Samayasara

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 81

INTRODUCTION
63
In man there is a predominance of Rajoguņa. Hence arises the feverish activity of man who is destined to eat the fruits of his karmas. His life is marked by the dominant note of struggle the misery and the few cases of momentary happiness which he now and then manages to experience only go to accentuate his general unhappiness and misery. The last is the region of the animals. This has the maximum of Tamoguna or darkness. Hence all the inhabitants of this region are marked by general unconsciousness and stupor. All these there regions of the world constitute the one whole world of samsăric cycle according to Kapila. The same chain of births and deaths binds the three kinds of beings animals, men and Devas. Even the prominent residents of Svarga, Brahma and Indra who generally enjoy unalloyed happiness throughout their lives have to meet with death. Hence their life is equally subject to the visicitudes of Saṁsāra and suffers from the bondage of births and deaths. Theirs is not the life of pure and liberated Puruşa. Thus not only in the building up of the inorganic world but also in the evolution of the organic including the super and subhuman regions, the part palyed by the three guņas of Praksti is felt in no mean degree. These gupas are invoked by the Samkhya thinkers to explain the birth of world and the process of Samsāra.
Moksa or liberation : According to Samkhyas Moksa or liberation consists in getting rid of all the root causes of Samsāra which are the three kinds of bondage, mentioned above. Kapila curiously expects the means of salvation from the very Prakrti which is the original source of the bondage. The intelligent Puruşa is inactive by nature and hence is incapable of being the architect of his own destiny. Acetana-the unenlightened Praksti has all activity and force in itself and is quite blind by nature. The Purusa is intelligent but inert and Praksti is all activity but blind. The union of the two- the blind and the cripple-leads to living. It is that the soul may be able to contemplate on its own nature and entirely separate itself that the union is made as of the halt of the cripple and the blind and through that union the universe is formed. It is Prakrti that is privileged to carry the Puruşa to its final goal. It is through the manifestation of Prakrti that the soul acquires discrimination and obtains mokşa. Is there any conscious co-operation between Puruşa and Praksti ? No, that cannot be for Praksti is Acetana and the Purusa cannot live in peace with it and yet there is this union between the two. Kapila vehemently protests against postulating a higher intelligence than Prakrti, Isvara in order to explain the union between the two. He advances arguments to show that there can be co-operation even in the region of the unconscious. Purposive adaptation according to Kapila need not necessarily imply the operation of an intelligent agent. Secretion of milk from the cow is no doubt necessary and useful for the calf. This secretion is no doubt a case of purposive adaptation, but all the same the cow is not consciously