of isvara. 33
