Colonel Krnnevy on the Védanta System. 413 
mitris,* the whole of this (universe) comes into existence in due succession.’ This word 
is derived from the root md ‘to measure,’ and implies the thing which measures space : 
as good a definition, perhaps, as human reason can give of matter. These abstract 
inquiries have always occupied the Hindis, but they have proceeded in a way different 
from ourselves: they have attempted to begin at the Source of all things, and to come 
down the stream accounting for all our perceptions; while the metaphysicians of 
Europe have endeavoured to rise ‘ from Nature, up to Nature’s God,’ and thus to reach 
the Fountain of life. 
“ It may be necessary to say a few words with regard to the statement of the Colonel, 
that Mr. Colebrooke has asserted that the Véddntins identify the Creator with the 
creation, and that he thus incorrectly turns the Véddntd system into one of pure 
materialism. The Hindiis undoubtedly make Nature a dependent existence, and so 
far identify the Creator with it. Nature must be either a dependent or an absolute 
existence: if the latter, we shall then have a duality of which God and Nature are 
the heads; and this view cannot be intended to be imputed by Colonel Vans Kennedy 
to the Hinda metaphysicians of any of the schools. The Deity is therefore identified 
with Nature as its Source, and this is so far from conveying the idea of pantheism, 
that even in Menu, where the system of Capita is followed, the Deity is made 
the author of Nature, and is declared, even in his plastic character as BraumA, to 
be sarvabhiitamayat ‘made up of all beings.’ In the comment of Curtca, on the 
first passage already quoted, it is expressly stated, that Nature is mdnasa-srishti ‘an 
intellectual creation.’ Mr. Colebrooke, therefore, is in no way chargeable with incon- 
sistency or incorrectness in saying that the Véddntins identify the Creator with Nature, 
and consider him as the efficient and material cause of the universe, for this is done by 
them in common with the followers of the remaining dars‘an'as. The opposite views, 
arising from these considerations, may be summed up in a few words: an intellectual 
system supposes Gop Is ALL; a material, and therefore pantheistic view, involves the 
idea that att 1s Gop. The first has a spiritual, and the second a material basis.” 
If any support were considered necessary to the view of the subject taken 
in the foregoing remarks, it might be found in the subjoined extracts from 
the Translations of several principal Books, Passages, and Texts of the Védas 
and Védanta, published by the R4ja Rammohun Roy: they are taken from 
the London edition of 1832. 
1. From the “ Abridgment of the Véddnt,” p. 15. 
‘ God is the efficient cause of the universe, as a potter is of earthen pots; and he is 
also the material cause of it, the same as the earth is the material cause of the different 
earthen pots, or as a rope, at an inadvertent view taken for a snake, is the material 
cause of the conceived existence of the snake, which appears to be true by the sup- 
%* Matra is a feminine noun in Sanscrit, as materia is in Latin; and both mean the substance 
of which things are made. + Menu L,, v. vii. 
8H 2 
