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VISISTĀDVAITA
407 with all its spiritual and material elements included in it. In this sense, Isvara may be thought of in two stages--as cause and as effect. In dissolution (pralaya) he subsists as the cause with the whole of the universe latent in him; in creation_Isrsti), what is latent becomes manifest. Subtle matter becomes gross; and souls, expanding their dharmabhūta-jñāna, enter into relation with physical bodies appropriate to their past karma. The causal form includes within itself everything that is required for the development signified by creation, so that Isvara is the whole and sole cause of it. In other words, God is self-determining and the universe develops from within unassisted by any external agency (p. 82). It is because he grows into this cosmic variety that he is called 'Brahman' (p. 347. That would ascribe change to God which is against the prevalent teaching of the Upanişads; but Rāmānuja tries to explain the difficulty away by holding that the change is only to be secondarily understood-as sa-dvāraka. God does not suffer change in himself, but only through the entities comprehended in the whole of which he is the inspiring principle. But it is not easy to see how he can be said to remain changeless when his inseparable attributes are changing. This Isvara in himself, regarded as the unchanging centre of the changing universe, is the other meaning of the term. Such an Isvara of course does not exist isolated by himself, but it is still legitimate to make the distinction because the višeşya element in the Absolute, like the višeşaņas, is real and ultimate. In the former sense, Isvara is the Absolute of Rāmānuja; in the latter, he is the antar-yāmin and dwells within whatever is - whether soul or matter.
This absolutist view which is chiefly based upon the Upanişads is intertwined in the system with the details of a theistic creed which, historically speaking, goes back to a different source. In that phase, God is conceived as completely personal. He is looked upon as having pity for erring man and as actuated by a desire to show mercy to him. Benevolence, indeed, is one of his essential features. He is known as Nārāyana or Väsudeva, and the latter designation is a sign of the presence in the doctrine of elements drawn from the
