________________
12
Kalidas Bhattacarya
Whatever ba the relevaoca of Iśvara-sākşin for the realiza. tion of Bralinan-hood, we may note in passing that there are two widely different concepts of God in the Advaita literature One of these--the more important one- is that of Íśvara-säksin who, like Jina-sāksin, and more perfectly than that, dissociates bimself from all that is object, realizes himself as pure consciousness and has the whole world of objects as symbolic constructions As just said, in these respects the I'śvara-säksin is at a stage advanced in that (1) for him, even the jīvasākşın is a symbolic construction, (11) he is over-personal pure consciousness, one sole absolute centre of consciousness and (ill) ultimately he constructs the jīva-sāksins symbolically and the rest of the objective world through them, so that the ultimate agency (of course, symbolically understood) belongs to him, not to the jiva-sāksins There are two other differences One is that while the individual (liva-säksin) was first aware of himself as only undistinguished from the mind-body complex (and entangled through that in the world of physical objects) and then having dissociated himself from these came to discover himself as free so far (even having been really free in spite of apparent fusion), Isvara-sākşın is not understood that way. He is somehow understood as ever free. True, he represents himself symbolically as pure individual subjects. But that representation is not the same type of construction as when an individual subject constructs (is made to construct) his owa world of objects To th: 1śvara-sāksın individual pure subjects are not objects No individual pure subject is wholly a construction H: evidences the iśvara-sākşın bodily, though az limited The latter appears in no way as shrouded (except partially) or distorted, symbolic construction presenting the 1śvara-sakşın as limited, which it is really not. The first diffe rence, then, between the iśvara-säkşın and the juva-sākşın 19 that unlike the latter the former is ever free. 9 When it is a question of constructing the world that is common to
the individual Jivas, it is constructed by the Isvara-saksin through some specific Jiva-saksins Except these specifically few jtvd-saksins, others are made to construct each bis own world of objects only.
