Aptamimansa

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 97

Verse 38
In the Samkhya system, it is the function of the intellect (buddhivṛtti) that is regarded as pramāṇa or the specific cause of true knowledge. The self knows an object through a mental modification that corresponds to the impression produced in the sense-organ by the object in question. The object having impressed its form on the sense organ, the mind presents it to the self through a corresponding modification of itself. Hence the mental function is pramāna or the source of our knowledge of the object.
I or Ego (Ahamkara), which is the ground of our personal identity, merely means further modification of the subtle Buddhi which itself is a modification of acetana Prakṛti.
Prakṛti is otherwise called avyakta or the unmanifest or Pradhana or the primary basis of existence.
The intelligent Puruşa is inactive by nature and hence is incapable of being the architect of his own destiny. Acetana - the unenlightened - Prakṛti has all activity and force in itself and is quite blind by nature. The Puruşa is intelligent but inert and Prakṛti is all activity but blind. The union of the two - the blind and the cripple - leads to living.1
Human volition and consequent human conduct are said to be the effects of acetana Prakṛti; virtue and vice are alien to the Purușa. These are associated with the non-spiritual Prakṛti and hence these do not affect the soul and yet with a strange inconsistency it is the fate of Purusa to enjoy the fruits pleasurable and painful of the karmas directly and immediately due to the activity of Prakṛti. Why it is the fate of Puruşa that he should vicariously suffer the consequences of an alien being in life is entirely unexplained.
As per the Samkhya ontology, Puruşa being ever free can
1. See Prof. A. Chakravarti (2008), "Acārya Kundakunda's Samayasara", Introduction, p. 106.
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