1. Creation of the Universe - Who Why When

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Creation of the World: Who, Why and How?

Article of the Month June 2010

While today it has become a fashion amongst the scientific community to callthemselves atheists, it was not always so. In fact, amongst the truly great, it was

exactly the opposite, as is evident from the following incident in the life of thefamous scientist Isaac Newton.

Newton had a friend who did not believe in God. He was always asserting that thecreation of the world and the activities in it do not imply any god. Once Newton was

sitting by the side of a marvelous model of the solar system, absorbed in thethoughts of planetary motion. At that time his friend entered and started gazing atthe model with great curiosity. After sometime he asked Newton:

"Isaac, who made this?"

Without even lifting his head, Newton replied: "Nobody".

"Isaac, I am asking about this wonderful model. Who made this?"

"I told you no one."

The friend was peeved. Raising his voice, he asked, "Are you kidding me? This isworking so wonderfully and when I ask you who made it you say No one. What doyou mean?"

"My dear friend, if no one is necessary to create the solar system, do you mean tosay that someone is necessary to make a trivial model of it?"

This marvelous world needs a creator much more marvelous than itself. However,

questions like how God created this world, why did He create it, how is this worlddifferent (or non-different) from its creator, what is the nature of the creator whocreated this immensely diverse world, all these are bound to spring up in ones

mind. The group of ancient scriptures, collectively known as the Upanishads, amplyexplain these points. These exalted texts lay down the foundations of Vedicphilosophy on a firm grounding, in a sublime yet forceful manner.


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The Upanishads begin with the stockexample of a pot and pot-maker.

The pot-maker creates a pot using clay

and a potters wheel. Thus we see thatthe creation of a pot requires threedifferent causes:

1). The Potter: This is known as the

Efficient Cause (Nimitta Karana inSanskrit)

2). The Clay: Material Cause (UpadanaKarana)

3). The Wheel: The implement used tocreate the pot (Sahakari Karana).

According to the ancient scriptures, God is at

once all the three causes of the world. That is,the stuff (clay) out of which this world is madeis God, the one who caused it (potter) is alsoGod and the implement used for it is also God.In the technical language of Vedanta, this

Supreme God is known as Brahman. In fact,the unambiguous definition of God given byVeda Vyasa is God is that from which the worldoriginates, sustains and then finally dissolvesback into. (Brahma Sutra 1.1.2)

A Potter at Work

Brahma Sutra Bhasya ofShankaracharya


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Doubt: We seeeverywhere, as in the case

of the pot, that all the threecauses are different. Howthen is it possible that all

the three are same in thecase of the universe?

Resolution: This is a very

important and basicquestion. In fact, it formsthe very foundation of allVedanta. Though it is right

to say that generally thethree causes are different,there are also cases where

it is not so. Consider theexample of a spider making

a web. The spider alone isall three causes for the web

material, efficient andimplemental.

Thus we have a clear example of all the three causes coinciding in one. Similarly,

God or Brahman is at once all the three causes for the world. Therefore, because ofthis counter example, this axiom of the scriptures cannot be rejected.

However, on accepting the above hypothesis, many objections come to a thinkingmind. The ever compassionate scriptures have a resolution to each of them:

1). Objection of the Non-difference Between the Eater andthat which is Eaten

Objection: If God be considered the only cause of the world, then there is nothingdifferent from It. In such a case, the distinction between a subject and its objectwould vanish. For example, if both Devadatta and the rice he eats are formed out of

the same One God, then there would be no difference between the eater and thatwhat is eaten. This would amount to saying that Devadatta eats himself, which isobviously absurd. Therefore, the above declaration of God as the only cause of thisworld is invalid.

Resolution: This objection is not correct. Consider the example of a hammer andanvil. Both are in essence made of iron, even then, to our eyes, the hammer is not

anvil and the anvil is not the hammer, both are different. Therefore, because ofbeing different modifications, even though they have the same material cause(iron), there is scope for interaction between the two. One beats and the other getsbeaten up. Even then, essentially, the iron neither beats nor gets beaten. It is only

the two modifications of iron which interact with each other. In a similar manner, thesubject and the object can interact, even though they are formed of the samematerial, and Devadatta can enjoy his rice without any disturbance.

Spider Web


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The Objection of the Lack of Motive

Objection: God cannot be the creator of the world because He has no motive to do

so. It is pretty evident from our everyday experience that any reasonably intelligentperson will not begin any work, however insignificant it may be, if he has no purposeto achieve. Here we are talking about the supreme work of the creation of thisunimaginably complex and diverse world. Moreover, the Upanishads clearly statethat God is self-content (apta-kama, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.21). If we

attribute some selfish motive to God, then it would be contradictory to His self-content nature. If we say that He has created this world without any motive, thenwe know that only someone who is mad does something without any purpose, likewe often see madmen laughing or running without any reason. This is not feasible at

all. Hence, your God cannot be the creator of this world.

Resolution: The scriptures resolve this objection by pointing out that God created

this world for the sake of all beings (jivas). Jivas have performed various karmasover their numerous births. During the dissolution of the world, saving these karmasin their seed forms, all jivas merged into God. To facilitate the reaping the fruits ofthese karma for the jivas, God sets out to create the world again. It is like the

father, who, even though he has no need for it himself, prepares a toy for his child

weeping for the same. Similarly does God create this world for jivas.

However, the remarkable thing about this world is that not only does it provide themeans for the inevitable reaping of our karmic fruits, but at the same time it alsogives ample opportunity during the whole process to facilitate our Moksha too.

God is Partial and Cruel

Objection: There are a lot of dissimilarities in this world. Some people get a chanceto lead a happy life, while animals generally lead an unhappy life. Some people live

a mixed life, partly happy and partly unhappy. Therefore, your God is partial. Notonly this, during the dissolution of the world, all jivas experience only extreme pain.Hence, not only is your God partial, He is also extremely cruel. Therefore, He cannot

be the creator of this world.

Resolution: The perceived inequality in the happiness of various beings of thisworld is due to the difference in their karma. It is not Gods fault at all. Gods

creates this world taking into account our previous karma. If this were not so, Hewould be like an employer who pays all his workers the same salary, regardless oftheir relative work. The dissolution of the world too is according to the collective

karma of all beings. Hence God is neither partial nor cruel.

The Nature of the World is Different from God, Hence GodCannot be Its Creator

Objection 1: According to the definition of God in the Upanishads, when the worlddissolves (pralaya), it merges into God. This means at that time all the attributes of

the world merge into God. Now, this world is not only diverse, but also impurebecause it consists of pleasure and pain, attachment and hatred, joy and sorrow.Therefore, while merging into God, this world will contaminate Him, who is Eternally

Pure, with its own impurity. Thus, God cannot be the creator of this world.

Resolution: When ornaments melt back into gold, their attributes do notcontaminate it. An effect merging back into its material cause doesnt contaminate

it. Not only that, even at the time of its existence an object doesnt have any affect


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whatsoever on its cause. An ornament may be big, loose, formed, deformed orbroken. However, all these modifications are only in the ornament, not in the gold.Nobody says that gold is loose or broken. All such attributes are directed only at the

ornament not at the gold. Similarly, neither when it is born, nor during its existence,nor when it dissolves back into It, does this world have any affect on God.

Objection 2: God is a conscious principle. Hence, we can believe Him to be the

efficient cause of the universe, much like a potter is for the pot. However, aconscious principle (chetan) cannot be the cause of this inert (jada) world. An effectcannot differ in nature from its cause. The characteristic features of the cause must

inhere in the effect. The world as an effect of God does not have His qualities.Therefore, God cannot be the material cause of this world.

Resolution: This objection can be divided into three parts:

a). All of Gods qualities are not present in this world, thus He cannot be the creator.

b). None of His qualities is present in this world, hence He cannot be the creator.

c). Since this world is inert, lacking the quality of consciousness (which God has), He

cannot be its creator.

Resolution a): If all the qualities of the cause inhere in the effect then there wouldbe no difference between the cause and its effect. In such a case the effect wouldnot be able to manifest itself. Therefore, it is not possible for all qualities of thecause to appear in the effect. If all features of God were seen in this world, there

would remain no difference between Him and this world. Then there would be nohope of proving the Upanishadic principle of creation of this world. Therefore, thisobjection is not valid.

Resolution b): The objection that none of Gods qualities are discernible in themanifested world does have substance. If not even one of Gods attributes is present

in this world then God cannot be proved to be the cause of this world. Therefore, atleast one of Gods qualities definitely needs to inhere in this world. The question is,which of Gods attributes is present in this world?

To answer this question, let us consider the following statements:

1). God is unchanging while the world is ever-changing.

2). God is consciousness but the world is inert.


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What we observe in common in the firstand second parts of both sentences is theword is, i.e., the fact of being in

existence. This is the attribute which ispresent both in the cause (God) and theeffect (world). The great Shankaracharyasays: the characteristic feature of God,

i.e. the fact of existence, is found inheringin the manifested world. (Commentary onthe Brahma Sutras, 2.1.6). Thus, theargument that not even one feature of God

is present in this world does not hold.

Resolution c): The last objection says that consciousness, which is a characteristicfeature of God, should be present in this world. To this we pose a counter query.

How can you make a rule that a particular feature of the cause should be present inthe effect? Like the material sugar cannot be touched in lemonade but onlyperceived through its sweetness, similarly, even though the conscious principle is

not present in the physical world, we can still conclude that God is the materialcause of this world.

Even after this discussion, agreeing that God, who is of the nature of consciousness,

could create this diversely opposite inert world, is still hard for some. For suchskeptics, an example from modern science will suffice. According to science, thematerial cause of water is oxygen and hydrogen. Out of the two, hydrogen is

combustible, while oxygen is a supporter of combustion. However, their productwater has none of these characteristics, rather it is the opposite, having the propertyof extinguishing fire. Whats more, water is liquid, as against to both oxygen andhydrogen, which are gases. Therefore, here we have an example where an effect

doesnt have a property existing in its cause, namely liquidity; not only that, it has aproperty diametrically opposite to its material cause namely being an extinguisherof fire. Therefore, that this inert world has as its cause God, who is of the nature ofconsciousness, is no contradiction at all.

References and Further Reading:

Bharati, Swami Paramananda. Foundations of Dharma. Bangalore 2008. Bharati, Swami Paramananda. Lectures on Vedanta (80 MP3 Files). Bharati, Swami Paramananda.Vedanta Prabodh: Varanasi, 2010.

Shri Adi Shankaracharya


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Date, V.H. Vedanta Explained (Samkara's Commentary on The Brahma-sutras in Two Volumes): Delhi, 1973.

Goyandka, Shri Harikrishnadas. Translation of Shankaracharya's Commentary

on the Upanishads (Hindi): Gorakhpur, 2006. Goyandka, Shri Harikrishnadas. Vedanta Darshan (Explanation of the Brahma

Sutras in Hindi): Gorakhpur, 2009. Gupta Som Raj. Upanisads with the Commentary of Sankaracarya, Five

Volumes. Delhi. Jacob, G.A. A Concordance to the Principal Upanisads and Bhagavadgita.

Delhi, 1999. Sivananda, Swami. Brahma Sutras: Tehri-Garhwal, 1999.

T h i s a r t i c l e b y N i t i n K um a r .

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