Shadarshan

• Meaning : Justice, equality for all being specially a collection of general or universal rules.)
• By Akshapada Gautama Rishi.
• Based on logical grounds – one must find if truth exist – this approach is important for analysis of logic and epistemology.
• Four separate sources of the knowledge:

1. PRATAKSHYA (Direct Perception)
2. ANUMANA (Inference)
3. UPAMANA (Comparison)
4. SABDA (Testimony).

• PRATAKSHYA – Direct knowledge of objects produced by their relation to our senses.
  • May be – BAHYA (External), Antara (Interna)
    • As the senses concerned is external like eyes, ears or Internal like Manas (Mind) Example – Seeing something.

• ANUMANA (Inference) – knowledge of objects not through perception but through the apprehension of some mark (Linga) which is invariably related to the inferred objects ( Sadhya).

The invariable relation between the two is called VYAPTI.

In inference there are atleast three propositions and at the most three terms.

PACCHA ——- SADHYA ——LINGA

1. PACCHA (Minor Term) – about which we infer something.
2. SADHYA (Major Term) – which is inferred object.
3. LINGA or SADHANA (Middle Term) – invariable related to the major and is present in the minor.

Illustration: The hill is fiery because it smokes and whatever smokes is fiery.

• UPAMANA (Comparison): is the knowledge of the relation between a name and things so named on the basis of a given description of their similarity to some familiar object.

Example: Cow and animal resembling cow.

• SABDA (Verbal Testimony):

Knowledge derived from the statements of authoritative persons.

Example: a scientist – water is compound of Hydrogen (H2) and Oxygen (O) in certain proportion. Although may not have verified truth ourself, we accept it be true knowing it the authority of the scientist.

All other Sources of knowledge have been reduced by the Naiyahikaa to these four.

• The objects of knowledge according to the Nyaya are the Self, the Body, the Senses and their Objects, Manas (Mind), Pravriti (Activity), Dosha(defects), Rebirth, Phala (the feeling of pleasure and pain), Dukha(Suffering) , Apwarga( Freedom from suffering). 
• Nyaya seeks liberation of the Self from the bondage of the body, the senses and their objects.
• The sense is distinct from the body and mind.
• The body (Sthula Sarira) is only a composite substance made of matter.
• The mind (Manas) is a subtle, indivisible and eternal substance (Anu). It serves the soul to perceive psychic qualities like pain, pleasure etc. called Internal Senses.
• AATMAN (Self) is all pervading (Vibhu), indestructible and eternal.

Self is another substance acquires attributes of consciousness when related to any object through the senses but consciousness is is not an essential quality of the self. It is an accidental or advententious quality which ceases to qualify the self in the state of mukti or liberation.

{Aatman is here compared to the Consciousness}.

• It is an agent which likes and dislikes objects and tries to obtain or avoid them and enjoys or suffers the consequences of its action.
• Because of MITHYAGYAN (ignorance) and consequent fault of desire, aversion and infatuation (RAAG i.e., likes, DWESHA i.e., dislikes, MOHA i.e., attachment) impels the self to act for good and bad ends and hence the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
• APWARGA (Liberation) end of birth and death cycle (pain & suffering) brought about by the right knowledge of reality (TATTVAGYAN).
• The existence of God by Nyaya darshan: – God the ultimate cause of the creation, preservation and destruction of the world. World is created out of eternal atoms, space, time, ether, minds and souls. 
• This world is created in order that individual souls (Jivas) might engage in pleasure and suffer pain according to merits and demerits of their actions in other lives and in other worlds. (KARMA & JANAM MARAN). All things of the world like mountains and seas, Sun and the Moon are effects because they are made up parts. Therefore, they must have a creator.
• Individual soul limited in power and knowledge cannot be the maker or creator of the world because they are limited in power and knowledge and so cannot deal with such subtle and imperceptible entities as atoms of which all physical things are composed.
• The creator of the world must be an intelligent spirit one with unlimited power and wisdom, one capable of maintaining the moral order of the universe. God created the world for its own end.
• MUKTI i.e., LIBERATION, release from the suffering ultimate aim of life.

• Meaning – Distinction or distinguishing feature.
• Based on an analysis of the universe.
• By the sage Kanada or Uluka.
• Allied to the Nyaya system, has the same end in view i.e., the liberation of the individual self.
• Brings all objects of knowledge i.e., the whole world under the seven categories:

1. Dravya (Substance)
2. Guna (Quality)
3. Karma (Action)
4. Samanya (Generosity)
5. Vishesha (particularity)
6. Samavaya (the relation of inherence)
7. Abhava (non – existence)
8. SUBSTANCE: is substratum of qualities and activities but different from both. Nine kinds of substances – Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether, Time, Space, Soul and Mind.

First five are physical elements (PANCHABHUTA) have respective qualities of Smell, Taste, Colour, Touch and Sound. First four are composed of four kinds of atoms (Earth, Water, Fire, Air) which are invisible and indivisible particles of matter.

Atoms are the smallest, uncreated and eternal entities, cannot be further divided.

      Akasa, Space, Time are imperceptible substances each of which is eternal and all pervading.

Mind (MANAS) is an eternal substance, not all pervading but infinitely small like an atom, it is the internal sense which is directly or indirectly concerned in psychical functions like cognition, feeling and willing. Mind being atomic cannot have more than one experience at one time.

 Soul is eternal, all-pervading substance. The individual soul is perceived internally by the mind of the individual as when one says “I Am Happy”.

God creates world out of eternal atoms.

{Atoms cannot move by themselves – ultimate source of their actions found in the will of God according to the Law of Karma}.

Atomic theory of Vaisesika can be summarised: 

The atoms are made to compose a world that befits the unseen moral deserts (Adrashta) of individual Souls and serves the purpose of moral dispensation.

1. QUALITY (Guna):

• That which exists in a substance, has itself no quality or activity.
• Substance can exist by itself but quality cannot unless it be in a substance.
• 24 qualities:

Colour, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch, Number, Number, Magnitude, Distinctness, Conjunction, Disjunction, Remoteness, Nearness, Fluidity, Viscidity, Cognition, Pleasure, Pain, Desire, Aversion, Striving, Heaviness, Tendency, Merit (Dharma) , Demerit (Adharma).

1. ACTIONS (KARMA): is a movement.

• Belongs only to substances.
• Like 5 kinds of actions:
• Throwing upward (Utpechna).
• Throwing downward (Avpechna)
• Contraction (Akunchana)
• Expansion (Prasharana)
• Going (Gaman)

1. GENERALITY: A similarity that groups to one class and exclude from other class.

A universe is thus the eternal essence common to all the individuals of a class.

Example: A person of similar interest are grouped in to one excluding them from the group of people showing different interests.

1. PARTICULARITY:

• Ground of ultimate difference of things.
• But how eternal substance of the universe i.e., two atoms of the earth can be distinguished. There must be ultimate difference of peculiarity in each of them.

1. INHERENCE (SAMATVA):

• Is the permanent or eternal relation by which a whole is in its parts, a quality or an action is in a substance, the universal is in the particulars.

Example – clothe as one whole always exists in the threads.

• This permanent relation between the whole and its parts between the universe and its individuals between qualities or actions and their substance.

1. NON- EXISTENCE (ABHAV):

• Stands for all negative facts.

Example – There is no snake, that glass has no coffee.

• 4 types of Non – Existence:
• PRAGABHAV – Non – existence of things prior to production i.e., non existence of pot in clay before potter produced the pot.
• DHAVAMSAMBHAV – Non- existence post destruction i.e., non existence of pot after its broken.
• ATYANTABHAV: Absence of a thing in another thing for all time past, present and future.

Example:  Non- existence of a colour in the air.

• ANYONYEABHAV: Difference of one thing from another.

Example: Say a jar and a cloth differ from each other there is non existence of either as the other.

JAR IS NOT THE CLOTH NOR THE CLOTH IS JAR.

NYAYA DARSHAN approach’s philosophy considering only 5 gross elements.

VAISESIKA DARSHAN considers also subtle elements or dimensions space, time, akasha.

• • Sankhya meaning Number or Digit.
  • Based on classification of the universe.
  • A philosophy of DUALISTIC REALISM
  • By Sage KAPILA.
  • Dualistic realism i.e., it admits of ultimate realities – PRAKRITI

  (Nature)& PURUSHA(Soul).

  • Prakriti is gross, unconscious (PRAKRITI JAD hai ACHETAN hai).
  • Prakriti and Purusha are independent of each other in respect of their existence.
  • PURUSHA is an intelligent principle and CHETANYA (CONSCIOUSNESS) is not an attribute but the very essence.
  • PURUSHA is the Self distinct from the body, the senses and the Mind (Manas).
  • PURUSHA is beyond the whole world of objects and is the eternal consciousness which witnesses the changes and activities going in the world and doesnot itself act in anyways.
  • Physical things like chairs, beds etc. exists for the engagement of beings other than themselves.

  Therefore, there must be the PURUSHA or the self which is distinct from PRAKRITI or primary matter but is the enjoyer (Bhokta) of the products of Prakriti.

  • There are many different selves related to different bodies for when some men are happy others are unhappy, some die but others live.
  • PRAKRITI is the ultimate cause of the world.
  • PRAKRITI is an eternal unconscious principle (JAD), always changing – only end is the satisfaction of the selves.
  • 3 constituents of PRAKRITI: –
  • SATVA
  • RAJAS
  • TAMAS
  • These 3 constituents are together in a state of rest or equilibrium (SAMYAVASTHA).
  • These three are not the qualities but the constituents which constituets PRAKRITI like three cords of a rope.
  • The existence of gunas is inferred from the qualities of pleasure, pain and indifference found in all the things of the world.

  Same movie/ food is nice/ bad/tasty/distasteful to the same person at different time or condition.

  The effect is the manifested condition of the cause Example; Oil is already manifested in the seeds.

  The things of the world are effects which have the qualities of pleasure, pain and indifference.

  • The evolution of the world has its starting point in the association of Purusha and Prakriti.

  PURUSHA  ß> PRAKRITI = SANSAR { One great MAHAT is created. Mahat is the first evolute from Prakriti.}

  • This union of PURUSHA & PRAKRITI disturbs equilibrium of the Prakriti and moves it in to action. It represents the awakening of the nature from her cosmic slumber and first appearance of thought and therefore it is called Intellect. 2^nd product Ahankaar arises by a further transformation of the Intellect. Function of Ahankaar is Abhimaan (I, ME, MINE). Owing to its identification with this principle the self considers itself an agent

   (KARTA) which in reality it is not Karta.

  • From Ahankaar with an excess of an element of Satva arises:

  5 GYANINDRIYA (organs of knowledge)

  5 KARMAINDRIYA (organs of action)

  & MANAS (MIND)

  {MANAS is at once an agent of knowledge and activity – UBHINDRIYA.

  • With excess of TAMAS, Ahankaar produces 5 TANMATRAAS (5Subtle Elements which are the potentialities of Sound, Colour, Smell, Taste and Touch.
  • From 5 Tanmatraas or Subtle Elements comes 5 gross elements of (PANCHA TATVA) of Akasa or Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth.
  • So, in Sankhya there are 25 principles of these all but the Purusha is comprised by Prakriti which is the cause comprised or the ultimate source of all other physical objects including Mind, Matter and Life.

  CAUSE & EFFECT:

  • 7 principles of Mahat, Ahankar and 5 Tantaras are causes of certain effects and themselves effects or certain causes.
  • 11 senses and 5 gross elements are only effects of certain causes and not causes in themselves which is substantially different from them.

  PURUSHA neither cause (PRAKIRTI) nor the effect (VIKRITI) of anything.

  • PURUSHA (SELF) is free and immortal yet influence of ignorance (AVIDYA) is such that it confuses itself with the body, mind and senses.
  • AVIVEKA (want of discrimination) between the self and non- self that is responsible for all sorrow and sufferings.
  • Injury of body – we feel unhappy because we see ourself not as PURUSHA but PRAKRITI.
  • VIVEKA (when sense of discrimination between body, senses, mind and real self-arises – suffering is gone.)
  • This rise of real knowledge called VIVEKAGYAN rests in itself as the dispassionate observer of the show of events in the world without being implicated in them. This state is called MUKTI, KAIVALYA, APWARGA etc.
  • Liberation while alive is JIVAN MUKTA

  Liberation after this life is VIDEHAMUKTI.

  • Mere knowledge or intellectual understanding not enough, long course of spiritual training with deep devotion and constant meditation on the truth and the self.
  • God: Main tendency of Sankhya is to do away with theistic belief.

  According to it, the existence of God cannot be proved in anyway.

  To understand world, we don’t need God for PRAKRITI is adequate cause of the world as a whole.

   

  • God an eternal, unchanging spirit cannot be the creator of the world.

  For to produce an effect, the cause must change and transform itself in to effect.

  Some commentators on Sankhya philosophy try to show that Sankhya philosophy admits existence of God as the Supreme person who is the witness but not the creator of the world.

  God witnesses but not creates world.

• Sage PATANJALI is the founder of the Yoga philosophy.
• Yoga is closely allied to the Sankhya.
• It mostly accepts epistemology and the metaphysics of the Sankhya philosophy with 25 principles but admits existence of God.
• Special interest of this system is the practice of Yoga as the means to attainment of VIVEKAGYAN (discriminative knowledge) which is essential condition of liberation.
• According to it, yoga consists in cessation of all mental functions

(YOGASCHITTAVRITTINIRODHA).

• 5 levels of mental functions (CHITTABHUMI or VRITTI)
• KSHIPTA (distracted) – The distracted mind being overpowered by RAJAS is extremely unsteady, unstable to concentrate or deide and is source of pain, pleasure.

(RAJASA VIHYESHVEVARITIMAT)

• MUDHA – Mind under influence of tamas always involved in those things caused to stupid, moron.

(TAMAS NIDRADIVRITTIMAT).

• VICHIPTAMA: This state of mind is better than kshiptam.

In this state, one can be immersed in Samadhi for quite some time but cause of rajoguna, emotional feelings, mind moves for other things.

• EKAGRAM: In this state of mind, the Sattvika vritti, the mood of entity remains engaged with any one thing. Rajoguna, Tamoguna are in a suppressed state.
• NIRUDDHAM: In this state of mind, Satvika mood along with tamas, Rajas are obstructed. Thus, obstruction impression only lies there called NIRUDDHABHUMI.
• First three levels of child are not considered in the category of yoga.
• But 4^th and 5^th are considered under yoga category because only through these states, the elevated consciousness of Samadhi can be attained.
• Talking of ultimate aim of yoga i.e., Samadhi can be attained.
• There are two kinds of yoga or Samadhi:

SAMPRAJNATA samadhi

ASAMPARAJNATA samadhi

• SAMPRAJNATA samadhi: Yoga is in the form of the mind’s perfect concentration on the object of contemplation. Therefore, involving a clear apprehension of that object.
• ASAMPRAJNATA samadhi: Complete cessation of all mental modifications and entire absence of all knowledge including contemplated object.
• Maharshi Patanjali spoke of 8 steps in practice of Yoga (YOGANGA)

ASHTANGA: –

• YAM (Restraint)
• NIYAMA (Moral Culture)
• ASANA (Posture)
• PRANAYAMA (Breathing exercise)
• PRATYAHARA (Sensual restraint)
• DHARANA (Concentration)
• DHYANA (Meditation)
• SAMADHI (Absorption in Self)
• Yoga System is called theistic (SESHWAR) unlike Sankhya Philosophy of Sage Patanjali regarded as NIRESHWAR.
• Yoga system holds that God is the highest object of contemplation for concentration and self-realisation. He is perfect being – Eternal, All pervading, omniscient and free from all defects.
• Yoga emphasises on God on following grounds:

Whatever has degree must have maximum i.e. There is degree of knowledge so there must be such a thing as perfect knowledge or omniscience. What is omniscient is God.

• PURUSHA & PRAKRITI initiates evolution of the world and cessation of this leads to dissolution.

Neither association nor dissociation is natural to PURUSHA and PRAKRITI. Therefore, there must be Supreme being (TATPURUSHA) who is able to bring about this relation between PURUSHA and PRAKRITI

• • Ritual interpretation of the Vedas.
  • MIMAMSA meaning Gambhir, Vichaar, Manan.
  • Known Purva Mimamsa.
  • Founded by Sage JAIMINI.
  • Justifys vedic rituals.
  • Authority of Vedas is the basis of ritualism.
  • Vedas are not the work of human (AUPOURUSH). So free of errors, so bring Vedas in life,
  • Vedas are eternal, Self- existing, since validity of every knowledge is self-evident.
  • When sufficient conditions exist, knowledge arises. i.e., when the senses are in control, the mind is still, knowledge is self-evident.
  • When we read geography, we have knowledge of the lands described through authority. In each of these cases, the knowledge that arises claim to be true and we accept without argument. If any doubt exist, knowledge doesn’t arise because of absence of belief.
  • What Vedas command one to perform is right (DHARMA), what they forbid is wrong (ADHARMA).
  • Duty consists in doing what is right and desisting from forbidden acts. The rituals enjoined by the Vedas should not be performed with hope of any reward but with sense of duty (detached action).
  • Disinterested performance of the obligatory rites destroys Karma and brings liberation.
  • Soul – is an immortal eternal substance, soul doesn’t perishes on death.
  • Consciousness – is not intrinsic to soul. Consciousness arises only when it is associated to body and when presented to the organs of knowledge (5 senses and Mind).
  • Mimamsa believes in the reality of the physical world on the strength of perception therefore realistic.
  • Believes on Soul, not on Supreme Soul (PARAM PURUSHA) or God who created the world.
  • Doesnot believe in cycle of creation and dissolution i.e., WORLD HAS ALWAYS BEEN AS IT IS i.e no beginning no end.
  • World objects formed out of matter I accordance with the Karmas of the soul.

  Law of Karma is an autonomous natural and moral law that rules the world.

  • Mimamsa believes, if any man performs any ritual, there arises in his soul a potency (APURVA) which produces in future the fruit of action at an opportune moment.
  • Mimamsa speaks of 21 yagna.
  • GRIHASTHI YAGNA (domestic people should perform these ceremony) is applicable to us, so let’s understand this.

   

  • There are 5 yagna in Grihastha yagna:

   

  1. BRAHMA YAGNA: Brahma means gyan (knowledge). In Bharat, it is said human without knowledge is like an animal. So, all parents must get their kids educated of truth. So, parents should buy books on Vedas instead of material.

   

  1. DEV YAGNA: Dev is one who gives – doesn’t take. Surya (SUN god), gives us light, reason of life on earth, soi offer water every morning. Chandra Deva (Moon) gives us coolness, ewe should worship. A farmer who is reason for grain we eat, we should do our duty to pay them, help them.

   

  1. PITRA YAGNA: other – Father, Mother- In-Law. Sita asks what should I do post marriage. Serve Mother and Father-in-Law.

   

  Psychologist Sigmund Freud stated: A child until age of 5 must stay in lap of mother and grandparents or there are oral, anal, phallic disorders and cannot bear emotional shock.

   

  1. MANAV YAGNA: (ATTHITHI SATKAAR) – No guest coming to your home should go hungry, even owner of home has to go to bed hungry.

   

  1. BHOOT YAGNA: Savings to maintain prosperity instead of spending all.

• Based on enquiry in to the self.
• Arises out of the Upanishads.
• Culmination of the Vedic speculation.
• Vedanta means end of the Vedas.
• VEDAS —à UPANISHADS —à
• BRAHMASUTRA by BADARAYANA systematises the Upanishadic teachings.
• Commentaries by:
• Sankara or Adi Shankaracharya.
• Ramanujan
• Adi Shankaracharya interpretation of Vedanta has the greatest influence on Indian Life.
• In Rig Veda, one supreme person (Purusha) who pervades whole universe and yet remains beyond it is found in hymns of Rig Veda, all objects of the whole Universe – animate or inanimate men and Gods, all part of that person. Unity of all existence in to One Impersonal Reality (SAT) i.e one Soul, One Brahman – world originates from this reality, rests in it and return in to it when dissolved.
• Reality of the many particulars objects in the Universe is denied.

Their unity in the ONE REALITY is asserted again and again.

“SARVAM KHALU IDAM BRAHMA” {ALL IS GOD}

“AHAM AATMA, BRAHMA” {THE SOUL IS GOD}

“NEHA NAASHTI KINCAN {There is no multiplicity}

“AATMA YA BHAGWAN HI SATYA HAI” {This Soul or God is the Reality}

It is infinite Consciousness (GYAN) & BLISS (ANAND).

• ADI SHANKARACHARYA:
• Interpreted the Upanishads & Brahmasutra to show the unqualified monism (Advaita).
• Non duality is the fundamental characteristic of his preachings.
• Supreme Person (PURUSHA) pervades whole universe, yet beyond it (Rig Veda).
• All animate or inanimate, men and Gods is part of that person

 (PURUSHA).

• One impersonal reality (Sat) or One Soul, One Brahman, this world originates from this Reality, returns to it when dissolved.
• God is the only reality – there is no multiplicity even within God.

No plurality – God & Soul is one. When God is known, all is known.

• Even different creation of the many things by God (Brahman) or the Soul (Atman).
• God is the juggler or magician who creates world by the magical power called Maya.
• World is not a real creation but an appearance i.e. Maya, it’s a mirage.

In mist of Maya, one interprets through ordinary experience the world as reality.

Example: Rope and Snake – A legendary which goes as a very ordinary man who happened to have married a princess who when her wife was at her father’s palace went in the dark to meet her and mistook a snake wriggling the wall to the window of the palace as rope and held to snake and climbed up the wall to the room of the princess. This man who was disrepute to be foolish later turned up to be a saint of high order revered as enlightened and known to have composed another version of Ramayana. This saint was known as KALIDASA.

Rope is Maya/illusion, truth is venomous creature Snake.

• Maya is ignorance (sides of the same fact looked differently).

Avidya (Ignorance), we see one reality differently.

Maya – Avidya, Agyan (Wrong knowledge).

Maya comes from God like burning from fire, so no dualism (Advaita).

• Is God possessed of creative power?

Shankaracharya says so long one believes in the world as appearance he looks at God through the world as the creator of it.

But when he realises that world is apparent that nothing is really created, he ceases to think God as creator.

Example: Magician and his tricks. God is magician and world is created out of his magical trick of Maya. As juggler makes a coin appear as many coins out of his juggling trick

• SANSAR (WORLD) is real then God is creator.
• Sansar is just appearance or not real then there is no creator.
• If God is the creator, then God is qualified (SAGUNA or ISHWARA) but the God of the enlightened person is not qualified (NIRGUNA ISHWARA).

• An unlightened person or Ordinary person perception is empirical/ practical but the perception of an Enlightened person is transcendental.
• Like world body also is just apparent, there is nothing to distinguish the soul from God.
• Right knowledge (TATTVADARSHANA or BRAHMAGYAN) can only cause ignorance (AVIDYA).
• Vedanta is the source of right knowledge.
• Controlling of senses, mind and giving up of all attachment to objects realising their transitory nature.
• Have earnest desire for liberation.
• Study Vedanta under enlightened teacher.
• Try to realise its truth by reasoning and meditation.
• “THOU ART BRAHMAN” {TATTWAM ASI}.
• When liberated from bondage, though such liberated soul is in the body, they don’t regard body as real.

“He is in the world but not of the world”.

• No attachment, no illusion can affect his wisdom.
• As God is bliss, so also liberated soul.

• RAMANUJAN:
• Ramanujan’s interpretation of the Vedanta is different to Adi Shankaracharaya .
• God is only one reality.
• With God exists unconscious material objects (ACHIT) and CONSCIOUSNESS (CHIT)
• God is qualified with omniscience and omnipotence.
• Spider spins cobwebs out of its own body so God creates world out of its own body so God creates world out of material objects (Achit) which eternally exist in him.
• Souls are as infinite small (ANU i.e., atom).
• Soul by nature is conscious self-luminous.
• Every soul endowed with material body in accordance with Karma.

Bondage means confinement of soul to body.

• Cause of Karma is ignorance (Avidya).
• Under the influence of ignorance Soul identifies itse4lf with body and mind and behaves as it were body and mind.
• Hankers for sensuous pleasure and becomes attached to the world. This attachment causes repeated rebirth (JANMA – MRITYU).
• Vedanta removes ignorance i.e.; one knows its not body but a part of God or Brahman on whom its existence depends.
• KARMA YOGA – disinterested performance of duty enjoined by Vedas destroys accumulated force of the Karma and helps perfection of knowledge.
• God only worthy of love.
• Talks of Bhakti – God pleased by devotion and releases devotee out of bondage and gets out of cycle of birth and death.
• Liberated soul = God because God is pure consciousness, free from imperfections but soul doesnot become equal to God. Soul is finite part of infinite God, cannot become infinite.
• Ramanuja stated God is the only reality and there is nothing outside God yet within God there are many other realities.
• This is underlining difference in Ramanujans understanding as compared to Adi Shankarachayas philosophy of Non-Dualism – Ramanujan believes and professes dualism i.e.; Creation of the God are as real as God (so like Sankhaya philosophy by Sage Kapila PURUSHA and PRAKRITI). GOD and its CREATION are both real.
• So, it’s not unqualified monism but monism qualified by the presence of many parts (VISHISTADVAITA).
• God is possessed of conscious soul and unconscious matter is the only reality.