Systems of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 002019
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 212
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 10 MB

Page 70

THE SANKHYA PHILOSOPHY
tion and is defined as the suppression of the modifications of the thinking principle45.
13. We will go still deeper into Kapila's philosophy. We have enumerated in the beginning the 25 principles commencing with Prakriti and ending with Purusha. Prakriti as Prakriti in a state of equilibrium is unable to produce anything. It is only when the equilibrium is disturbed that the creation follows. Purusha-the soul-itself is neither the producer nor the produced. Whence is the human body created according to this philosophy? Kapila says that out of the remaining twenty-three principles a pair of bodies स्थूल शरीर and सूक्ष्म शरीर gross body and subtle body originates. In fact the twenty-three principles act as the seed out of which the body is produced and the fact that the soul becomes conditioned by the 23 principles is the cause of its going from one body to another-in fact the cause of all mundane existence47, and this mundane existence continues for each soul so long as it does not discriminate the difference between soul and Prakriti48. It should be noted however that according to Kapila's theory the soul is not really fettered by matter, it only has a wrong impression that it is fettered. Really it is quite free. Only it does not realize this fact so long as it is in mundane existence. We come again to the pair of bodies-the gross body and the subtle body. The gross body usually though not always arises from father and mother, while the subtle body is a creation out of the principles49. Pleasure and pain belong to the subtle
45. YS 1.2
46. SS 3.2; Vijn. 3.2
47. SS 3.3
48. SS 3.4
49. SS 3.7; SK 39
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