ave to look
less to particular terms and turns of expression than to general lines
of reasoning. What in this connexion seems specially worthy of being
taken into account, is the style of argumentation employed by the
Sutrakara against the Sa@nkhya doctrine, which maintains that the world
has originated, not from an intelligent being, but from the
non-intelligent pradhana. The most important Sutras relative to this
point are to be met with in the first pada of the second adhyaya. Those
Sutras are indeed almost unintelligible if taken by themselves, but the
unanimity of the commentators as to their meaning enables us to use them
as steps in our investigation. The sixth Sutra of the pada mentioned
replies to the Sa@nkhya objection that the non-intelligent world cannot
spring from an intelligent principle, by the remark that 'it is thus
seen,' i.e. it is a matter of common observation that non-intelligent
things are produced from beings endowed with intelligence; hair and
nails, for instance, springing from animals, and certain insects from
dung.--Now, an argumentation of this kind is altogether out of place
from the point of view of the true /S/a@nkara. According to the latter
the non-intelligent world does not spring from Brahman in so far as the
latter is intelligence, but in so far as it is associated with Maya.
Maya is the upadana of the material world, and Maya itself is of a
non-intelligent nature, owing to which it is by so many Vedantic writers
identified with the prak/ri/ti of the Sa@nkhyas. Similarly the
illustrative instances, adduced under Sutra 9 for the purpose of showing
that effects when being reabsorbed into their causal substances do not
impart to the latter their own qualities, and that hence the material
world also, when being refunded into Brahman, does not impart to it its
own imperfections, are singularly inappropriate if viewed in connexion
with the doctrine of Maya, according to which the material world is no
more in Brahman at the time of a pralaya than during the period of its
subsistence. According to /S/a@nkara the world is not merged in Brahman,
but the special forms into which the upadana of the world, i.e. Maya,
had modified itself are merged in non-distinct Maya, whose relation to
Brahman is not changed thereby.--The illustration, again, given in Sutra
24 of the mode in which Brahman, by means of its inherent power,
transforms itself into the world without employing any extraneous
instrumen