Jayanārāyaṇa’s Introduction

He who of His own will spreads out the production, preservation, and destruction of the universe; He who, even though shining forth in suppression of all these, still is not known by other than wise men; He, by knowing whom as Ho is in Himself, men are saved from further immersion into the waves of the stream of transmigration; the same is; Bhava (he., the Lord of Creation), and He is easy of access by the path of communion with Him in constant devotion.^[1] May^[2] He be pleased to give you prosperity.

I adore Bhavānī (the consort of Bhava), Māheśī (the consort of Maheśa, the Great Lord), who, Herself bearing limbs as dark as the-cloud, still dispels the mass of darkness by myriads of collected rays; I who while cutting asunder the bond of re-birth of Her devotees, is Herself bound by love to Bhava and is His constant delighter; who, although She is born of the Immobile (the Himālaya), still moves from place to place; and who while being the consort of the Pure (Śiva), is seated on a corpse.

After bowing to his good preceptor, the fortunate twice-born Jayanārāyaṇa is writing out the vivṛti (explanation or elaboration) of the aphorisms of Kaṇāda for the pleasure of Īśvara.

Here, indeed, one and all of the disciples, desiring to throw off the multitude of afflictions arising from birth, decrepitude, death, and the like, hear from the various Śrutis, Smṛtis, Itihāsas, Purāṇas, etc., that the vision of the reality of the Self is the fundamental means of escaping them. Thus, there is the Śruti: “Verily, verily, the Self is to be seen, to be heard about, to be thought over, and meditated upon. Verily, O verily, this is (the measure of) immortality (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2, 4, 5); also, “When the Puruṣa (the in-dweller) will know himself—the Self—as “I am,” then wishing what, for which desire, will he pursue the course of transmigration?” And the Smṛti also: “By elaborating his understanding in three ways, namely by sacred writings, inference, and habitual flow of contemplation, a person attains to laudable communion.”

Now, some disciples, who were unenvious and who had properly studied the Vedas and the Vedaṅgas, (he., treatises regarded as so many limbs as it were of the Vedas) and had also achieved the Śravaṇa (i.e., the stage of self-culture known by the name, audition, in other words, the mere acquisition of knowledge or information as referred to in the preceding paragraph;, with due rites approached the great and mighty sage Kaṇāda for the purpose of manana or intellection (the second stage of self-culture, i.e., that of discriminative understanding). Thereupon that sage, full of great compassion, taught them a system (of self-culture) in Ten Books. There in the First Book he has stated the entire group of padārthas (Predicables); in the Second Book he has ascertained Substance; in the Third Book he has described the Soul and the Inner Sense; in the Fourth Book he has discussed the body and its constituents; in the Fifth Book he has established Karma (Action); in the Sixth Book he has considered Dharma (piety) according to Śruti; in the Seventh Book he has established Attribute and Samavāya (co-inherence or combination); in the Eighth Book he has ascertained the manifestation of knowledge, its source, and soon; in the Ninth Book he has established particular or concrete understanding; and in the Tenth Book he has established the differences of the attributes of the Soul.

The operation of this treatise (towards teaching) is three-fold: Enumeration, Definition, and Examination or Demonstration. Classification or Division is a particular form of Enumeration; and hence it does not constitute an additional method.

Although this system is mainly concerned with the determination of the Predicables, still, inasmuch as Dharma, being at the root of the knowledge of the essence of the Predicables, possesses a prominence of its own, therefore he (Kaṇāda) proposes to ascertain that (Dharma) first of all.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Cf. Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, aphorism 58 p. 23, 8. B. H., Vol. VII.

[2]:

Cf. Śāṇḍilya-Sūtra, III, 1, 7, page 71[?] S. B. H., Vol. VII.