central idea in the whole scheme of Bengal Vaishnavism, Bengal Vaishnavism has always repudiated the Samkara-Vedantic doctrine of Maya or Illusion as rank heresy. To it the world is real. All social relations are real. Nature and man are both real. But this reality has two aspects; one, what may be called the eternally realised aspect; the other, the progressively realising aspect. The world, as we see it, is in a process of progres- sive realisation. But the explanation of this progressive realisation must be sought and found in that aspect of the world wherein it is eternally realised. All objects, natural and human, and all relations in this world exist in their eternally realised state in the Being of the Lord. The sun, the moon, the starry heaven, the vegetable world, the animal and the human world,— all these exist in their eternally realised perfection in the Being of the Lord. All these are elements of His Prakriti. This Prakriti exists from eternity to eternity in the Being of the Lord, though for purposes of Leela differentiated from Him from eternity to eternity. In creation, or more correctly speaking, in the creative process, all objects, natural and human, exist as progressively realising themselves, moving
