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RELIGIOUS SECTS
and wife. He approached her, and thus were human beings produced". In these passages it is not unlikely that reference is made to the primitive tradition of the origin of mankind, but there is also a figurative representation of the first indication of wish or will in the Supreme Being. Being devoid of all qualities whatever, he was alone, until he permitted the wish to be multiplied, to be generated within himself. This wish being put into action, it is said, became united with its parent, and then created beings were produced. Thus this first manifestation of divine power is termed Ichchhárúpa, personified desire, and the creator is designated as Svechchhamaya', united with his own will, whilst in the Vedanta philosophy, and the popular sects, such as that of KABIR, and others, in which all created things are held to be illusory, the Sakti, or active will of the deity, is always designated
1 As. Res. VIII, 420 [Colebrooke's Essays, p. 37. Brihad Árany. Up. I, 4, 3].
3 Thus, in the Brahma Vaivartta Purána, which has a whole section dedicated to the manifestations of the female principle, or a Prakriti Khanda:
एवंरूपं बिभ्रद्भगवानेक एव सः । दिग्भिश्च नभसा सार्द्धं शून्यं विश्वं ददर्श ह ॥ आलोच्य मनसा सर्वमेकमेवासहायवान् ।
खेच्छया स्रष्टुमारेभे सृष्टिं खेच्छामयः प्रभुः ॥
"The Lord was alone invested with the Supreme form, and beheld the whole world, with the sky and regions of space, a void. Having contemplated all things in his mind, he, without any assistant, began with the will to create all things,-He, the Lord, endowed with the wish for creation."
