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are called as the material cause and the efficient cause,
respectively.
But this is not the end of the story behind the simple object
that a wooden table is. One could ask why would the carpenter
decide to make a table at the first place. Obviously, he must be
sure that someone will use it. If nobody were interested in a
table then no carpenter would make it. Thus, there has to be an
end-user who will enjoy the table. The end-user (called the
first cause or the hidden cause) may not be directly causing
the transformation of the wood into the table yet he is a cause
in the sense that if he weren't there then the carpenter wouldn't
take the trouble of making a table. In conclusion, we have seen
that an object must have three causes: 1) the material cause, 2)
the efficient cause, and 3) the first cause. In the present case
of a wooden table, the three causes were a log of wood, a
carpenter, and an end-user. It should be pointed out here that
the material cause (wood) in the present case, is an inert
substance void of life while the other two causes are conscious
beings.
Having established the above framework, Vedic philosophers
state that the causes of the creation are: 1) the matter in its
most primordial form is the material Cause, called
prakrti,
2)
God, the all-knowing, all-pervading entity is the efficient cause,
and 3) the tiny individual conscious souls who are infinite in
number are the first cause(s). There is one to one
correspondence: The table is made out of wood by a carpenter
for an end-user. The creation is made out of matter by God for
the souls. As such wood was an inert substance that was acted
upon by a conscious being. Similarly, matter is an inert
substance void of consciousness that is acted upon by God. As
we saw that the carpenter and the end-user human being were
conscious beings; so is true with God and the individual souls
having intrinsic consciousness. Among many attributes that
these three primary entities possess, the commonest three are
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