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XXXIV] Pauşkarāgama
35 Speaking of the guņas, the Agama refuses to admit their substantive nature. It is only when certain guņas are in a collocated state that we call them guņa reals.
Our senses can only perceive certain objective qualities, but they cannot perceive any substratum behind them. Therefore it is logically incorrect to infer any substratum, which may be called gunas as reals. After a discussion about what may be the original material cause either as partless atoms or as immaterial praksti, the Agama decides in favour of the latter. But this prakrti is not the state of equilibrium (sāmyāvasthā)of thegunas as the Sāmkhya holds.
The Agama discusses the prāpya-kāritva and aprāpya-kāritva of the different senses. It also says that movement does not belong originally to every atom, but it belongs only to the living atoms, the souls. It cannot also be due to the mere presence of other things.
When the manas is associated with cicchakti, then it attains the knowledge of all things by the exercise of the internal organs. At the first moment this knowledge is indeterminate. Later on various determinations become associated with it. The perception of things at different times becomes synthetised and concretised,
herwise the various memory images might arise before the mind and prevent the formation of a synthetic image, as we find in the case of a concrete perception.
It is only the ego-consciousness or the abhimāna that produces in us the sense agency (katstva). Without this sense of abhimāna there would be no difference between the self and other material objects. From ego-consciousness there proceeds the deliberate consciousness of decision (niscaya).
Knowledge of things cannot arise merely from buddhi, for the stuff of buddhi is material. Consciousness can only arise occasionally in consequence of its relation with cicchakti. If the mental states are always changing, then they cannot be perceived as constant, though they may appear to be so, like the flame of a lamp which changes from moment to moment, but yet appears to be the same.
Turning to the doctrine of artha-kriyā-kāritā of the Buddhists, the Agama says that if the doctrine of artha-kriyā-kāritā be accepted, then the existence of things cannot properly be explained. The proper view is that of pariņāma-vāda. If the things are momentary, then effects cannot be produced, for a thing must remain for at least two moments in order to produce an effect. If
