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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM"
case the rope remains all the time what it is, it is only our ignorance, which frightens us and determines our actions? In the same way Brahma always remains the same, it is our ignorance only, which makes us, see a phenomenal world and a phenomenal God.
Vedāntists go on to explain that when they hold that the world is Brahma, they do not mean that Brahma is actually transformed into the world, for Brahma cannot change and cannot be transformed. They mean that Brahma present itself as the world or appears to be the world.
The world's reality is not its own but Brahma's, yet Brahma is not the material cause of the world, as the spider is of the web or the milk of the curd or the clay of the jar (which is made by potter), but only the substratum, the illusory material cause. There would be no snake without the rope, there would be no world without Brahma, and yet the rope does not become a snake or does Brahma became the world. With the Vedantist the phenomenal and the noumenal are essentially the same.
16
Avidya or ignorance as opined by Dr. Nathmal Tatia' is perversity of vision and attachment to the world. Māyā is the cosmic force that brings forth the world of plurality. If the Māyā conditions the universe, avidyā keeps one attached to it. There is Māyā because there is avidya. With the cessation of avidya, māyā ceases. The existence of a magician and his art depends upon the existence of their dupes. It there is no dupe there is no art of magic. Snake, which proves, after one closer inspection, to be nothing, but a coil of rope. When the truth is known, we are no longer deluded by the appearance, the snake appearance vanishes into reality of the rope, and the world vanishes into Brahman.
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Samkara constantly draws on the analogy of the magician (māyāvī) as suggested in the Svetasvatara. The magician is a juggler only to those who are deceived by his tricks and who fancy (imagine) that they perceive the objects conjured (as if by magic) up.
16Dr. Nathmal Tatia, "Studies in Jaina Philosophy", P-115 17Dr. Chatterjee & Dr. Datta, "An Introduction to Indian Philosophy", 1984, P-389
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