शिवज्ञानबोध (मेय्कण्डार - शैव सिद्धान्त का आधारभूत दार्शनिक सूत्र ग्रन्थ)

24 SIVAGNANA BOTHAM.
of the soil (God). This inability is cansed by the soul's want of
self-knowledge and self-action, being covered by Anava Mala.
In plainer language, no man would do a particular act tending to
produce evil if he had the full knowledge to calculate all its
consequences. It is therefore man's ignorance that is the cause
of all evil. The only assumption here is that man in his original
state is ignorant or imperfect or is shrouded by Agnanam or
Anava. Grant this; and start the soul in the cycles of evolu-
tion, then the whole law of Karma comes into operation. This
doctrine therefore is not to be confounded with the doctrine of
Fate or necessity. Evolution or births are the only modes
provided for attaining perfect knowledge; and for getting births
or setting us on the wheel of Evolution we require God's help.
This original assumption is treated of in the next illustration.
(c.) That man is ignorant in knowledge (சிற்றறிவு) and is
imprudent in his actions (சிறுதொழில்) is a fact and is taken as a
fact by this school and is not converted into a Myth or Athya-
sam by a process of verbal jugglery. The explanation offered
by the Idealists is no explanation at all, as after all the
explanations offered, the final fact to be accounted for, still
remains unexplained, namely Ignorance or Agnanam or
Aviddhei, the cause of all evil, of all pain. We can explain a
joint effect by assigning the laws of the separate causes; or we
may explain an antecedent and consequent by discovering the
intermediate links; or the explanation may consist in reducing
several laws into one more general Law. None of these
modes are adopted by the latter school but the explanation
attempted falls clearly within one or other modes of fallacious or
illusory explanations; and as Dr. Bain points out, the greatest
fallacy of all is the supposition that something is to be desired
beyond the most generalized conjunction or sequences of pheno-
mena; and instancing the case of the union of body and mind,
he observes that the case does not admit of any other explana-