so Brahma creates from himself a universe which is an utter phantom and nowise modifies his absolute existence. His creative "powers" (which are real only when regarded from the standpoint of his creation, the world of finite subjects and objects) constitute the demiurgic principle of an empiric universe, which is, from its own standpoint, coextensive with him, whereas absolutely speaking it does not exist at all (see commentary on Brahma-sutra, II. i. 6, 9, etc., and above, section 9). On the other hand, the universe, phantom as it is, nevertheless is a fact of consciousness. Illusion though it be, the illusion is. This predicate of existence is the bond uniting it with its source, the truly existent, Brahma (on II. i. 6). Brahma is absolute thought, the world is false thought; but the subject in both cases is the same, the thinking Self. Thus Maya denotes the sum of phenomena--or, as more narrowly defined by some later Vedantists, the sum of matter--as illusively conceived by the Self; it is the Ignorance which creates the phantom of a universe and of an individual ego by imposing its figments upon pure Thought ( section 12).