Section the fifth: concerning those who profess the Sánk’hyá[161] doctrines.—They say that there are two things in the existence, or that the existence is divided into two parts: the one is truth, which they interpret by purusha;[162] the other is illusion, named by them Prakrit.[163] Prakrit is the cause of the world, and purusha, being from want of knowledge and confusion of the intellect mixed with Prakrit, is in the world encircled, and penetrated by this incongruity. Five imperfections are held to adhere to the purusha, which they call pancha kalusháni,[164] “the five failings, or sins.” These are: 1. avidya;[165] 2. ishmatá;[166] 3. rága;[167] 4. dvésha;[168] 5. avivèchaná.[169] Avidya signifies with them that they believe the body and the senses to be the soul; avidya knows of no beginning nor origin; ishmata means personality, individuality, and selfishness; rága is the propensity to what is agreeable; dvésha, “hatred,” consists in adhering to one’s own opinion, and condemning that of others as vicious; avivèchaná relates to acting or not acting with passion. The five failings just enumerated keep Purusha, “the embodied soul,” in distress: but when the mind becomes pure, these five pains are banished. After the purification of the heart, all the qualities which are bad and wicked acquire purity, and the qualities, called by them vrittaya,[170] are of four different kinds: the first, mitrata;[171] the second, karuna;[172] the third, mada;[173] the fourth upèkshá.[174] Mitrata is friendship for the well doers, and benevolence for the men of probity; karuna means to be anxious for the good of the friendly-minded, and to relieve the oppressed; mada consists in enjoying the quiet happiness of all the creatures of God; upèksha signifies, not to use harsh words against those who do ill. These are called chatur vrittayá, or “four qualities,” which keep the heart under subjection, and prevent it from seeing any thing else; and it is from the existence of these four manners that the five pains before mentioned are annihilated, as well as every thing that attracts them, and the fortunate man who is liberated from these five sicknesses, attains the satya loka. And thus is interpreted the appearance of the forms of Prakrit and Purusha in the heart; the professor of this condition knows how to separate them from each other, and becomes wise: by this knowledge Prakrit disappears, after which, having found Purusha, or the true knowledge of himself, which is understood of the soul, man becomes satisfied and happy. According to the opinion of this sect, the five elements are deduced from Prakrit.
This is the substance of the belief of the Sánkhyán.[175] In Little Guzerat, a district of the Panjab, the author of this work saw Atmáchand, and Máhádéo, who said to belong to the Sánk’hyán. According to their opinion, Prakrit is nature, and God is the manifestation of nature, and all the terrestrial and heavenly bodies exist by him, and they said: “What affords verdure to the heads of thorns, is it not nature?”
[161] A system of philosophy, in which precision of reckoning is observed in the enumeration of its principles, is denominated Sánk’hyá; a term which has been understood to signify numeral, agreeably to the usual acceptation of Sánk’hyá, “number:” and hence its analogy to the Pythagorean philosophy has been presumed. But the name may be taken to imply that its doctrine is founded in the exercise of judgment; for the word from which it is derived signifies “reasoning,” or “deliberation;” and that interpretation of its import is countenanced by a passage of the Bhárata, where it is said of this sect of philosophers: “They exercise judgment (Sánk’hyá), and discuss nature and other twenty-four principles, and therefore are called Sánk’hyá” (Colebrooke on the Philosophy of the Hindus)—(Transact. of the R. A. Soc. of Great Br. and Irel., vol. I. P. I. p. 20).
[162] Parusha, pursuant to the Institutes of Manu (l. I. sl. 11), is taken for the “divine male,” or Brahma himself; it signifies in general the embodied soul.
[163] प्रकृत्ति Prakritti is a word of the highest import with the Hindu philosophers. In its precise sense, it means “that which is primary,” “that which precedes what is made;” from pra, “before,” and kri, “to make.” The Prakritti of the Sánk’hyás is a primary, subtile, universal substance, undergoing modification through its own energy, and for a special motive, by which it is manifest as an individual and formal substance, varied according to the predominance of qualities which are equipoised and inert in the parent, and unequal and active in the progeny (see Sánk’hyá Kárika, translated by Colebrooke, commented by Profess. Wilson, pp. 80-83). The author of The Dabistán in the above passage attributes to Prakritti the meaning belonging to máyá, “illusion.” The Sánk’hyás do not commonly confound the signification of these two words, for they maintain the reality of existing things: but the Vedantis and the Pauranikas (or followers of the Puranas) regard creation as a delusion, or as a sport of the creator, that is, as the máyá. Prakritti is translated by Colebrooke “nature,” sometimes “matter.” Professor Lassen renders this word by “procreatrix.”
[164] प्ञ्चकलुषानि.
[165] The Persian text has اوديا, audíjà.
[166] اسمتا ismatá, perhaps इष्मता “desire,” from इष “to desire.”
[167] राग mental affection in general.
[168] The original has دويش davish.