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CONCEPT OF SUBSTANCE QUALITY.... : 73 Sāṁkhya system of philosophy enumerates guņas viz. essence (sattva), energy (rajas) and mass or inertia (tamas) as the components of Praksti- the primordial matter of nature, which cannot be discriminated from them. Prakrti is also non-discriminated, objective, general, non-intelligent and productive. It is explained that these guņas are of the nature of pleasure, non-pleasure and pain, respectively. They mutually suppress, support, produce, consort and exist. When sattva is prominent, then it is so by suppressing rajas and tamas with its characteristics-pleasure and illumination and it exhibits itself as pleasure and illumination. When rajas is predominant, then it is so (by suppressing) sattva and tamas with the characteristics of pain and activity. When tamas is pre-dominant then it is (by suppressing) sattva and rajas with its characteristics of delusion and fixture. The qualities are mutually supporting like a binary (dravyaņuka). They are mutually productive, as a lump of clay produces jar and are mutually consorting as husband and wife are mutually consorting, so are the qualities.
It is further explained thus: “Sattva is considered to be light and bright, rajas exciting and mobile and tamas is only heavy and enveloping. When sattva becomes pre-dominant, the limbs become light, the intellect becomes bright and the organs become clear (i.e. acute).' 'Just as a bull is very much excited at the sight of another bull, so as the nature of rajas which is observed to be mobile. A man of the nature of rajas is fickle-minded. When tamas becomes predominant, the limbs become heavy and the organs become enveloped (i.e. dull)-incapable of apprehending their objects'. 'Their function is considered to be aiming to achieve a common end. Just as lamp composed of oil, fire and the wick, opposed to one another, illuminates objects, so sattva, rajas and tamas, although opposed to one another, produce an effect. On the conception of guņas, Dr. S. N. Dasgupta remarks, 'In Sāmkhya, there is no separate existence of qualities, i.e. no inherence of qualities in a substance as they are found in the Jain philosophy and the Nyāya-Vaišeșika school, but it holds the view that each and
