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THE SYSTEMS OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
prescribed by the Upanishads reaches at his death final emancipation, i. e. he passes through the different stages of the path of the gods up to the world of Brahma and there enjoys an everlasting blissful existence from which there is no return into the sphere of transmigration. The characteristics of the released soul are similar to those of Brahma; it participates in all the latter's glorious qualities and powers, excepting only Brahma's power to emit, rule and retract the entire world.
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5.
The chief points in which the two systems agree on the one hand and diverge on the other are these: Both systems teach i. e. non-duality or monism. There exist not several fundamentally distinct principles, such as Prakriti and Purusha of the Sankhyas, but there exists only one all-embracing being. While, however, the taught by Shankara is a rigorous, absolute one, Ramanuja's doctrine has to be characterized as far i.e. qualified non-duality, non-duality with a difference. According to Shankara, whatever is, is Brahma, and Brahma itself is absolutely homogeneous, so that all difference and plurality must be illusory. According to Ramanuja also, whatever is, is Brahma, but Brahma is not of a homogeneous nature, but contains within itself elements of plurality, owing to which it truly manifests itself in a diversified world. The world with its variety of material forms of existence and individual souls is not unreal but a real part of Brahma's nature, the body investing the universal self. The Brahma of Shankara is in itself impersonal, a homogeneous mass of objectless thought, transcending all attributes; a personal god it becomes only through its association with the unreal principle of 1, so that, strictly speaking, Shankara's personal God, his , is himself something unreal. Ramanuja's Brahma,
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