Theories Of Parinama

Author(s): Indukala H Jhaveri
Publisher: Gujarat University

Page 72

The Samkhya-Yoga and the Jain Theories of Parinama
to say the disturbance taki ng place in the whole of Prakṛti but the manifestation of effects occurring partially or rather gradually. For even on the view of ho mogeneous, integrated Prakṛti in which the slightest disturbance is a disturbance of the whole, the 'abhivyakti' or actual manifestation or what we might call its assuming of particular stages such as Buddhi, Ahamkara etc., is gradual.
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Study of Parinama from another point of view
Let us now study parināma from the point of view of its operation in regulating the creation or manifestation of different things.
Amongst modern writers Dr. Seal and Dr. Das Gupta have tried to give a sort of exposition of the above problems in an able and lucid way. It will be better, therefore, to study this problem in the words of these scholars.
'Considering the cosmic changes as a whole, the gunas remain for ever as their permanent substrata. The chages come and go, the combinations break and form but the reals remain ever the same, though they may seem to appear in diverse characters. The characters and qualities are the results of the diversity of their combination. Thus the totality of the mass and energy also remains constant if we take account of both the manifested and the unmanifested, the actual and the potential. Such is the bond of teleological relation between the gunas and the purusas, that the course of evolution follows an unalterable definite law, not only as regards the order of succession but also about the appearance and mutual relations of the separate units of like and unlike energies. Had there not been such a definite order, the world would have been a chaos instead of cosmos, in spite of all the three gunas. All things being composed ultimately of the three gunas, there are no intrinsic differences amongst them (sarvam sarvātmakam). The only difference is the difference in the constitution of the collocation of the gunas, or as expressed in the phenomenal world of matter as the collocations of the atoms. It is theoretically therefore possible to change anything in the world to any