"God, and all other words, designate the soul, none else than That, called the established entity,
"Of this there is much significant and undoubted exemplification in common speech and in the Veda;
"Existence when dissociated from spirit is unknown; in the form of gods, mortals, and the rest
"When pervading the individual spirit, the infinite has made a diversity of names and forms in the world."
In these words the author, setting forth that all words, God, and the rest, designate the body, and showing in the words, "No unity in systems," &c., the characteristic of body, and showing in the words, "By words which are substitutes for the essence of things," &c., that it is established that nothing is different from the universal Lord, lays down in the verses, Significant of the essence, &c., that all words ultimately designate the Supreme Spirit. All this may be ascertained from that work. The same matter has been enforced by Rámánuja in the Vedártha-saṅgraha, when analysing the Vedic text about names and forms.
Moreover, every form of evidence having some determinate object, there can be no evidence of an undetermined (unconditionate) reality. Even in non-discriminative perception it is a determinate (or conditioned) thing that is cognised. Else in discriminative perception there could not be shown to be a cognition characterised by an already presented form. Again, that text, That art thou, is not sublative of the universe as rooted in illusion, like a sentence declaratory that what was illusorily presented, as a snake is a piece of rope; nor does knowledge of the unity of the absolute and the soul bring (this illusory universe) to an end; for we have already demonstrated that there is no proof of these positions.
Nor is there an absurdity (as the Śáṅkaras would say), on the hypothesis enunciatory of the reality of the universe, in affirming that by a cognition of one there is a cognition of all things: for it is easily evinced that the mundane egg, consisting of the primary cause (prakṛiti), intellect, self-position, the rudimentary elements, the gross elements, the organs (of sense and of action), and the fourteen worlds, and the gods, animals, men, immovable things, and so forth, that exist within it, constituting a complex of all forms, is all an effect, and that from the single cognition of absolute spirit as its (emanative) cause, when we recognise that all this is absolute spirit (there being a tautology between cause and effect), there arises cognition of all things, and thus by cognition of one cognition of all. Besides, if all else than absolute spirit were unreal, then all being non-existent, it would follow that by one cognition all cognition would be sublated.
It is laid down (by the Rámánujas) that retractation into the universe (pralaya) is when the universe, the body whereof consists of souls and the originant (prakṛiti), returns to its imperceptible state, unsusceptible of division by names and forms, existing as absolute spirit the emanative cause; and that creation (or emanation) is the gross or perceptible condition of absolute spirit, the body whereof is soul and not soul divided by diversity of names and forms, in the condition of the (emanative) effect of absolute spirit. In this way the identity of cause and effect laid down in the aphorism (of Vyása) treating of origination, is easily explicable. The statements that the Supreme Spirit is void of attributes, are intended (it is shown) to deny thereof phenomenal qualities which are to be escaped from by those that desire emancipation. The texts which deny plurality are explained as allowed to be employed for the denial of the real existence of things apart from the Supreme Spirit, which is identical with all things, it being Supreme Spirit which subsists under all forms as the soul of all, all things sentient and unsentient being forms as being the body of absolute Spirit.[109]
What is the principle here involved, pluralism or monism, or a universe both one and more than one? Of these alternatives monism is admitted in saying that Supreme Spirit alone subsists in all forms as all is its body; both unity and plurality are admitted in saying that one only Supreme Spirit subsists under a plurality of forms diverse as soul and not-soul; and plurality is admitted in saying that the essential natures of soul, not-soul, and the Lord, are different, and not to be confounded.
Of these (soul, not-soul, and the Lord), individual spirits, or souls, consisting of uncontracted and unlimited pure knowledge, but enveloped in illusion, that is, in works from all eternity, undergo contraction and expansion of knowledge according to the degrees of their merits. Soul experiences fruition, and after reaping pleasures and pains proportionate to merits and demerits, there ensues knowledge of the Lord, or attainment of the sphere of the Lord. Of things which are not-soul, and which are objects of fruition (or experience of pleasure and pain), unconsciousness, unconduciveness to the end of man, susceptibility of modification, and the like, are the properties. Of the Supreme Lord the attributes are subsistence, as the internal controller (or animator) of both the subjects and the objects of fruition; the boundless glory of illimitable knowledge, dominion, majesty, power, brightness, and the like, the countless multitude of auspicious qualities; the generation at will of all things other than himself, whether spiritual or non-spiritual; various and infinite adornment with unsurpassable excellence, singular, uniform, and divine.