that the existence of the world is due to the coexistence of Maya (illusion) with Brahman (spirit) and also states that the task of the soul is to pass beyond Maya to Brahman.  If this is so, there is either a real duality (Brahman and Maya) or else Maya is an aspect of Brahman, but an aspect which the soul should transcend and avoid, and for whose existence no reason whatever is given.  The more theistic forms of Indian religion, whether Sivaite or Vishnuite, tend to regard individual souls and matter as eternal.  By the help of God souls can obtain release from matter.  But here again there is no explanation why the soul is contaminated by matter or ignorance.

It is clearly illogical to condemn the Infinite as bad or a mistake.  Buddhism is perhaps sometimes open to this charge because on account of its exceedingly cautious language about nirvana it fails to set it up as a reality contrasted with the world of suffering.  But many varieties of Indian religion do emphatically point to the infinite reality behind and beyond Maya.  It is only Maya which is unsatisfactory because it is partial.

Another attempt to make the Universe intelligible regards it as an eternal rhythm playing and pulsing outwards from spirit to matter (pravritti) and then backwards and inwards from matter to spirit (nirvritti).  This idea seems implied by Sankara’s view that creation is similar to the sportive impulses of exuberant youth and the Bhagavad-gita is familiar with pravritti and nirvritti, but the double character of the rhythm is emphasized most clearly in Sakta treatises.  Ordinary Hinduism concentrates its attention on the process of liberation and return to Brahman, but the Tantras recognize and consecrate both movements, the outward throbbing stream of energy and enjoyment (bhukti) and the calm returning flow of liberation and peace.  Both are happiness, but the wise understand that the active outward movement is right and happy only up to a certain point and under certain restrictions.

That great poet Tulsi Das hints at an explanation of the creation or of God’s expansion of himself which will perhaps commend itself to Europeans more than most Indian ideas, namely that the bliss enjoyed by God and the souls whom he loves is greater than the bliss of solitary divinity[76].

20. Church and State

I will now turn to another point, namely the relations of Church and State.  These are simplest in Buddhism, which teaches that the truth is one, that all men ought to follow it and that all good kings should honour and encourage it.  This is also the Christian position but Buddhism has almost always been tolerant and has hardly ever countenanced the doctrine that error should be suppressed by force[77].  Buddhism does not claim to cover the whole field of religion as understood in Europe:  if people like to propitiate spirits in the hope of obtaining wealth and crops, it permits them to do so.  In Japan and Tibet