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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
If the reader would bear in mind the notion entertained by certain Hindu Idealists that the sensible world is only held in the mind of its percipient and has no existence apart from it, he would have no difficulty in comprehending the position of Kapila, whose doctrine we shall now compare, side by side, with the manner in which an awakening consciousness becomes cognizant of the world of phenomena. Human consciousness.
The World-process. (1) Alternation of waking (1) Alternation of creation and sleeping.
and destruction. (2) In deep-sleop the ego is! (2) In world-destruction (pranot destroyed, but the spectacle laya) the perceiver (purusha) is is not perceived.
not destroyed, but nature is not
perceived. (3) In awakening intellect (3) In the world-process, is roused first of all,
mahat (Intellect) is produced
first, (4) From intellect arises the (4) Mahat is then transformed thought of "1," i.e., ahamkara into ahamkâra (the author' of (egoity or individuality.)
aham or “ I-ness"). (5) From egoity flow the (5) From ahamkara the manas, functions of certain organs or the five senses, and the five-fold constituents of individuality, functions of the five organs of attention (manas), the senses and action, the hands, feet, and the motor faculties.
like, are formed. (6) Egoity being awakened (6) The anamkâra is transand developed, sensations, which formed into (i) smell, (2) flavour, signify affections of the ego, are (3) form, (4) touch, and (5) sound, perceived.
i.e., the five kinds of sensations. (7) The data of sensations (7) The data of sensations, are then projected and consti- i.e., the subtle elements (tantute the perceptible world. matras) of smell, and the like, are
transformed into the five gross elements, ether, air, fire, water and earth, of which the perceptible, that is to say, the phenome
nal world is composed. No need to go into further details; the whole doctrine is based on certain crude notions about what takes
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