THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

""""""""""""HISTORY OF THE WORD "MAYA" 23Here itprakrtim svam adhisthayasambhavamy atmamayayameansHere it meanson God isspokenwill-power. *(iv. 6).Daivi hy esa gunamayimama mdyd duratyaya,mam eva ye prapadyante"mayam etam taranti te (vii. 14).illusion," which being dependentof as "divine."wayayapahrtajnanaasuram bhavam asritah(vii. 15).Here, too,the same sense ofillusion."bhramayan sarvabrmtam"yantrarudhani mayaya(xviii. 61).Here, too, it means the great illusive Power."Now let us turn to the System of the Vedanta,properly so called as one of the six systems or schoolsof Indian philosophy. The Sutras (aphorisms,condensed formulas) which constitute this systemare called the Brahma-Sutras or the Veddnta-Sutras,and are 555 in number. The word mdyd, however,occurs only in one of these (iii. 2. 3), which runsthusMayamatram tu kartsnyena anabhivyaktasvarupatvatwhere, speaking of the nature of a dream, the dreamworld ispronounced to be mere illusion." Max1 Cf. Deussen, Die Sutras des Vedanta, Leipzig, 1887,p. 504 ; Thibaut, Vedanta-Sutras, Part II (vol. xxxviii. ofS.B.E.), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1896, p. 134."J