English
Ainsi les deux commentateurs ont le méme texte, et la différence d’interprétation ne repose pas sur une différence de mots. Or Vidjndna comprend qu’il s’agit ici, non pas de ensemble des onze principes sortant du moi, mais du onziéme principe, e’est-a-dire du manas, du ccour, qui, dans toutes les classifications, figure régulitrement, comme on 1’a vu, au onziéme rang, parce qu’il est tout & la fois organe de perception et organe @action, Il faudrait donc faire ici un changement considérable, et substi-~ tuer le manas aux onze organes. Je dois: dire que la grammaire ne s’y oppose en rien, et que le texte, soit avec le neutre de Kapila, soit avec le masculin d’{svara Krishna, se préte également bien & l’un et & V’autre sens. Si Pon adopte Vexplication de Vidjnana, il faudrait ‘traduire Je vingt- cinquiéme sloka de la fagon suivante : Le onziéme principe doué de bonté émane du moi quand le moi est modifié également par la bonté; du onziéme principe, considéré comme élément primitif, viennent les éléments grossiers. Ce onzidme principe est obsenr; et tous deux, ce principe et le moi, n’agissent que sous Pinfluence de Pactitité.’ “ Mais on peut remarquer que cette explication est en contradiction for- melle avec les slokas qui précddent: d’abord avec le sloka vingt-deuxieme, qui fait sortir directement du moi les seize principes, et qui fait sortir en particulier les éléments grossiers des éléments subtils; et ensuite, avec le sloka vingt-quatriéme, qui reproduit la méme doctrine, Tl faut ajouter que cette doctrine que nous retrouvons dans Ja Karikd vient de Kapila lui-méme, comme le prouve le sotttra que nous avons cité. Nous devons donc nous en fier & Pexplication de Gaondapada plutdt qu’ celle de Vidjnina. Dans le systéme sainkhya bien interprété, les cing éléments grossiers viennent des cing éléments subtils; et les cing éléments subtils avec les onze organes viennent du moi. Ce n’est pas le manas, le coeur, qui produit Ies éléments gfrossiers, comme le croit Vidjnina Bhikshou ; et ce qui doit nous étonner encore davantage dans son erreur, c’est que, dans le sottra immédiatement précédent, Kapila dit expressément, lecture deuxiéme, sodtra dix-septiéme : * Lreffet du moi, c’est Vensemble des onze organes et des cing éléments grossiers.” Quelque délicat qu’il soit de se prononcer dans des questions de ce genre, nous croyons pouvoir aflirmer que Vidjnina Bhikshou s’est trompé, et qu'il n’y @ point & tenir compte de son opinion.” Premier Mé- moire sur le Sankhya, pp. 99—102. M. Saint-HHilaire’s rendering of the memorial couplet calls, first of all, for attention. 46 The critic, mechanically misled by Professor Wilson, translates the term bhitddi by “élément primitif.” He also substitutes tf éléments grossiers’* ‘for “ éléments subtils,” as an evolution from his “ élément primitif;” thus pretermitting the origin of the subtile elements, which, themselves directly derived from egotism, constitute the immediate source of the gross elements.t SS * The term_mahd-bhita is, like pra-bhita, usually applied to the gross elements. See the thirty-ninth 4drikd, and Vachaspati Mis’ra’s gloss on it. But, according to the commentaries on the Tattwa-sumdsa, it is also a syno- nyme of {gn-métra ‘ subtile elements.’ When used as such, mahd must be understood to refer, not to magnitude of dimension, but to paramount importance in the twofold category of elements; producers having the precedence of productions. But it must not be supposed that the French Yersion owes its present form to this consideration. In passing, the Vishnu-purdna, at I., 2, 36, uses bhita simply, for sub- tile element ; and, at I., 12, 70, bhijta-bhiita < element of elements.’ Another unphilosophical ambiguity in the Sankhya terminology is exhi- bited in the word manas, which denotes ‘ intelligence,’ the origin of ‘ egotism,’ no less than ‘ mind,’ one of its products. Dr. Ballantyne, in his translations, conforms to this reprehensible imperfection ; to the great confusion, it must be, of the mere English reader. Not only so, but sometimes he even renders mahat by “ mind.” See The Aphorisms of the Sankhya Philosophy, &c., Vol. L., pp. 66, 80, &c., and Vol. II., pp. 10, 14, &e. Still another defect imputable to the Sinkhya technicalities is, the equi- vocal use of the word anu ‘ corpuscular’ as a synonyme of both tan-mdira ‘ subtile element’ and indriya *Ofgan of sense.’ + The original of the kdrikd under discussion will be found quoted at p. 118. Colebrooke’s translation of it is as follows: ‘‘ From consciousness, affect- ed by goodness, proceeds the good elevenfold set: from it, as a dark origin of being,.come elementary particles: both issue from that principle affected by foulness.” Sdnkhya-kdrikd, p. 92. Now, the expression “ origin of being” is, in this place, all but nugatory : and Professor Wilson’s assumption—Sdukhya-kdrikd, p. 93—that “ origin of beings’’ ia intended, does not at all mend the matter ; since ‘ beings,’ in the only plausible sense of which the word is here susceptible, that of creatures or “ elemental creation,”’—53d érikd,—are, out of the Purinas, 47 In the preceding extract we read that it is of the essence of egotism to be good. Yet it is no more so than it is of its es- produced from egotism only by the intermediate agency of the elementary particles. The mistake which Professor Wilson falls into, after his attempt to cor- rect Colebrooke, can easily enough be accounted for. Gaudapada says: yararatieda? | warasagara: F ataa <fa | This the Professor translates thus: ‘“ The first element of the elements is darkness; therc- fore it is usually called the dark.” But the word here rendered by “ first ele- ment” would, as masculine, mean ‘first being,’ if it were a substantive ; ‘ first element’ requiring, not ddtbhiitahk, but ddibhutam. Being, however, an adjective, it refers to bhutédi, the second factor of which it justifies etymolo- gically. This reference should have been evident from the gender of uktah, sa, and témasa; and also from that of bahkulas, which, with its present ending, and, morcover, as it stands in the sentence, could never be an adverb. It is not propounded that the elements originate from their like, from an glement; and, while nothing is predicated of darkness, darkness is predicated as characterizing one of the varieties of egotism. The passage cited above will, therefore, admit of no other translation than such as this: ‘It, origin of the elements, is originary, viz., of the elements : it is also surcharged with darkness; and hence is called dark.’ To bear out Professor Wilson’s English, the Sanskrit should have stood thus: wataratigyd aw) Wa eSeae Wa aHefafa | Tn giving the passage from Gaudapida, I have supplied it with punctua- tion, and the only punctuation that it will abide. In the Vishnu-purdéna, at I., 12, 53, the term bhiitddi ‘generative of the elements,’ epithetically employed in place of ‘dark egotism,’ is again ren- dered, by Professor Wilson, “ first element.” See his Translation, p. 93, line 12. Professor Wilson, building on his oversight, indulges in the following comment, which may now be cancelled: “ There is a remarkable exptes-. sion in the Bhdshya, which presents a notion familiar to all ancient cosmogonies. Gaudapaéda says, ‘ the first of the elements was darkness.’ It isthe frst of the ‘ elements,’ not the first of ‘ things ;’ for it was pre- eeded by unevolved nature, and intellect, and it is itself a modified form of individuality. It therefore harmonizes perfectly well with the prevailing ideas in the ancient world, of the state of things anterior to elementary or Visible creation, when ‘ chaos was, and night,’ and when wars oe 48 sence to be dark, or to be active. To the end that egotism may acquire the distinction of pure, it is not necessary that it should Nullus adhue mundo pracbebat lumina Titan, Nec nova crescendo reparabat cornus Phoebe. In the influence of the quality of foulness, or passion,—for the word rajas has both senses,—may be suspected an affinity to the doctrine of an active principle, the moving mind, the gras, that set inert matter into motion, and produced_cxeated things” Sdnkhya-kdrikd, p. 94. Lassen, who was the first to translate the whole of Is’wara Krishna’s treatise, bad a right understanding of bhétddi. “ Caterva undenum essentialis pro- ficiscitur e sui sensu essepfiali; rudimentalis ex (sui sensu) elementorum generatore; haec caliginosa est. Ex impetuoso (sui sensu) utralibet oritur creatio.” Twenty-fifth kérikd, in Gymnosophista, Dp. 68. C. J. H. Windischmann prudently follows Lassen; putting “ Anfang der Elemente” for bhitddi. Die Philosophie im Fortgang der Weltgeschichte, p. 1816. A revised version of the kériké in question is here submitted :, “ The class of eleven, consisting of purity, proceeds from egotism ¢echuically called modified. From egotism, as the source of the elements, the rudimental particles originate ; and this form of egotism is imbued with darkness, But ét is only from egotism when affected by activity that the one and the other, the class of eleven and the elementary particles, take their rise.” It may be observed that, while Professor Wilson, at p. 94 of the Sdnkhya-kérikd, considers egotism, in one of its kinds, as “ the first of the elements,”’ at p. 121 he places, by the side of the tan-mdtras ‘ subtile elements,’—which emanate from egotism, and give birth to the gross ele- ments,—as speciously comparable, the oroixela oroixelay of Empedocles. For the seeming parallel to these elemental ultimates, the Professor ought, in consistency, to have gone back to dark egotism. But it has previously been shown that the Sankhya does not recognise as elementary anything antecedent to the particles so designated.