the world has originated, not from an intelligent being, but from the non-intelligent pradhana.  The most important Sutras relative to this point are to be met with in the first pada of the second adhyaya.  Those Sutras are indeed almost unintelligible if taken by themselves, but the unanimity of the commentators as to their meaning enables us to use them as steps in our investigation.  The sixth Sutra of the pada mentioned replies to the Sa@nkhya objection that the non-intelligent world cannot spring from an intelligent principle, by the remark that ’it is thus seen,’ i.e. it is a matter of common observation that non-intelligent things are produced from beings endowed with intelligence; hair and nails, for instance, springing from animals, and certain insects from dung.—­Now, an argumentation of this kind is altogether out of place from the point of view of the true Sa@nkara.  According to the latter the non-intelligent world does not spring from Brahman in so far as the latter is intelligence, but in so far as it is associated with Maya.  Maya is the upadana of the material world, and Maya itself is of a non-intelligent nature, owing to which it is by so many Vedantic writers identified with the prak/ri/ti of the Sa@nkhyas.  Similarly the illustrative instances, adduced under Sutra 9 for the purpose of showing that effects when being reabsorbed into their causal substances do not impart to the latter their own qualities, and that hence the material world also, when being refunded into Brahman, does not impart to it its own imperfections, are singularly inappropriate if viewed in connexion with the doctrine of Maya, according to which the material world is no more in Brahman at the time of a pralaya than during the period of its subsistence.  According to Sa@nkara the world is not merged in Brahman, but the special forms into which the upadana of the world, i.e.  Maya, had modified itself are merged in non-distinct Maya, whose relation to Brahman is not changed thereby.—­The illustration, again, given in Sutra 24 of the mode in which Brahman, by means of its inherent power, transforms itself into the world without employing any extraneous instruments of action, ‘kshiravad dhi,’ ’as milk (of its own accord turns into curds),’ would be strangely chosen indeed if meant to bring nearer to our understanding the mode in which Brahman projects the illusive appearance of the world; and also the analogous instance given in the Sutra next following, ’as Gods and the like (create palaces, chariots, &c. by the mere power of their will)’—­which refers to the real creation of real things—­would hardly be in its place if meant to illustrate a theory which considers unreality to be the true character of the world.  The mere cumulation of the two essentially heterogeneous illustrative instances (kshiravad dhi; devadivat), moreover, seems to show that the writer who had recourse to them held no very definite theory as to the particular mode in which the world springs from Brahman, but was merely concerned to render plausible in some way or other that an intelligent being can give rise to what is non-intelligent without having recourse to any extraneous means.[23]