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X111] Springs of action in the Caraka-samhitā 417 memory (smrti-bhramsa), through which the right knowledge and right experience of the past cannot be brought into effect. Thus, though in a sense Caraka compromises with the traditional schools of philosophy in including philosophical ignorance or misconception within prajñāparādha, and though he thinks that philosophical ignorance produces sins, yet he takes prajñāparādha in the very wide sense of error of judgment, leading to all kinds of transgression of laws of health and laws of society and custom, risky adventures, and all other indiscreet and improper actions. Prajñāparādha, therefore, though it includes the philosophical moha of the traditional school of philosophy, is yet something very much more, and is to be taken in the wider sense of error of judgment. Caraka, no doubt, admits jealousy, vanity, anger, greed, ignorance (moha), etc., as producing irnproper action, but he admits many other causes as well. But the one supreme cause of all these subsidiary causes is prajñāparādha, or error of judgment, taken in its wide sense. It will not, therefore, be wrong to suppose that, according to Caraka, all proper actions are undertaken through the prompting of three fundamental desires, the desire for life, the desire for wealth and enjoyment, and the desire for spiritual good. And all improper actions are due to improper understanding, confusion of thought, and misdirected intelligence (prajñāparādha). The three fundamental desires, uriassociated wi any error of judgment or lack of understanding, may thus be regarded as the root cause of all proper actions. There is, therefore, nothing wrong in giving full play to the functioning of the three fundamental desires, so long as there is no misdirected understanding and confusion to turn them into the wrong path. Caraka does not seem to agree with other systems of philosophy in holding the feelings of attachment and antipathy to be the springs of all actions. Actions are prompted by the normal active tendencies of the three fundamental desires, and they become sinful when our energies are wrongly directed through lack of understanding. Though Caraka had to compromise with the acknowledged view of the systems of Indian Philosophy that the cessation of all sorrows can be only through the cessation of all actions, yet it seems clear that the course of conduct that he approves consists in the normal exercise of the three fundamental desires, free from the commission of any errors of judgment (prajñāparādha). Thus Caraka does not preach the ideal of leaving off desires, DII
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