tion, or, more properly
expressed, teaches that Brahman, in creating the world, has no motive in
the strict sense of the word, but follows a mere sportive impulse.

Adhik. XII (34-36) justifies Brahman from the charges of partiality and
cruelty which might be brought against it owing to the inequality of
position and fate of the various animate beings, and the universal
suffering of the world. Brahman, as a creator and dispenser, acts with a
view to the merit and demerit of the individual souls, and has so acted
from all eternity.

Adhik. XIII (37) sums up the preceding argumentation by declaring that
all the qualities of Brahman--omniscience and so on--are such as to
capacitate it for the creation of the world.

PADA II.

The task of the second pada is to refute, by arguments independent of
Vedic passages, the more important philosophical theories concerning the
origin of the world which are opposed to the Vedanta view.--The first
adhikara/n/a (1-10) is directed against the Sa@nkhyas, whose doctrine
had already been touched upon incidentally in several previous places,
and aims at proving that a non-intelligent first cause, such as the
pradhana of the Sa@nkhyas, is unable to create and dispose.--The second
adhikara/n/a (11-17) refutes the Vai/s/eshika tenet that the world
originates from atoms set in motion by the ad/ri/sh/t/a.--The third and
fourth adhikara/n/as are directed against various schools of Bauddha
philosophers. Adhik. III (18-27) impugns the view of the so-called
sarvastitvavadins, or bahyarthavadins, who maintain the reality of an
external as well as an internal world; Adhik. IV (28-32) is directed
against the vij/n/anavadins, according to whom ideas are the only
reality.--The last Sutra of this adhikara/n/a is treated by Ramanuja as
a separate adhikara/n/a refuting the view of the Madhyamikas, who teach
that everything is void, i.e. that nothing whatever is real.--Adhik. V
(33-36) is directed against the doctrine of the Jainas; Adhik. VI
(37-41) against those philosophical schools which teach that a highest
Lord is not the material but only the operative cause of the world.

The last adhikara/n/a of the pada (42-45) refers, according to the
unanimous statement of the commentators, to the doctrine of the
Bhagavatas or Pa/nk/aratras. But /S/a@nkara and Ramanuja totally
disagree as to the drift of the Sutrakara's opinion regarding that
system. According to the former it is condemned like the system