Karma Mimansa

Author(s): Berriedale Keith
Publisher: Berriedale Keith

Page 72

GOD, THE SOUL, AND MATTER
63
produce a world in which there is sin and pain. Yet, if his action is conditioned, he cannot be omnipotent. If, again, it is alleged that the creation was for his amusement, this contradicts the theory that he is perfectly happy, and would involve him in much wearisome toil. Moreover, there is no possibility of establishing the reality of his creative activity. It could only rest on reports of the first of created men, and they could have no power to testify effectively to a state of things existing before they were brought into being. They could only rely on what they were told by the creator, and his assertions might be mere boasting. Nor is it at all satisfactory to accept the belief in the creation of the Veda, which by no means enhances its value; still less to hold that it resides with the creator during the periodic dissolutions of the world, for which, again, there is not a shred of evidence.
Against the Vaišeşika view of creation exception is justly taken to the difficulty involved in holding that in some manner the action of the Supreme Lord brings to a stand at one time the potencies of all the souls, and then awakens theni all when a new creation is imminent. Against this view it is contended that the activity of men arising from their past deeds can never cease, and it is absurd needlessly to complicate matters by assuming both the force of men's deeds and the intervention of the desire of God Moreover, it is impossible to explain why this desire should ever arise, and unintelligible to elucidate the mode in which the creator can act without a body or acquire a body.
Kumārila, however, does not content himself with refuting the Nyāya-Vaiseşika doctrine; he attacks equally the Vedānta, on the simple ground that, if the absolute is, as it is asserted to be, absolutely pure, the world itself should be absolutely pure. Moreover, there could be no creation, for nescience is impossible in such an absolute. If, however, we assume that some other cause starts nescience to activity, then the unity of the absolute disappears Again, if Ixscience is natural it is impossible to remove it, for that could be accomplished only by knowledge of the
1 Cf, Nyayamciljarī, pp. 525-31,