On Term Antahsamjna

Author(s): A Wezler
Publisher: A Wezler

Page 19

WEZLER : On the term Antahoamina
129
shed at Manu 1. 49; for it may well be that antaḥsamiña- by itself expresses no more than that the consciousness of plants is entirely limited by their body', and that later a need was felt to give a reason for this limitation, and to this end ono recurred to the notion of being wrapped by tamas".
Proceeding to the next element of the description of the mukhyasurga, viz. bahir antaś cāprakāśaḥ, one is, of course, confronted with a similar semantic problem; but I think, it can be plausibly held, without swerving too far from the truth, that this predicate refers, at least among other things, to the lack of internal intellectual faculties and of the concomitant external activity, a lack by which plants are in fact distinguished from animals and men in a manner conspicuous enough to impress itself on any observer's mind and to make him believe that this is their essential characteristic mark.
The definiens nihsamjñaḥ finally does not therefore seem to be totally independent, i.e. to add something completely new to the description of this sarga; rather it is to clarify what is meant by at least a part of the preceding predicate (bahir antas caprakāśaḥ), namely that plants do not have conscious. ness, that they are, in spite of having a buddhi,81 by their very nature " dull" (stabdha ), 82 as is expressly stated. Admittedly the expressions niḥsamjña and stabdha are by themselves not unequivocal — so as to exclude the possibility that not a total lack, but only an extreme reduction is meant —; but in view of what is said of the animals (tiryaksrotas ), though in Text Group II B only, viz. that " they are all antah prakāśās ... avrtās ca bahih ", there is a great likelihood that the interpretation just given does in fact meet the intention of the author.
Considering Hacker's findings,88 viz. that the cosmogony handed down in the first Adhyāya of the Manusmộti is historically and doctrinally closely related to certain Purāņic texts - and to Mbh. 12. 224 — i. e. ultimately to a Sāmkhya “ Instructional Tract", it is not only legitimate, but even methodically necessary to take into account this background also when trying to understand the term antahsamjna at Manu 1. 49. And one cannot then help seeing at a glance that it not only stands in a dialectical relation to the expressions bahir antaś capra. kāśaḥ and niņsa mjñaḥ of the Purānas, but that it was also in all probability
81. Cf. II B (Kirfel, 0. C., p. 63, 1.2) : yasmát tesäm orta buddhir dukhāni karanāni ca.
82. Because of the context other meaninge can, I think, be excluded.
83. Cf. the two articles mentioned in fn. 65 and fn. 69.- Frauwallner's important contributions are duly referred to by Hacker only in his later article (fo. 69), viz. p. 76 (= 168) and fn. 2. Hacker's owo investigations have in their turu been partially supplemented and amplified by K. Rüping in : StII 3 (1977), pp. 3-10, RGB..,17