Surendranath Dasgupta

“ We remember that the guṇas, which are the final substratum of all the grosser particles, are always in a state of commotion and always evolving in the manner previously stated, for the sake of the experience and final realisation of the parusha, the only object or end of the prakṛti. Thus the Bhāshya, III. 13, says: “So it is the nature of the guṇas that there cannot remain even a moment without the evolutionary changes of dharma, lakshaṇa and avasthā; movement is the characteristic of the guṇas. The nature of the guṇas is the cause of their constant movement.” ”

“ The objective world is present by its own power. How then can this objective world be given up on the strength of mere logical or speculative abstraction?
Thus the Vyāsa-bhāshya, IV. 14, says: “There is no object without the knowledge of it, but there is knowledge as imagined in dreams without any corresponding object; thus the reality of external things is like that of dream-objects, mere imagination of the subject and unreal. How can they who say so be believed? ”

“ Thus when we say that earth is the substantive entity and the power which it has of transforming itself into the produced form, lump, or jug as its attribute, we see on the one hand that no distinction is really made between the appearance of the earth as jug and its power of transforming itself into the jug. ”

“ But this argument cannot hold good, for if the objective reality should really depend upon the idea of any individual man, then the objective reality corresponding to an idea of his ought to cease to exist either with the change of his idea, or when he directs attention to some other thing, or when he restrains his mind from all objects of thought. Now, then, if it thus ceases to exist, how can it again spring into existence when the attention of the individual is again directed towards it? Again, all parts of an object can never be seen all at once. ”

“ The sphere of avidyā is all false knowledge generally, and that of asmitā is also inseparably connected with all our experiences which consist in the identification of the intelligent self with the sensual objects of the world, the attainment of which seems to please us and the loss of which is so painful to us. It must, however, be remembered that these five afflictions are only different aspects of avidyā and cannot be conceived separately from avidyā. These always lead us into the meshes of the world, far from our final goal—the realisation of our own self—emancipation of the purusha. ”

“ Thus when we say that a thing has not yet come into being, that it has just come into being, and that it is no longer, we refer to this lakshaṇa-pariṇāma which records the history of the thing in future, present and past, which are only the three different moments of the same thing according to its different characters, as unmanifested, manifested and manifested in the past but conserved. ”

“ The moment I have an idea of a thing, the thing rises into existence and may be said to exist only for that moment and as soon as the idea disappears the object also vanishes, for when it cannot be presented to me in the form of ideas it can be said to exist in no sense. ”

“ But each concept is but a limitation of the pure shining universal of our knowledge which underlies all its changing modes or modifications of concepts or judgments. This is what is called pure knowledge in which there is neither the knower nor the known. ”

“ It is this self that imports consciousness to the material parts of our knowledge. All our concepts originated from our perception of external material objects. Therefore the forms of our concepts which could exactly and clearly represent these material objects in their own terms, must be made of a stuff which in essence is not different from them. But with the reflection of purusha, the soul, the notion of self comes within the content of our consciousness, spiritualising, as it were, all our concepts and making them conscious and intelligent. ”

“ For if there be one spiritual principle, how should we account for the supposed plurality of the buddhis? For we should rather expect to find one buddhi and not many to serve the supposed one purusha, and this will only mean that there can be only one ego, his enjoyment and release. Supposing for argument’s sake that there are many buddhis and one purusha, which reflected in them, is the cause of the plurality of selves, then we cannot see how prakṛti is moving for the enjoyment and release of one purusha ”

“ For this contentless universal consciousness is only another name for the contentless unlimited, infinite of the ego-universal. A quotation from Fichte may here be useful as a comparison. Thus he says in the introduction to his Science of Ethics: “How an object can ever become a subject, or how a being can ever become an object of representation: this curious change will never be explained by anyone who does not find a point where the objective and subjective are not distinguished at all, but are altogether one. ”

“ Now, therefore, if it is possible for a seer to see in one vision the possible number of combinations that the rajas will have with sattva and tamas, he can in one moment perceive the past, present or future of this cosmic evolutionary process; for with such minds all past and future are concentrated at one point of vision which to a person of ordinary empirical consciousness appears only in the series. For the empirical consciousness, impure as it is, it is impossible that all the powers and potencies of sattva and rajas should become manifested at one point of time ”

“ In all our conscious states, there is such a synthetic unity between the determinations of our mind and the self, that they cannot be distinguished one from the other—a fact which is exemplified in all our cognitions, which are the union of the knower and the known. ”

“ So they say that external reality is not different from our idea of it. To this it may be replied that if, as you say, external reality is identical with my ideas and there is no other external reality existing as such outside my ideas, why then does it appear as existing apart, outside and independent of my ideas? The idealists have no basis for the denial of external reality, and for their assertion that it is only the creation of our imagination like experiences in dreams. Even our ideas carry with them the notion that reality exists outside our mental experiences. ”

“ Knowledge as doubt is not cognition of a fact or entity. The illusion of seeing all things yellow through a defect of the eye (as in jaundice) can only be corrected when the objects are seen in their true colours. In doubt, however, their defective nature is at once manifest. Thus when we cannot be sure whether a certain thing is a post or a man, we know that our knowledge is not definite. So we have not to wait till the illusoriness of the previous knowledge is demonstrated by the advent of right knowledge. The evil nature of viparyyaya is exemplified in avidyā nescience, asmitā, rāga, etc. ”

“ When concepts are united or separated in our thought and language, they consequently represent only an imaginary plane of knowledge, for the things are not as the concepts represent them. Thus when we say “Caitra’s cow,” it is only an imaginary relation for, strictly speaking, no such thing exists as the cow of Caitra. Caitra has no connection in reality with the cow. When we say purusha is of the nature of consciousness, there is the same illusory relation. ”

“ In the smallest particle of time or kshaṇa the whole universe undergoes a change. Each moment or the smallest particle of time is only the manifestation of that particular change. Time therefore has not a separate existence in this philosophy as in the Vaiśeshika, but it is only identical with the smallest amount of change—viz. that of an atom of its own amount of space. Now here the appearance is called the dharma, and that particular arrangement of atoms or guṇas which is the basis of the particular appearance is called the dharmin. ”

“ Everything in the phenomenal world is but a special collocation of the guṇas; so that the change of collocation explains the diversity of things. Considered from the point of view of the guṇas, things are all the same, so excluding that, the cause of the diversity in things is the power which the guṇas have of changing their particular collocations and thus assuming various shapes. We have seen that the prakṛti unfolds itself through various stages—the mahat called the great being—the ahaṃkāra, the tanmātras called the aviśeshas. ”

“ It is on account of this that we see that a body comes into being and dies away. Though this birth or death is really subsumed the change of appearance yet it has its own special aspect, on account of which it has been given a separate name as lakshaṇa-pariṇāma. It considers the three stages of an appearance—the unmanifested when it exists in the future, the manifested moment of the present, and the past when it has been manifested—lost to view but preserved and retained in all the onward stages of the evolution. ”

“ This means that we are to cultivate the habit of friendliness towards those who are happy, which will remove all jealous feelings and purify the mind. We must cultivate the habit of compassion towards those who are suffering pain; when the mind shows compassion (which means that it wishes to remove the miseries of others as if they were his own) it becomes cleansed of the stain of desire to do injury to others, for compassion is only another name for sympathy which naturally identifies the compassionate one with the objects of his sympathy. ”

“ The Pātañjala view, as we have seen, maintains that Īśvara removes all obstacles of prakṛti in such a way that this purpose may find scope for its realisation. Thus Sūtrārthabodhinī, IV. 3, of Nārāyaṇa Tīrtha says: “According to atheistic Sāṃkhya the future serviceability of purusha alone is the mover of prakṛti. But with us theists the serviceability of purusha is the object for which prakṛti moves. It is merely as an object that the serviceability of the purusha may be said to be the mover of the prakṛti.” ”

“ Thus Vyāsa describes it as “the state which neither is nor is not; that which exists and yet does not; that in which there is no non-existence; the unmanifested, the noumenon (lit. without any manifested indication) , the background of all” (niḥsattāsattam niḥsadasat nirasat avyaktam aliṅgam pradhānam) . [10] Vācaspati explains it as follows:—“Existence consists in possessing the capacity of effecting the fulfilment of the objects of the purusha. Non-existence means a mere imaginary trifle (e.g. the horn of a hare) .” ”

“ Knowledge of words always comes in propositional forms; just as different letter-form sounds demonstrate by their mutual collocation a single word or śabda-sphoṭa, so the words also by their mutual combination or collocation demonstrate judgmental or propositional significance or meaning. As the letters themselves have no meaning so the words themselves have also no meaning; it is only by placing them side by side in a particular order that a meaning dawns in the mind. When single words are pronounced they associate other words with themselves and thus appear to signify a meaning. ”

“ There have been theories of the other extreme, which have dispensed with matter altogether and have boldly affirmed that matter as such has no reality at all, and that thought is the only thing which can be called Real in the highest sense. All matter as such is non-Being or Māyā or Avidyā. There have been Nihilists like the Śūnyavādi Buddhists who have gone so far as to assert that neither matter nor mind exists. ”

“ Thus the Kārikā says: saṃghātaparārthatvāt triguṇādiviparyyayādadhishthānāt purusho’sti bhoktṛbhāvāt kaivalyārthaṃ pravṛtteśca, [16] “Because an assemblage of things is for the sake of another; because there must be an entity different from the three guṇas and the rest (their modifications) ; because there must be a superintending power; because there must be someone who enjoys; and because of (the existence of) active exertion for the sake of abstraction or isolation (from the contact with prakṛti) therefore the soul exists.” ”

“ Since it is by knowledge alone that the external knowables can present themselves to us we may infer that there is really no knowable external reality apart from knowledge of it, just as we see that in dream-states knowledge can exist apart from the reality of any external world. ”

“ Thus we think the miserable worldly existence as pleasurable and attribute the characteristics of prakṛti to purusha and vice versa. All afflictions are due to this confusion and misjudgment, the roots of which stay in the buddhis in all their transmigrations from one life to another. Sāṃkhya, however, differs from Yoga and thinks that all error (avidyā or bhrama) is due only to non-distinction between the true and the untrue. Thus non-distinction (aviveka) between prakṛti and purusha is the cause of all our miserable mundane existence. Avidyā and aviveka are thus synonymous with Sāṃkhya. ”

“ What is perceived as mere sensations by the senses is connected and generalised and formed into concepts by the manas; it is therefore spoken of as partaking of both the conative and the cognitive aspects in the Sāṃkhya-kārikā, 27.
Now though the modifications of the ego are formed successively by the preponderance of sattva, rajas and tamas, yet the rajas is always the accessory cause (sahakāri) of all these varied collocations of the guṇas; it is the supreme principle of energy and supplies even intelligence with the energy which it requires for its own conscious activity. ”

“ Whenever in any particular combination the proportion of sattva, rajas or tamas alters, as a condition of this alteration, there is the dominating activity of rajas by which the old equilibrium is destroyed and another equilibrium established; this in its turn is again disturbed and again another equilibrium is restored. Now the manifestation of this latent activity of rajas is what is called change or evolution. In the external world the time that is taken by a paramāṇu or atom to move from its place is identical with a unit of change. ”

“ Only so far as I distinguish myself as the conscious, from myself as the object of consciousness, am I at all conscious of myself.
When we see that the buddhi transforms itself into the ego, the subject, or the knower, at this its first phase there is no other content which it can know, it therefore knows itself in a very abstract way as the “I,” or in other words, the ego becomes self-conscious; but at this moment the ego has no content; the tamas being quite under suppression, it is evolved by a preponderance of the rajas ”

“ If anyone wishes methodically to pursue a course which may lead him ultimately to the goal aimed at by Yoga, he must devote his entire life to it under the strict practical guidance of an advanced teacher. The present work can in no sense be considered as a practical guide for such purposes. But it is also erroneous to think—as many uninformed people do—that the only interest of Yoga lies in its practical side. ”

“ In Mahābhārata Mokshadharmādhyāya it is said that the Sāṃkhya lays stress upon non-injury, whereas the Yoga lays stress upon samādhi; but here we see that Yoga also holds that ahiṃsā should be the greatest ethical motive for all our conduct. It is by ahiṃsā alone that we can make ourselves fit for the higher type of samādhi. All other virtues of truthfulness, non-stealing only serve to make non-injury more and more perfect. ”

“ THE REALITY OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD We may now come to the attempt of Yoga to prove the reality of an external world as against the idealistic Buddhists. In sūtra 12 of the chapter on kaivalya we find: “The past and the future exist in reality, since all qualities of things manifest themselves in these three different ways. The future is the manifestation which is to be. The past is the appearance which has been experienced. The present is that which is in active operation. It is this threefold substance which is the object of knowledge. ”

“ THE EVOLUTION OF THE CATEGORIES The Yoga analysis points to the fact that all our cognitive states are distinguished from their objects by the fact of their being intelligent. This intelligence is the constant factor which persists amidst all changes of our cognitive states. We are passing continually from one state to another without any rest, but in this varying change of these states we are never divested of intelligence. ”

“ The guṇas forming the three classes of substantive entities manifest themselves as such by their similar kinds of power. When any one of them plays the rôle of the principal factor of any phenomenon, the others also show their presence in close contact. Their existence as subsidiary energies of the principal factor is inferred by their distinct and independent functioning, even though it be as subsidiary qualities.” [5] The Yoga theory does not acknowledge qualities as being different from substances. The ultimate substantive entities are called guṇas, which as we have seen are of three kinds. ”

“ From what we have seen above it is clear that the main stress of the Yoga philosophy is on the method of samādhi. The knowledge that can be acquired by it differs from all other kinds of knowledge, ordinary perception, inference, etc., in this that it alone can bring objects before our mental eye with the clearest and most unerring light of comprehensibility in which the true nature of the thing is at once observed. Inferences and the words of scriptures are based on concepts or general notions of things. ”