Yoga as philosophy and religion

by Surendranath Dasgupta

These physical characteristics are distinguished from the aspects by which they appeal to the senses, which are called their svarūpas. Earth is characterised by gandha or smell, ap by rasa or taste, tejas by rūpa, etc. Looked at from this point of view, we see that smell arises by the contact of the nasal organ with the hard particles of matter; so this hardness or solidity which can so generate the sensibility of gandha, is said to be the svarūpa of kshiti. Taste can originate only in connection with liquidity, so this liquidity or sneha is the svarūpa or nature of ap. Light—the quality of visibility—manifests itself in connection with heat, so heat is the svarūpa of fire. The sensibility of touch is generated in connection with the vibration of air on the epidermal surface; so this vibratory nature is the svarūpa of air.

The sensibility to sound proceeds from the nature of obstructionlessness, which belongs to ākāśa, so this obstructionlessness is the svarūpa of ākāśa.

The third aspect is the aspect of tanmātras, which are the causes of the atoms or paramāṇus. Their fourth aspect is their aspect of guṇas or qualities of illumination, action, inertia. Their fifth aspect is that by which they are serviceable to purusha, by causing his pleasurable or painful experiences and finally his liberation.

Speaking of aggregation with regard to the structure of matter, we see that this is of two kinds (1) when the parts are in intimate union and fusion, e.g. any vegetable or animal body, the parts of which can never be considered separately. (2) When there are such mechanical aggregates or collocations of distinct and independent parts yutasiddhāvayava as the trees in a forest.

A dravya or substance is an aggregate of the former type, and is the grouping of generic or specific qualities and is not a separate entity—the abode of generic and specific qualities like the dravya of the Vaiśeshika conception. The aspect of an unification of generic and specific qualities seen in parts united in intimate union and fusion is called the dravya aspect. The aggregation of parts is the structural aspect of which the side of appearance is the unification of generic and specific qualities called the dravya.

The other aggregation of yutasiddhāvayava, i.e. the collocation of the distinct and independent parts, is again of two kinds, (1) in which stress may be laid on the distinction of parts, and (2) that in which stress is laid on their unity rather than on their distinctness. Thus in the expression mango-grove, we see that many mangoes make a grove, but the mangoes are not different from the grove. Here stress is laid on the aspect that mangoes are the same as the grove, which, however, is not the case when we say that here is a grove of mangoes, for the expression “grove of mangoes” clearly brings home to our minds the side of the distinct mango-trees which form a grove.

Of the gross elements, ākāśa seems especially to require a word of explanation. There are according to Vijñāna Bhikshu and Nāgeśa two kinds of ākāśa—kāraṇa (or primal) and kārya (atomic). The first or original is the undifferentiated formless tamas, for in that stage it has not the quality of manifesting itself in sounds. This kāraṇa later on develops into the atomic ākāśa, which has the property of sound. According to the conception of the purāṇas, this karyākāśa evolves from the ego as the first envelope of vāyu or air. The kāraṇakāśa or non-atomic ākāśa should not be considered as a mere vacuum, but must be conceived as a positive, all-pervasive entity, something like the ether of modern physicists.

From this ākāśa springs the atomic ākāśa or kāryākāśa, which is the cause of the manifestation of sound. All powers of hearing, even though they have their origin in the principle of egoism, reside in the ākāśa placed in the hollow of the ear. When soundness or defect is noticed therein, soundness or defect is also noticed in the power of hearing. Further, when of the sounds working in unison with the power of hearing, the sounds of solids, etc., are to be apprehended, then the power of hearing located in the hollow of the ear requires the capacity of resonance residing in the substratum of the ākāśa of the ear. This sense of hearing, then, operates when it is attracted by the sound originated and located in the mouth of the speaker, which acts as a loadstone. It is this ākāśa which gives penetrability to all bodies; in the absence of this, all bodies would be so compact that it would be difficult to pierce them even with a needle. In the Sāṃkhya-sūtra II. 12, it is said that eternal time and space are of the nature of ākāśa. So this so-called eternal time and space do not differ from the one undifferentiated formless tamas of which we have just spoken. Relative and infinite time arise from the motion of atoms in space—the cause of all change and transformation; and space as relative position cannot be better expressed than in the words of Dr. B. N. Seal, as “totality of positions as an order of co-existent points, and as such it is wholly relative to the understanding like order in time, being constructed on the basis of relations of position intuited by our empirical or relative consciousness. But there is this difference between space order and time order:—there is no unit of space as position (dik) though we may conceive time, as the moment (kshaṇa) regarded as the unit of change in the causal series. Spatial position (dik) results only from the different relations in which the all-pervasive ākāśa stands to the various finite objects. On the other hand, space as extension or locus of a finite body, or deśa, has an ultimate unit, being analysable into the infinitesimal extension quality inherent in the guṇas of prakṛti.”[^[44]]

Citta or mind has two degrees: (1) the form of states such as real cognition, including perception, inference, competent evidence, unreal cognition, imagination, sleep and memory. (2) In the form in which all those states are suppressed. Between the stage of complete outgoing activity of ordinary experience (vyutthāna) and complete suppression of all states, there are thousands of states of infinite variety, through which a man’s experiences have to pass, from the vyutthāna state to the nirodha. In addition to the five states spoken of above, there is another kind of real knowledge and intuition, called prajñā, which dawns when by concentration the citta is fixed upon any one state and that alone. This prajñā is superior to all other means of knowledge, whether perception, inference or competent evidence of the Vedas, in this, that it is altogether unerring, unrestricted and unlimited in its scope.

Pramāṇa, we have seen, includes perception, inference and competent evidence. Perception originates when the mind or citta, through the senses (ear, skin, eye, taste and nose) is modified by external objects and passes to them, generating a kind of knowledge about them in which their specific characters become more predominant.