Paralipomena Zum Sarvasarvatmakatvada II

Author(s): A Wezler
Publisher: A Wezler

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290
ALBRECHT WEZLER
PARALIPOMENA ZUM SARVASARVÅTMAKATVAVADA II
291
mean that the specific concept of being, too, is of later origina consequence altogether improbable. Against FRAUWALLNER, as also against the implications of his ideas about this part of the historical development of the Samkhya school of thought, I would hold that the whole problem stands in need of a thorough and critical reconsideration which may well lead to quite different results, and this is, of course, also due to new material which has become available in the meantime. The resulting new picture would, to be sure, likewise have the character of a hypothesis. Yet, I think it would be a stronger one. It has, of course, yet to be drawn in full detail; my own attempt is but a rough sketch, and this also because I did not yet find time to examine all the additional relevant material which I have only recently discovered. My attempt starts from the assumption that the Samkhya concept of being has arisen, among other Sruti passages, out of Ch.Up. 6.2.1.E. where - though still in terms rather of cosmological than of ontological thinking - it is stated that a sat can only have originated out a sar. But Ramanuja, too, when he comes to speak of different theories of error refers to one which is evidently based on the sarvasarvatmakarvavada, and it is in this very connec tion also that he actually refers to this Upanişadic teaching of Uddalaka Aruņi; therefore one has to reckon with the possibility that the specific concept of being which has developed out of it was not confined to the early and classical Samkhya school of thought, but was likewise shared by the forerunners of the specific theistic school which later used it in its singular theory of error. i.e. long before Ramanuja; and its actual existence at a still earlier point of time is clearly attested by Mallavādin. Both schools, Samkhya as well as the theistic one, should have had this concept of being in common, though their respective "Weltanschauung' would in all probability have differed considerably, a dualistic and non-theistic one in the case of the Samkhya and a theistic and perhaps also monistic one in the case of the other. As for the passage from the Mahabháşya, it is the final sentence of the discussion on Pan. 4.3.155 which proves extraordinarily instructive for the 'protohistory of the sarvasarvatmakarvavada. It reads thus: atha matam erat praktyanvaya vikära bhavantifihapi na doşo bhavati. This is meant to answer the question preceding: atha yo 'sav adyah kapotah salomakah sapako na ca samprati praniti katham tatra prānifabdo vartala iti I, "the feathered, winged pigeon that was at the beginning, now (.e. after having been killed) does not breathe any more. How is it that with reference to it (ie the dead plucked bird) a word is, nevertheless, used that (primarily] denotes a breathing being (i.e. a living pigeon)?
Although Kaiyata and Någojibhatta apparently understood Patanjali's answer as referring to words denoting the product of a process of transformation, one cannot fail to observe that Patanjali, on the contrary, aims at explaining a linguistic fact by taking recourse to a philosophical view he knew and considered apt to solve the question under discussion. It was simply their unawareness of this philosophical view that led Kaiyata and Nagojibhatta to misunderstand this passage which doubtless refers to extralinguistic facts in order to explain a particular linguistic one. In reality what Patanjali says is this: "If one takes the view that the original (which undergoes a process of change) is existent in its tranformation(s), there is no room for any objection in this case, too, (i.e., as regards the use e.g. of the word kapota to denote a dead pigeon as it is a vikára of the original living bird which does not cease to exist)." What Patanjali refers to here, is clearly a teaching that is intended to meet the question as to what happens to the prakti when a vikära has manifested itself. And this teaching cannot but be the sarvasarvatmakarvavada, according to which everything that represents a praksti, whatever the position it occupies in a given causal chain," does not cease to exist as such when it passes out of visibility: The individual pigeon as a living being does, indeed, still exists when it has been killed; and it is precisely this ontological "fact" that accounts for the linguistic observation that a pränisabda can also be used to denote that very animal even when deprived of breath! Thus the substance of the sarvasarvatmakarvavada can be traced back to the 2nd century B.C.," which would corroborate my hypothesis that the particular notion of "being underlying this våda was originally conceived by certain Upanişadic thinkers. Yet, at the same time what we owe to Patanjali is a
"As is well known, the term prakrel is used by the adherents of Samkhya themselves not only to denote their peculiar concept of "primary matter, but also relativistically, i.e. to denote a phenomenon which forms an original' only with reference to its transformation(s). It should however, be noted, that the process of transformation, though taken to be permanent and incessant, involving change every moment, is largely viewed as leading from one "state" (avastha) to another, i.e. from a cause to its product, and in their notion of what constitutes a particular cause-and of which product-Samkhya thinkers seem to have followed the loka (unless the example adduced by them are only meant to explain their philosophical ideas to ordinary people by taking recourse to concepts familiar to everybody).
ertheless, used that primaril chce to it i.e. the dead, plucked
Sribhagya on BS 1.1.1. ed. by SRI U.T. VIRARAGHAVACHARYA, I. 1. Madras 1963, 1321
Ed. F. KIELHORN, revised ... by K. V. ABHYANKAR, II 325,15ff.
This is, of course, true only on condition that the date assigned to Patanjali viz: 2nd century B.C., is correct. As to this, I basically agree with CARDONA (Panini, A Survey of Research, The Hague Paris 1976,266) who in concluding his report and discussion states that "the evidence is ... not absolutely probative but sufficient to warrant considering seriously that Patanjali lived at this time, but I should like to add that recently I started to have doubts because I do not yet know exactly how to bring into accord such an early date with the stage of development of Samkhya as attested to in the Mahabhäsya.