That if the Veda repeats the cry that there is a Bourne from which there is no return, no return, it is a mere make-believe. And all these are learned expounders of Sankara's school, and who is right? Can we ask this question, or is our question captious? The Siddhantin's answer is the question itself is based on a fallacy, an assumption. The fact assumed is that the Perfect becomes the imperfect. Is this a fact proved? Does God really become man and brute? What is the proof of this, let alone Vedic texts and the desire to reach a high-sounding philosophic unity? It is this fancied desire to generalize everything into One, that led the Greek philosophers to postulate number and water and fire, as the Final and Ultimate Cause of all things. Why not leave bad, good and evil as they are? Why should you refer the evil to the good, impure to the pure? Will not

* Dr. Hubbe Schleiden at page 227, January 1895, 'The Theosophist.' silence in this respect be golden? Will not maunam in this case be real jnanam?

Well, we will here go back to our statement of what the Sankhyan meant when he postulated a Pradhana and a Soul or souls. The learned Editor of the "Light of the East" has evidently fallen into an error when, in his account of the ancient sankhya system, he opines that according to the ancient Sankhya and the Gita, there is only one Purusha and not many purushas. The mistake is due to the fact that, in the enumeration of the padarthas, the singular only is used; a mere technical usage, as in the phrases, jiva-lsvara-Jagat, Chit-Achit-Ishwara, Pati-Pasu-Pasa. All the words used are in the singular, and it cannot mean that the respective schools mean to postulate only one Jiva, one Chit or one Pasa. In explaining each, the explanation will be given that the jiva or souls are many. In the same way, in the earlier sutras of the Sankhya, Purusha in the singular is used, but the subsequent sutras proceed to state that the purushas are multitudinous. Pradhana is real and it is the cause, and its effects, the phenomena, are also real, as the effect subsists already in the cause, and as our learned brother approvingly puts it, an effect is its own cause reproduced in another form; and we hope the following sentence from Dr. Brown's lectures, will equally meet with our brother's approval. "That the form of the body is only another name for the relative position of the parts that constitute it, and that the forms of the body are nothing but the body itself." If so, why should the cause be considered real, and the effect unreal, as against the view of Sankhyan by Vedantins? If the Maya is phenomen6n and effect, why should it be unreal, when the substance and cause is real? The relation of cause and effect has, however, to be kept separate from the relation of substance and phenomenon, and these two, from the questions of reality and delusion.

In the second paragraph, however, our brother identifies the Sankhyan's Pradhana with his own Maya and the Sankhyan's Purusha with his own God or Brahman. If so, why attempt any criticism of the Sankhya? It is all a quibble about words. They practically postulate the same and mean the same things. Then, why is it that the Sankhya is called by Sankara, 'Nirisvara Sankhya' 'Godless or Atheistic Sankhya', and the Philosophy of the Gita as Sesvara Sankhya or the Theistic Sankhya. The word Sankhya meaning primarily number, meant with Kapila and Krishna a theory or philosophy. Compare for instance a similar change in the Tamil word meaning number, and in the versemeaning logic and philosophy. The following quotation from the Gita itself, will explain the difference between the two schools.

"There are 'two Purushas' in this world, one destructible and the other indestructible, the destructible is sarvabhutdni (all things), the indestructible is called the Kutastha." (Chapter XV. 16).

Well, look how this verse runs; it mentions only two Purushas, instead of mentioning three, as arising from the next verse; but there is a purpose in so mentioning two Purushas; it is seemingly to reiterate the accepted postulate of the purva-paksha school, to enable it to state the siddhanta view, in the next verse which is:

"The 'parama Purusha' is verify another, declared as the ' Paramdtman', Hie who pervades and sustaineth the three worlds, the indestructible Isvara."

Consider again the steps that follow one upon another in the next verse.

"Since I excel the destructible (first Purusha), and am more excellent than the indestructible (second Purusha), in the world and in the Veda, I am proclaimed Purushottama" (third Purusha).

Be it noted here that the word Purusha simply means a category, a padartha, as when we speak of the Tripadartha or Tattvatrayam. Note again how in verse 19, chapter 13, the first two Purushas are mentioned as (by its more appropriate names) Prakriti and Purusha; and the same definition of these two is given in verses 20 and 21, as by the Sankhya; and a further step beyond Kapila, is taken by Sri Krishna in postulating,

"A spectator and permitter, supporter and enjoyer, Mahesh-vara, thus is styled the Paramatman, in this body, the Paramapurusha."

And then a most beautiful passage about the distinction of these three Padarthas, and of the different Jnanas, pasajnana, Pasujnana, and patijnana, occurs. The Lokayata only knows his body, and has no knowledge of his own self or anything higher. According to the Nirishvara Sankhyan or the Vedan-tin, there are or seem to exist only two things, Prakriti and Soul, Maya and Atman, and liberation consists in distinguishing his own self as different from a Prakriti or Maya (delusions). This is Pasujnana or Atmajnana. According to the Sesvara Sankhyan, he sees and learns to distinguish Prakriti from his self, and his self from the Highest One (verse 29), as Akarta and Karta, and knowing the nature of this One, he reaches Brahman-hood, (verse 30 of Chapter 13). It is also to be remarked particularly that in the whole Gita, in innumerable passages, as in the one cited above, the knowledge of the Supreme, the devotion wholly to Him, is put forward as the highest path of attaining Liberation, and not the Atmajnana doctrine that the knowledge of the individual self, as implied in the phrase 'know Thyself,' is the highest attainment.

We beg leave again to quote Dr. Hubbe Schleiden, simply to show how this latter theory is repugnant to the followers of Sankara. "Indeed there can be no more fatal error than to believe with those furthest advanced Western philosophers that Jnanam, or Moksha means nothing else but the intellectual conception, Monism (Advaita), nothing else but the intellectual enjoyment of a proud theory."

What we have said till now, will convince our readers that there is another side to these questions, and that they do not stand alone where the Sankhyans and the Vedantins left them. According to this view, the Sankhyans are correct, no doubt, so far as they go, in postulating Prakriti and Purusha, and the Vedantin is quite correct in his identification of these two with his Maya and Brahman. There is but a thin partition between the soul or man of the Sankhya, and the latter's Brahman. In fact, man is God. In such identification of man with God, what results is, that man's intelligence does not pass on to the postulating and realizing of a Higher Being than himself; and the Brahman of the Vedantin is only so in name. The third school postulates this third Padartha, differing from the soul or Atman of either school, whom the latter cannot know, except with the grace of the third Padartha, and though it might be correct to say that man cannot know himself, it will be blasphemous to say that God cannot know himself. This will be attributing a human imperfection to the most High and to limit His nature.

How do we know that He cannot know Himself, when we cannot know our own selves, nor Him, without His Grace. Consider the following passage from Saint Meykanda Deva. "When the soul unites itself to God, and feels His Arul (Love), God covers it with His Supreme Bliss and becomes one with it. Will He not know Himself, who is understood by the soul, through the intelligence of the soul? "The next passage we are going to quote will show clearly that God has not manifested His glorious Truth to one people, and in one clime alone. "Why may not the absloute Being be self-conscious?" asks a Christian Divine in almost the same words. "To deny this to Him, would be to deny to Him, one of the perfections which even finite beings may have."* The question reamains, what then is the necessity for all this evolution and resolution. The answer is contained in a simple sentence in the first sutra of Sivajnanabodha, namely,

The second Padartha in our categories, and not the third, is imperfect, or more correctly, is shrouded by dross, which has to be removed like the colors on a crystal, so that, its own pristine purity may be apparent, and it can reflect and realize the Glory and Presence of God in all Its brightest effulgence. This existence and resolution is due to the will of this lower being, Atman, to perfect itself, and the Will of the Highest comes into play, to enable the soul to work out its own salvation. The Ickcha, Jnana and Kriya Saktis of the Lord induces the ichcha, jnana and kriya saktis of the individual soul, and herein is God's Grace and Love and Omnipotence manifested. The exercise of the Divine Will is not for enabling Itself to exist free from samsara, not for perfecting Itself, not for knowing, seeing, or realizing Itself, not for Its sport or pleasure, not fur no purpose, but it is simply to help and aid the poor soul in its attempt to effect all these things.

How well does our Saint Tayumanavar- realize this conception of God's great Beneficence in the following lines:

* Rev. J. Iverach's 'Is God knowable?' page 225.

This view postulates three Padarthas, and it may be called Dualism, or Dvaita or anything of the sort, but how this view is the strict Advaita also, true monism, we will demonstrate in a future article*.

[* See Paper on "Advaita according to Saiva Siddhanta."]