hat the later exponents of Vedanta, S'a@nkara, Ramanuja,
and others quarrelled over the meanings of texts in order to
develop a consistent systematic philosophy out of them. Thus it
is that the doctrine of Maya which is slightly hinted at once in
B@rhadara@nyaka and thrice in S'vetas'vatara, becomes the foundation
of S'a@nkara's philosophy of the Vedanta in which Brahman
alone is real and all else beside him is unreal [Footnote ref 2].

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[Footnote 1: Ka@tha II. 6. 1 and 3.]

[Footnote 2: B@rh. II. 5. 19, S'vet. I. 10, IV. 9, 10.]

51

The World.

We have already seen that the universe has come out of
Brahman, has its essence in Brahman, and will also return back
to it. But in spite of its existence as Brahman its character as
represented to experience could not be denied. S'a@nkara held
that the Upani@sads referred to the external world and accorded
a reality to it consciously with the purpose of treating it as merely
relatively real, which will eventually appear as unreal as soon
as the ultimate truth, the Brahman, is known. This however
remains to be modified to this extent that the sages had not
probably any conscious purpose of according a relative reality to
the phenomenal world, but in spite of regarding Brahman as the
highest reality they could not ignore the claims of the exterior
world, and had to accord a reality to it. The inconsistency of this
reality of the phenomenal world with the ultimate and only
reality of Brahman was attempted to be reconciled by holding
that this world is not beside him but it has come out of him, it
is maintained in him and it will return back to him.

The world is sometimes spoken of in its twofold aspect, the
organic and the inorganic. All organic things, whether plants,
animals or men, have souls [Footnote ref 1]. Brahman desiring to be many
created fire (_tejas_), water (_ap_) and earth (_k@siti_). Then the
self-existent Brahman entered into these three, and it is by their
combination that all other bodies are formed [Footnote ref 2]. So all
other things are produced as a result of an alloying or compounding
of the parts of these three together. In this theory of the threefold
division of the primitive elements lies the earliest germ of the later
distinction (especially in the Sa@mkhya school) of pure infinitesimal
substances (_tanmatra_) and gross elements, and the theory that each
gross substance is