BOOK I. YOGA METAPHYSICS
CHAPTER I
PRAKRTI
However dogmatic a system of philosophical enquiry may appear to us, it must have been preceded by a criticism of the observed facts of experience. The details of the criticism and the processes of self-argumentation by which the thinker arrived at his theory of the Universe might indeed be suppressed, as being relatively unimportant, but a thoughtful reader would detect them as lying in the background behind the shadow of the general speculations, but at the same time setting them off before our view. An Aristotle or a Patañjali may not make any direct mention of the arguments which led him to a dogmatic assertion of his theories, but for a reader who intends to understand them thoroughly it is absolutely necessary that he should read them in the light as far as possible of the inferred presuppositions and inner arguments of their minds; it is in this way alone that he can put himself in the same line of thinking with the thinker whom he is willing to follow, and can grasp him to the fullest extent. In offering this short study of the Pātañjala metaphysics, I shall therefore try to supplement it with such of my inferences of the presuppositions of Patañjali’s mind, which I think will add to the clearness of the exposition of his views, though I am fully alive to the difficulties of making such inferences about a philosopher whose psychological, social, religious and moral environments differed so widely from ours.
An enquiry into the relations of the mental phenomena to the physical has sometimes given the first start to philosophy. The relation of mind to matter is such an important problem of philosophy that the existing philosophical systems may roughly be classified according to the relative importance that has been attached to mind or to matter. There have been chemical, mechanical and biological conceptions which have ignored mind as a separate entity and have dogmatically affirmed it to be the product of matter only.[[1]] There have been theories of the other extreme, which have dispensed with matter altogether and have boldly affirmed that matter as such has no reality at all, and that thought is the only thing which can be called Real in the highest sense. All matter as such is non-Being or Māyā or Avidyā. There have been Nihilists like the Śūnyavādi Buddhists who have gone so far as to assert that neither matter nor mind exists. Some have asserted that matter is only thought externalized, some have regarded the principle of matter as the unknowable Thing-in-itself, some have regarded them as separate independent entities held within a higher reality called God, or as two of his attributes only, and some have regarded their difference as being only one of grades of intelligence, one merging slowly and imperceptibly into the other and held together in concord with each other by pre-established harmony.
Underlying the metaphysics of the Yoga system of thought as taught by Patañjali and as elaborated by his commentators we find an acute analysis of matter and thought. Matter on the one hand, mind, the senses, and the ego on the other are regarded as nothing more than two different kinds of modifications of one primal cause, the Prakṛti. But the self-intelligent principle called Purusha (spirit) is distinguished from them. Matter consists only of three primal qualities or rather substantive entities, which he calls the Sattva or intelligence-stuff, Rajas or energy, and Tamas—the factor of obstruction or mass or inertia. It is extremely difficult truly to conceive of the nature of these three kinds of entities or Guṇas, as he calls them, when we consider that these three elements alone are regarded as composing all phenomena, mental and physical. In order to comprehend them rightly it will be necessary to grasp thoroughly the exact relation between the mental and the physical. What are the real points of agreement between the two? How can the same elements be said to behave in one case as the conceiver and in the other case as the conceived? Thus Vācaspati says:—
“The reals (guṇas) have two forms, viz. the determiner or the perceiver, and the perceived or the determined. In the aspect of the determined or the perceived, the guṇas evolve themselves as the five infra-atomic potentials, the five gross elements and their compounds. In the aspect of perceiver or determiner, they form the modifications of the ego together with the senses.”[[2]]
It is interesting to notice here the two words used by Vācaspati in characterising the twofold aspect of the guṇa viz. vyavasāyātmakatva, their nature as the determiner or perceiver, and vyavaseyātmakatva, their nature as determined or perceived. The elements which compose the phenomena of the objects of perception are the same as those which form the phenomena of the perceiving; their only distinction is that one is the determined and the other is the determiner. What we call the psychosis involving intellection, sensing and the ego, and what may be called the infra-atoms, atoms and their combinations, are but two different types of modifications of the same stuff of reals. There is no intrinsic difference in nature between the mental and the physical.
The mode of causal transformation is explained by Vijñāna Bhikshu in his commentary on the system of Sāṃkhya as if its functions consisted only in making manifest what was already there in an unmanifested form. Thus he says, “just as the image already existing in the stone is only manifested by the activity of the statuary, so the causal activity also generates only that activity by which an effect is manifested as if it happened or came into being at the present moment.”[[3]] The effects are all always existent, but some of them are sometimes in an unmanifested state. What the causal operation, viz. the energy of the agent and the suitable collocating instruments and conditions, does is to set up an activity by which the effect may be manifested at the present moment.
With Sāṃkhya-Yoga, sattva, rajas and tamas are substantive entities which compose the reality of the mental and the physical.[[4]] The mental and the physical represent two different orders of modifications, and one is not in any way superior to the other. As the guṇas conjointly form the manifold without, by their varying combinations, as well as all the diverse internal functions, faculties and phenomena, they are in themselves the absolute potentiality of all things, mental and physical. Thus Vyāsa in describing the nature of the knowable, writes: “The nature of the knowable is now described:—The knowable, consisting of the objects of enjoyment and liberation, as the gross elements and the perceptive senses, is characterised by three essential traits—illumination, energy and inertia. The sattva is of the nature of illumination. Rajas is of the nature of energy. Inertia (tamas) is of the nature of inactivity. The guṇa entities with the above characteristics are capable of being modified by mutual influence on one another, by their proximity. They are evolving. They have the characteristics of conjunction and separation. They manifest forms by one lending support to the others by proximity. None of these loses its distinct power into those of the others, even though any one of them may exist as the principal factor of a phenomenon with the others as subsidiary thereto. The guṇas forming the three classes of substantive entities manifest themselves as such by their similar kinds of power. When any one of them plays the rôle of the principal factor of any phenomenon, the others also show their presence in close contact. Their existence as subsidiary energies of the principal factor is inferred by their distinct and independent functioning, even though it be as subsidiary qualities.”[[5]] The Yoga theory does not acknowledge qualities as being different from substances. The ultimate substantive entities are called guṇas, which as we have seen are of three kinds. The guṇa entities are infinite in number; each has an individual existence, but is always acting in co-operation with others. They may be divided into three classes in accordance with their similarities of behaviour (śīla). Those which behave in the way of intellection are called sattva, those which behave in the way of producing effort of movement are called rajas, and those which behave differently from these and obstruct their process are called tamas. We have spoken above of a primal cause prakṛti. But that is not a separate category independent of the guṇas. Prakṛti is but a name for the guṇa entities when they exist in a state of equilibrium. All that exists excepting the purushas are but the guṇa entities in different kinds of combination amongst themselves. The effects they produce are not different from them but it is they themselves which are regarded as causes in one state and effects in another. The difference of combination consists in this, that in some combinations there are more of sattva entities than rajas or tamas, and in others more of rajas or more of tamas. These entities are continually uniting and separating. But though they are thus continually dividing and uniting in new combinations the special behaviour or feature of each class of entities remains ever the same. Whatever may be the nature of any particular combination the sattva entities participating in it will retain their intellective functions, rajas their energy functions, and tamas the obstructing ones. But though they retain their special features in spite of their mutual difference they hold fast to one another in any particular combination (tulyajātīyātulyajātīyaśaktibhedānupātinaḥ, which Bhikshu explains as aviśesheṇopashṭambhakasvabhāvāḥ). In any particular combination it is the special features of those entities which predominate that manifest themselves, while the other two classes lend their force in drawing the minds of perceivers to it as an object as a magnet draws a piece of iron. Their functionings at this time are undoubtedly feeble (sūkshmavṛttimantaḥ) but still they do exist.[[6]]
In the three guṇas, none of them can be held as the goal of the others. All of them are equally important, and the very varied nature of the manifold represents only the different combinations of these guṇas as substantive entities. In any combination one of the guṇas may be more predominant than the others, but the other guṇas are also present there and perform their functions in their own way. No one of them is more important than the other, but they serve conjointly one common purpose, viz. the experiences and the liberation of the purusha, or spirit. They are always uniting, separating and re-uniting again and there is neither beginning nor end of this (anyonyamithunāḥ sarvve naishāmādisamprayogo viprayogo vā upalabhyate).
They have no purpose of their own to serve, but they all are always evolving, as Dr. Seal says, “ever from a relatively less differentiated, less determinate, less coherent whole, to a relatively more differentiated, more determinate, more coherent whole”[[7]] for the experiences and liberation of purusha, or spirit. When in a state of equilibrium they cannot serve the purpose of the purusha, so that state of the guṇas is not for the sake of the purusha; it is its own independent eternal state. All the other three stages of evolution, viz. the liṅga (sign), aviśesha (unspecialised) and viśesha (specialised) have been caused for the sake of the purusha.[[8]] Thus Vyāsa writes:—[[9]] “The objects of the purusha are no cause of the original state (aliṅga). That is to say, the fulfilment of the objects of the purusha is not the cause which brings about the manifestation of the original state of prakṛti in the beginning. The fulfilment of the objects of the purusha is not therefore the reason of the existence of that ultimate state. Since it is not brought into existence by the need of the fulfilment of the purusha’s objects it is said to be eternal. As to the three specialised states, the fulfilment of the objects of the purusha becomes the cause of their manifestation in the beginning. The fulfilment of the objects of the purusha is not therefore the reason for the existence of the cause. Since it is not brought into existence by the purusha’s objects it is said to be eternal. As to the three specialised states, the fulfilment of the objects of the purusha being the cause of their manifestation in the beginning, they are said to be non-eternal.”
Vācaspati again says:—“The fulfilment of the objects of the purusha could be said to be the cause of the original state, if that state could bring about the fulfilment of the objects of the purusha, such as the enjoyment of sound, etc., or manifest the discrimination of the distinction between true self and other phenomena. If however it did that, it could not be a state of equilibrium,” (yadyaliṅgāvasthā śabdādyupabhogam vā sattvapurushānyatākhyātim vā purushārtham nirvarttayet tannrvarttane hi na sāmyavasthā syāt). This state is called the prakṛti. It is the beginning, indeterminate, unmediated and undetermined. It neither exists nor does it not exist, but is the principium of almost all existence. Thus Vyāsa describes it as “the state which neither is nor is not; that which exists and yet does not; that in which there is no non-existence; the unmanifested, the noumenon (lit. without any manifested indication), the background of all” (niḥsattāsattam niḥsadasat nirasat avyaktam aliṅgam pradhānam).[[10]] Vācaspati explains it as follows:—“Existence consists in possessing the capacity of effecting the fulfilment of the objects of the purusha. Non-existence means a mere imaginary trifle (e.g. the horn of a hare).” It is described as being beyond both these states of existence and non-existence. The state of the equipoise of the three guṇas of intelligence-stuff, inertia and energy, is nowhere of use in fulfilling the objects of the purusha. It therefore does not exist as such. On the other hand, it does not admit of being rejected as non-existent like an imaginary lotus of the sky. It is therefore not non-existent. But even allowing the force of the above arguments about the want of phenomenal existence of prakṛti on the ground that it cannot serve the objects of the purusha, the difficulty arises that the principles of Mahat, etc., exist in the state of the unmanifested also, because nothing that exists can be destroyed; and if it is destroyed, it cannot be born again, because nothing that does not exist can be born; it follows therefore that since the principles of mahat, etc., exist in the state of the unmanifested, that state can also affect the fulfilment of the objects of the purusha. How then can it be said that the unmanifested is not possessed of existence? For this reason, he describes it as that in which it exists and does not exist. This means that the cause exists in that state in a potential form but not in the form of the effect. Although the effect exists in the cause as mere potential power, yet it is incapable of performing the function of fulfilling the objects of the purusha; it is therefore said to be non-existent as such. Further he says that this cause is not such, that its effect is of the nature of hare’s horn. It is beyond the state of non-existence, that is, of the existence of the effect as mere nothing. If it were like that, then it would be like the lotus of the sky and no effect would follow.[[11]]
But as Bhikshu points out (Yoga-vārttika, II. 18) this prakṛti is not simple substance, for it is but the guṇa reals. It is simple only in the sense that no complex qualities are manifested in it. It is the name of the totality of the guṇa reals existing in a state of equilibrium through their mutual counter opposition. It is a hypothetical state of the guṇas preceding the states in which they work in mutual co-operation for the creation of the cosmos for giving the purushas a chance for ultimate release attained through a full enjoyment of experiences. Some European scholars have often asked me whether the prakṛti were real or whether the guṇas were real. This question, in my opinion, can only arise as a result of confusion and misapprehension, for it is the guṇas in a state of equilibrium that are called prakṛti. Apart from guṇas there is no prakṛti (guṇā eva prakṛtiśabdavācyā na tu tadatiriktā prakṛtirasti. Yoga-vārttika, II. 18). In this state, the different guṇas only annul themselves and no change takes place, though it must be acknowledged that the state of equipoise is also one of tension and action, which, however, being perfectly balanced does not produce any change. This is what is meant by evolution of similars (adṛśapariṇāma). Prakṛti as the equilibrium of the three guṇas is the absolute ground of all the mental and phenomenal modifications—pure potentiality.
Veṅkaṭa, a later Vaishṇava writer, describes prakṛti as one ubiquitous, homogeneous matter which evolves itself into all material productions by condensation and rarefaction. In this view the guṇas would have to be translated as three different classes of qualities or characters, which are found in the evolutionary products of the prakṛti. This will of course be an altogether different view of the prakṛti from that which is described in the Vyāsa-bhāshya, and the guṇas could not be considered as reals or as substantive entities in such an interpretation. A question arises, then, as to which of these two prakṛtis is the earlier conception. I confess that it is difficult to answer it. For though the Vaishṇava view is elaborated in later times, it can by no means be asserted that it had not quite as early a beginning as 2nd or 3rd century B.C. If Ahirbudhnyasamhitā is to be trusted then the Shashṭitantraśāstra which is regarded as an authoritative Sāṃkhya work is really a Vaishṇava work. Nothing can be definitely stated about the nature of prakṛti in Sāṃkhya from the meagre statement of the Kārikā. The statement in the Vyāsa-bhāshya is, however, definitely in favour of the interpretation that we have adopted, and so also the Sāṃkhya-sūtra, which is most probably a later work. Caraka’s account of prakṛti does not seem to be the prakṛti of Vyāsa-bhāshya for here the guṇas are not regarded as reals or substantive entities, but as characters, and prakṛti is regarded as containing its evolutes, mahat, etc., as its elements (dhātu). If Caraka’s treatment is the earliest view of Sāṃkhya that is available to us, then it has to be admitted that the earliest Sāṃkhya view did not accept prakṛti as a state of the guṇas, or guṇas as substantive entities. But the Yoga-sūtra, II. 19, and the Vyāsa-bhāshya support the interpretation that I have adopted here, and it is very curious that if the Sāṃkhya view was known at the time to be so different from it, no reference to it should have been made. But whatever may be the original Sāṃkhya view, both the Yoga view and the later Sāṃkhya view are quite in consonance with my interpretation.
In later Indian thinkers there had been a tendency to make a compromise between the Vedānta and Sāṃkhya doctrines and to identify prakṛti with the avidyā of the Vedāntists. Thus Lokācāryya writes:—“It is called prakṛti since it is the source of all change, it is called avidyā since it is opposed to knowledge, it is called māyā since it is the cause of diversion creation (prakṛtirityucyate vikārotpādakatvāt avidyā jñānavirodhitvāt māyā vicitrasṛshṭikaratvāt).”[[12]] But this is distinctly opposed to the Vyāsa-bhāshya which defines avidyā as vidyāviparītaṃ jñānāntaraṃ avidyā, i.e. avidyā is that other knowledge which is opposed to right knowledge. In some of the Upanishads, Svetāśvatara for example, we find that māyā and prakṛti are identified and the great god is said to preside over them (māyāṃ tu prakṛtiṃ vidyāt māyinaṃ tumaheśvaraṃ). There is a description also in the Ṛgveda, X. 92, where it is said that (nāsadāsīt na sadāsīt tadānīṃ), in the beginning there was neither the “Is” nor the “Is not,” which reminds one of the description of prakṛti (niḥsattāsattaṃ as that in which there is no existence or non-existence). In this way it may be shown from Gītā and other Sanskrit texts that an undifferentiated, unindividuated cosmic matter as the first principle, was often thought of and discussed from the earliest times. Later on this idea was utilised with modifications by the different schools of Vedāntists, the Sāṃkhyists and those who sought to make a reconciliation between them under the different names of prakṛti, avidyā and māyā. What avidyā really means according to the Pātañjala system we shall see later on; but here we see that whatever it might mean it does not mean prakṛti according to the Pātañjala system. Vyāsa-bhāshya, IV. 13, makes mention of māyā also in a couplet from Shashṭitantraśāstra;
guṇānāṃ paramaṃ rūpaṃ na dṛshṭipathamṛcchati
yattu dṛshṭipathaṃ prāptaṃ tanmāyeva sutucch akaṃ.
The real appearance of the guṇas does not come within the line of our vision. That, however, which comes within the line of vision is but paltry delusion and Vācaspati Miśra explains it as follows:—Prakṛti is like the māyā but it is not māyā. It is trifling (sutucchaka) in the sense that it is changing. Just as māyā constantly changes, so the transformations of prakṛti are every moment appearing and vanishing and thus suffering momentary changes. Prakṛti being eternal is real and thus different from māyā.
This explanation of Vācaspati’s makes it clear that the word māyā is used here only in the sense of illusion, and without reference to the celebrated māyā of the Vedāntists; and Vācaspati clearly says that prakṛti can in no sense be called māyā, since it is real.[[13]]
CHAPTER II
PURUSHA
We shall get a more definite notion of prakṛti as we advance further into the details of the later transformations of the prakṛti in connection with the purushas. The most difficult point is to understand the nature of its connection with the purushas. Prakṛti is a material, non-intelligent, independent principle, and the souls or spirits are isolated, neutral, intelligent and inactive. Then how can the one come into connection with the other?
In most systems of philosophy the same trouble has arisen and has caused the same difficulty in comprehending it rightly. Plato fights the difficulty of solving the unification of the idea and the non-being and offers his participation theory; even in Aristotle’s attempt to avoid the difficulty by his theory of form and matter, we are not fully satisfied, though he has shown much ingenuity and subtlety of thought in devising the “expedient in the single conception of development.”
The universe is but a gradation between the two extremes of potentiality and actuality, matter and form. But all students of Aristotle know that it is very difficult to understand the true relation between form and matter, and the particular nature of their interaction with each other, and this has created a great divergence of opinion among his commentators. It was probably to avoid this difficulty that the dualistic appearance of the philosophy of Descartes had to be reconstructed in the pantheism of Spinoza. Again we find also how Kant failed to bring about the relation between noumenon and phenomenon, and created two worlds absolutely unrelated to each other. He tried to reconcile the schism that he effected in his Critique of Pure Reason by his Critique of Practical Reason, and again supplemented it with his Critique of Judgment, but met only with dubious success.
In India also this question has always been a little puzzling, and before trying to explain the Yoga point of view, I shall first give some of the other expedients devised for the purpose, by the different schools of Advaita (monistic) Vedāntism.
I. The reflection theory of the Vedānta holds that the māyā is without beginning, unspeakable, mother of gross matter, which comes in connection with intelligence, so that by its reflection in the former we have Īśvara. The illustrations that are given to explain it both in Siddhāntaleśa[[14]] and in Advaita-Brahmasiddhi are only cases of physical reflection, viz. the reflection of the sun in water, or of the sky in water.
II. The limitation theory of the Vedānta holds that the all-pervading intelligence must necessarily be limited by mind, etc., so of necessity it follows that “the soul” is its limitation. This theory is illustrated by giving those common examples in which the Ākāśa (space) though unbounded in itself is often spoken of as belonging to a jug or limited by the jug and as such appears to fit itself to the shape and form of the jug and is thus called ghaṭāvacchinna ākāśa, i.e. space as within the jug.
Then we have a third school of Vedāntists, which seeks to explain it in another way:—The soul is neither a reflection nor a limitation, but just as the son of Kuntī was known as the son of Rādhā, so the pure Brahman by his nescience is known as the jīva, and like the prince who was brought up in the family of a low caste, it is the pure Brahman who by his own nescience undergoes birth and death, and by his own nescience is again released.[[15]]
The Sāṃkhya-sūtra also avails itself of the same story in IV. 1, “rājaputtravattattvopadeśāt,” which Vijñāna Bhikshu explains as follows:—A certain king’s son in consequence of his being born under the star Gaṇḍa having been expelled from his city and reared by a certain forester remains under the idea: “I am a forester.” Having learnt that he is alive, a certain minister informs him. “Thou art not a forester, thou art a king’s son.” As he, immediately having abandoned the idea of being an outcast, betakes himself to his true royal state, saying, “I am a king,” so too the soul realises its purity in consequence of instruction by some good tutor, to the effect—“Thou, who didst originate from the first soul, which manifests itself merely as pure thought, art a portion thereof.”
In another place there are two sūtras:—(1) niḥsaṅge’pi uparāgo vivekāt. (2) japāsphaṭikayoriva noparāgaḥ kintvabhimānaḥ. (1) Though it be associated still there is a tingeing through non-discrimination. (2) As in the case of the hibiscus and the crystal, there is not a tinge, but a fancy. Now it will be seen that all these theories only show that the transcendent nature of the union of the principle of pure intelligence is very difficult to comprehend. Neither the reflection nor the limitation theory can clear the situation from vagueness and incomprehensibility, which is rather increased by their physical illustrations, for the cit or pure intelligence cannot undergo reflection like a physical thing, nor can it be obstructed or limited by it. The reflection theory adduced by the Sāṃkhya-sūtra, “japāsphiṭikayoriva noparāgaḥ kintvabhimānaḥ,” is not an adequate explanation. For here the reflection produces only a seeming redness of the colourless crystal, which was not what was meant by the Vedāntists of the reflection school. But here, though the metaphor is more suitable to express the relation of purusha with the prakṛti, the exact nature of the relation is more lost sight of than comprehended. Let us now see how Patañjali and Vyāsa seek to explain it.
Let me quote a few sūtras of Patañjali and some of the most important extracts from the Bhāshya and try, as far as possible, to get the correct view:—
(1) dṛgdarśanaśaktyorekātmateva asmitā II. 6. (2) drashṭā dṛśimātraḥ śuddho’pi pratyayānupaśyaḥ II. 20. (3) tadartha eva drśyasya ātmā II. 21. (4) kṛtārthaṃ prati nashṭamapyanashṭaṃ tadanyasādhāraṇatvāt II. 22. (5) Svasvāmiśaktyoḥ svarūpopalabdhihetuḥ saṃyogah II. 22. (6) tadabhāvāt saṃyogābhāvo hānaṃ taddṛśeḥ kaivalyaṃ II. 25. (7) sattvapurushayoḥ śuddhisāmye kaivalyaṃ III. 25. (8) citerapratisaṃkramāyāstadākārāpattau svabuddhisaṃvedanaṃ IV. 22. (9) sattvapurushayoratyantāsaṅkīrṇayoḥ pratyayāvśesho bhogaḥ parārthatvāt svārthasaṃyamāt purushajñānam III. 35.
(1) The Ego-sense is the illusory appearance of the identity of the power as perceiver and the power as perceived.
(2) The seer though pure as mere “seeing” yet perceives the forms assumed by the psychosis (buddhi).
(3) It is for the sake of the purusha that the being of the knowable exists.
(4) For the emancipated person the world-phenomena cease to exist, yet they are not annihilated since they form a common field of experience for other individuals.
(5) The cause of the realisation of the natures of the knowable and purusha in consciousness is their mutual contact.
(6) Cessation is the want of mutual contact arising from the destruction of ignorance and this is called the state of oneness.
(7) This state of oneness arises out of the equality in purity of the purusha and buddhi or sattva.
(8) Personal consciousness arises when the purusha, though in its nature unchangeable, is cast into the mould of the psychosis.
(9) Since the mind-objects exist only for the purusha, experience consists in the non-differentiation of these two which in their natures are absolutely distinct; the knowledge of self arises out of concentration on its nature.
Thus in Yoga-sūtra, II. 6, dṛik or purusha the seer is spoken of as śakti or power as much as the prakṛti itself, and we see that their identity is only apparent. Vyāsa in his Bhāshya explains ekātmatā (unity of nature or identity) as avibhāgaprāptāviva, “as if there is no difference.” And Pañcaśikha, as quoted in Vyāsa-bhāshya, writes: “not knowing the purusha beyond the mind to be different therefrom, in nature, character and knowledge, etc., a man has the notion of self, in the mind through delusion.”
Thus we see that when the mind and purusha are known to be separated, the real nature of purusha is realised. This seeming identity is again described as that which perceives the particular form of the mind and thereby appears, as identical with it though it is not so (pratyayānupaśya—pratyayāni bauddhamanupaśyati tamanupaśyannatadātmāpi tadātmaka iva pratibhāti, Vāysa-bhāshya, II. 20).
The purusha thus we see, cognises the phenomena of consciousness after they have been formed, and though its nature is different from conscious states yet it appears to be the same. Vyāsa in explaining this sūtra says that purusha is neither quite similar to the mind nor altogether different from it. For the mind (buddhi) is always changeful, according to the change of the objects that are offered to it; so that it may be said to be changeful according as it knows or does not know objects; but the purusha is not such, for it always appears as the self, being reflected through the mind by which it is thus connected with the phenomenal form of knowledge. The notion of self that appears connected with all our mental phenomena and which always illumines them is only duo to this reflection of purusha in the mind. All phenomenal knowledge which has the form of the object can only be transformed into conscious knowledge as “I know this,” when it becomes connected with the self or purusha. So the purusha may in a way be said to see again what was perceived by the mind and thus to impart consciousness by transferring its illumination into the mind. The mind suffers changes according to the form of the object of cognition, and thus results a state of conscious cognition in the shape of “I know it,” when the mind, having assumed the shape of an object, becomes connected with the constant factor purusha, through the transcendent reflection or identification of purusha in the mind. This is what is meant by pratyayānupaśya reperception of the mind-transformations by purusha, whereby the mind which has assumed the shape of any object of consciousness becomes intelligent. Even when the mind is without any objective form, it is always being seen by purusha. The exact nature of this reflection is indeed very hard to comprehend; no physical illustrations can really serve to make it clear. And we see that neither the Vyāsa-bhāshya nor the sūtras offer any such illustrations as Sāṃkhya did. But the Bhāshya proceeds to show the points in which the mind may be said to differ from purusha, as well as those in which it agrees with it. So that though we cannot express it anyhow, we may at least make some advance towards conceiving the situation.
Thus the Bhāshya says that the main difference between the mind and purusha is that the mind is constantly undergoing modifications, as it grasps its objects one by one; for the grasping of an object, the act of having a percept is nothing but its own undergoing of different modifications, and thus, since an object sometimes comes within the grasp of the mind and again disappears in the subconscious as a saṃskāra (potency) and again comes into the field of the understanding as smṛti (memory), we see that it is pariṇāmi or changing. But purusha is the constant seer of the mind when it has an object, as in ordinary forms of phenomenal knowledge, or when it has no object as in the state of nirodha or cessation. Purusha is unchanging. It is the light which remains unchanged amidst all the changing modifications of the mind, so that we cannot distinguish purusha separately from the mind. This is what is meant by saying buddheḥ pratisaṃvedī purushaḥ, i.e. purusha reflects or turns into its own light the concepts of mind and thus is said to know it. Its knowing is manifested in our consciousness as the ever-persistent notion of the self, which is always a constant factor in all the phenomena of consciousness. Thus purusha always appears in our consciousness as the knowing agent. Truly speaking, however, purusha only sees himself; he is not in any way in touch with the mind. He is absolutely free from all bondage, absolutely unconnected with prakṛti. From the side of appearance he seems only to be the intelligent seer imparting consciousness to our conscious-like conception, though in reality he remains the seer of himself all the while. The difference between purusha and prakṛti will be clear when we see that purusha is altogether independent, existing in and for himself, free from any bondage whatsoever; but buddhi exists on the other hand for the enjoyment and release of purusha. That which exists in and for itself, must ever be the selfsame, unchangeable entity, suffering no transformations or modifications, for it has no other end owing to which it will be liable to change. It is the self-centred, self-satisfied light, which never seeks any other end and never leaves itself. But prakṛti is not such; it is always undergoing endless, complex modifications and as such does not exist for itself but for purusha, and is dependent upon him. The mind is unconscious, while purusha is the pure light of intelligence, for the three guṇas are all non-intelligent, and the mind is nothing but a modification of these three guṇas which are all non-intelligent.
But looked at from another point of view, prakṛti is not altogether different from purusha; for had it been so how could purusha, which is absolutely pure, reperceive the mind-modifications? Thus the Bhāshya (II. 20) writes:—
“Well then let him be dissimilar. To meet this he says: He is not quite dissimilar. Why? Although pure, he sees the ideas after they have come into the mind. Inasmuch as purusha cognises the ideas in the form of mind-modification, he appears to be, by the act of cognition, the very self of the mind although in reality he is not.” As has been said, the power of the enjoyer, purusha (dṛkśakti), is certainly unchangeable and it does not run after every object. In connection with a changeful object it appears forever as if it were being transferred to every object and as if it were assimilating its modifications. And when the modifications of the mind assume the form of the consciousness by which it is coloured, they imitate it and look as if they were manifestations of purusha’s consciousness unqualified by the modifications of the non-intelligent mind.
All our states of consciousness are analysed into two parts—a permanent and a changing part. The changing part is the form of our consciousness, which is constantly varying according to the constant change of its contents. The permanent part is that pure light of intelligence, by virtue of which we have the notion of self reflected in our consciousness. Now, as this self persists through all the varying changes of the objects of consciousness, it is inferred that the light which thus shines in our consciousness is unchangeable. Our mind is constantly suffering a thousand modifications, but the notion of self is the only thing permanent amidst all this change. It is this self that imports consciousness to the material parts of our knowledge. All our concepts originated from our perception of external material objects. Therefore the forms of our concepts which could exactly and clearly represent these material objects in their own terms, must be made of a stuff which in essence is not different from them. But with the reflection of purusha, the soul, the notion of self comes within the content of our consciousness, spiritualising, as it were, all our concepts and making them conscious and intelligent. Thus this seeming identity of purusha and the mind, by which purusha may be spoken of as the seer of the concept, appears to the self, which is manifested in consciousness by virtue of the seeming reflection. For this is that self, or personality, which remains unchanged all through our consciousness. Thus our phenomenal intelligent self is partially a material reality arising out of the seeming interaction of the spirit and the mind. This interaction is the only way by which matter releases spirit from its seeming bondage.
But the question arises, how is it that there can even be a seeming reflection of purusha in the mind which is altogether non-intelligent? How is it possible for the mind to catch a glimpse of purusha, which illuminates all the concepts of consciousness, the expression “anupaśya” meaning that he perceives by imitation (anukāreṇa paśyati)? How can purusha, which is altogether formless, allow any reflection of itself to imitate the form of buddhi, by virtue of which it appears as the self—the supreme possessor and knower of all our mental conceptions? There must be at least some resemblance between the mind and the purusha, to justify in some sense this seeming reflection. And we find that the last sūtra of the Vibhūtipāda says: sattvapurushayoḥ śuddhisāmye kaivalyaṃ—which means that when the sattva or the preponderating mind-stuff becomes as pure as purusha, kaivalya or oneness is attained. This shows that the pure nature of sattva has a great resemblance to the pure nature of purusha. So much so, that the last stage preceding the state of kaivalya, is almost the same as kaivalya itself, when purusha is in himself and there are no thoughts to reflect. In this state, we see that the mind can be so pure as to reflect exactly the nature of purusha, as he is in himself. This state in which the mind becomes as pure as purusha and reflects him in his purity, does not materially differ from the state of kaivalya, in which purusha is in himself—the only difference being that the mind, when it becomes so pure as this, becomes gradually lost in prakṛti and cannot again serve to bind purusha.
I cannot refrain here from the temptation of referring to a beautiful illustration from Vyāsa, to explain the way in which the mind serves the purposes of purusha. Cittamayaskāntamaṇikalpaṃ sannidhimātropakāri dṛśyatvena svaṃ bhavati purushasya svāminaḥ (I. 4), which is explained in Yoga-vārttika as follows: Tathāyaskāntamaṇiḥ svasminneva ayaḥsannidhīkaraṇamātrāt śalyarishkarshaṇākhyam upakāram kurvat purushasya svāminaḥ svam bhvati bhogasādhanatvāt, i.e. just as a magnet draws iron towards it, though it remains unmoved itself, so the mind-modifications become drawn towards purusha, and thereby become visible to purusha and serve his purpose.
To summarise: We have seen that something like a union takes place between the mind and purusha, i.e. there is a seeming reflection of purusha in the mind, simultaneously with its being determined conceptually, as a result whereof this reflection of purusha in the mind, which is known as the self, becomes united with these conceptual determinations of the mind and the former is said to be the perceiver of all these determinations. Our conscious personality or self is thus the seeming unity of the knowable as the mind in the shape of conceptual or judgmental representations with the reflections of purusha in the mind. Thus, in the single act of cognition, we have the notion of our own personality and the particular conceptual or perceptual representation with which this ego identifies itself. The true seer, the pure intelligence, the free, the eternal, remains all the while beyond any touch of impurity from the mind, though it must be remembered that it is its own seeming reflection in the mind that appears as the ego, the cogniser of all our states, pleasures and sorrows of the mind and one who is the apperceiver of this unity of the seeming reflection—of purusha and the determinations of the mind. In all our conscious states, there is such a synthetic unity between the determinations of our mind and the self, that they cannot be distinguished one from the other—a fact which is exemplified in all our cognitions, which are the union of the knower and the known. The nature of this reflection is a transcendent one and can never be explained by any physical illustration. Purusha is altogether different from the mind, inasmuch as he is the pure intelligence and is absolutely free, while the latter is non-intelligent and dependent on purusha’s enjoyment and release, which are the sole causes of its movement. But there is some similarity between the two, for how could the mind otherwise catch a seeming glimpse of him? It is also said that the pure mind can adapt itself to the pure form of purusha; this is followed by the state of kaivalya.
We have discussed the nature of purusha and its general relations with the mind. We must now give a few more illustrations. The chief point in which purusha of the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala differs from the similar spiritual principle of Vedānta is, that it regards its soul, not as one, but as many. Let us try to discuss this point, in connection with the arguments of the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala doctrine in favour of a separate principle of purusha. Thus the Kārikā says: saṃghātaparārthatvāt triguṇādiviparyyayādadhishthānāt purusho’sti bhoktṛbhāvāt kaivalyārthaṃ pravṛtteśca,[[16]] “Because an assemblage of things is for the sake of another; because there must be an entity different from the three guṇas and the rest (their modifications); because there must be a superintending power; because there must be someone who enjoys; and because of (the existence of) active exertion for the sake of abstraction or isolation (from the contact with prakṛti) therefore the soul exists.” The first argument is from design or teleology by which it is inferred that there must be some other simple entity for which these complex collocations of things are intended. Thus Gauḍapāda says: “In such manner as a bed, which is an assemblage of bedding, props, cotton, coverlet and pillows, is for another’s use, not for its own, and its several component parts render no mutual service, and it is concluded that there is a man who sleeps upon the bed and for whose sake it was made; so this world, which is an assemblage of the five elements, is for use and there is a soul, for whose enjoyment this body, another’s consisting of intellect and the rest, has been produced.”[[17]]
The second argument is that all the knowable is composed of just three elements: first, the element of sattva, or intelligence-stuff, causing all manifestations; second, the element of rajas or energy, which is ever causing transformations; and third, tamas, or the mass, which enables rajas to actualise. Now such a prakṛti, composed of these three elements, cannot itself be a seer. For the seer must be always the same unchangeable, actionless entity, the ever present, ever constant factor in all stages of our consciousness.
Third argument: There must be a supreme background of pure consciousness, all our co-ordinated basis of experience. This background is the pure actionless purusha, reflected in which all our mental states become conscious. Davies explains this a little differently, in accordance with a simile in the Tattva-Kaumudī, yathā rathādi yantrādibhiḥ, thus: “This idea of Kapila seems to be that the power of self-control cannot be predicted of matter, which must be directed or controlled for the accomplishment of any purpose, and this controlling power must be something external to matter and diverse from it. The soul, however, never acts. It only seems to act; and it is difficult to reconcile this part of the system with that which gives to the soul a controlling force. If the soul is a charioteer, it must be an active force.” But Davies here commits the mistake of carrying the simile too far. The comparison of the charioteer and the chariot holds good, to the extent that the chariot can take a particular course only when there is a particular purpose for the charioteer to perform. The motion of the chariot is fulfilled only when it is connected with the living person of the charioteer, whose purpose it must fulfil.
Fourth argument: Since prakṛti is non-intelligent, there must be one who enjoys its pains and pleasures. The emotional and conceptual determinations of such feelings are aroused in consciousness by the seeming reflection of the light of purusha.
Fifth argument: There is a tendency in all persons to move towards the oneness of purusha, to be achieved by liberation; there must be one for whose sake the modifications of buddhi are gradually withheld, and a reverse process set up, by which they return to their original cause prakṛti and thus liberate purusha. It is on account of this reverse tendency of prakṛti to release purusha that a man feels prompted to achieve his liberation as the highest consummation of his moral ideal.
Thus having proved the existence of purusha, the Kārikā proceeds to prove his plurality: “janmamaraṇakaraṇānāṃ pratiniyamādayugapat pravṛtteśca purushabahutvaṃ siddhaṃ traiguṇyaviparyyayācca.” “From the individual allotment of birth, death and the organs; from diversity of occupations and from the different conditions of the three guṇas, it is proved that there is a plurality of souls.” In other words, since with the birth of one individual, all are not born; since with the death of one, all do not die; and since each individual has separate sense organs for himself; and since all beings do not work at the same time in the same manner; and since the qualities of the different guṇas are possessed differently by different individuals, purushas are many. Patañjali, though he does not infer the plurality of purushas in this way, yet holds the view of the sūtra, kṛtārthaṃ prati nashṭamapyanashṭaṃ tadanyasādhāraṇatvāt. “Although destroyed in relation to him whose objects have been achieved, it is not destroyed, being common to others.”
Davies, in explaining the former Kārikā, says: “There is, however, the difficulty that the soul is not affected by the three guṇas. How can their various modifications prove the individuality of souls in opposition to the Vedāntist doctrine, that all souls are only portions of the one, an infinitely extended monad?”
This question is the most puzzling in the Sāṃkhya doctrine. But careful penetration of the principles of Sāṃkhya-Yoga would make clear to us that this is a necessary and consistent outcome of the Sāṃkhya view of a dualistic universe.
For if it is said that purusha is one and we have the notion of different selves by his reflection into different minds, it follows that such notions as self, or personality, are false. For the only true being is the one, purusha. So the knower being false, the known also becomes false; the knower and the known having vanished, everything is reduced to that which we can in no way conceive. It may be argued that according to the Sāṃkhya philosophy also, the knower is false, for the pure purusha as such is not in any way connected with prakṛti. But even then it must be observed that the Sāṃkhya-Yoga view does not hold that the knower is false but analyses the nature of the ego and says that it is due to the seeming unity of the mind and purusha, both of which are reals in the strictest sense of the term. Purusha is there justly called the knower. He sees and simultaneously with this, there is a modification of buddhi (mind); this seeing becomes joined with this modification of buddhi and thus arises the ego, who perceives that particular form of the modification of buddhi. Purusha always remains the knower. Buddhi suffers modifications and at the same time catches a glimpse of the light of purusha, so that contact (saṃyoga) of purusha and prakṛti occurs at one and the same point of time, in which there is unity of the reflection of purusha and the particular transformation of buddhi.
The knower, the ego and the knowable, are none of them false in the Sāṃkhya-Yoga system at the stage preceding kaivalya, when buddhi becomes as pure as purusha; its modification resembles the exact form of purusha and then purusha knows himself in his true nature in buddhi; after which buddhi vanishes. The Vedānta has to admit the modifications of māyā, but must at the same time hold it to be unreal. The Vedānta says that māyā is as beginningless as prakṛti yet has an ending with reference to the released person as the buddhi of the Sāṃkhyists.
But according to the Vedānta philosophy, knowledge of ego is only false knowledge—an illusion as many imposed upon the formless Brahman. Māyā, according to the Vedāntist, can neither be said to exist nor to non-exist. It is anirvācyā, i.e. can never be described or defined. Such an unknown and unknowable māyā causes the Many of the world by reflection upon the Brahman. But according to the Sāṃkhya doctrine, prakṛti is as real as purusha himself. Prakṛti and purusha are two irreducible metaphysical remainders whose connection is beginningless (anādisaṃyoga). But this connection is not unreal in the Vedānta sense of the term. We see that according to the Vedānta system, all notions of ego or personality are false and are originated by the illusive action of the māyā, so that when they ultimately vanish there are no other remainders. But this is not the case with Sāṃkhya, for as purusha is the real seer, his cognitions cannot be dismissed as unreal, and so purushas or knowers as they appear to us to be, must be held real. As prakṛti is not the māyā of the Vedāntist (the nature of whose influence over the spiritual principle cannot be determined) we cannot account for the plurality of purushas by supposing that one purusha is being reflected into many minds and generating the many egos. For in that case it will be difficult to explain the plurality of their appearances in the minds (buddhis). For if there be one spiritual principle, how should we account for the supposed plurality of the buddhis? For we should rather expect to find one buddhi and not many to serve the supposed one purusha, and this will only mean that there can be only one ego, his enjoyment and release. Supposing for argument’s sake that there are many buddhis and one purusha, which reflected in them, is the cause of the plurality of selves, then we cannot see how prakṛti is moving for the enjoyment and release of one purusha; it would rather appear to be moved for the sake of the enjoyment and release of the reflected or unreal self. For purusha is not finally released with the release of any number of particular individual selves. For it may be released with reference to one individual but remain bound to others. So prakṛti would not really be moved in this hypothetical case for the sake of purusha, but for the sake of the reflected selves only. If we wish to avoid the said difficulties, then with the release of one purusha, all purushas will have to be released. For in the supposed theory there would not really be many different purushas, but the one purusha appearing as many, so that with his release all the other so-called purushas must be released. We see that if it is the enjoyment (bhoga) and salvation (apavarga) of one purusha which appear as so many different series of enjoyments and emancipations, then with his experiences all should have the same experiences. With his birth and death, all should be born or all should die at once. For, indeed, it is the experiences of one purusha which appear in all the seeming different purushas. And in the other suppositions there is neither emancipation nor enjoyment by purusha at all. For there, it is only the illusory self that enjoys or releases himself. By his release no purusha is really released at all. So the fundamental conception of prakṛti as moving for the sake of the enjoyment and release of purusha has to be abandoned.
So we see that from the position in which Sāṃkhya and Yoga stood, this plurality of the purushas was the most consistent thing that they could think of. Any compromise with the Vedānta doctrine here would have greatly changed the philosophical aspect and value of the Sāṃkhya philosophy. As the purushas are nothing but pure intelligences they can as well be all-pervading though many. But there is another objection that, since number is a conception of the phenomenal mind, how then can it be applied to the purushas which are said to be many?[[18]] But that difficulty remains unaltered even if we regard the purusha as one. When we go into the domain of metaphysics and try to represent Reality with the symbols of our phenomenal conceptions we have really to commit almost a violence towards it. But we must perforce do this in all our attempts to express in our own terms that pure, inexpressible, free illumination which exists in and for itself beyond the range of any mediation by the concepts or images of our mind. So we see that Sāṃkhya was not inconsistent in holding the doctrine of the plurality of the purushas. Patañjali does not say anything about it, since he is more anxious to discuss other things connected with the presupposition of the plurality of purusha. Thus he speaks of it only in one place as quoted above and says that though for a released person this world disappears altogether, still it remains unchanged in respect to all the other purushas.
CHAPTER III
THE REALITY OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD
We may now come to the attempt of Yoga to prove the reality of an external world as against the idealistic Buddhists. In sūtra 12 of the chapter on kaivalya we find: “The past and the future exist in reality, since all qualities of things manifest themselves in these three different ways. The future is the manifestation which is to be. The past is the appearance which has been experienced. The present is that which is in active operation. It is this threefold substance which is the object of knowledge. If it did not exist in reality, there would not exist a knowledge thereof. How could there be knowledge in the absence of anything knowable? For this reason the past and present in reality exist.”[[19]]
So we see that the present holding within itself the past and the future exists in reality. For the past though it has been negated has really been preserved and kept in the present, and the future also though it has not made its appearance yet exists potentially in the present. So, as we know the past and the future worlds in the present, they both exist and subsist in the present. That which once existed cannot die, and that which never existed cannot come to be (nāstyasataḥ saṃbhavaḥ na cāsti sato vināsāḥ, Vyāsa-bhāshya, V. 12). So the past has not been destroyed but has rather shifted its position and hidden itself in the body of the present, and the future that has not made its appearance exists in the present only in a potential form. It cannot be argued, as Vācaspati says, that because the past and the future are not present therefore they do not exist, for if the past and future do not exist how can there be a present also, since its existence also is only relative? So all the three exist as truly as any one of them, and the only difference among them is the different way or mode of their existence.
He next proceeds to refute the arguments of those idealists who hold that since the external knowables never exist independently of our knowledge of them, their separate external existence as such may be denied. Since it is by knowledge alone that the external knowables can present themselves to us we may infer that there is really no knowable external reality apart from knowledge of it, just as we see that in dream-states knowledge can exist apart from the reality of any external world.
So it may be argued that there is, indeed, no external reality as it appears to us. The Buddhists, for example, hold that a blue thing and knowledge of it as blue are identical owing to the maxim that things which are invariably perceived together are one (sahopalambhaniyamādabhedo nīlataddhiyoḥ). So they say that external reality is not different from our idea of it. To this it may be replied that if, as you say, external reality is identical with my ideas and there is no other external reality existing as such outside my ideas, why then does it appear as existing apart, outside and independent of my ideas? The idealists have no basis for the denial of external reality, and for their assertion that it is only the creation of our imagination like experiences in dreams. Even our ideas carry with them the notion that reality exists outside our mental experiences. If all our percepts and notions as this and that arise only by virtue of the influence of the external world, how can they deny the existence of the external world as such? The objective world is present by its own power. How then can this objective world be given up on the strength of mere logical or speculative abstraction?
Thus the Vyāsa-bhāshya, IV. 14, says: “There is no object without the knowledge of it, but there is knowledge as imagined in dreams without any corresponding object; thus the reality of external things is like that of dream-objects, mere imagination of the subject and unreal. How can they who say so be believed? Since they first suppose that the things which present themselves to us by their own force do so only on account of the invalid and delusive imagination of the intellect, and then deny the reality of the external world on the strength of such an imaginary supposition of their own.”
The external world has generated knowledge of itself by its own presentative power (arthena svakīyayāgrāhyaśaktyā vijñānamajani), and has thus caused itself to be represented in our ideas, and we have no right to deny it.[[20]] Commenting on the Bhāshya IV. 14, Vācaspati says that the method of agreement applied by the Buddhists by their sahopalambhaniyama (maxim of simultaneous revelation) may possibly be confuted by an application of the method of difference. The method of agreement applied by the idealists when put in proper form reads thus: “Wherever there is knowledge there is external reality, or rather every case of knowledge agrees with or is the same as every case of the presence of external reality, so knowledge is the cause of the presence of the external reality, i.e. the external world depends for its reality on our knowledge or ideas and owes its origin or appearance as such to them.” But Vācaspati says that this application of the method of agreement is not certain, for it cannot be corroborated by the method of difference. For the statement that every case of absence of knowledge is also a case of absence of external reality cannot be proved, i.e. we cannot prove that the external reality does not exist when we have no knowledge of it (sahopalambhaniyamaśca vedyatvañca hetū sandigdhavyatirekatayānaikāntikau) IV. 14.
Describing the nature of grossness and externality, the attributes of the external world, he says that grossness means the pervading of more portions of space than one, i.e. grossness means extension, and externality means being related to separate space, i.e. co-existence in space. Thus we see that extension and co-existence in space are the two fundamental qualities of the gross external world. Now an idea can never be said to possess them, for it cannot be said that an idea has extended into more spaces than one and yet co-existed separately in separate places. An idea cannot be said to exist with other ideas in space and to extend in many points of space at one and the same time. To avoid this it cannot be said that there may be plurality of ideas so that some may co-exist and others may extend in space. For co-existence and extension can never be asserted of our ideas, since +hey are very fine and subtle, and can be known only at the time of their individual operation, at which time, however, other ideas may be quite latent and unknown. Imagination has no power to negate their reality, for the sphere of imagination is quite distinct from the sphere of external reality, and it can never be applied to an external reality to negate it. Imagination is a mental function, and as such has no touch with the reality outside, which it can by no means negate.
Further it cannot be said that, because grossness and externality can abide neither in the external world nor in our ideas, they are therefore false. For this falsity cannot be thought as separable from our ideas, for in that case our ideas would be as false as the false itself. The notion of externality and grossness pervades all our ideas, and if they are held to be false, no true thing can be known by our ideas and they therefore become equally false.
Again, knowledge and the external world can never be said to be identical because they happen to be presented together. For the method of agreement cannot by itself prove identity. Knowledge and the knowable external world may be independently co-existing things like the notions of existence and non-existence. Both co-exist independently of one another. It is therefore clear enough, says Vācaspati, that the certainty arrived at by perception, which gives us a direct knowledge of things, can never be rejected on the strength of mere logical abstraction or hair-splitting discussion.
We further see, says Patañjali, that the thing remains the same though the ideas and feelings of different men may change differently about it.[[21]] Thus A, B, C may perceive the same identical woman and may feel pleasure, pain or hatred. We see that the same common thing generates different feelings and ideas in different persons; external reality cannot be said to owe its origin to the idea or imagination of any one man, but exists independently of any person’s imagination in and for itself. For if it be due to the imagination of any particular man, it is his own idea which as such cannot generate the same ideas in another man. So it must be said that the external reality is what we perceive it outside.
There are, again, others who say that just as pleasure and pain arise along with our ideas and must be said to be due to them so the objective world also must be said to have come into existence along with our ideas. The objective world therefore according to these philosophers has no external existence either in the past or in the future, but has only a momentary existence in the present due to our ideas about it. That much existence only are they ready to attribute to external objects which can be measured by the idea of the moment. The moment I have an idea of a thing, the thing rises into existence and may be said to exist only for that moment and as soon as the idea disappears the object also vanishes, for when it cannot be presented to me in the form of ideas it can be said to exist in no sense. But this argument cannot hold good, for if the objective reality should really depend upon the idea of any individual man, then the objective reality corresponding to an idea of his ought to cease to exist either with the change of his idea, or when he directs attention to some other thing, or when he restrains his mind from all objects of thought. Now, then, if it thus ceases to exist, how can it again spring into existence when the attention of the individual is again directed towards it? Again, all parts of an object can never be seen all at once. Thus supposing that the front side of a thing is visible, then the back side which cannot be seen at the time must not be said to exist at all. So if the back side does not exist, the front side also can as well be said not to exist (ye cāsyānupasthitā bhāgaste cāsya na syurevaṃ nāsti pṛshṭhamiti udaramapi na gṛhyeta. Vyāsa-bhāshya, IV. 16). Therefore it must be said that there is an independent external reality which is the common field of observation for all souls in general; and there are also separate “Cittas” for separate individual souls (tasmāt svatantro’rthaḥ sarvapurusasādhdāraṇaḥ svatantrāṇi ca cittāni pratipurushaṃ, pravarttante, ibid.). And all the experiences of the purusha result from the connection of this “Citta” (mind) with the external world.
Now from this view of the reality of the external world we are confronted with another question—what is the ground which underlies the manifold appearance of this external world which has been proved to be real? What is that something which is thought as the vehicle of such qualities as produce in us the ideas? What is that self-subsistent substratum which is the basis of so many changes, actions and reactions that we always meet in the external world? Locke called this substratum substance and regarded it as unknown, but said that though it did not follow that it was a product of our own subjective thought yet it did not at the same time exist without us. Hume, however, tried to explain everything from the standpoint of association of ideas and denied all notions of substantiality. We know that Kant, who was much influenced by Hume, agreed to the existence of some such unknown reality which he called the Thing-in-itself, the nature of which, however, was absolutely unknowable, but whose influence was a great factor in all our experiences.
But the Bhāshya tries to penetrate deeper into the nature of this substratum or substance and says: dharmisvarūpamātro hi dharmaḥ, dharmivikriyā eva eshā dharmadvārā prapañcyate, Vyāsa-bhāshya, III. 13. The characteristic qualities form the very being itself of the characterised, and it is the change of the characterised alone that is detailed by means of the characteristic. To understand thoroughly the exact significance of this statement it will be necessary to take a more detailed review of what has already been said about the guṇas. We know that all things mental or physical are formed by the different collocations of sattva of the nature of illumination (prakāśa), rajas—the energy or mutative principle of the nature of action (kriyā)—and tamas—the obstructive principle of the nature of inertia (sthiti) which in their original and primordial state are too fine to be apprehended (gunānāṃparamaṃ rūpaṃ na dṛshṭipathamṛcchati, Vyāsa-bhāshya, IV. 13). These different guṇas combine in various proportions to form the manifold universe of the knowable, and thus are made the objects of our cognition. Through combining in different proportions they become, in the words of Dr. B. N. Seal, “more and more differentiated, determinate and coherent,” and thus make themselves cognisable, yet they never forsake their own true nature as the guṇas. So we see that they have thus got two natures, one in which they remain quite unchanged as guṇas, and another in which they collocate and combine themselves in various ways and thus appear under the veil of a multitude of qualities and states of the manifold knowable (te vyaktasūkshmā guṇātmānaḥ [IV. 13] ... sarvamidaṃ guṇānāṃ sanniveśaviśeshamātramiti paramārthato guṇātmānaḥ, Bhāshya, ibid.).
Now these guṇas take three different courses of development from the ego or ahaṃkāra according to which the ego or ahaṃkāra may be said to be sāttvika, rājasa and tāmasa. Thus from the sāttvika side of the ego by a preponderance of sattva the five knowledge-giving senses, e.g. hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell are derived. From the rajas side of ego by a preponderance of rajas the five active senses of speech, etc., are derived. From the tamas side of ego or ahaṃkāra by a preponderance of tamas are derived the five tanmātras. From which again by a preponderance of tamas the atoms of the five gross elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether are derived.
In the derivation of these it must be remembered that all the three guṇas are conjointly responsible. In the derivation of a particular product one of the guṇas may indeed be predominant, and thus may bestow the prominent characteristic of that product, but the other two guṇas are also present there and perform their functions equally well. Their opposition does not withhold the progress of evolution but rather helps it. All the three combine together in varying degrees of mutual preponderance and thus together help the process of evolution to produce a single product. Thus we see that though the guṇas are three, they combine to produce on the side of perception, the senses, such as those of hearing, sight, etc.; and on the side of the knowable, the individual tanmātras of gandha, rasa, rūpa, sparśa and śabda. The guṇas composing each tanmātra again harmoniously combine with each other with a preponderance of tamas to produce the atoms of each gross element. Thus in each combination one class of guṇas remains prominent, while the others remain dependent upon it but help it indirectly in the evolution of that particular product.
CHAPTER IV
THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION
The evolution which we have spoken of above may be characterised in two ways: (1) That arising from modifications or products of some other cause which are themselves capable of originating other products like themselves; (2) That arising from causes which, though themselves derived, yet cannot themselves be the cause of the origination of other existences like themselves. The former may be said to be slightly specialised (aviśesha) and the latter thoroughly specialised (viśesha).
Thus we see that from prakṛti comes mahat, from mahat comes ahaṃkāra, and from ahaṃkāra, as we have seen above, the evolution takes three different courses according to the preponderance of sattva, rajas and tamas originating the cognitive and conative senses and manas, the superintendent of them both on one side and the tanmātras on the other. These tanmātras again produce the five gross elements. Now when ahaṃkāra produces the tanmātras or the senses, or when the tanmātras produce the five gross elements, or when ahaṃkāra itself is produced from buddhi or mahat, it is called tattvāntara-pariṇāma, i.e. the production of a different tattva or substance.
Thus in the case of tattvāntara-pariṇāma (as for example when the tanmātras are produced from ahaṃkāra), it must be carefully noticed that the state of being involved in the tanmātras is altogether different from the state of being of ahaṃkāra; it is not a mere change of quality but a change of existence or state of being.[[22]] Thus though the tanmātras are derived from ahaṃkāra the traces of ahaṃkāra cannot be easily followed in them. This derivation is not such that the ahaṃkāra remains principally unchanged and there is only a change of quality in it, but it is a different existence altogether, having properties which differ widely from those of ahaṃkāra. So it is called tattvāntara-pariṇāma, i.e. evolution of different categories of existence.
Now the evolution that the senses and the five gross elements can undergo can never be of this nature, for they are viśeshas, or substances which have been too much specialised to allow the evolution of any other substance of a different grade of existence from themselves. With them there is an end of all emanation. So we see that the aviśeshas or slightly specialised emanations are those which being themselves but emanations can yet yield other emanations from themselves. Thus we see that mahat, ahaṃkāra and the five tanmātras are themselves emanations, as well as the source of other emanations. Mahat, however, though it is undoubtedly an aviśesha or slightly specialised emanation, is called by another technical name liṅga or sign, for from the state of mahat, the prakṛti from which it must have emanated may be inferred. Prakṛti, however, from which no other primal state is inferable, is called the aliṅga or that which is not a sign for the existence of any other primal and more unspecialised state. In one sense all the emanations can be with justice called the liṅgas or states of existence standing as the sign by which the causes from which they have emanated can be directly inferred. Thus in this sense the five gross elements maybe called the liṅga of the tanmātras, and they again of the ego, and that again of the mahat, for the unspecialised ones are inferred from their specialised modifications or emanations. But this technical name liṅga is reserved for the mahat from which the aliṅga or prakṛti can be inferred. This prakṛti, however, is the eternal state which is not an emanation itself but the basis and source of all other emanations.
The liṅga and the aliṅga have thus been compared in the Kārikā:
“hetumadanityamavyāpi sakriyamanekāśritaṃ liṅgaṃ
sāvayavam paratantraṃ vyaktaṃ viparītamavyaktaṃ.”
The liṅga has a cause, it is neither eternal nor universal, but mobile, multiform, dependent, determinate, and possesses parts, whereas the aliṅga is the reverse. The aliṅga or prakṛti, however, being the cause has some characteristics in common with its liṅgas as distinguished from the purushas, which are altogether different from it.
Thus the Kārikā says:
“triguṇamaviveki vishayaḥ sāmānyamacetanaṃ prasavadharmi
vyaktaṃ tathā pradhānaṃ tadviparītastathā pumān.”
The manifested and the unmanifested pradhāna or prakṛti are both composed of the three guṇas, non-intelligent, objective, universal, unconscious and productive. Soul in these respects is the reverse. We have seen above that prakṛti is the state of equilibrium of the guṇas, which can in no way be of any use to the purushas, and is thus held to be eternal, though all other states are held to be non-eternal as they are produced for the sake of the purushas.
The state of prakṛti is that in which the guṇas completely overpower each other and the characteristics (dharma) and the characterised (dharmī) are one and the same.
Evolution is thus nothing but the manifestation of change, mutation, by the energy of rajas. The rajas is the one mediating activity that breaks up all compounds, builds up new ones and initiates original modifications. Whenever in any particular combination the proportion of sattva, rajas or tamas alters, as a condition of this alteration, there is the dominating activity of rajas by which the old equilibrium is destroyed and another equilibrium established; this in its turn is again disturbed and again another equilibrium is restored. Now the manifestation of this latent activity of rajas is what is called change or evolution. In the external world the time that is taken by a paramāṇu or atom to move from its place is identical with a unit of change.[[23]] Now an atom will be that quantum which is smaller or finer than that point or limit at which it can in any way be perceived by the senses. Atoms are therefore mere points without magnitude or dimension, and the unit of time or moment (kshaṇa) that is taken up in changing the position of these atoms is identical with one unit of change or evolution. The change or evolution in the external world must therefore be measured by these units of spatial motion of the atoms; i.e. an atom changing its own unit of space is the measure of all physical change or evolution.
Each unit of time (kshaṇa) corresponding to this change of an atom of its own unit of space is the unit-measure of change. This instantaneous succession of time as discrete moments one following the other is the notion of the series of moments or pure and simple succession. Now the notion of these discrete moments is the notion of time. Even the notion of succession is one that does not really exist but is imagined, for a moment comes into being just when the moment just before had passed so that they have never taken place together. Thus Vyāsa in III. 52, says: “kshaṇatatkramayornāsti vastusamāhāraḥ iti buddhisamāhāraḥ muhūrttāhorātrātrādayaḥ.” Sa tvayaṃ kālaḥ vastuśūnyo’pi buddhinirmāṇaḥ. The moments and their succession do not belong to the category of actual things; the hour, the day and night, are all aggregates of mental conceptions. This time which is not a substantive reality in itself, but is only a mental concept, represented to us through linguistic usage, appears to ordinary minds as if it were an objective reality.
So the conception of time as discrete moments is the real one, whereas the conception of time as successive or as continuous is unreal, being only due to the imagination of our empirical and relative consciousness. Thus Vācaspati further explains it. A moment is real (vastupatitaḥ) and is the essential element of the notion of succession. Succession involves the notion of change of moments, and the moment is called time by those sages who know what time is. Two moments cannot happen together. There cannot be any succession of two simultaneous things. Succession means the notion of change involving a preceding and a succeeding moment. Thus there is only the present moment and there are no preceding and later moments. Therefore there cannot be any union of these moments. The past and the future moments may be said to exist only if we speak of past and future as identical with the changes that have become latent and others that exist potentially but are not manifested. Thus in one moment, the whole world suffers changes. All these characteristics are associated with the thing as connected with one particular moment.[[24]]
So we find here that time is essentially discrete, being only the moments of our cognitive life. As two moments never co-exist, there is no succession or continuous time. They exist therefore only in our empirical consciousness which cannot take the real moments in their discrete nature but connects the one with the other and thereby imagines either succession or continuous time.
Now we have said before, that each unit of change or evolution is measured by this unit of time kshaṇa or moment; or rather the units of change are expressed in terms of these moments or kshaṇas. Of course in our ordinary consciousness these moments of change cannot be grasped, but they can be reasonably inferred. For at the end of a certain period we observe a change in a thing; now this change, though it becomes appreciable to us after a long while, was still going on every moment, so, in this way, the succession of evolution or change cannot be distinguished from the moments coming one after another. Thus the Yoga-sūtra says in IV. 33: “Succession involving a course of changes is associated with the moments.” Succession as change of moments is grasped only by a course of changes. A cloth which has not passed through a course of changes through a series of moments cannot be found old all at once at any time. Even a new cloth kept with good care becomes old after a time. This is what is called the termination of a course of changes and by it the succession of a course of changes can be grasped. Even before a thing is old there can be inferred a sequence of the subtlest, subtler, subtle, grossest, grosser and gross changes (Tattvavaiśāradī, IV. 33).[[25]]
Now as we have seen that the unit of time is indistinguishable from the unit of change or evolution, and as these moments are not co-existing but one follows the other, we see that there is no past or future existing as a continuous before or past, and after or future. It is the present that really exists as the manifested moment; the past has been conserved as sublatent and the future as the latent. So the past and future exist in the present, the former as one which has already had its manifestation and is thus conserved in the fact of the manifestation of the present. For the manifestation of the present as such could not have taken place until the past had already been manifested; so the manifestation of the present is a concrete product involving within itself the manifestation of the past; in a similar way it may be said that the manifestation of the present contains within itself the seed or the unmanifested state of the future, for if this had not been the case, the future never could have happened. So we see that the whole world undergoes a change at one unit point of time, and not only that but it conserves within itself all the past and future history of cosmic evolution.
We have pointed out before that the manifestation of the rajas or energy as action is what is called change. Now this manifestation of action can only take place when equilibrium of a particular collocation of guṇas is disturbed and the rajas arranges or collocates with itself the sattva and tamas, the whole group being made intelligible by the inherent sattva. So the cosmic history is only the history of the different collocations of the guṇas. Now, therefore, if it is possible for a seer to see in one vision the possible number of combinations that the rajas will have with sattva and tamas, he can in one moment perceive the past, present or future of this cosmic evolutionary process; for with such minds all past and future are concentrated at one point of vision which to a person of ordinary empirical consciousness appears only in the series. For the empirical consciousness, impure as it is, it is impossible that all the powers and potencies of sattva and rajas should become manifested at one point of time; it has to take things only through its senses and can thus take the changes only as the senses are affected by them; whereas, on the other hand, if its power of knowing was not restricted to the limited scope of the senses, it could have grasped all the possible collocations or changes all at once. Such a perceiving mind whose power of knowing is not narrowed by the senses can perceive all the finest modifications or changes that are going on in the body of a substance (see Yoga-sūtra, III. 53).
CHAPTER V
THE EVOLUTION OF THE CATEGORIES
The Yoga analysis points to the fact that all our cognitive states are distinguished from their objects by the fact of their being intelligent. This intelligence is the constant factor which persists amidst all changes of our cognitive states. We are passing continually from one state to another without any rest, but in this varying change of these states we are never divested of intelligence. This fact of intelligence is therefore neither the particular possession of any one of these states nor that of the sum of these states; for if it is not the possession of any one of these states it cannot be the possession of the sum of these states. In the case of the released person again there is no mental state, but the self-shining intelligence. So Yoga regarded this intelligence as quite distinct from the so-called mental states which became intelligent by coming in connection with this intelligence. The actionless, absolutely pure and simple intelligence it called the purusha.
Yoga tacitly assumed a certain kind of analysis of the nature of these mental states which sought to find out, if possible, the nature of their constituent elements or moments of existence. Now in analysing the different states of our mind we find that a particular content of thought is illuminated and then passed over. The ideas rise, are illuminated and pass away. Thus they found that “movement” was one of the principal elements that constituted the substance of our thoughts. Thought as such is always moving. This principle of movement, mutation or change, this energy, they called rajas.
Now apart from this rajas, thought when seen as divested of its sensuous contents seems to exhibit one universal mould or form of knowledge which assumes the form of all the sensuous contents that are presented to it. It is the one universal of all our particular concepts or ideas—the basis or substratum of all the different shapes imposed upon itself, the pure and simple. Sattva in which there is no particularity is that element of our thought which, resembling purusha most, can attain its reflection within itself and thus makes the unconscious mental states intelligible. All the contents of our thought are but modes and limitations of this universal form and are thus made intelligible. It is the one principle of intelligibility of all our conscious states.
Now our intellectual life consists in a series of shining ideas or concepts; concepts after concepts shine forth in the light of the pure intelligence and pass away. But each concept is but a limitation of the pure shining universal of our knowledge which underlies all its changing modes or modifications of concepts or judgments. This is what is called pure knowledge in which there is neither the knower nor the known. This pure object—subjectless knowledge differs from the pure intelligence or purusha only in this that later on it is liable to suffer various modifications, as the ego, the senses, and the infinite percepts and concepts, etc., connected therewith, whereas the pure intelligence remains ever pure and changeless and is never the substratum of any change. At this stage sattva, the intelligence-stuff, is prominent and rajas and tamas are altogether suppressed. It is for this reason that the buddhi or mind is often spoken of as the sattva. Being an absolute preponderance of sattva it has nothing else to manifest, but it is its pure-shining self. Both tamas and rajas being mostly suppressed they cannot in any way affect the effulgent nature of this pure shining of contentless knowledge in which there is neither the knower nor the known.
But it must be remembered that it is holding suspended as it were within itself the elements of rajas and tamas which cannot manifest themselves owing to the preponderance of the sattva.
This notion of pure contentless consciousness is immediate and abstract and as such is at once mediated by other necessary phases. Thus we see that this pure contentless universal consciousness is the same as the ego-universal (asmitāmātra). For this contentless universal consciousness is only another name for the contentless unlimited, infinite of the ego-universal. A quotation from Fichte may here be useful as a comparison. Thus he says in the introduction to his Science of Ethics: “How an object can ever become a subject, or how a being can ever become an object of representation: this curious change will never be explained by anyone who does not find a point where the objective and subjective are not distinguished at all, but are altogether one. Now such a point is established by, and made the starting point of our system. This point is the Egohood, the Intelligence, Reason, or whatever it may be named.”[[26]] The Vyāsa-bhāshya, II. 19, describes it as liṅgamātram mahattatvaṃ sattāmātre mahati ātmani, and again in I. 36 we find it described as the waveless ocean, peaceful infinite pure egohood. This obscure egohood is known merely as being. This mahat has also been spoken of by Vijñāna Bhikshu as the manas, or mind, as it has the function of assimilation (niścaya). Now what we have already said about mahat will, we hope, make it clear that this mahat is the last limit at which the subject and the object can be considered as one indistinguishable point which is neither the one nor the other, but the source of both.
This buddhi is thus variously called mahat, asmitāmātra, manas, sattva, buddhi and liṅga, according to the aspects from which this state is observed.
This state is called mahat as it is the most universal thing conceivable and the one common source from which all other things originate.
Now this phase of sattva or pure shining naturally passes into the other phase, that of the Ego as knower or Ego as subject. The first phase as mahat or asmitāmātra was the state in which the sattva was predominant and the rajas and tamas were in a suppressed condition. The next moment is that in which the rajas comes uppermost, and thus the ego as the subject of all cognition—the subject I—the knower of all the mental states—is derived. The contentless subject-objectless “I” is the passive sattva aspect of the buddhi catching the reflection of the spirit of purusha.
In its active aspect, however, it feels itself one with the spirit and appears as the ego or subject which knows, feels and wills. Thus Patañjali says, in II. 6: dṛgdarśanaśaktyorekātmateva asmitā, i.e. the seeming identity of the seer and the perceiving capacity is called asmitā-ego. Again in Bhāshya, I. 17, we have ekātmikā saṃvidasmitā (knowledge as one identical is asmitā) which Vācaspati explains as sā ca ātmanā grahītrā saha buddhirekātmikā saṃvid, i.e. it is the feeling of identity of the buddhi (mind) with the self, the perceiver. Thus we find that the mind is affected by its own rajas or activity and posits itself as the ego or subject as activity. By reason of this position of the “I” as active it perceives itself in the objective, in all its conative and cognitive senses in its thoughts and feelings and also in the external world of extension and co-existence; in the words of Pañcaśikha (II. 5) thinking the animate and inanimate beings to be the self, man regards their prosperity as his own and becomes glad, and regards their adversity as his own and is sorry. Here the “I” is posited as the active entity which becomes conscious of itself, or in other words the “I” becomes self-conscious. In analysing this notion of self-consciousness we find that here the rajas or element of activity or mobility has become predominant and this predominance of rajas has been manifested by the inherent sattva. Thus we find that the rajas side or “I as active” has become manifested or known as such, i.e. “I” becomes conscious of itself as active. And this is just what is meant by self-consciousness.
This ego or self-consciousness then appears as the modification of the contentless pure consciousness of the mind (buddhi); it is for this reason that we see that this self-consciousness is but a modification of the universal mind. The absolute identity of subject and object as the egohood is not A part of our natural consciousness, for in all stages of our actual consciousness, even in that of self-consciousness, there is an element of the preponderance of rajas or activity which directs this unity as the knower and the known and then unites them as it were. Only so far as I distinguish myself as the conscious, from myself as the object of consciousness, am I at all conscious of myself.
When we see that the buddhi transforms itself into the ego, the subject, or the knower, at this its first phase there is no other content which it can know, it therefore knows itself in a very abstract way as the “I,” or in other words, the ego becomes self-conscious; but at this moment the ego has no content; the tamas being quite under suppression, it is evolved by a preponderance of the rajas; and thus its nature as rajas is manifested by the sattva and thus the ego now essentially knows itself to be active, and holds itself as the permanent energising activity which connects with itself all the phenomena of our life.
But now when the ego first directs itself towards itself and becomes conscious of itself, one question which naturally comes to our mind is, “Can the ego direct itself towards itself and thus divide itself into a part that sees and one that is seen?” To meet this question it is assumed that the guṇas contain within themselves the germs of both subjectivity and objectivity (guṇānāṃ hi dvairūpyaṃ vyavasāyātmkatvam vyavaseyātmakatvaṃ ca. Tattvavaiśāradī, III. 47); the guṇas have two forms, the perceiver and the perceived. Thus we find that in the ego the quality of the guṇas as the perceiver comes to be first manifested and the ego turns back upon itself and makes itself its own object. It is at this stage that we are reminded of the twofold nature of the guṇas.
It is by virtue of this twofold nature that the subject can make itself its own object; but as these two sides have not yet developed they are still only abstract and exist but in an implicit way in this state of the ego (ahaṃkāra).
Enquiring further into the nature of the relation of this ego and the buddhi, we find that the ego is only another phase or modification of the buddhi; however different it might appear from buddhi it is only an appearance or phase of it; its reality is the reality of the buddhi. Thus we see that when the knower is affected in his different modes of concepts and judgments, this too is to be ascribed to the buddhi. Thus Vyāsa writes (II. 18) that perception, memory, differentiation, reasoning, right knowledge, decision belong properly to mind (buddhi) and are only illusorily imposed on the purusha (grahaṇadhāraṇohāpohatattvajñānābhiniveśā buddhau varttamānā purushe adhyāropitasadbhāvāḥ).
Now from this ego we find that three developments take place in three distinct directions according to the preponderance of sattva, rajas or tamas.
By the preponderance of rajas, the ego develops itself into the five conative senses, vāk (speech), pāṇi (hands), pāda (feet), pāyu (organ of passing the excreta) and upastha (generative organ). By the preponderance of sattva, the ego develops itself into the five cognitive senses—hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell; and by a preponderance of tamas it stands as the bhūtādi and produces the five tanmātras, and these again by further preponderance of tamas develops into the particles of the five gross elements of earth, water, light, heat, air and ether.
Now it is clear that when the self becomes conscious of itself as object we see that there are three phases in it: (i) that in which the self becomes an object to itself; (ii) when it directs itself or turns as the subject upon itself as the object, this moment of activity which can effect an aspect of change in itself; (iii) the aspect of the consciousness of the self, the moment in which it perceives itself in its object, the moment of the union of itself as the subject and itself as the object in one luminosity of self-consciousness. Now that phase of self in which it is merely an object to itself is the phase of its union with prakṛti which further develops the prakṛti in moments of materiality by a preponderance of the inert tamas of the bhūtādi into tanmātras and these again into the five grosser elements which are then called the grāhya or perceptible.
The sattva side of this ego or self-consciousness which was hitherto undifferentiated becomes further differentiated, specialised and modified into the five cognitive senses with their respective functions of hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell, synchronising with the evolution of the prakṛti on the tanmātric side of evolution. These again individually suffer infinite modifications themselves and thus cause an infinite variety of sensations in their respective spheres in our conscious life. The rajas side of the ego becomes specialised as the active faculties of the five different conative organs.
There is another specialisation of the ego as the manas which is its direct instrument for connecting itself with the five cognitive and conative senses. What is perceived as mere sensations by the senses is connected and generalised and formed into concepts by the manas; it is therefore spoken of as partaking of both the conative and the cognitive aspects in the Sāṃkhya-kārikā, 27.
Now though the modifications of the ego are formed successively by the preponderance of sattva, rajas and tamas, yet the rajas is always the accessory cause (sahakāri) of all these varied collocations of the guṇas; it is the supreme principle of energy and supplies even intelligence with the energy which it requires for its own conscious activity. Thus Lokācāryya says in his Tattvatraya: “the tāmasa ego developing into the material world and the sāttvika ego developing into the eleven senses, both require the help of the rājasa ego for the production of this development” (anyābhyāṃ ahaṃkārābhyām svakāryyopajanane rājasāhaṃkūraḥ sahakārī bhavati); and Barabara in his Bhāshya writes: “just as a seed-sprout requires for its growth the help of water as instrumental cause, so the rājasa ahaṃkāra (ego) works as the accessory cause (sahakāri) for the transformations of sāttvika and tāmasa ahaṃkāra into their evolutionary products.” The mode of working of this instrumental cause is described as “rajas is the mover.” The rājasa ego thus moves the sattva part to generate the senses; the tamas part generating the gross and subtle matter is also moved by the rajas, agent of movement. The rājasa ego is thus called the common cause of the movement of the sāttvika and the tāmasa ego. Vācaspati also says: “though rajas has no separate work by itself yet since sattva and tamas (which though capable of undergoing modification, do not do their work) are actionless in themselves, the agency of rajas lies in this that it moves them both for the production of the effect.”[[27]] And according as the modifications are sāttvika, tāmasa or rājasika, the ego which is the cause of these different modifications is also called vaikārika, bhūtādi and taijasa. The mahat also as the source of the vaikārika, taijasa and bhūtādi ego may be said to have three aspects.
Now speaking of the relation of the sense faculties with the sense organs, we see that the latter, which are made up of the grosser elements are the vehicle of the former, for if the latter are injured in any way, the former are also necessarily affected.[[28]]
To take for example the specific case of the faculty of hearing and its organ, we see that the faculty of hearing is seated in the ether (ākāśa) within our ear-hole. It is here that the power of hearing is located. When soundness or defect is noticed therein, soundness or defect is noticed in the power of hearing also. When the sounds of solids, etc., are heard, then the power of hearing located in the hollow of the ear stands in need of the resonance produced in the ākāśa of the ear.
This sense of hearing, then, having its origin in the principle of ahaṃkāra, behaves like iron, and is drawn by the sounds originated and located in the mouth of the speaker acting as loadstone, and transforms them into its own successive modifications (vṛtti) and thus senses the sounds of the speaker. And it is for this reason that for every living creature, the perception of sound in external space in the absence of defects is never void of authority. Thus Pancasikha also says, as quoted in Vyāsa-bhāshya, III. 41:
“To all those whose organs of hearing are situated in the same place (at different times) the ākāśa sustaining the sense of hearing is the same.” The ākāśa, again, in which the power of hearing is seated, is born out of the soniferous tanmātra, and has therefore the quality of sound inherent in itself. It is by this sound acting in unison that it takes the sounds of external solids, etc. This then proves that the ākāśa is the substratum of the power of hearing, and also possesses the quality of sound. And this sameness of the situation of sound is an indication of the existence of ākāśa as that which is the substratum of the auditory power (śruti) which manifests the sounds of the same class in ākāśa. Such a manifestation of sound cannot be without such an auditory sense-power. Nor is such an auditory power a quality of pṛthivī (earth), etc., because it cannot be in its own self both the manifestor and the manifested (vyahṅgya and vyañjaka), Tattvavaiśāradī, III. 41. It is the auditory power which manifests all sounds with the help of the ākāśa of the sense organ.
The theory of the guṇas was accepted by many others outside the Sāṃkhya-Yoga circle and they also offered their opinions on the nature of the categories.
There are thus other views prevalent about the genesis of the senses, to which it may be worth our while to pay some attention as we pass by.
The sāttvika ego in generating the cognitive senses with limited powers for certain specified objects of sense only accounted for their developments from itself in accompaniment with the specific tanmātras. Thus
sāttvika ego + sound potential (śabda-tanmātra) = sense of hearing.
sāttvika ego + touch potential (śparś-tanmātra) = sense of touch.
sāttvika ego + sight potential (śrūpa-tanmātra) = sense of vision.
sāttvika ego + taste potential (vasa-tanmātra) = sense of taste.
sāttvika ego + smell potential (gandha-tanmātra) = sense of smell.
The conative sense of speech is developed in association with the sense of hearing; that of hand in association with the sense of touch; that of feet in association with the sense of vision; that of upastha in association with the sense of taste; that of pāyu in association with the sense of smell.
Last of all, the manas is developed from the ego without any co-operating or accompanying cause.
The Naiyāyikas, however, think that the senses are generated by the gross elements, the ear for example by ākāśa, the touch by air and so forth. But Lokācāryya in his Tattvatraya holds that the senses are not generated by gross matter but are rather sustained and strengthened by it.
There are others who think that the ego is the instrumental and that the gross elements are the material causes in the production of the senses.
The view of the Vyāsa-bhāshya is, I believe, now quite clear since we see that the mahat through the asmitā generates from the latter (as differentiations from it, though it itself exists as integrated in the mahat), the senses, and their corresponding gross elements.
Before proceeding further to trace the development of the bhūtādi on the tanmātric side, I think it is best to refer to the views about the supposed difference between the Yoga and the views of the Sāṃkhya works about the evolution of the categories. Now according to the Yoga view two parallel lines of evolution start from mahat, one of which develops into the ego, manas, the five cognitive and the five conative senses, while on the other side it develops into the five grosser elements through the five tanmātras which are directly produced from mahat through the medium ahaṃkāra.
Thus the view as found in the Yoga works may be tabulated thus:—
The view of the Śaṃkhya works may be tabulated thus:--
The place in the Vyāsa-bhāshya which refers to this genesis is that under viśeshāviśeshaliṅgamātrāliṅgāni guṇaparvāṇi, II. 19. There it says that the four bhūtas are ether, air, fire, water and earth. These are the viśeshas (specialised modifications) of the unspecialised modifications the tanmātras of sound, touch, colour, taste and smell. So also are the cognitive senses of hearing, touch, eye, tongue, and nose and the conative senses of speech, hand, feet, anus and the generative organ. The eleventh one manas (the co-ordinating organ) has for its object the objects of all the above ten senses. So these are the specialised modifications (viśeshas) of the unspecialised (aviśesha) asmitā. The guṇas have these sixteen kinds of specialised modifications (viśeshapariṇāma). The six unspecialised modifications are the sound tanmātra, touch tanmātra, colour tanmātra, taste tanmātra and smell tanmātra. These tanmātras respectively contain one, two, three, four, and five special characteristics. The sixth unspecialised modification is asmitāmātra. These are the six aviśesha evolutions of the pure being, the mahat. The category of mahat is merely a sign beyond the aviśeshas and it is there that these exist and develop.
In this Vyāsa-bhāshya the fully specialised ones, viśeshas, the grosser elements are said to have been derived from the tanmātras and the senses and manas, the faculty of reflection are said to have been specialised from the ego or asmitā. The tanmātras, however, have not been derived from the ego or asmitā here. But they together with asmitā are spoken of as the six slightly specialised ones, the five being the five tanmātras and the sixth one being the ego. These six aviśeshas are the specialisations of the mahat, the great egohood of pure Be-ness. It therefore appears that the six aviśeshas are directly derived from the mahat, after which the ego develops into the eleven senses and the tanmātras into the five gross elements in three different lines.
But let us see how Yoga-vārttika explains the point here:—
“But like the senses the tanmātras are also special modifications of the ahaṃkāra having specially modified characteristics such as sound, touch, etc., why, therefore, are they not mentioned as special modifications (viśeshas)? The answer is that those only are mentioned as special modification which are ultimate special modifications. The tanmātras are indeed the special modifications of the ego, but they themselves produce further special modifications, the bhūtas. The aviśeshas are explained as the six aviśeshas. The tanmātras are generated from the tāmasa ahaṃkāra gradually through sound, etc. The category of mahat which is the ground of all modifications, called also the buddhi, has six evolutionary products called the aviśeshas. Though the mahat and the prakṛti may also be regarded as the root-causes out of which the tanmātras have evolved, yet the word aviśesha is used as a technical term having a special application to the six aviśeshas only.” The modifications of these are from the buddhi through the intermediate stage of the ahaṃkāra, as has been explained in the Bhāshya, I. 45.
Thus we see that the Yoga-vārttika says that the Bhāshya is here describing the modifications of buddhi in two distinct classes, the aviśeshas and the viśeshas; and that the mahat has been spoken of as the source of all the aviśeshas, the five tanmātras and the ego; strictly speaking, however, the genesis of the tanmātras from mahat takes place through the ego and in association with the ego, for it has been so described in the Bhāshya, I. 45.
Nāgeśa in explaining this Bhāshya only repeats the view of Yoga-vārttika.
Now let us refer to the Bhāshya of I. 45, alluded to by the Yoga-vārttika: “The gradual series of subtler causes proceeds up to the aliṅga or the prakṛti. The earth atom has the smell tanmātra as its subtle cause; the water atom has the taste tanmātra; the air atom the touch tanmātra; the ākāśa atom the sound tanmātra; and of these ahaṃkāra is the subtle cause; and of this the mahat is the subtle cause.” Here by subtle cause (sūkshma) it is upādānakāraṇa or material cause which is meant; so the Bhāshya further says: “It is true that purusha is the subtlest of all. But yet as prakṛti is subtler than the mahat, it is not in that sense that purusha is subtler than prakṛti for purusha is only an instrumental cause of the evolution of mahat, but not its material cause.” I believe it is quite clear that ahaṃkāra is spoken of here as the sūkshma anvayikārana of the tanmātras. This anvayikāraṇa is the same as upādāna (material cause) as Vācaspati calls it. Now again in the Bhāshya of the same sūtra II. 19 later on we see the liṅga or the mahat is the stage next to prakṛti, it is differentiated from it though still remaining integrated in the regular order of evolution. The six aviśeshas are again differentiated while still remaining integrated in the mahat in the order of evolution (pariṇāmakramaniyama).
The mahat tattva (liṅga) is associated with the prakṛti (aliṅga). Its development is thus to be considered as the production of a differentiation as integrated within the prakṛti. The six aviśeshas are also to be considered as the production of successive differentiations as integrated within the mahat.
The words saṃsṛshṭa vivicyante are the most important here for they show us the real nature of the transformations. “Saṃsṛshtā” means integrated and “vivicyante” means differentiated. This shows that the order of evolution as found in the Sāṃkhya works (viz. mahat from prakṛti, ahaṃkāra from mahat and the eleven senses and the tanmātras from ahaṃkāra) is true only in this sense that these modifications of ahaṃkāra take place directly as differentiations of characters in the body of mahat. As these differentiations take place through ahaṃkāra as the first moment in the series of transformations it is said that the transformations take place directly from ahaṃkāra; whereas when stress is laid on the other aspect it appears that the transformations are but differentiations as integrated in the body of the mahat, and thus it is also said that from mahat the six aviśeshas—namely, ahaṃkāra and the five tanmātras—come out. This conception of evolution as differentiation within integration bridges the gulf between the views of Yoga and the Saṃkhya works. We know that the tanmātras are produced from the tāmasa ahaṃkāra. This ahaṃkāra is nothing but the tāmasa side of mahat roused into creative activity by rajas. The sāttvika ahaṃkāra is given as a separate category producing the senses, whereas the tamas as bhūtādi produces the tanmātras from its disturbance while held up within the mahat.[[29]]
Nāgeśa in the Chāyā-vyākhyā of II. 19, however, follows the Sāṃkhya explanation. He says: “The five tanmātras having in order one, two, three, four and five characteristics are such that the preceding ones are the causes of the succeeding ones. The śabdatanmātra has only the characteristic of sound, the sparśatanmātra of sound and touch and so on.... All these tanmātras are produced from the tāmasa ahaṃkāra in the order of śabda, sparśa, etc.” This ignores the interpretation of the Vyāsā-bhāshya that the tanmātras are differentiations within the integrated whole of mahat through the intermediary stage of the tāmasa ahaṃkāra.
CHAPTER VI
EVOLUTION AND CHANGE OF QUALITIES
The order of the evolution of the tanmātras as here referred to is as follows:—
Bhūtādi (tāmasa ahaṃkāra)
|
Śabdatanmātra
|
Sparśatanmātra
|
Rūpatanmātra
|
Rasatanmātra
|
Gandhatanmātra
The evolution of the tanmātras has been variously described in the Purāṇas and the Smṛti literature. These divergent views can briefly be brought under two headings: those which derive the tanmātras from the bhûtas and those which derive them from the ahaṃkāra and the bhûtas from them. Some of these schools have been spoken of in the Barabara Muni’s commentary on the Tattvatraya—a treatise on the Rāmānuja Philosophy—and have been already explained in a systematic way by Dr. B. N. Seal. I therefore refrain from repeating them needlessly. About the derivation of the tanmātras all the other Sāṃkhya treatises, the Kārikā, the Kaumudī, the Tattvavaiśāradī, the Sūtra and Pravacana-bhāshya, the Siddhāntacandrikā, Sūtrārthabodhinī, the Rajamārtaṇḍa and the Maṇiprabhā seem to be silent. Further speaking of the tanmātras, Vijñāna Bhikshu says that the tanmātras exist only in unspecialised forms; they therefore can be neither felt nor perceived in any way by the senses of ordinary men. This is that indeterminate state of matter in which they can never be distinguished one from the other, and they cannot be perceived to be possessed of different qualities or specialised in any way. It is for this that they are called tanmātras, i.e. their only specialization is a mere thatness. The Yogins alone perceive them.
Now turning towards the further evolution of the grosser elements from the tanmātras, we see that there are great divergences of view here also, some of which are shown below. Thus Vācaspati says: “The earth atom is produced from the five tanmātras with a predominance of the smell tanmātra, the water atom from the four tanmātras excepting the smell tanmātra with a preponderance of the taste tanmātra, and so on” (I. 44).
Thus here we find that the ākāśa atom (aṇu) has been generated simply by the ākāśa tanmātra; the vāyu atom has been generated by two tanmātras, śabda and sparśa, of which the sparśa appears there as the chief. The tejas atom has been developed from the śabda, sparśa and rûpa tanmātras, though the rûpa is predominant in the group. The ap atom has been developed from the four tanmātras, śabda, sparśa, rûpa and rasa, though rasa is predominant in the group, and the earth or kshiti atom has been developed from the five tanmātras, though the gandha tanmātra is predominant in the group.
Now the Yoga-vārttika agrees with Vācaspati in all these details, but differs from him only in maintaining that the ākāśa atom has been generated from the śabda tanmātra with an accretion from bhūtādi, whereas Vācaspati says that the ākāśa atom is generated simply by the ākāśa tanmātra.[[30]]
Nāgeśa, however, takes a slightly different view and says that to produce the gross atoms from the tanmātras, an accretion of bhūtādi as an accompanying agent is necessary at every step; so that we see that the vāyu atom is produced from these three: śabda + sparśa + accretion from bhūtādi. Tejas atom = śabda + śparśa + rūpa + accretion from bhūtādi. Ap atom = śabda + śparśa + rūpa + rasa + accretion from bhūtādi. Kshiti atom = śabda + śparśa + rūpa + rasa + gandha + accretion from bhūtādi.
I refrain from giving the Vishṇu Purāṇa view which has also been quoted in the Yoga-vārttika, and the view of a certain school of Vedāntists mentioned in the Tattva-nirūpaṇa and referred to and described in the Tattvatraya, as Dr. B. N. Seal has already described them in his article.
We see thus that from bhūtādi come the five tanmātras which can be compared to the Vaiśeshika atoms as they have no parts and neither grossness nor visible differentiation.[[31]] Some differentiation has of course already begun in the tanmātras, as they are called śabda, śparśa, rūpa, rasa and gandha, which therefore may be said to belong to a class akin to the grosser elements of ākāśa, vāyu, tejas, ap and kshiti.[[32]]
The next one, the paramāṇu (atom), which is gross in its nature and is generated from the tanmātras which exist in it as parts (tanmātrāvayava) may be compared with the trasareṇu of the Vaiśeshikas. Thus the Yoga-vārttika says: “this is called paramāṇu by the Vaiśeshikas. We however call the subtlest part of the visible earth, earth atoms” (IV. 14). The doctrine of atoms is recognised both in the Yoga-sūtrās (I. 46) and the Bhāshya (III. 52, IV. 14, etc.).
Whether Sāṃkhya admitted the paramāṇus (atoms) or not cannot be definitely settled. The Sāṃkhya-kārikā does not mention the paramāṇus, but Vijñāna Bhikshu thinks that the word “sūkshma” in Kārikā, 39, means paramāṇus (Yoga-vārttika, IV. 14). Though the word paramāṇu is not mentioned in the Kārikā, I can hardly suppose that Sāṃkhya did not admit it in the sense in which Yoga did. For it does not seem probable that Sāṃkhya should think that by the combination of the subtle tanmātras we could all at once have the bigger lumps of bhūta without there being any particles. Moreover, since the Yoga paramāṇus are the finest visible particles of matter it could not have been denied by Sāṃkhya. The supposition of some German scholars that Sāṃkhya did not admit the paramāṇus does not seem very plausible. Bhikshu in Yoga-vārttika, III. 52, says that the guṇas are in reality Vaiśeshika atoms.
The third form is gross air, fire, water, etc., which is said to belong to the mahat (gross) class. I cannot express it better than by quoting a passage from Yoga-vārttika, IV. 4: “The Bhāshya holds that in the tanmātras there exists the specific differentiation that constitutes the five tanmātras, the kshiti atom is generated and by the conglomeration of these gross atoms gross earth is formed. So again by the combination of the four tanmātras the water atom is formed and the conglomeration of these water atoms makes gross water.”
“It should be noted here: since the Bhāshya holds that the tanmātras of sound, etc., are of the same class as the corresponding gross elements it may be assumed that the combining tanmātras possess the class characteristics which are made manifest in gross elements by hardness, smoothness, etc.” Bhikshu holds that since Sāṃkhya and Yoga are similar (samānatantra) this is to be regarded as being also the Sāṃkhya view.
There is, however, another measure which is called the measure of parama mahat, which belongs to ākāśa for example.
Now these paramāṇus or atoms are not merely atoms of matter but they contain within themselves those particular qualities by virtue of which they appear, as pleasant, unpleasant or passive to us. If we have expressed ourselves clearly, I believe it has been shown that when the inner and the outer proceed from one source, the ego and the external world do not altogether differ in nature from the inner; both have been formed by the collocation of the guṇas (sarvamidaṃ guṇānāṃ sanniveśaviseshamātram). The same book which in the inner microcosm is written in the language of ideas has been in the external world written in the language of matter. So in the external world we have all the grounds of our inner experience, cognitive as well as emotional, pleasurable as well as painful. The modifications of the external world are only translated into ideas and feelings; therefore these paramāṇus are spoken of as endowed with feelings.
There is another difference between the tanmātras and the paramāṇus. The former cannot be perceived to be endowed with the feeling elements as the latter. Some say, however, that it is not true that the tanmātras are not endowed with the feeling elements, but they cannot be perceived by any save the Yogins; thus it is said: tanmātrāṇāmapi parasparavyāvṛttasvabhāvatvamastyeva tacca yogimātragamyam. The tanmātras also possess differentiated characters, but they can be perceived only by the Yogins; but this is not universally admitted.
Now these paramāṇus cannot further be evolved into any other different kind of existence or tattvāntara.[[33]] We see that the paramāṇus though they have been formed from the tanmātras resemble them only in a very remote way and are therefore placed in a separate stage of evolution.
With the bhūtas we have the last stage of evolution of the guṇas. The course of evolution, however, does not cease here, but continues ceaselessly, though by its process no new stage of existence is generated, but the product of the evolution is such that in it the properties of the gross elements which compose its constitution can be found directly. This is what is called dharmapariṇāma, as distinguished from the tattvāntara-pariṇāma spoken above. The evolution of the viśeshas from the aviśeshas is always styled tattvāntara-pariṇāma, as opposed to the evolution that takes place among the viśeshas themselves, which is called dharmapariṇāma or evolution by change of qualities. Now these atoms or paramāṇus of kshiti, ap, tejas, marut or ākāśa conglomerate together and form all sentient or non-sentient bodies in the world. The different atoms of earth, air, fire, water, etc., conglomerate together and form the different animate bodies such as cow, etc., or inanimate bodies such as jug, etc., and vegetables like the tree, etc. These bodies are built up by the conglomerated units of the atoms in such a way that they are almost in a state of combination which has been styled ayutasiddhāvayava. In such a combination the parts do not stand independently, but only hide themselves as it were in order to manifest the whole body, so that by the conglomeration of the particles we have what may be called a body, which is regarded as quite a different thing from the atoms of which it is composed. These bodies change with the different sorts of change or arrangement of the particles, according to which the body may be spoken of as “one,” “large,” “small,” “tangible” or “possessing” the quality of action. Some philosophers hold the view that a body is really nothing but the conglomeration of the atoms; but they must be altogether wrong here since they have no right to ignore the “body,” which appears before them with all its specific qualities and attributes; moreover, if they ignore the body they have to ignore almost everything, for the atoms themselves are not visible.
Again, these atoms, though so much unlike the Vaiśeshika atoms since they contain tanmātras of a different nature as their constituents and thus differ from the simpler atoms of the Vaiśeshikas, compose the constituents of all inorganic, organic or animal bodies in such a way that there is no break of harmony—no opposition between them;—but, on the contrary, when any one of the guṇas existing in the atoms and their conglomerations becomes prominent, the other guṇas though their functions are different from it, yet do not run counter to the prominent guṇas, but conjointly with them, help to form the specific modification for the experiences of the purusha. In the production of a thing, the different guṇas do not choose different independent courses for their evolution, but join together and effectuate themselves in the evolution of a single product. Thus we see also that when the atoms of different gross elements possessing different properties and attributes coalesce, their difference of attributes does not produce confusion, but they unite in the production of the particular substances by a common teleological purpose (see Vyāsa-bhāshya, IV. 14).
We thus see that the bodies or things composed by the collocation of the atoms in one sense differ from the atoms themselves and in another are identical with the atoms themselves. We see therefore that the appearance of the atoms as bodies or things differs with the change of position of the atoms amongst themselves. So we can say that the change of the appearance of things and bodies only shows the change of the collocation of the atoms, there being always a change of appearance in the bodies consequent on every change in the position of the atoms. The former therefore is only an explicit appearance of the change that takes place in the substance itself; for the appearance of a thing is only an explicit aspect of the very selfsame thing—the atoms; thus the Bhāshya says: dharmisvarūpamātro hi dharmaḥ, dharmivrikriyā eva eshā dharmadvārā prapañcyate, i.e. a dharma (quality) is merely the nature of the dharmin (substance), and it is the changes of the dharmin that are made explicit by the dharmas.[[34]] Often it happens that the change of appearance of a thing or a body, a tree or a piece of cloth, for example, can be marked only after a long interval. This, however, only shows that the atoms of the body had been continually changing and consequently the appearance of the body or the thing also had been continually changing; for otherwise we can in no way account for the sudden change of appearance. All bodies are continually changing the constituent collocation of atoms and their appearances. In the smallest particle of time or kshaṇa the whole universe undergoes a change. Each moment or the smallest particle of time is only the manifestation of that particular change. Time therefore has not a separate existence in this philosophy as in the Vaiśeshika, but it is only identical with the smallest amount of change—viz. that of an atom of its own amount of space. Now here the appearance is called the dharma, and that particular arrangement of atoms or guṇas which is the basis of the particular appearance is called the dharmin. The change of appearance is therefore called the dharma-pariṇāma.[[35]]
Again this change of appearance can be looked at from two other aspects which though not intrinsically different from the change of appearance have their own special points of view which make them remarkable. These are lakshaṇa-pariṇāma and avasthā-pariṇāma. Taking the particular collocation of atoms in a body for review, we see that all the subsequent changes that take place in it exist in it only in a latent way in it which will be manifested in future. All the previous changes of the collocating atoms are not also lost but exist only in a sublatent way in the particular collocation of atoms present before us. For the past changes are by no means destroyed but are preserved in the peculiar and particular collocation of atoms of the present moment. For had not the past changes taken place, the present could not appear. The present had held itself hidden in the past just as the future is hidden within the present. It therefore only comes into being with the unfolding of the past, which therefore exists only in a sublatent form in it.
It is on account of this that we see that a body comes into being and dies away. Though this birth or death is really subsumed the change of appearance yet it has its own special aspect, on account of which it has been given a separate name as lakshaṇa-pariṇāma. It considers the three stages of an appearance—the unmanifested when it exists in the future, the manifested moment of the present, and the past when it has been manifested—lost to view but preserved and retained in all the onward stages of the evolution. Thus when we say that a thing has not yet come into being, that it has just come into being, and that it is no longer, we refer to this lakshaṇa-pariṇāma which records the history of the thing in future, present and past, which are only the three different moments of the same thing according to its different characters, as unmanifested, manifested and manifested in the past but conserved.
Now it often happens that though the appearance of a thing is constantly changing owing to the continual change of the atoms that compose it, yet the changes are so fine and infinitesimal that they cannot be marked by anyone except the Yogins; for though structural changes may be going on tending towards the final passing away of that structure and body into another structure and body, which greatly differs from it, yet they may not be noticed by us, who can take note of the bigger changes alone. Taking therefore two remarkable stages of things, the difference between which may be so notable as to justify us in calling the later the dissolution or destruction of the former, we assert that the thing has suffered growth and decay in the interval, during which the actual was passing into the sublatent and the potential was tending towards actualization. This is what is called the avasthā-pariṇāma, or change of condition, which, however, does not materially differ from the lakshaṇa-pariṇāma and can thus be held to be a mode of it. It is on account of this that a substance is called new or old, grown or decayed. Thus in explaining the illustration given in the Bhāshya, III. 13: “there is avasthā-pariṇāma. At the moments of cessation the potencies of cessation become stronger and those of ordinary experience weaker.” The Yoga-vārttika says: “The strength and weakness of the two potencies is like the newness or oldness of a jug; growth and decay being the same as origination and decease, there is no difference here from lakshaṇa-pariṇāma.”
It is now time for us to examine once more the relation of dharmin, substance, and dharma, its quality or appearance.
Dharmin, or substance, is that which remains common to the latent (as having passed over or śānta), the rising (the present or udita) and the unpredicable (future or avyapadeśya) characteristic qualities of the substance.
Substance (take for example, earth) has the power of existing in the form of particles of dust, a lump or a jug by which water may be carried. Now taking the stage of lump for examination we may think of its previous stage, that of particles of dust, as being latent, and its future stage as jug as the unpredicable. The earth we see here to be common to all these three stages which have come into being by its own activity and consequent changes. Earth here is the common quality which remains unchanged in all these stages, and so relatively constant among its changes as particles, lump and jug. This earth therefore is regarded as the dharmin, characterised one, the substance; and its stages as its dharma or qualities. When this dharmin, or substance, undergoes a change from a stage of lump to a stage of jug, it undergoes what is called dharma-pariṇāma or change of quality.
But its dharma, as the shape of the jug may be thought to have itself undergone a change—inasmuch as it has now come into being, from a state of relative non-being, latency or unpredicability. This is called the lakshaṇa-pariṇāma of the dharma or qualities as constituting a jug. This jug is again suffering another change as new or old according as it is just produced or is gradually running towards its dissolution, and this is called the avasthā-pariṇāma or change of condition. These three, however, are not separate from the dharma-pariṇāma, but are only aspects of it; so it may be said that the dharmin or substance directly suffers the dharma-pariṇāma and indirectly the lakshaṇa and the avasthā-pariṇāma. The dharma, however, changes and the lakshaṇa-pariṇāma can be looked at from another point of view, that of change of state, viz. growth and decay. Thus we see that though the atoms of kshiti, ap, etc., remain unchanged, they are constantly suffering changes from the inorganic to plants and animals, and from thence again back to the inorganic. There is thus a constant circulation of changes in which the different atoms of kshiti, ap, tejas, vāyu and ākāśa remaining themselves unchanged are suffering dharma-pariṇāma as they are changed from the inorganic to plants and animals and back again to the inorganic. These different states or dharmas (as inorganic, etc.), again, according as they are not yet, now, or no longer or passed over, are suffering the lakshaṇa-pariṇāma. There is also the avasthā-pariṇāma of these states according as any one of them (the plant state for example) is growing or suffering decay towards its dissolution.
This circulation of cosmic matter in general applies also to all particular things, such as the jug, the cloth, etc.; the order of evolution here will be that of powdered particles of earth, lump of earth, the earthen jug, the broken halves of the jug, and again the powdered earth. As the whole substance has only one identical evolution, these different states only happen in order of succession, the occurrence of one characteristic being displaced by another characteristic which comes after it immediately. We thus see that one substance may undergo endless changes of characteristic in order of succession; and along with the change of characteristic or dharma we have the lakshaṇa-pariṇāma and the avasthā-pariṇāma as old or new, which is evidently one of infinitesimal changes of growth and decay. Thus Vācaspati gives the following beautiful example: “Even the most carefully preserved rice in the granary becomes after long years so brittle that it crumbles into atoms. This change cannot happen to new rice all on a sudden. Therefore we have to admit an order of successive changes” (Tattvavaivśāradī, III. 15).
We now see that substance has neither past nor future; appearances or qualities only are manifested in time, by virtue of which substance is also spoken of as varying and changing temporally, just as a line remains unchanged in itself but acquires different significances according as one or two zeros are placed on its right side. Substance—the atoms of kshiti, ap, tejas, marut, vyoman, etc., by various changes of quality appear as the manifold varieties of cosmical existence. There is no intrinsic difference between one thing and another, but only changes of character of one and the same thing; thus the gross elemental atoms like water and earth particles acquire various qualities and appear as the various juices of all fruits and herbs. Now in analogy with the arguments stated above, it will seem that even a qualified thing or appearance may be relatively regarded as substance, when it is seen to remain common to various other modifications of that appearance itself. Thus a jug, which may remain common in all its modifications of colour, may be regarded relatively as the dharmin or substance of all these special appearances or modifications of the same appearance.
We remember that the guṇas, which are the final substratum of all the grosser particles, are always in a state of commotion and always evolving in the manner previously stated, for the sake of the experience and final realisation of the parusha, the only object or end of the prakṛti. Thus the Bhāshya, III. 13, says: “So it is the nature of the guṇas that there cannot remain even a moment without the evolutionary changes of dharma, lakshaṇa and avasthā; movement is the characteristic of the guṇas. The nature of the guṇas is the cause of their constant movement.”
Although the pioneers of modern scientific evolution have tried to observe scientifically some of the stages of the growth of the inorganic and of the animal worlds into the man, yet they do not give any reason for it. Theirs is more an experimental assertion of facts than a metaphysical account of evolution. According to Darwin the general form of the evolutionary process is that which is accomplished by “very slight variations which are accumulated by the effect of natural selection.” And according to a later theory, we see that a new species is constituted all at once by the simultaneous appearance of several new characteristics very different from the old. But why this accidental variation, this seeming departure from the causal chain, comes into being, the evolutionists cannot explain. But the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala doctrine explains it from the standpoint of teleology or the final goal inherent in all matter, so that it may be serviceable to the purusha. To be serviceable to the purusha is the one moral purpose in all prakṛti and its manifestations in the whole material world, which guide the course and direction of the smallest particle of matter. From the scientific point of view, the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala doctrine is very much in the same position as modern science, for it does not explain the cause of the accidental variation noticed in all the stages of evolutionary process from any physical point of view based on the observation of facts.
But it does much credit to the Pātañjala doctrines that they explain this accidental variation, this avyapadeśyatva or unpredicability of the onward course of evolution from a moral point of view, that of teleology, the serviceability of the purusha. They found, however, that this teleology should not be used to usurp the whole nature and function of matter. We find that the atoms are always moving by virtue of the rajas or energy, and it is to this movement of the atoms in space that all the products of evolution are due. We have found that the difference between the juices of Coco-nut, Palm, Bel, Tinduka (Diospyros Embryopteries), Āmalaka (Emblic Myrobalan) can be accounted for by the particular and peculiar arrangement of the atoms of earth and water alone, by their stress and strain; and we see also that the evolution of the organic from the inorganic is due to this change of position of the atoms themselves; for the unit of change is the change in an atom of its own dimension of spatial position. There is always the transformation of energy from the inorganic to the organic and back again from the organic. Thus the differences among things are solely due to the different stages which they occupy in the scale of evolution, as different expressions of the transformation of energy; but virtually there is no intrinsic difference among things sarvaṃ sarvātmakaṃ; the change of the collocation of atoms only changes potentiality into actuality, for there is potentiality of everything for every thing everywhere throughout this changing world. Thus Vācaspati writes: “The water possessing taste, colour, touch and sound and the earth possessing smell, taste, colour, touch, and sound suffer an infinite variety of changes as roots, flowers, fruits, leaves and their specific tastes and other qualities. The water and the earth which do not possess these qualities cannot have them, for we have proved that what is non-existent cannot come into being. The trees and plants produce the varied tastes and colours in animals, for it is by eating these that they acquire such richness of colour, etc. Animal products can again produce changes in plant bodies. By sprinkling blood on it a pomegranate may be made as big as a palm” (Tattvavaiśaradī, III. 14).
Looked at from the point of view of the guṇas, there is no intrinsic difference between things, though there are a thousand manifestations of differences, according to time, place, form and causality. The expressions of the guṇas, and the manifestations of the transformations of energy differ according to time, place, shape, or causality—these are the determining circumstances and environments which determine the modes of the evolutionary process; surrounding environments are also involved in determining this change, and it is said that two Āmalaka fruits placed in two different places undergo two different sorts of changes in connection with the particular spots in which they are placed, and that if anybody interchanges them a Yogin can recognise and distinguish the one from the other by seeing the changes that the fruits have undergone in connection with their particular points of space. Thus the Bhāshya says: “Two Āmalaka fruits having the same characteristic genus and species, their situation in two different points of space contributes to their specific distinction of development, so that they may be identified as this and that. When an Āmalaka is brought from a distance to a man previously inattentive to it, he naturally cannot distinguish this Āmalaka as being the distant one which has been brought before him without his knowledge. But right knowledge should be competent to discern the distinction; and the sūtra says that the place associated with one Āmalaka fruit is different from the place associated with another Āmalaka at another point of space; and the Yogin can perceive the difference of their specific evolution in association with their points of space; similarly the atoms also suffer different modifications at different points of space which can be perceived by Īśvara and the Yogins” (Vyāsa-bhāshya, III. 53).
Vācaspati again says: “Though all cause is essentially all effects yet a particular cause takes effect in a particular place, thus though the cause is the same, yet saffron grows in Kāśmīra and not in Pāñcāla. So, the rains do not come in summer, the vicious do not enjoy happiness. Thus in accordance with the obstructions of place, time, animal form, and instrumental accessories, the same cause does not produce the same effect. Though as cause everything is essentially everything else, yet there is a particular country for a particular effect, such as Kāśmīra is for saffron. Even though the causes may be in other countries such as Pāñcāla, yet the effect will not happen there, and for this reason saffron does not manifest itself in Pāñcāla. So in summer there are no rains and so no paddy grows then” (Tattvavaiśāradī, III. 14).
We see therefore that time, space, etc., are the limitations which regulate, modify and determine to a certain extent the varying transformations and changes and the seeming differences of things, though in reality they are all ultimately reducible to the three guṇas; thus Kāśmīra being the country of saffron, it will not grow in the Pāñcāla country, even though the other causes of its growth should all be present there;—here the operation of cause is limited by space.
After considering the inorganic, vegetable and animal kingdoms as three stages in the evolutionary process, our attention is at once drawn to their conception of the nature of relation of plant life to animal life. Though I do not find any special reference in the Bhāshya to this point, yet I am reminded of a few passages in the Mahābhārata, which I think may be added as a supplement to the general doctrine of evolution according to the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala philosophy as stated here. Thus the Mahābhārata says: “Even the solid trees have ether (ākāśa) in them which justifies the regular appearance of flowers and fruits. By heat the leaves, the bark, flowers and fruits become withered, and since there is withering and decay in them, there is in them the sensation of touch. Since by the sound of air, fire and thunder the fruits and flowers fall away, there must be the sense of hearing in them. The creepers encircle the trees and they go in all directions, and since without sight there could not be any choice of direction, the trees have the power of vision. By various holy and unholy smells and incenses of various kinds the trees are cured of their diseases and blossom forth, therefore the trees can smell. Since they drink by their roots, and since they get diseases, and since their diseases can be cured, there is the sense of taste in the trees. Since they enjoy pleasure and suffer pain, and since their parts which are cut grow, I see life everywhere in trees and not want of life” (Sāntiparva, 184).
Nīlakaṇṭha in his commentary goes still further and says that a hard substance called vajramaṇi also may be called living. Here we see that the ancients had to a certain extent forestalled the discovery of Sir J. C. Bose that the life functions differed only in degree between the three classes, the inorganic, plants and animals.
These are all, however, only illustrations of dharma-pariṇāma, for here there is no radical change in the elements themselves, the appearance of qualities being due only to the different arrangement of the atoms of the five gross elements. This change applies to the viśeshas only—the five gross elements externally and the eleven senses internally. How the inner microcosm, the manas and the senses are affected by dharma-pariṇāma we shall see hereafter, when we deal with the psychology of the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala doctrine. For the present it will suffice to say that the citta or mind also suffers this change and is modified in a twofold mode; the patent in the form of the ideas and the latent, as the substance itself, in the form of saṃskāras of subconscious impressions. Thus the Bhāshya says: “The mind has two kinds of characteristics, perceived and unperceived. Those of the nature of ideas are perceived and those inherent in the integral nature of it are unperceived. The latter are of seven kinds and may be ascertained by inference. These are cessation of mental states by samādhi, virtue and vice, subconscious impressions, change, life-functioning, power of movement, and energy” (III. 15).
This dharma-pariṇāma as we have shown it, is essentially different from the satkāraṇavāda of the aviśeshas described above. We cannot close this discussion about evolution without noticing the Sāṃkhya view of causation.
We have seen that the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala view holds that the effect is already existent in the cause, but only in a potential form. “The grouping or collocation alone changes, and this brings out the manifestation of the latent powers of the guṇas, but without creation of anything absolutely new or non-existent.” This is the true satkāryyavāda theory as distinguished from the so-called satkāryyavāda theory of the Vedāntists, which ought more properly to be called the satkāraṇavāda theory, for with them the cause alone is true, and all effects are illusory, being only impositions on the cause. For with them the material cause alone is true, whilst all its forms and shapes are merely illusory, whereas according to the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala doctrine all the appearances or effects are true and are due to the power which the substance has of transforming itself into those various appearances and effects yogyatāvacchinnā dharmiṇaḥ śaktireva dharmaḥ (III. 14). The operation of the concomitant condition or efficient cause serves only to effect the passage of a thing from potency to actualisation.
Everything in the phenomenal world is but a special collocation of the guṇas; so that the change of collocation explains the diversity of things. Considered from the point of view of the guṇas, things are all the same, so excluding that, the cause of the diversity in things is the power which the guṇas have of changing their particular collocations and thus assuming various shapes. We have seen that the prakṛti unfolds itself through various stages—the mahat called the great being—the ahaṃkāra, the tanmātras called the aviśeshas. Now the liṅga at once resolves itself into the ahaṃkāra and through it again into the tanmātras. The ahaṃkāra and the tanmātras again resolve themselves into the senses and the gross elements, and these again are constantly suffering thousands of modifications called the dharma, lakshaṇa, and avasthā-pariṇāma according to the definite law of evolution (pariṇāmakramaniyama).
Now according to the Saṃkhya-Pātañjala doctrine, the śakti—power, force—and the śaktimān—the possessor of power or force—are not different but identical. So the prakṛti and all its emanations and modifications are of the nature of substantive entities as well as power or force. Their appearances as substantive entities and as power or force are but two aspects, and so it will be erroneous to make any such distinction as the substantive entity and its power or force. That which is the substantive entity is the force, and that which is the force is the substantive entity. Of course for all practical purposes we can indeed make some distinction, but that distinction is only relatively true. Thus when we say that earth is the substantive entity and the power which it has of transforming itself into the produced form, lump, or jug as its attribute, we see on the one hand that no distinction is really made between the appearance of the earth as jug and its power of transforming itself into the jug. As this power of transforming itself into lump or jug, etc., always abides in the earth we say that the jug, etc., are also abiding in the earth; when the power is in the potential state, we say that the jug is in the potential state, and when it is actualised, we say that the jug has been actualised. Looked at from the tanmātric side, the earth and all the other gross elements must be said to be mere modifications, and as such identical with the power which the tanmātras have of changing themselves into them. The potentiality or actuality of any state is the mere potentiality or actuality of the power which its antecedent cause has of transforming itself into it.
CHAPTER VII
EVOLUTION AND CHANGE OF QUALITIES
Prakṛti, though a substantive entity is yet a potential power, being actualised as its various modifications, the aviśeshas and the viśeshas. Being of the nature of power, the movement by which it actualises itself is immanent within itself and not caused from without. The operation of the concomitant conditions is only manifested in the removal of the negative barriers by which the power was stopped or prevented from actualising itself. Being of the nature of power, its potentiality means that it is kept in equilibrium by virtue of the opposing tendencies inherent within it, which serve to obstruct one another and are therefore called the āvaraṇa śakti. Of course it is evident that there is no real or absolute distinction between the opposing force (āvaraṇa śakti) and the energising force (kāryyakarī śakti); they may be called so only relatively, for the same tendency which may appear as the āvaraṇa śakti of some tendencies may appear as the kāryyakarī śakti elsewhere. The example chosen to explain the nature of prakṛti and its modifications conceived as power tending towards actuality from potentiality in the Vyāsa-bhāshya is that of a sheet of water enclosed by temporary walls within a field, but always tending to run out of it. As soon as the temporary wall is broken in some direction, the water rushes out of itself, and what one has to do is to break the wall at a particular place. Prakṛti is also the potential for all the infinite diversity of things in the phenomenal world, but the potential tendency of all these mutually opposed and diverse things cannot be actualised together. Owing to the concomitant conditions when the barrier of a certain tendency is removed, it at once actualises itself in its effect and so on.
We can only expect to get any effect from any cause if the necessary barriers can be removed, for everything is everything potentially and it is only necessary to remove the particular barrier which is obstructing the power from actualising itself in that particular effect towards which it is always potentially tending. Thus Nandī who was a man is at once turned into a god for his particular merit, which served to break all the barriers of the potential tendency of his body towards becoming divine, so that the barriers being removed the potential power of the prakṛti of his body at once actualises itself in the divine body.
The Vyāsa-bhāshya (III. 14) mentions four sorts of concomitant conditions which can serve to break the barrier in a particular way and thus determine the mode or form of the actualisations of the potential. These are (1) ākāra, form and constitution of a thing; deśa, place, (3) kāla, time; thus from a piece of stone, the shoot of a plant cannot proceed, for the arrangement of the particles in stone is such that it will oppose and stand as a bar to its potential tendencies to develop into the shoot of a plant; of course if these barriers could be removed, say by the will of God, as Vijñāna Bhikshu says, then it is not impossible that the shoot of a plant might grow from a stone. By the will of God poison may be turned into nectar and nectar into poison, and there is no absolute certainty of the course of the evolutionary process, for God’s will can make any change in the direction of its process (avyavasthitākhilapariṇāmo bhavatyeva, III. 14).
According to the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala theory dharma, merit, can only be said to accrue from those actions which lead to a man’s salvation, and adharma from just the opposite course of conduct. When it is said that these can remove the barriers of the prakṛti and thus determine its modifications, it amounts almost to saying that the modifications of the prakṛti are being regulated by the moral conditions of man. According to the different stages of man’s moral evolution, different kinds of merit, dharma or adharma, accrue, and these again regulate the various physical and mental phenomena according to which a man may be affected either pleasurably or painfully. It must, however, be always remembered that the dharma and adharma are also the productions of prakṛti, and as such cannot affect it except by behaving as the cause for the removal of the opposite obstructions—the dharma for removing the obstructions of adharma and adharma for those of dharma. Vijñāna Bhikshu and Nāgeśa agree here in saying that the modifications due to dharma and adharma are those which affect the bodies and senses. What they mean is possibly this, that it is dharma or adharma alone which guides the transformations of the bodies and senses of all living beings in general and the Yogins.
The body of a person and his senses are continually decaying and being reconstructed by refilling from the gross elements and from ahaṃkāra respectively. These refillings proceed automatically and naturally; but they follow the teleological purpose as chalked out by the law of karma in accordance with the virtues or vices of a man. Thus the gross insult to which the sages were subjected by Nahusha[[36]] was so effective a sin that by its influence the refilling of Nahusha’s body and the senses was stopped and the body and senses of a snake were directly produced by a process of refilling from the gross elements and ahaṃkāra, for providing him with a body in which he could undergo the sufferings which were his due owing to the enormity of his vice. Thus by his vicious action the whole machinery of prakṛti was set in operation so that he at once died and was immediately reborn as a snake. In another place Vācaspati “the virtuous enjoys happiness” as an illustration of the cause of dharma and adharma as controlling the course of the development of prakṛti. We therefore see that the sphere of merit and demerit lies in the helping of the formation of the particular bodies and senses (from the gross elements and ahaṃkāra respectively) suited to all living beings according to their stages of evolution and their growth, decay, or other sorts of their modifications as pleasure, pain, and also as illness or health. Thus it is by his particular merit that the Yogin can get his special body or men or animals can get their new bodies after leaving the old ones at death. Thus Yoga-vārttika says: “Merit by removing the obstructions of demerit causes the development of the body and the senses.”
As for Īśvara I do not remember that the Bhāshya or the sūtras ever mention Him as having anything to do with the controlling of the modifications of the prakṛti by removing the barriers, but all the later commentators agree in holding him responsible for the removal of all barriers in the way of prakṛtis development. So that Īśvara is the root cause of all the removal of barriers, including those that are affected by merit and demerit. Thus Vācaspati says (IV. 3): Īśvarasyāpi dharmādhishṭhānārthaṃ pratibandhāpanaya eva vyāpāro, i.e. God stands as the cause of the removal of such obstacles in the prakṛti as may lead to the fruition of merit or demerit.
Yoga-vārttika and Nāgeśa agree in holding Īśvara responsible for the removal of all obstacles in the way of the evolution of prakṛti. Thus Bhikshu says that God rouses prakṛti by breaking the opposing forces of the state of equilibrium and also of the course of evolution (IV. 3).
It is on account of God that we can do good or bad actions and thus acquire merit or demerit. Of course God is not active and cannot cause any motion in prakṛti. But He by His very presence causes the obstacles, as the barriers in the way of prakṛti’s development, to be removed, in such a way that He stands ultimately responsible for the removal of all obstacles in the way of prakṛti’s development and thus also of all obstacles in the way of men’s performance of good or bad deeds. Man’s good or bad deeds “puṇyakarma,” apuṇyakarma, dharma or adharma serve to remove the obstacles of prakṛti in such a way as to result in pleasurable or painful effects; but it is by God’s help that the barriers of prakṛti are removed and it yields itself in such a way that a man may perform good or bad deeds according to his desire. Nīlakaṇṭha, however, by his quotations in explanation of 300/2, Śāntiparva, leads us to suppose that he regards God’s will as wholly responsible for the performance of our good or bad actions. For if we lay stress on his quotation “He makes him do good deeds whom He wants to raise, and He makes him commit bad deeds whom He wants to throw down,” it appears that he whom God wants to raise is made to perform good actions and he whom God wants to throw downwards is made to commit bad actions. But this seems to be a very bold idea, as it will altogether nullify the least vestige of freedom in and responsibility for our actions and is unsupported by the evidence of other commentators. Vijñāna Bhikshu also says with reference to this śruti in his Vijñānamṛta-bhāshya, III. 33: “As there is an infinite regressus between the causal connection of seed and shoot, so one karma is being determined by the previous karma and so on; there is no beginning to this chain.” So we take the superintendence of merits and demerits (dharmādhispṭhānatā) by Īśvara to mean only in a general way the help that is offered by Him in removing the obstructions of the external world in such a manner that it may be possible for a man to perform practically meritorious acts in the external world.
Nīlakaṇṭha commenting on the Yoga view says that “like a piece of magnet, God though inactive, may by His very presence stir up prakṛti and help His devotees. So the Yoga holds that for the granting of emancipation God has to be admitted” (Śāntiparva, 300/2).
In support of our view we also find that it is by God’s influence that the unalterable nature of the external world is held fast and a limit imposed on the powers of man in producing changes in the external world. Thus Vācaspati in explaining the Bhāshya (III. 45) says: “Though capable of doing it, yet he does not change the order of things, because another earlier omnipotent being had wished the things to be such as they were. They would not disobey the orders of the omnipotent God.”
Men may indeed acquire unlimited powers of producing any changes they like, for the powers of objects as they change according to the difference of class, space, time and condition, are not permanent, and so it is proper that they should act in accordance with the desire of the Yogin; but there is a limit to men’s will by the command of God—thus far and no further.
Another point in our favour is that the Yoga philosophy differs from the Sāṃkhya mainly in this that the purushārtha or serviceability to the purusha is only the aim or end of the evolution of prakṛti and not actually the agent which removes the obstacles of the prakṛti in such a way as to determine its course as this cosmical process of evolution. Purushārtha is indeed the aim for which the process of evolution exists; for this manifold evolution in its entirety affects the interests of the purusha alone; but that does not prove that its teleology can really guide the evolution on its particular lines so as to ensure the best possible mode of serving all the interests of the purusha, for this teleology being immanent in the prakṛti is essentially non-intelligent. Thus Vācaspati says: “The fulfilment of the purpose of the purusha is not also the prime mover. God has the fulfilment of the purpose of the purusha as His own purpose, for which He behaves as the prime mover. The fulfilment of the purpose of the purusha may be regarded as cause only in the sense that it is the object in view of God, the prime mover.”[[37]]
The Sāṃkhya, however, hopes that this immanent purpose in prakṛti acts like a blind instinct and is able to guide the course of its evolution in all its manifold lines in accordance with the best possible service of the purusha.
The Pātañjala view, as we have seen, maintains that Īśvara removes all obstacles of prakṛti in such a way that this purpose may find scope for its realisation. Thus Sūtrārthabodhinī, IV. 3, of Nārāyaṇa Tīrtha says: “According to atheistic Sāṃkhya the future serviceability of purusha alone is the mover of prakṛti. But with us theists the serviceability of purusha is the object for which prakṛti moves. It is merely as an object that the serviceability of the purusha may be said to be the mover of the prakṛti.”
As regards the connection of prakṛti and purusha, however, both Sāṃkhya and Pātañjala agree according to Vijñāna Bhikshu in denying the interference of Īśvara; it is the movement of prakṛti by virtue of immanent purpose that connects itself naturally with the purusha. Vijñāna Bhikshu’s own view, however, is that this union is brought about by God (Vijñānāmṛta-bhāshya, p. 34).
To recapitulate, we see that there is an immanent purpose in prakṛti which connects it with the purushas. This purpose is, however, blind and cannot choose the suitable lines of development and cause the movement of Prakṛti along them for its fullest realisation. Prakṛti itself, though a substantial entity, is also essentially of the nature of conserved energy existing in the potential form but always ready to flow out and actualise itself, if only its own immanent obstructions are removed. Its teleological purpose is powerless to remove its own obstruction. God by His very presence removes the obstacles, by which, prakṛti of itself moves in the evolutionary process, and thus the purpose is realised; for the removal of obstacles by the influence of God takes place in such a way that the purpose may realise its fullest scope. Realisation of the teleology means that the interests of purusha are seemingly affected and purusha appears to see and feel in a manifold way, and after a long series of such experiences it comes to understand itself in its own nature, and this being the last and final realisation of the purpose of prakṛti with reference to that purusha all connections of prakṛti with such a purusha at once cease; the purusha is then said to be liberated and the world ceases for him to exist, though it exists for the other unliberated purushas, the purpose of the prakṛti with reference to whom has not been realised. So the world is both eternal and non-eternal, i.e. its eternality is only relative and not absolute. Thus the Bhāshya says the question “whether the world will have an end or not cannot be directly answered. The world-process gradually ceases for the wise and not for others, so no one-sided decision can be true” (IV. 33).