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A. WEZLER sure, this is what has caused the controversy about the appropriate rendering of the term guna itself-evidently is that we have to do here with an idea which even we find difficult to understand, not to speak of accepting, viz. that of material qualities', i. e. ' qualities' which are at the same time a/the substance or that which in various and permanently changing combinations constitutes the manifest world in its totality. Seen against this background the definition of dravya turns out to be ultimately nothing but an alternative formulation of what is stated e.g. in the Yogabhāşya on YS 4. 13 thus:
sarvam idam gunānām samniveśaviseşamātram (iti paramārthato gunāt
mānah)/. And, to wit, a formulation by which the adherents of Sāmkhya wanted to make clear first of all their own concept of individual material objects..
The conception of the three guņas can, of course, be explained historically by the plausible assumption that it was developed at a time when Indian thinkers ‘had not yet learned to distinguish between substance as such and its qualities or properties. Yet, the characterization of this view as being
archaic' which consequently seems to suggest itself is not wholly satisfactory. At least, if this epithet is used contemptuously-and, to be sure, it usually is used with this connotation-I for one would not readily subscribe to such an evaluation, and not only because I think that our knowledge of Sāmkhya, its origins and development is still fragmentary.
94)
NOTES
* For “Studies on Mallavādin's Dvādaśāranayacakra I" see my contribution to: Studien zum Jainismus und Buddhismus. Gedenkschrift für Ludwig Alsdorf, hrg. von K. Bruhn und A. Wezler (Alt-und Neu-Indische Studien 23), Wiesbaden 1981, pp. 359-408. 1) Geschichte der indischen Philosophie, II. Bd., Salzburg 1956, p. 100. 2) Cf., apart from the articles mentioned in fn. 4 and Geschichte der indischen Philosohie II,
p. 59. 144. (the recently published) Nachgelassene Werke. I: Aufsätze, Beiträge, Skizzen, hrg. von E. Steinkellner. Wien 1984, pp. 93 ff.; by the introductory (bracketed) remark on p. 93 it becomes clear that Frauwallner had the plan to deal at some length with the grammarians' language theory; see also pp. 65 and 137.
