that everything that appeared as a fixed order or system was
non-existent, for all were unspeakable, indescribable and
self-contradictory, and thus everything being discarded there was
only the void (_s'unya_). S'a@nkara partially utilized this method in
his refutations of Nyaya and the Buddhist systems; but S'rihar@sa
again revived and developed it in a striking manner, and after
having criticized the most important notions and concepts of our
everyday life, which are often backed by the Nyaya system, sought
to prove that nothing in the world can be defined, and that we
cannot ascertain whether a thing is or is not. The refutations of
all possible definitions that the Nyaya could give necessarily led
to the conclusion that the things sought to be defined did not
exist though they appeared to do so; the Vedantic contention
was that this is exactly as it should be, for the indefinite ajnana
produces only appearances which when exposed to reason show
that no consistent notions of them can be formed, or in other
words the world-appearance, the phenomena of maya or ajnana,
are indefinable or anirvacaniya. This great work of S'rihar@sa
was followed by _Tattvadipika_ of Citsukha, in which he generally
followed S'rihar@sa and sometimes supplemented him with the
addition of criticisms of certain new concepts. The method of
Vedanta thus followed on one side the method of S'unyavada in
annulling all the concepts of world-appearance and on the other
Vijnanavada Buddhism in proving the self-illuminating character
of knowledge and ultimately established the self as the only self-luminous
ultimate reality.

The Theory of Causation.

The Vedanta philosophy looked at the constantly changing
phenomena of the world-appearance and sought to discover the
root whence proceeded the endless series of events and effects.
The theory that effects were altogether new productions caused
by the invariable unconditional and immediately preceding antecedents,
as well as the theory that it was the cause which evolved

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and by its transformations produced the effect, are considered
insufficient to explain the problem which the Vedanta had before
it. Certain collocations invariably and unconditionally preceded
certain effects, but this cannot explain how the previous set of
phenomena could be regarded as producing the succeeding set.
In fact the concept of causation and production had in it
something quite undefinable and inexplicable. Our