causes.--Here also the argumentation is specially directed against the
Sâ@nkhyas, who, in order to account for the materiality and the various
imperfections of the world, think it necessary to assume a causal
substance participating in the same characteristics.

Adhik. IV (12) points out that the line of reasoning followed in the
preceding adhikara/n/a is valid also against other theories, such as the
atomistic doctrine.

The one Sûtra (13) constituting Adhik. V teaches, according to
/S/a@nkara, that although the enjoying souls as well as the objects of
fruition are in reality nothing but Brahman, and on that account
identical, yet the two sets may practically be held apart, just as in
ordinary life we hold apart, and distinguish as separate individual
things, the waves, ripples, and foam of the sea, although at the bottom
waves, ripples, and foam are all of them identical as being neither more
nor less than sea-water.--The /S/rî-bhâshya gives a totally different
interpretation of the Sûtra, according to which the latter has nothing
whatever to do with the eventual non-distinction of enjoying souls and
objects to be enjoyed. Translated according to Râmânuja's view, the
Sûtra runs as follows: 'If non-distinction (of the Lord and the
individual souls) is said to result from the circumstance of (the Lord
himself) becoming an enjoyer (a soul), we refute this objection by
instances from every-day experience.' That is to say: If it be
maintained that from our doctrine previously expounded, according to
which this world springs from the Lord and constitutes his body, it
follows that the Lord, as an embodied being, is not essentially
different from other souls, and subject to fruition as they are; we
reply that the Lord's having a body does not involve his being subject
to fruition, not any more than in ordinary life a king, although himself