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INTRODUCTION
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Having thus classified the various principles, we now turn to the consideration of the various principles separately.
First of all then we must examine the nature of the allpowerful productive agent of the Sāmkhyas or more properly, the productive force of the Universe. How is this force constituted? It is made up of the three Gunas--Sattva, Rajas and Tamas; and when Nature is in its quiescent state, lying dormant, these three attributes are in equılıbrium. When occasion presents itself, i. c. when the Adịşta of the Spirits waiting to be born acts upon Nature, the equilibrium is disturbed, and it is this disturbance that gives rise to the various kinds of Products. The diversity of Products is thus rendered explicable As already mentioned, all accessories are due to the predominance of one or other of the three Gunas-the predominance of Sattva givirg rise to the kind of Product in which that attribute predominates, and so forth.
The three attributes-Sattva, Rajas and Tamas,-have respectively the character of Happiness, Unhappiness and Delusion; and have their operations characterised respectively by enlightenment, activity and inertia; and are so constituied that the one always operates through the suppression of the other, and at the same line depending upon this latter. To explain this contrariety of properties-The universe would be in an unceasing round of activity, if the only operating force were Rajas; in order to provide against this, Nature provides herself with a restraining agency in the shape of Tamas which by its nature is inert. The character of the objects of the universe is thus determined in accordance with the excess of one or the other of these attributes. Again, if there were no enlightening agency in the shape of Sattva, Nature would be nothing better than a mass of blind sorce acting in a haphazard manner.
Here an objector comes forward and says "How can the Attributes, endowed as they are with mutually counteracting
