________________
SANKHYA-YOGA
279 evolution, which distinguishes the Sănkhya-Yoga, suggests that it is to be traced to a different source. We shall see in the sequel what reasons there are for concluding that source to be the Upanişads.
(2) Purusa.-Puruşa is mere sentience. It is changeless, eternal and omnipresent. It is also entirely passive, all activity being restricted to praksti. It may accordingly be said to represent the affective or receptive side of the mind and is consequently described as an enjoyer or experient (bhoktā) without being a doer or agent (kartā). Like praksti, the self also is here sought to be established with the help of reason alone. Various arguments are adduced to prove why such a psychic entity should be supposed to exist. First of all it is stated that the physical universe, being insentient, requires a sentient principle to experience it or that objects suggest a subject, although such an argument by recognizing a necessary relation between the two militates against the fundamental dualism of the system. Equally inconsistent with the same aspect of the doctrine is the second argument that praksti, which is complex, implies by contrast the existence of something which is simple, viz. the self. Again the design that is found in nature, particularly in the living body, it is argued, leads to the same conclusion. A noteworthy point here is the manner in which the design argument' is utilized. It is explained as pointing not to the designer but to one that profits by the design. The Sankhya concludes from the presence in nature of means adapted to the accomplishment of particular ends, not to God as their author, but to the self for whom it supposes them to exist. This conclusion may be taken as being on a par with the other, for any contriver must necessarily have in view one whose need his contrivance meets. No watches for example would be made if there was none to use them. But it may be asked why it should not equally well imply God as the contriving mind whom the Sānkhya, as an atheistic doctrine, declines to accept. Here is a point of much importance in the
1 SK. st. 17. * This argument is foreshadowed already in the Upanişads. See p. 66 ante.
