Qualities Of Sankhya

SR No.: 269584
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst
Total Pages: 14
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 11

The Qualities of Sankhya
A material object is a collection of samanya(s) and viseṣa(s) 19. What are sāmānyas and viseṣas? The viseṣas are sound etc. – belonging to earth etc. together with their properties, shape etc. 20. The sāmānyas are corporeality (which is earth), viscosity (which is water), heat (which is fire), moving forward (which is wind)", and going everywhere (which is ether)22. The text adds that sound etc. are the viseṣas of a samanya.
There can be little doubt that both sāmānyas and viseṣas are qualities of some sort23; we may speak, with DASGUPTA (1924: 168), of generic and specific qualities. Material objects are, therefore, aggregates or collections of qualities, which are, moreover, inseparable. We may assume that we have to do here with a development of the preclassical form of Sankhya outlined above".
Does this mean that we have to believe, following the lead of Nageśa, that Bhartṛhari and the other authors cited at the beginning of this article referred to the Yoga Bhāṣya, or perhaps to a work by the mysterious Patanjali mentioned there? It seems doubtful. The sāmānyas in the Yoga Bhāṣya are never referred to as gunas25; yet Bhartṛhari uses this term in connection with 'sound etc.'.
AL
Bibliography and Abbreviations
319
BRONKHORST 1987
Mahābhāṣyadīpikā of Bhartṛhari, crit. edd. K.V. ABHYANKAR V.P. LIMAYE. [BORI Post-Graduate and Research Department Series, No. 8]. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1970.
JOHANNES BRONKHORST, Three Problems Pertaining to the Mahābhāṣya. [Post-graduate and Research Department Series, No. 30]. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1987.
19 Ybh. 298,6 sāmānyaviseṣasamudayo 'tra dravyam |.
20 Ybh. 297,8 parthivadyaḥ sabdadayo viseṣaḥ sahäkärädibhir dharmaiḥ. 21 FRAUWALLNER (1953: 357, 404) translates pranamitā as "Vorwärtsbewegung".
22 Ybh. 298,2f. svasāmānyam murtir bhumiḥ sneho jalam vahnir uṣṇatā vayuḥ pranāmi sarvatogatir ākāśaḥ. Ybh. 339,4ff. (ad YS IV 14) enumerates the same samanyas as murti, sneha, ausnya, pranamitva and avakāśadāna.
23 Some of the samanyas of the Yoga Bhāṣya figure among the dharmas of the elements enumerated at YD 118,21f.
24 Buddhist influence cannot be ruled out either; cf. Abhidharmakosa Bhāṣya I 12: kharaḥ prthividhatuḥ | sneho 'bdhatuḥ | uṣnata tejodhatuḥ | īraṇā vayudhatuḥ, the similarity of which with the Yoga Bhāṣya is undeniable.
25 Except, of course, by Nageśa in the passage cited above.