The Vaiseshikas and Sankhyas do not claim sentiency for the atoms and the Pradhana, which they respectively hold to be the cause of the universe. Sruti (Vide Chhandogya-upanishad, 6-2)

declares that creation proceeds from a self-conscious Being, Himself becoming the universe in its manifold aspects. Consciousness and activity are never found in insentient matter unassociated with a self-conscious entity. From this it necessarily follows that creation proceeds from a self-conscious Principle who can think and act. Thus, according to the Sruti, the universe cannot be said to actually proceed from the insentient atoms or the insentient Pradhana as such, or even from either of these acted on by the will of a self-conscious Being, of an extra-cosmic God, existing quite apart from the matter out of which the universe is built. On the other hand, the Sruti teaches that the universe proceeds from Isvara by an act of will, that He is both the efficient and the material cause of the universe. Though He is immutable in Himself, not subject to any change, not affected by anything whatsoever, still it may be supposed that He thinks and acts, is conscious of an external world and acts upon it, when viewed in association with His Maya-Sakti, the power of illusion containing within it the potentialities of the universe as made up of causes and effects.

14. By His Kriya-Sakti or energy of activity assuming the form of Time, milk

is transformed into curd. By His Jnana-Sakti or energy of intelligence, the universe comes into being as made up of the and the objects of perception.

The Sankhya holds that an effect comes into being independently of a sentient being, and adduces, in evidence of his theory, the fact of milk transforming itself into curd without the intervention of a sentient being. As against this, the Vedantin holds that it is the Isvara dwelling, as the Sruti (Bri-Up. 5-7-15) declares, in all objects of creation controlling and guiding them from within, who, by His Kriya-Sakti, assuming the form of Time acts upon milk so as to transform it into curd. Milk by itself cannot become curd. If it could, then it would ever be changing into curd. Again, there is a state of Maya in which it is associated with a semblance of Brahman's consciousness and forms the consciousness of Isvara, the author of the universe, who, at the beginning of creation, is said to have had before his view all that was to be created, and from whom proceeds our consciousness of the universe. This consciousness of Isvara is what is called Jnana-Sakti, the energy of intelligence. Itself thus assuming the form of intelligence, Maya converts its basis, Brahman associated with Maya, into a conscious entity, while, it also presents itself to His view as

the universe to be created, as the object of perception. Thus by Jnana-Sakti of Isvara the universe comes into being.