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.