Indian Philosophy

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

Page 53

The Nature and the Cause of the World
certainly present in Upanisads but it has also been discussed in various forms in Mabābhārata, Caraka, Purānas, Smộtis and a number of poetical texts. As for Gitä, it is composed on the very basis of it. Of the yogic text composed by Patañjali it is the very bedrock but-it has also served as basis for the old yogic tradition advocated by Hiranyagarbha. Generally speaking, the Sankhya line of thinking and a certain number of its prin. ciples have taken within their purview a large number of philosopbical systems - even while they have undergone modification in the course of - doing so.
The above brief account has kept in view that Sankhya tradition which posits twenty-five elements. And we have already seen that according to it there exists an originating cause called prakști - later on also called pradhana - out of which are transformed the knower and the enjoyer, the instruments of knowing and those of enjoying, the objects of knowing and those of enjoying. The Brahmavada Viewpoint Regarding the Nature and the Cause of the World
However, the consideration as to the originating cause did not come to an end just at that stage. Thus to so many persons the idea occurred that even if there exists such an all-pervading and transformative cause made up of three gunas as remains un-separated in the midst of separate things, is common to a number of particular things and lies unmanifest at the basis of manifest things it is after all devoid of consciousness and bliss and is merely an aggregate of the three non-conscious guņas sattva, rajas and tamas. If so, how can there arise out of it an altogether different entity which is something conscious and is of the form of a knower and an enjoyer? This question impelled them to posit such an originating elements as is possessed of the three forms existence, consciousness and bliss Thus while the Sankhya system positing twenty-four elements treated as originating cause prakrti made up of the three constituent-units sattva, rajas and tamas this new trend instead treated as the originating cause a conscious element made up of the three constituent-units existence, consciousness and bliss. The constituent-uoit existence is common to the two positions, but the difference arises when according to the first position sattya guna assumes the form of mental experience like knowledge, bliss etc, while there exists no independent consciousness or bliss while according to the later position consciousness and bliss form original constituent units -- out of which there appear the transformations like cognition, pleasure. pain, etc. When there came to be posited such an original element of the form of existence, consciousness and bliss the thinkers concerned conceived this element to be a transformative one in the manner of prakřti and offered explanation to the effect that there originate out of it on the basis