________________
SANKHYA-YOGA
285 puruşa. In other words, the functions that we describe as mental are really mechanical processes of physical organs, which assume a psychical character only when illumined by spirit. The senses are here derived from the aham-kāra and not from the elements (bhūtas) as in the Nyāya-Vaiseşika (p. 248). Though traceable to one and the same source, each sense functions differently—the eye apprehending colour; the ear, sound; and so forth-owing to the difference in the collocation of the guņas in them.
The Sānkhya-Yoga, like the Sauträntika but unlike the Nyāya-Vaiseşika, believes that perception is effected by means of a psychic sign, viz. an image or idea (äkāra) of the object in question. The image is not transferred to the buddhi and found in it as may be supposed, but the buddhi itself assumes the form of the object, when a suitable stimulus is received from outside. The modification of the evolvent buddhi, viz. vrtti, is a characteristic not only of perception but also of all forms of consciousness, and when it is inspired by spirit, experience results. The psychic apparatus as a whole mediates between the purusa and the outside world thereby securing for the former the experiences of life (bhoga) or, if the time for it is ripe, final freedom (apavarga) through right knowledge (viveka). The details of the process of knowing are as follows: The object first impresses one or other of the senses, and the jñāna that arises then is quite vague and general. It is 'bare awareness' (ālocana-mātra) and marks the nirvikalpaka stage. The first stage in perception does not accordingly refer, as in the Nyāya-Vaiseșika (p. 251), to the isolated and discriminate particular. It becomes properly explicated later when interpreted by the manas, and is therefore termed 'determinate' or savikalpaka. Pratyakşa does not accordingly start here from detached elements and synthesize them, but from an indistinguishable whole into which it introduces order afterwards. This completes the process from the objective * Instead of saying, as we ordinarily do, that we adjust ourselves to our environment, we should here say that praksti adjusts itself to our needs. 2 SK. st. 27, 28 and 30. Vijñana Bhiksu somewhat modifies this view which is based upon STK. See SPB. ii. 32.
