sidered as being always of the
same size--whether minute or infinite--and not of the varying size of
its bodies.--For this reason also the doctrine of the Arhat has to be
set aside as not in any way more rational than the doctrine of Buddha.

37. The Lord (cannot be the cause of the world), on account of the
inappropriateness (of that doctrine).

The Sutrakara now applies himself to the refutation of that doctrine,
according to which the Lord is the cause of the world only in so far as
he is the general ruler.--But how do you know that that is the purport
of the Sutra (which speaks of the Lord 'without any
qualification')?--From the circumstance, we reply, that the teacher
himself has proved, in the previous sections of the work, that the Lord
is the material cause as well as the ruler of the world. Hence, if the
present Sutra were meant to impugn the doctrine of the Lord in general,
the earlier and later parts of the work would be mutually contradictory,
and the Sutrakara would thus be in conflict with himself. We therefore
must assume that the purport of the present Sutra is to make an
energetic attack on the doctrine of those who maintain that the Lord is
not the material cause, but merely the ruler, i.e. the operative cause
of the world; a doctrine entirely opposed to the Vedantic tenet of the
unity of Brahman.

The theories about the Lord which are independent of the Vedanta are of
various nature. Some taking their stand on the Sa@nkhya and Yoga systems
assume that the Lord acts as a mere operative cause, as the ruler of the
pradhana and of the souls, and that pradhana, soul, and Lord are of
mutually different nature.--The Mahe/s/varas (/S/aivas) maintain that
the five categories, viz. effect, cause, union, ritual, the end of pain,
were taught by the Lord Pa/s/upati (/S/iva) to the end of breaking the
bonds of the animal (i.e. the soul); Pa/s/upati is, according to them,
the Lord, the operative cause.--Similarly, the Vai/s/eshikas and others
also teach, according to their various systems, that the Lord is somehow
the operative cause of the world.

Against all these opinions the Sutra remarks 'the Lord, on account of
the inappropriateness.' I.e. it is not possible that the Lord as the
ruler of the pradhana and the soul should be the cause of the world, on
account of the inappropriateness of that doctrine. For if the Lord is
supposed to assign to the various classes of animate creatures low,
intermediate, and hig