Part 11 - Prakṛti and its Evolution

Sāṃkhya believes that before this world came into being there was such a state of dissolution—a state in which the guṇa compounds had disintegrated into a state of disunion and had by their mutual opposition produced an equilibrium the prakṛti. Then later on disturbance arose in the prakṛti, and as a result of that a process of unequal aggregation of the guṇas in varying proportions took place, which brought forth the creation of the manifold. Prakṛti, the state of perfect homogeneity and incoherence of the guṇas, thus gradually evolved and became more and more determinate, differentiated, heterogeneous, and coherent.

The guṇas are always uniting, separating, and uniting again^[1]. Varying qualities of essence, energy, and mass in varied groupings act on one another and through their mutual interaction and interdependence evolve from the indefinite or qualitatively indeterminate the definite or qualitatively determinate. And though co-operating to produce the world of effects, these diverse moments with diverse tendencies never coalesce. Thus in the phenomenal product whatever energy there is is due to the element of rajas and rajas alone; all matter, resistance, stability, is due to tamas,and all conscious manifestation to sattva.

The particular guṇa which happens to be predominant in any phenomenon becomes manifest in that phenomenon and others become latent, though their presence is inferred by their effect. Thus, for example, in a body at rest mass is patent, energy latent and potentiality of conscious manifestation sublatent. In a moving body, the rajas is predominant (kinetic) and the mass is partially overcome. All these transformations of the groupings of the guṇas in different proportions presuppose the state of prakṛti as the starting point. It is at this stage that the tendencies to conscious manifestation, as well as the powers of doing work, are exactly counterbalanced by the resistance of inertia or mass, and the process of cosmic evolution is at rest. When this equilibrium is once destroyed, it is supposed that out of a natural affinity of all the sattva reals for themselves, of rajas reals for other reals of their type, of tamas reals for others of their type, there arises an unequal aggregation of sattva, rajas, or tamas at different moments. When one guṇa is preponderant in any particular collocation, the others are co-operant.

This evolutionary series beginning from the first disturbance of the prakṛti to the final transformation as the world-order, is subject to “a definite law which it cannot overstep.” In the words of Dr B. N.Seal^[2],

“the process of evolution consists in the development of the differentiated (vaiṣamya) within the undifferentiated (sāmyāvasthā) of the determinate (viśeṣa) within the indeterminate (aviśeṣa) of the coherent (yutasiddha) within the incoherent (ayutasiddha). The order of succession is neither from parts to whole nor from whole to the parts, but ever from a relatively less differentiated, less determinate, less coherent whole to a relatively more differentiated, more determinate, more coherent whole.”

The meaning of such an evolution is this, that all the changes and modifications in the shape of the evolving collocations of guṇa reals take place within the body of the prakṛti. Prakṛti consisting of the infinite reals is infinite, and that it has been disturbed does not mean that the whole of it has been disturbed and upset, or that the totality of the guṇas in the prakṛti has been unhinged from a state of equilibrium. It means rather that a very vast number of guṇas constituting the worlds of thought and matter has been upset. These guṇas once thrown out of balance begin to group themselves together first in one form, then in another, then in another, and so on. But such a change in the formation of aggregates should not be thought to take place in such a way that the later aggregates appear in supersession of the former ones, so that when the former comes into being the latter ceases to exist. For the truth is that one stage is produced after another; this second stage is the result of a new aggregation of some of the reals of the first stage.

This deficiency of the reals of the first stage which had gone forth to form the new aggregate as the second stage is made good by a refilling from the prakṛti. So also, as the third stage of aggregation takes place from out of the reals of the second stage, the deficiency of the reals of the second stage is made good by a refilling from the first stage and that of the first stage from the prakṛti. Thus by a succession of refillings the process of evolution proceeds, till we come to its last limit, where there is no real evolution of new substance, but mere chemical and physical changes of qualities in things which had already evolved. Evolution (tattvāntarapariṇāma) in Sāṃkhya means the development of categories of existence and not mere changes of qualities of substances (physical, chemical, biological or mental). Thus each of the stages of evolution remains as a permanent category of being, and offers scope to the more and more differentiated and coherent groupings of the succeeding stages. Thus it is said that the evolutionary process is regarded as a differentiation of new stages as integrated in previous stages (saṃsṛṣṭaviveka).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Kinanudi , 13-16; Tattvavaiśāradī, 11. 20, iv. 13, 14; also Yogavārttika, iv. 13, 14.

[2]:

Dr B. N. Seal’s Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus , 1915, p. 7.