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THE SYSTEMS OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Shankara, the only reality is to be found in the nonqualified homogenous highest Brahma which can only be defined as pure being or pure thought, all plurality being a mere illusion, Brahma according to Ramanuja's view comprises within itself distinct elements of plurality which all of them lay claim to absolute reality of one and the same kind. Whatever is presented to us by ordinary experience, viz. matter in all its various modifications and the individual souls of different classes and degrees, are essential, real constituents of Brahma's nature. Matter and souls (erface and face) constitute according to Ramanuja's terminology the body of the Lord, they stand to him in the same relation of entire dependence and subserviency in which the matter forming an animal or vegetable body stands to its soul or animating principle. The Lord pervades and rules all things which exist-material or immaterial-as their 37meist; the fundamental text for this special Ramanuja's tenet—which in the writings of the sect is quoted again and again is the so called 3779 TIETOT, which says that within all elements, all sense organs and lastly within all individual souls there abides an inward ruler whose body these elements, sense organs and individual souls constitute. Matter and souls as forming the body of the Lord are also called modes (987) of him. They are to be looked upon as his effects, but they have enjoyed the kind of individual existence which is theirs from all eternity and will never be entirely resolved in Brahma. They however exist in two different periodically alternating conditions. At some time they exist in a subtle state in which they do not possess those qualities by which they are ordinarily known, and there is then no distinction of individual name and form. Matter in that state is unevolved (3124); individual souls are not joined to material bodies, and their intelligence is
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