Indian Philosophy

Author(s): Sukhlal Sanghavi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 52

44
The Nature and the Cause of the World
avyakta made up of three guņas was supposed to be such an ultimate real cause, but here again there arose a number of further questions. Thus they noted that this visible world is limitess and multi-formed and that likewise it is divided among several categories such as gross, grosser, grossest, subtle, subtler, subtlest. Again, just as it is undergoing movement in the course of time it also appears to be static. So the question was as to how all this is to be accounted for by positing just one ultimate cause. And in brief this question was answered as follows. The originating cause pervades all the space. It also lies beyond all past or future limit in time. It is also possessed of a subtle seed of mobility as well as immobility, and even for a moment it cannot help assuming an ever new form. Despite all this the cause in question always keeps in tact its original form. It is also possessed of the eapacity to get inflated-that is, a capacity to assume in place of a subtlest form a relatively less subtle form and thus gradually a grossest form; it is on account of this its inherent capacity that the single element in question, without being impelled by anybody else, gives shape to this multi-forined world just as the seed of a banyan tree to a huge tree. It is possessed of such a capacity that sometimes assuming the form of buddhi predominantly made up of sattva it experiences the mental states like pleasure, pain etc., sometimes assuming another state it acts as the instrument of this very experience, while the same cause on account of the predominence of tamas assumes the form of an object of this very experience. In this way those thinkers accounted for the entire world on the basis of positing so may capacities in one and the same originating cause, but they had yet to answer the question as to why if the world possessed of various forms assumes shape out of the same originating cause there takes place no reversal of order in the appearanee of these forms-that is, why it does not so happen that a later appearing form appears earlier while an earlier appearing form appears later. This question was answered by them by positing in the originating element a capacity pertaining to time - that is, a capacity for ordered succession. They thus submitted that the transforming capacity inherent in the originating cause is such that the order of succession is never violated - also that when this cause assumes a gross form the duration and size of this form get decreased and when it assumes a subtle or very subtle form the duration and size of this form get increased. Not only that, they went on to add that even while developing and becoming manifest in the shape of a huge infinity of ever new forms the originating element remains yet unexhausted and infloite.
This line of thinking is known by the name of Sankhya system of philosophy'. Kapila is considered to be the First Wise-man and the supreme sage belonging to this system. The seeds of this line of thinking are