Indra is declared to have assumed many shapes by his māyā. Māyā is the power of Īśwara from which the world arises…it is Īśwara who has the power of manifestation and māyā is that which measures out, moulds forms in the formless….Brahman is logically superior to Īśwara who has the power of manifestation….The Beyond is not an annulling or a cancellation of the world of becoming, but its transfiguration. The Absolute is the life of this life, the truth of this truth….While the world is created by the power of māyā of Īśwara, the individual soul is bound down by it in the sense of avidyā or ignorance. We are subject to this delusion when we look upon the multiplicity of objects and egos as final and fundamental. Such a view falsifies the truth. It is the illusion of ignorance…while the world process reveals certain possibilities of the Real, it also conceals the full nature of the Real.

• A book by Donald A. Braue titled “ Māyā” – In Radhakrishnan’s thought …is a must-read for every serious student of this subject. Here there is an elaborate discussion on ‘Six Meanings Other Than Illusion’ for the word māyā in Radhakrishnan’s writings :-

1. māyā¹ : as inexplicable mystery : Radhakrishnan is convinced that reality in its entirety cannot be grasped by the discursive intellect. This conviction shapes the first meaning of māyā. Most often, māyā¹ signifies the inexplicable mystery surrounding the relation between Brahman and the world….

            We can never understand how the ultimate Reality is related to the world of plurality. Since the two are heterogeneous, and every attempt at explanation is bound to fail. This incomprehensibility is brought out by the term māyā¹. When the Absolute is taken as pure being, its relation to the world is inexplicable anivārcanīya.

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