headed by Srikantha-Sivacharya, who, like those mentioned above, admit the reality of separate existence in the case of individual souls even when liberated, but who differ from them only in so far as they hold that the liberated soul lives for himself enjoying the inherent unutterable bliss of his own nature as well as the loving blissful presence of the Divine Lord all around, not however quite so conscious of his absolute dependence on the Divine Being as the followers of Sri Ramanujacharya would have it. Besides the systems of Vedanta now mentioned, there are several others which, like the three foregoing ones, admit the reality of an external universe, either existing quite apart from Atman, or as having actually emanated from Atman.

24. Distinguished from all these systems and standing apart by itself is that system of Vedanta which maintains- an absolute unity of Atman, the One Reality, whereof all duality is an illusory manifestation. Unlike other systems of philosophy and religion it upholds an absolute identity of God and the individual soul as the One Existence and Light. It teaches that liberation from the bonds of samsara consists in a complete realisation of this oneness of the Self, the liberated soul seeing all in the one true Self and the one Self in all. The whole universe which seems to be so real to an ordinary being does not at all appear to the liberated

and if he ever sees the universe at all, he sees it as a manifestation of his own Self, of the Omniscient Isvara who, by the power of illusion which is always under His control, can bring into manifestation the whole universe by His own free will. Either way the universe has no real existence apart from the Atman by whose light it appears and in whose being it has its existence.

25. Such, in brief, are the main conclusions embodied in the Vedanta Doctrine as Sri Sankaracharya has expounded it. As establishing the absolute non-duality of the One Self, the One Existence and Light, the system is known as the Advaita-Vada by pre-eminence. The Advaita. Doctrine is developed in all its details in the commentaries on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-gita and Sariraka-mimamsa-sutras, by its eminent Founder and by his equally eminent disciple and literary collaborator, Suresvaracharya, known respectively as the Bhashyakara and the Vartikakara,--the one laying down the foundation and building the superstructure of the system, and the other filling up the gaps, symmetrising and embellishing the whole. Between them, the Advaita Doctrine is completed and established against the other systems of philosophy and religion, orthodox as well as heterodox. The main outlines of the system are delineated in a concise and telling form by the Founder in his Dakshinamurti-Stotra,--an Ode to