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THE SYSTEMS OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
worshipped. But we must remember that what is worshipped is only a person, or as the Brahmins call it a acfl, an aspect of the true eternal essence as conceived by us in our inevitably human and limited knowledge. Thus the strictest observance of religion is insisted on while we are what we are. We are told that there is truth in the ordinary belief in God as the creator or cause of the world, but a relative truth only, relative to the human understanding, just as there is truth in the perception of our senses and in the belief in our personality, but relative truth only. His belief in the Veda would suffice to prevent the Vedantist from a denial of the gods or from what we call atheism.
In deference to the Veda the Vedantist has even to admit, if not exactly a creation, at least a repeated emanation of the world from Brahma and re-absorption of it into Brahma from 724 to focy or from age to age.
If we ask what led to a belief in the individual souls the answer we get is the 34115s, the surroundings or the incumbrances, i.e. the body with the breath or life in it, the organs of sense and the mind. These together form the subtle body (सूक्ष्म शरीर) and this सूक्ष्म शरीर is supposed to survive while death can destroy the coarse body (F TOTT) only. The individual soul is held by this subtle body and its fates are determined by acts which are continuing in their consequences and which persist in their effects for ever, or at least until true knowledge has arisen and put an end even to the subtle body and to all phantasms of nescience.
(1) How the emanation of the world from Brahma is conceived in Vedanta philosophy is of small interest. It is almost purely mythological and indicates a very low knowledge of physical science. Brahma is not indeed represented any longer as a maker or a creator,
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