Sūtra 4.10

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of Sūtra 4.10:

तासामनादित्वं चाऽऽशिषो नित्यत्वात् ॥ ४.१० ॥

tāsāmanāditvaṃ cā''śiṣo nityatvāt || 4.10 ||

10. There is no beginning about them, because of the eternity of desire.

The Rajamartanda commentary by King Bhoja:

[English translation of the 11th century commentary by Bhoja called the Rājamārtaṇḍa]

[Sanskrit text for commentary available]

Admitting the uninterruptibility of residua, and their relation as cause and effect, it may be asked when an impression first takes place is it caused by residua, or without a cause? To solve this doubt, he says:

[Read Sūtra 4.10]

“About them,” i.e., about or in regard to residua. “No beginning” (anāditva), that which has no commencement. The meaning is, these have no beginning. How? “Because of the eternity of desire.” This “desire” (āśiṣa) or longing of an intensely delusive character—(manifesting itself in such wishes as) ‘may the means of effecting my pleasure be always mine; may there never be a separation between me and them’—is the cause of residua, and that being eternal there is no beginning. This is the meaning. What is meant is this: From the proximity of the cause the tendency of the functions of impressions and residua cannot be checked, and the thinking principle, from its expansible and contractile character, pierced by the impressions, residua and the like, modifies itself when it attains each appropriate existence.

Notes and Extracts

[Notes and comparative extracts from other commentaries on the Yogasūtra]

[The theory of Instincts being the result of action in former lives is open to the grave objection that it does not account for Instinct in the first instance. A being born for the first time should have, according to the theory, no Instinct. The initial impression must therefore be causeless, and so there is no reason to admit that residua are the causes of effect, i.e., of birth, age and experience. This objection is met in this aphorism by saying that Desire is eternal, and therefore there is no necessity for a beginning. Desire is essential to existence; there would be no existence if there was no Desire; and that Desire produces residua, and so there is no break in the course of eternity. The opponent wished to expose the fallacy of the argument regarding residua being the cause of Intuition by showing that there could be no residua at the first start, and the author accepts a regressus in infinitum to surmount the difficulty. According to him the universe had no beginning and will never end, and therefore there is no occasion to seek a beginning.]

From their infinity it being doubtful that the residua can ever be destroyed, he points out the means of destroying them.