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46
The Nature and the Cause of the World
of an inherent capacity, on the one hand the soul which knows and enjoys, on the other hand the non-conscious world which is known and enjoyed. Thus in the place of the originating cause prakrti there was posited another originating cause. This latter is called the element Brahman and is also found mentioned in the form of Narayana etc. This line of thinking is of course present in Mahābhārata, but it is also there in Gita. In Mahabharata this line of thinking is evident where there is described the Sänkhya tradition positing twenty-six elements. It appears that the line of thinking which came into existence on the basis of positing in the form of an originating element Brahman, Nārāyaṇa or something of the form of exisence, consciou. sness and bliss remained preserved and found development in the tradition of the master Bodhayana etc. This element Brahman is such that it is the originating place of prakṛti made up of three gunas on the one hand and that of a soul which knows and enjoys on the other. Thus according to the advocates of Brahmavāda, that transformation of Brahman which is of the form of pradhana falis under the category 'non-conscious world.' In the course of time this doctrine of a transformative Brahman found enunciation in various traditions with slight mutual differences; such for example, were the doctrines called Sopadhika-Brahmavāda, VisisṭādvaitaBrahmavada, Suddhadvatia-Brahmayada. In all these doctrines the originating element is a single one but on account of being something transformative it well accounts for the entire diversity visible there.
The Vaiseşika View Regarding
the Nature and the Cause of the World
Here we have offered a brief account of that thought-current which searches for some one single originating elements Let us now take account of the research that posits a multiplicity of originating elements. Those thinkers who gave prominence to the experience gained by external sense organs chiefly paid attention to the qualities colour, taste, smell, touch, liquidity etc. belonging to the products made up of earth, water, fire and air. They retained belief in the principle of causal relationship as well as that of similarity, but their task was to account for the experience of these qualities colour, taste, etc. as belonging to the gross physical elements and to do so on the basis of what things act as cause to these gross physical elements. Hence they proceeded on to search for a causal series working on the assumption that the causes of the visible gross physical elements ought to possess qualities similar to those possessed by these elements themselves. Thus whatever qualities are experienced in a gross earthy
8 The process of searching for some one single cause for the multiplicity of effects.
that are there--is evident in Sankhyakarika, See karikas 8-16.
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