[paragraph continues] Omniscient Isvara, from whom the whole universe has come into existence, and in whom it has its being He further contends that by the mere observance of Vedic ritual none can attain everlasting Bliss; that, on the other hand, the highest bliss can be attained by knowledge alone which removes the ignorance that has blinded the vision of the soul to truth and thereby led to all the numerous evils which are collectively named samsara-bandha, the bondage of mundane existence. Interpreting the Upanishads, upon which the Vedanta Doctrine is mainly based, according to the rules of construction formulated in the of enquiry into the contents of the Karma kanda or the ritualistic portion of the Veda, the Brahmavadin comes to the conclusion that the Upanishads inculcate the existence of Brahman, an Principle, the one Existence whence the whole universe has come into being. Brahman as Isvara is not only the Divine Intelligence who controls and guides the evolution of the whole universe; Fie is also present in every thing that we perceive or think of, as its very basis, as its material cause, just as clay exists in the pot as its material cause. While agreeing thus far generally as against the other systems of philosophy, the different schools of Vedanta differ very widely from one another as regards the views they hold as to God, the individual Soul, the universe, and their mutual relations:

all the schools, curiously enough, basing their divergent views on the authority of the one class of writings named Upanishads. The dualists, the followers of Sri Madhvacharya, hold that the three are quite distinct from one another, every individual soul being quite distinct from every other soul, and every material object being quite distinct from every other. The followers of Sri Ramanujacharya try to reduce the whole existence to a unity made up of the three ultimate principles of God, the sentient and the insentient,--all inextricably united into one, God being as it were embodied in the other two, so that these two have no existence quite independent of God's. Like the dualists of Madhvacharya's school, they hold that the external universe is as real as the soul that perceives it, and that the individual souls of whom the sentient existence is composed are really distinct from one another and from God, each having a distinct individual consciousness of his own: the individual souls being absolutely governed by God from within in all their thoughts and actions, finding their utmost Bliss, when liberated from the bonds of samsara, in an inseparable union with God, in the hearty devotion of service rendered to the All-benign and Most Gracious Master, in the loving acknowledgment of the Divine Lord's absolute sovereignty over him through never-ending eternity. There are Vedantins of another school