SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
etad-yonīni bhūtāni
sarvāṇīty upadhāraya
ahaṁ kṛtsnasya jagataḥ
prabhavaḥ pralayas tathā
‘That all beings, understand, have these (two Natures) as their womb. And I am the Origin as well as the End of all the Kosmos[3. Cp. with XIV-3 Bh: Gi: and Mānḍ: Up: II-4. This verse refers thus to the Principle of the Īśvara, thus constituting the three-fold Constituents of the Kosmos, of which Achit (verse 4) and Chit (verse 5), are the material and spiritual substances, evolving from Īśvara, their Identity or Viśishtādvaita. Sri Ramanuja’s Monism is very nearly the Monism of Spinoza, who would say: “There is but one Infinite Substance, and that is God. Whatever is, is in God ; and without Him, nothing can be conceived. He is the universal Being of which all things are the manifestations. He is the sole Substance; everything else is a Mode; yet, without Substance, Mode cannot exist. God, viewed under the attributes of Infinite Substance, is nātura naturans—, viewed as a manifestation, as the modes under which his attributes appear, he is the nātura naturata. He is the Cause of all things, and that immanently, but not transiently. He has two infinite attributes—Extension and Thought.” (Page 430, G. H. Lewes’ History of Philosophy). In Ramanuja’s phraseology, there is but One God, Sat or the one Substance to whom Achit or Extension (=Brahma (V-10) or Mahad-Brahma (XIII-2) or Śabda-Brahma (VI-44) = matter-stuff), and chit or Thought (=Jñāna or ‘intelligence’ or ‘sentiency’ or ‘conciousness’= soul-stuff) are the Prakāra, or Modes, or Viśeshaṇa or Attributes. God is Sat, or Prakāri or Substance, without whom Achit (matter) and Chit (souls) cannot have independent existence. God (Īśvara) is the uncaused Cause, or the Identity of all effects which are ever potentially contained in Him, and at certain epochs kinetically expressed. God is thus both the material as well as the spiritual, or in other words, both the Objective as well as the Subjective basis of the Kosmos. Identity in Ramanuja’s Monism does not mean sameness, ‘but the root from which spring two opposite stems, and in which they have a common life. Man for instance, is the identity of soul and body; water is the identity of oxygen and hydrogen.’ (Footnote to page 431, Op: Cit.). An exhaustive article on the necessity of Three Postulates to explain the Kosmos has been written separately, which see.]’.
This is My dual Nature, so constituting synthetically generally the two-fold Categories of the (samashti)[4. Samashti-Sṛishti is general or collective creation, or creation into broad principles, the minor divisions of which constituting vyashti sṛishti or particularization of the general principles or distributive creation, this function being committed to minor Lords of creation, the Demiurge or the four faced Brahmā etc.], Sentient (Chit) and the Insentient (Achit) Principles. This double Nature is the womb (i.e., source or basis) out of which all things, high and low, from the Demiurge (Brahmā) down to the blade of grass are modelled, —compounds of the Intelligent and the Non-intelligent Principles.
This dual Nature is verily My own. In the same manner that they constitute the basis of all things, understand that I am, in turn, their basis (womb). They belong to Me. I alone am the Origin (Projector) and the End (Retractor) and the Lord, of the whole Kosmos.
I, Paramapurusha[5. Parama-Purusha = Synonym Purushottama(‘The Super-excellent Person’, the 24th name of God, (vide also, Pātañjala Yoga-Sūtra I.24, (which says purusha-viśesḥ) – Purusha is the common term to denote a thinking substance from an unthinking substance. Utpurusha=bound soul; uttara-purusha=liberated soul, uttama-purusha=the ever-free soul; Purushottama=Soul Supreme=God.): Purusha means etymologically He who grants abundance; “puru=bahu, sanoti=dadāti.” Thus Parama-Purusha means the Supreme all-Giver.], am the womb again, (the causa causorum), of this collective compound womb, of the Universe, viz; the Intelligents plus Non-intelligents or purusha plus prakṛiti. This is evident from Śruti and Smṛiti passages, thus:—
‘The mahat(or 1st manifest differential) resolves back into avyakta (unmanifest matter), avyakta into akshara (still subtler (invariable substance), akshara into tamas (the still primodial undifferenced basic substance mūla-prakṛiti, called darkness, for it is a homogeneous indiscrete nebulosity of substance); and tamas merges as oneness with the Supreme Divinity (Pare Deve).[6. Suba: Up: 2: (mahān avyakte līyate, aksharam tamasi līyate, tamah Pare Deva ekī bhavati).]’
‘Two forms issue from the Supreme Nature of Vishṇu, O Vipra!, pradhāna (=matter,) and purusha(= soul).[7. Vish: Pur: i-2-24. (Vishṇos-svarūpā paratodite dve rūpe etc.,).]’
‘What was described by me, as prakṛiti, —in its dual aspect of ‘differenced’ and ‘undifferenced’ —and purusha, do merge in Paramātma. And Paramātma is the Support of all, is the Highest Lord, named Vishṇu, sung in all the Vedas and Vedāntas.[8. Vish: Pur: IV-4-39, 40. (Prakṛitir yā mayā khyātā, vyakt-āvyakta-svarūpiṇī; purushaś-chāpi etc.)]’
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