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260 Philosophy of the Rāmānuja School of Thought [CH.
potential) is produced from bhūtādi, and from it the gross elemental sound is produced. Again the rupa-tanmātra (light-heat-potential) is produced from the bhūtādi or the tāmasa ahamkāra, and from the rūpa-tanmātra (light-heat-potential) gross light-heat is produced, and so on. Lokācārya, however, says that there is another view of the genesis of the tanmātra and the bhūta which has also the support of the scriptures and cannot therefore be ignored. This is as follows: sabda-tanmātra is produced from the bhūtādi and the ākāśa is produced from the sabda-tanmātra (sound-potential); the ākāśa again produces the sparsa-tanmātra (the touch-potential) and air is produced from the touch-potential. Again from air heat-light-potential (rūpa-tanmātra) is produced and from heat-light-potential tejas (heat-light) is produced; from tejas, rasa-tanmātra (taste-potential) is produced, and from it water. From water again the gandha-tanmātra (smell-potential) is produced, and from it the earth1.
The view is explained by Varavara on the supposition that just as a seed can produce shoots only when it is covered by husks, so the tanmātras can be supposed to be able to produce further evolutes only when they can operate from within the envelope of the bhutadi.
The process of evolution according to the said interpretation is as follows. Sabda-tanmātra is produced from bhūtādi which then envelops it, and then in such an enveloped state ākāśa is produced. Then from such a sabda-tanmātra, sparśa-tan-mātra is produced which
1 This view seems to be held in the Vişnu-purana, 1. 3. 66, etc. where it is distinctly said that the element of ākāśa produces sparsa-tanmātra (touchpotential). Varavara, however, in his commentary on the Tattvatraya of Lokācārya, wishes to point out that according to Parāśara's commentary this has been explained as being the production of tanmātras from tanmātras, though it clearly contradicts the manifest expressions of the Vişnu-purana when it states that tanmātras are produced from the bhūtādi. He further points out that in the Mahabharata (Säntiparva Mokṣadharma, Ch. xxx) the vikaras or pure modifications are described as sixteen and the causes (prakṛti) as eight. But in this counting the sixteen vikāras (eleven senses and the five categories-sabda, etc.), the distinction between the five tanmatras and the five elements has not been observed on account of there not being any essential difference, the grosser stages being only modified states of the subtler ones (tanmātrāṇām bhūtebhyaḥ svarupa-bheda-bhāvāt avasthā-bheda-mātrattvät). According to this interpretation the eight Prakytis mean the prakṛti, the mahat, the ahamkara and five categories of ākāśa, etc., in their gross forms. The five categories included under the sixteen vikāras are the tanmātras which are regarded as modifications of the elemental states of the bhūtas.
yatha trak-sunya-vījasyā’mkura-śaktir nāsti, tatha'varaṇa-sunyasyo'ttara-karya-śaktir nāstīti bhānāt
kāraṇa-gunam vino'ttaro-ttara-guṇa-višeşeşu.... sva-viseṣasyo'kta-guṇā-tiśayā-nupapatteḥ.
Varavara's bhāṣya on Tattvatraya, p. 58.
