A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1

by Surendranath Dasgupta

254

The changes that take place in the atomic constitution of things certainly deserve to be noticed. But before we go on to this, it will be better to enquire about the principle of causation according to which the Sâ@mkhya-Yoga evolution should be comprehended or interpreted.

Principle of Causation and Conservation of Energy [Footnote ref 1].

The question is raised, how can the prak@rti supply the deficiencies made in its evolutes by the formation of other evolutes from them? When from mahat some tanmâtras have evolved, or when from the tanmâtras some atoms have evolved, how can the deficiency in mahat and the tanmâtras be made good by the prak@rti?

Or again, what is the principle that guides the transformations that take place in the atomic stage when one gross body, say milk, changes into curd, and so on? Sâ@mkhya says that "as the total energy remains the same while the world is constantly evolving, cause and effect are only more or less evolved forms of the same ultimate Energy. The sum of effects exists in the sum of causes in a potential form. The grouping or collocation alone changes, and this brings on the manifestation of the latent powers of the gu@nas, but without creation of anything new. What is called the (material) cause is only the power which is efficient in the production or rather the vehicle of the power. This power is the unmanifested (or potential) form of the Energy set free (udbhûta-v@rtti) in the effect. But the concomitant conditions are necessary to call forth the so-called material cause into activity [Footnote ref 2]." The appearance of an effect (such as the manifestation of the figure of the statue in the marble block by the causal efficiency of the sculptor's art) is only its passage from potentiality to actuality and the concomitant conditions (sahakâri-s'akti) or efficient cause (nimitta-kâra@na, such as the sculptor's art) is a sort of mechanical help or instrumental help to this passage or the transition [Footnote ref 3]. The refilling from prak@rti thus means nothing more than this, that by the inherent teleology of the prak@rti, the reals there are so collocated as to be transformed into mahat as those of the mahat have been collocated to form the bhûtâdi or the tanmâtras.

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[Footnote 1: Vyâsabhâ@sya and Yogavârttika, IV. 3; Tattvavais'âradî,
IV. 3.]

[Footnote 2: Ray, History of Hindu Chemistry, p. 72.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. p. 73.]

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