thought; thus the images of thought are limited, separate, have movement, and have more or less clear cut forms. The images do not extend in space, but they can represent space. The translucent and plastic element of thought (sattva) in association with movement (rajas) would have resulted in a simultaneous revelation of all objects; it is on account of mass or tendency of obstruction (tamas) that knowledge proceeds from image to image and discloses things in a successive manner. The buddhi (thought-stuff) holds within it all knowledge immersed as it were in utter darkness, and actual knowledge comes before our view as though by the removal of the darkness or veil, by the reflection of the light of the purușa. This characteristic of knowledge, that all its stores are hidden as if lost at any moment, and only one picture or idea comes at a time to the arena of revelation, demonstrates that in knowledge there is a factor of obstruction which manifests itself in its full actuality in gross matter as mass. Thus both thought and gross matter are made up of three elements, a plasticity of intelligence-stuff (sattva), energy-stuff (rajas), and mass-stuff (tamas), or the factor of obstruction. Of these the last two are predominant in gross matter and the first two in thought.

Feelings, the Ultimate Substances1.

Another question that arises in this connection is the position of feeling in such an analysis of thought and matter. Samkhya holds that the three characteristic constituents that we have analyzed just now are feeling substances. Feeling is the most interesting side of our consciousness. It is in our feelings that we think of our thoughts as being parts of ourselves. If we should analyze any percept into the crude and undeveloped sensations of which it is composed at the first moment of its appearance, it comes more as a shock than as an image, and we find that it is felt more as a feeling mass than as an image. Even in our ordinary life the elements which precede an act of knowledge are probably mere feelings. As we go lower down the scale of evolution the automatic actions and relations of matter are concomitant with crude manifestations of feeling which never rise to the level of knowledge. The lower the scale of evolution the less is the keenness of feeling, till at last there comes a stage where matter-complexes do not give rise to feeling 1 Kārikā, 12, with Gauḍpāda and Nārāyaṇatirtha.

reactions but to mere physical reactions. Feelings thus mark the earliest track of consciousness, whether we look at it from the point of view of evolution or of the genesis of consciousness in ordinary life. What we call matter complexes become at a certain stage feeling-complexes and what we call feeling-complexes at a certain stage of descent sink into mere matter-complexes with matter reaction. The feelings are therefore the things-in-themselves, the ultimate substances of which consciousness and gross matter are made up. Ordinarily a difficulty might be felt in taking feelings to be the ultimate substances of which gross matter and thought are made up; for we are more accustomed to take feelings as being merely subjective, but if we remember the Samkhya analysis, we find that it holds that thought and matter are but two different modifications of certain subtle substances which are in essence but three types of feeling entities. The three principal characteristics of thought and matter that we have noticed in the preceding section are but the manifestations of three types of feeling substances. There is the class of feelings that we call the sorrowful, there is another class of feelings that we call pleasurable, and there is still another class which is neither sorrowful nor pleasurable, but is one of ignorance, depression (viṣāda) or dullness. Thus corresponding to these three types of manifestations as pleasure, pain, and dullness, and materially as shining (prakāśa), energy (pravṛtti), obstruction (niyama), there are three types of feeling-substances which must be regarded as the ultimate things which make up all the diverse kinds of gross matter and thought by their varying modifications.

The Guņas1.

These three types of ultimate subtle entities are technically called guna in Samkhya philosophy. Guna in Sanskrit has three meanings, namely (1) quality, (2) rope, (3) not primary. These entities, however, are substances and not mere qualities. But it may be mentioned in this connection that in Sāmkhya philosophy there is no separate existence of qualities; it holds that each and every unit of quality is but a unit of substance. What we call quality is but a particular manifestation or appearance of a subtle entity. Things do not possess quality, but quality

1 Yogavārttika, II. 18; Bhāvāgaṇeśa's Tattvayāthārthyadipana, pp. 1–3; Vijñānāmṛtabhāṣya, p. 100; Tattvakaumudi, 13; also Gauḍapāda and Nārāyaṇatīrtha, 13.

Peacts to what

what reacts?

244

The Kapila and the Patanjala Samkhya

[CH.

signifies merely the manner in which a substance reacts; any object we see seems to possess many qualities, but the Samkhya holds that corresponding to each and every new unit of quality, however fine and subtle it may be, there is a corresponding subtle entity, the reaction of which is interpreted by us as a quality. This is true not only of qualities of external objects but also of mental qualities as well. These ultimate entities were thus called guņas probably to suggest that they are the entities which by their various modifications manifest themselves as gunas or qualities. These subtle entities may also be called gunas in the sense of ropes because they are like ropes by which the soul is chained down as if it were to thought and matter. These may also be called gunas as things of secondary importance, because though permanent and indestructible, they continually suffer modifications and changes by their mutual groupings and re-groupings, and thus not primarily and unalterably constant like the souls (purușa). Moreover the object of the world process being the enjoyment and salvation of the puruṣas, the matter-principle could not naturally be regarded as being of primary importance. But in whatever senses we may be inclined to justify the name guna as applied to these subtle entities, it should be borne in mind that they are substantive entities or subtle substances and not abstract qualities. These guņas are infinite in number, but in accordance with their three main characteristics as described above they have been arranged in three classes or types called sattva (intelligence-stuff), rajas (energystuff) and tamas (mass-stuff). An infinite number of subtle substances which agree in certain characteristics of self-shining or plasticity are called the sattva-gunas and those which behave as units of activity are called the rajo-gunas and those which behave as factors of obstruction, mass or materiality are called tamo-guņas. These subtle guņa substances are united in different proportions (e.g. a larger number of sattva substances with a lesser number of rajas or tamas, or a larger number of tamas substances with a smaller number of rajas and sattva substances and so on in varying proportions), and as a result of this, different substances with different qualities come into being. Though attached to one another when united in different proportions, they mutually act and react upon one another, and thus by their combined resultant produce new characters, qualities and substances. There is how

ever one and only one stage in which the guṇas are not compounded in varying proportions. In this state each of the guna substances is opposed by each of the other guna substances, and thus by their equal mutual opposition create an equilibrium, in which none of the characters of the gunas manifest themselves. This is a state which is so absolutely devoid of all characteristics that it is absolutely incoherent, indeterminate, and indefinite. It is a qualitiless simple homogeneity. It is a state of being which is as it were non-being. This state of the mutual equilibrium of the gunas is called prakṛti'. This is a state which cannot be said either to exist or to non-exist for it serves no purpose, but it is hypothetically the mother of all things. This is however the earliest stage, by the breaking of which, later on, all modifications take place.

Prikya

Prakṛti and its Evolution.

Sāmkhya believes that before this world came into being there was such a state of dissolution—a state in which the guna compounds had disintegrated into a state of disunion and had by their mutual opposition produced an equilibrium the prakṛti. Then later on disturbance arose in the prakṛti, and as a result of that a process of unequal aggregation of the gunas in varying proportions took place, which brought forth the creation of the manifold. Prakṛti, the state of perfect homogeneity and incoherence of the guņas, thus gradually evolved and became more and more determinate, differentiated, heterogeneous, and coherent. The gunas are always uniting, separating, and uniting again. Varying qualities of essence, energy, and mass in varied groupings act on one another and through their mutual interaction and interdependence evolve from the indefinite or qualitatively indeterminate the definite or qualitatively determinate. And though co-operating to produce the world of effects, these diverse moments with diverse tendencies never coalesce. Thus in the phenomenal product whatever energy there is is due to the element of rajas and rajas alone; all matter, resistance, stability, is due to tamas, and all conscious manifestation to sattva. The particular guṇa which happens to be predominant in any phenomenon becomes manifest in that phenomenon and others become latent, though their presence is inferred by their

1 Yogavärttika, II. 19, and Pravacanabhāṣya, 1. 61.

2 Kaumudi, 13-16; Tattvavaiśäradī, II. 20, IV. 13, 14; also Yogavärttika, IV. 13, 14.

effect. Thus, for example, in a body at rest mass is patent, energy latent and potentiality of conscious manifestation sublatent. In a moving body, the rajas is predominant (kinetic) and the mass is partially overcome. All these transformations of the groupings of the gunas in different proportions presuppose the state of prakṛti as the starting point. It is at this stage that the tendencies to conscious manifestation, as well as the powers of doing work, are exactly counterbalanced by the resistance of inertia or mass, and the process of cosmic evolution is at rest. When this equilibrium is once destroyed, it is supposed that out of a natural affinity of all the sattva reals for themselves, of rajas reals for other reals of their type, of tamas reals for others of their type, there arises an unequal aggregation of sattva, rajas, or tamas at different moments. When one guna is preponderant in any particular collocation, the others are co-operant. This evolutionary series beginning from the first disturbance of the prakṛti to the final transformation as the world-order, is subject to "a definite law which it cannot overstep." In the words of Dr B. N. Seal1, "the process of evolution consists in the development of the differentiated (vaiṣamya) within the undifferentiated (sāmyāvastha) of the determinate (viseṣa) within the indeterminate (aviseṣa) of the coherent (yutasiddha) within the incoherent (ayutasiddha). The order of succession is neither from parts to whole nor from whole to the parts, but ever from a relatively less differentiated, less determinate, less coherent whole to a relatively more differentiated, more determinate, more coherent whole." The meaning of such an evolution is this, that all the changes and modifications in the shape of the evolving collocations of guna reals take place within the body of the prakṛti. Prakṛti consisting of the infinite reals is infinite, and that it has been disturbed does not mean that the whole of it has been disturbed and upset, or that the totality of the gunas in the prakṛti has been unhinged from a state of equilibrium. It means rather that a very vast number of gunas constituting the worlds of thought and matter has been upset. These gunas once thrown out of balance begin to group themselves together first in one form, then in another, then in another, and so on. But such a change in the formation of aggregates should not be thought to take place in such a way that the later aggregates appear in supersession of the former ones, so that when the former comes into being the latter ceases to exist. 1 Dr B. N. Seal's Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus, 1915, p. 7.