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II ADHYÂYA, I PÂDA, 14.
429
the same view, 'As in ordinary life a prince, although staying in a very unpleasant place infested with mosquitoes and full of discomforts of all kind is yet not touched by all these troubles, his body being constantly refreshed by fans and other means of comfort, rules the countries for which he cares and continues to enjoy all possible pleasures, such as fragrant odours and the like; so the Lord of creation, to whom his power serves as an evermoving fan as it were, is not touched by the evils of that creation, but rules the world of Brahman and the other worlds for which he cares, and continues to enjoy all possible delights. That the nature of Brahman should undergo changes like a lump of clay or gold we do not admit, since many texts declare Brahman to be free from all change and imperfection. -Others give a different explanation of this Satra. According to them it refutes the pärvapaksha that on the view of Brahman being the general cause the distinction of enjoying subjects and objects of enjoyment cannot be accounted for-proving the possibility of such distinction by means of the analogous instance of the sea and its waves and flakes of foam. But this interpretation is inappropriate, since for those who hold that creation proceeds from Brahman connected with some power or Nescience or a limiting adjunct (upadhi) no such primâ facie view can arise. For on their theory the enjoying subject is that which is conditioned by the power or Nescience or upâdhi inhering in the causal substance, and the power or Nescience or upadhi is the object of enjoyment; and as the two are of different nature, they cannot pass over into each other. The view of Brahman itself undergoing an essential change (on which that prima facie view might possibly be held to arise) is not admitted by those philosophers; for Sätra II, i, 35 teaches that the individual souls and their deeds form a stream which has no beginning (so that the distinction of enjoying subjects and objects of enjoyment is eternal). But even if it be held that Brahman itself undergoes a change, the doubt as to the non-distinction of subjects and objects of enjoyment does not arise ; for the distinction
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