Sambodhi 1975 Vol 04

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 24

22
Harsh Narain
The original Sankhya trilogy is not just a trilogy but a veritable tri chotomy of a dialectical character: it serves to divide the whole of reality the whole of thought, the whole of the universe of discourse into three moments exhaustively, like the moments of dialectic, viz, thesis, antithesis. and synthesis. Dialectic has developed in the main along two independent lincs, viz. dialogical or reasoning dialectic on one hand and metaphysical dialectic or dialectic as the concept of struggle of opposites on the other.1 Here we are taking the Sankhya dialectic in the latter sense. There are certain clear indications in certain ancient texts that the trilogy is allpervading, without exception. It is also suggested in serveral texts that the trilogy represents the unity, inter penetration, struggle of opposites, the proverbial form of objective or metaphysical dialectic, Vācaspati Misra has it that th: guņa-s are mutually contradictory but do not destroy each other like Sunda and Upasunda (the mythological demon brothers who killed each other) because their functioning is for a common purpose, even as the wick and oil are opposed to fire and yet they cooperate with it in giving light. Indeed, it is also suggested sometimes that the cosmos is essentially dialectical.5
Well, the Sankhya dialectics has an interesting history. The burden of this paper is to show that it owes its origin to Vedic cosmogony viz. :
1) to the well-known cosmic trilogy of the Vedic texts, 2) to the cosmogonic trilogy of creation, preservation, and destruction,
and 3) to the creation hymn of the Rg-Veda.
On the basis of the description of the three guna-s by Caraka and Pancasikha?, Dasgupta is inclined to the view that 'originally the notion of guna-s was applied to diferent types of good and bad mental states, and they were supposed in some mysterious way by mutual increase and decrease to form the objective world on the one hand and the totality of human psychosis on the other. 8 Burrow and Johnstonio also maintain that the guna-s were originally a purely psychological division, elevated to the status of cosmogonical principles later. Dasgupta credits Vijnanabhiksu with being the first to describe guna-s as reals or super-subtle substances in a systematic manner, Vācaspati and Gauņapada keeping silent,11
But this does not appear to be the case, to the present writer.
Carlton C. Rice has come forward with the thesis that, originally, the word 'guna' was an adjective signifying 'bovine', derived from the zero grade of the base 'go' and formed by the secondary suffix-na', the “na' in it betraying the influence of Prakrit. The successive states of the evolution of its meaning are as follows : (1) bovine' (adjective) (2) bovine sinew' (substantive) (3) 'sinew' (4) 'strand', cord (of rope) (5) 'quality'