s on diversity of condition of life, and
diversity of condition again on work. The Lord may be considered as
acting with regard to religious merit after distinction had once arisen;
but as before that the cause of inequality, viz. merit, did not exist,
it follows that the first creation must have been free, from
inequalities.

This objection we meet by the remark, that the transmigratory world is
without beginning.--The objection would be valid if the world had a
beginning; but as it is without beginning, merit and inequality are,
like seed and sprout, caused as well as causes, and there is therefore
no logical objection to their operation.--To the question how we know
that the world is without a beginning, the next Sutra replies.

36. (The beginninglessness of the world) recommends itself to reason and
is seen (from Scripture).

The beginninglessness of the world recommends itself to reason. For if
it had a beginning it would follow that, the world springing into
existence without a cause, the released souls also would again enter
into the circle of transmigratory existence; and further, as then there
would exist no determining cause of the unequal dispensation of pleasure
and pain, we should have to acquire in the doctrine of rewards and
punishments being allotted, without reference to previous good or bad
action. That the Lord is not the cause of the inequality, has already
been remarked. Nor can Nescience by itself be the cause, and it is of a
uniform nature. On the other hand, Nescience may be the cause of
inequality, if it be considered as having regard to merit accruing from
action produced by the mental impressions or wrath, hatred, and other
afflicting passions[313]. Without merit and demerit nobody can enter
into existence, and again, without a body merit and demerit cannot be
formed; so that--on the doctrine of the world having a beginning--we are
led into a logical see-saw. The opposite doctrine, on the other hand,
explains all matters in a manner analogous to the case of the seed and
sprout, so that no difficulty remains.--Moreover, the fact of the world
being without a beginning, is seen in /S/ruti and Sm/ri/ti. In the first
place, we have the scriptural passage, 'Let me enter with this living
Self (jiva)', &c. (Ch. Up. VI, 3, 2). Here the circumstance of the
embodied Self (the individual soul) being called, previously to
creation, 'the living Self'--a name applying to it in so far as it is
the sustaini