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VEDÂNTA-SOTRAS.
cause, i.e. Brahman, is pure Being in which all distinctions and changes such as being an enjoying subject, and so on, have vanished, while however it is endowed with all possible potentialities. During a pralaya this causal substance abides self-luminous, with all the distinctions of conscious. ness of pleasure and pain gone to rest, comparable to the soul of a man held by dreamless sleep, different however in nature from mere non-sentient matter. During the period of a creation, on the other hand, just as the substance called clay assumes the forms of jars, platters, and so on, or as the water of the sea turns itself into foam, waves, bubbles, and so on, the universal causal substance abides in the form of a triad of constituent parts, viz. enjoying subjects, objects of enjoyment, and a ruler. The attributes of being a ruler, or an object of enjoyment, or an enjoying subject, and the perfections and imperfections depending on those attributes, are therefore distributed in the same way as the attributes of being a jar or pitcher or platter; and the different effects of these attributes are distributed among different parts of the substance, clay. The objects of enjoyment, subjects of enjoyment, and the ruler are one, on the other hand, in so far as 'that which is constitutes their substance; just as jars, platters and pitchers are one in so far as their substance is constituted by clay. It is thus one substance only, viz. 'that which is,' that appears in different conditions, and it is in this sense that the world is non-different from Brahman.-But this theory is really in conflict with all Scripture, Smriti, Itihasa, Purana and Reasoning. For Scripture, Smriti, Itihasa and Purana alike teach that there is one supreme cause, viz. Brahmana being that is the Lord of all Lords, all-knowing, allpowerful, instantaneously realising all its purposes, free of all blemish, not limited either by place or time, enjoying supreme unsurpassable bliss. Nor can it be held that above the Lord there is 'pure Being' of which the Lord is a part only. For 'This which is "being" only was in the beginning one only, without a second; it thought, may I be many, may I grow forth' (Kh. Up. VI, 2, 3); Verily, in the beginning this was Brahman, one only. Being one
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