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The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 by Unknown
page 104 of 653 (15%)
real creation of real things--would hardly be in its place if meant to
illustrate a theory which considers unreality to be the true character
of the world. The mere cumulation of the two essentially heterogeneous
illustrative instances (kshîravad dhi; devâdivat), moreover, seems to
show that the writer who had recourse to them held no very definite
theory as to the particular mode in which the world springs from
Brahman, but was merely concerned to render plausible in some way or
other that an intelligent being can give rise to what is non-intelligent
without having recourse to any extraneous means.[23]

That the Mâyâ doctrine was not present to the mind of the Sûtrakâra,
further appears from the latter part of the fourth pâda of the first
adhyâya, where it is shown that Brahman is not only the operative but
also the material cause of the world. If anywhere, there would have been
the place to indicate, had such been the author's view, that Brahman is
the material cause of the world through Mâyâ only, and that the world is
unreal; but the Sûtras do not contain a single word to that effect.
Sûtra 26, on the other hand, exhibits the significant term
'pari/n/âmât;' Brahman produces the world by means of a modification of
itself. It is well known that later on, when the terminology of the
Vedânta became definitely settled, the term 'pari/n/âvada' was used to
denote that very theory to which the followers of /S/a@nkara are most
violently opposed, viz. the doctrine according to which the world is not
a mere vivarta, i.e. an illusory manifestation of Brahman, but the
effect of Brahman undergoing a real change, may that change be conceived
to take place in the way taught by Râmânuja or in some other
manner.--With regard to the last-quoted Sûtra, as well as to those
touched upon above, the commentators indeed maintain that whatever terms
and modes of expression are apparently opposed to the vivartavâda are in
reality reconcilable with it; to Sûtra 26, for instance, Govindânanda
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