English
The Professor’s remarks, incidentally bearing on the functions of bhdté- di, at p. 164 of the Sdnkhya-kdérikd, are unsubstantiated. The text on which these mistaken observations are founded, is as follows: waanifaa: wat ™ ™“e ~~ a ACN ~ sy s farsa ween wast LaaraIAaAT TAT WATAGa: Gree | ** Thus, non-elemental creation, rudimental creation, conditional and ele- mental creation, in beings of divine, mortal, brutal, and (immovable) origin, ure the sixteen sorts of creation effected by nature.” Such is Professor 49 consist wholly of purity; the mere preponderance of this qua- Wilson's translation ; instead of which we should certainly read: ‘ The non-elemental creation,—i. e., the rudimental creation and the conditional creation,—and the elemental creation, or the aggregate of beings of divine, mortal, and brutal, origin, are the sixteen sorts of creation proceeding mediately from nature.’ My MS. wants the word BATT * elemental ereation;’ but its inser- tion, as an equivalent of the Utfaa: @ia: of the 53d kdrikd, is quite im- material. Moreover, | have corrected a grammatical inadvertence. The elemental ereation has fourteen divisions ; and the two branches of the non-clemental count, each, as unity. The sum of sixteenis thus completed. There is, then, no such respective reference, in the above passage, as may have led the Professor to supply the word ‘ ‘immovable,’ and which induced him to make the following comment: “ Apparently, each of the four classes of beings proceeds from four modifications of nature; or, from the invisible principles, from the subtile rudiments, from the conditions or dispositions: of intellect, and from the gross elements.” The evolution of the Sinkhya principles as recited in the Visknu-purdna, is strangely misrepresented by the translator. A single sample will suffice, Sonar ynfeg fagaru weanafaa aa | wast wea TATA WReGTTTA | MRA Taser uae: T PTaAqraN oO I, 2, 37-8. “ Elementary Egotism then becoming productive, as the rudiment of sound, produced from it Ether, of which sound is the characteristic, investing it with its rudiment of sound.” ‘Translation, p. 16. The correct rendering is, however: ‘The element-engendering egotism, being modified, then produced the rudiment of sound; and, from the rudi- ment of sound, the ether, whose characteristic is sound: and this element- engendering egotism, similarly to agents in processes before mentioned, invest- ed the ether, which consists of sound.’ Almost the entire page from which the passage above animadverted on is taken, is disfigured by the style of misapprehension just pointed out. In one place, in fact, in order to force the construction desired, the nomina- tive singular vdyz—euphonically required for vdyuh—is made accusative. Saintly liberties vastly more licentious than this, are often taken, in the Puranas; but there is, in this instance, no temptation whatever to do vio- lence to Panini. H 50 lity being held sufficient for the purpose.* Further, the term manas is said to mean ‘heart,’ At p. 30, it is called “esprit vital.” At p, 106, a choice is allowed out of “le cceur,” “ Vesprit,”” and, “ pour prendre une expression plus juste et assez souvent employée dans notre langage philosophique, le sensorium commune.’+ The manas is defined, by Sdnkhya authorities, to be one of the soul’s three internal organs, without which there is no experience of joy or grief; in the same way as, for instance, but for the eye, one of the soul’s external organs, sight is impossible. In order to adjust the twenty-fifth kérikd after Vijndna’s conception of manas, M. Saint-Hilaire correctly premises that this word must be substituted, in the couplet, for the eleven organs. But, professing to effect this substitution, while he once puts manas for the eleven organs, he puts it three times for ego- tism. He also puts egotism for subtile elements, or, rather, gross elements ; for he foists this blunder of his own,as well as his bor- rowed primitive element, on the injured commentator. Again, purposing to censure Vijndna, he remarks rightly, at first, that, ‘in the Sankhya system, accurately expounded, the five gross elements issue from the five subtile elements; and the five sub- tile elements, and the eleven organs, from egotism.’ Yet, in * Indeed, in the twenty-fifth kdrikd itself we have the word vikrita ‘mo- dified’ as a synonyme of sdtiwika ‘pure.’ Elsewhere, vaikérika ‘ modifica- tional’ occurs as its substitutes. ‘+ Professor Wilson had already explained manas to be “an internal sense, & Sensorium~. Sdnkhya-kérikd, p. 100. Colebrooke calls it a sen- sitive, material organ,” and likens it to the éuyds of Pythagoras. Mliscell. Essays, Vol. I., p, 418. The word manas has often been compared to the Greck évos ; but, whe- ther as used in the Sankhya system, or elsewhere, it bears very little simila- rity to this term, which ‘‘seems most commonly to answer to the Latin word impetus, and implies rather a physical, than mental, energy. Homer places it, at different times, in the knees, the 6¢ Obpos, the orheos, and the pv.” Mitchell’s Wasps of Aristophanes, p. 103. 51 translating and annotating the twenty-fifth Adrikd, we have seen that it is the gross elements which he derives immediately from egotism. But Vijnéna has clearly enough set forth his view of the twenty-fifth kdrikd, as M. Saint-Hilaire would have seen, Lad he read, even with the aid of Professor Wilson, the scholiast’s interpretation of the eighteenth Aphorism of the second Book.* After alleging manas to mean the cleventh organ, Vijudna explains ‘both’ to refer to the intellectual organs and the organs of action. The kdrikdé will, then, run thus: ‘ The eleventh organ, consisting of purity, originates from modified egotism. From egotism, as the source of the elements, proceed the rudimental particles; and this variety of egotism is imbued with darkness. From egotism affected by activity, arise both the intellectual organs and the organs of action.’ Vijnina is, therefore, peculiar, as compared with some others, in deducing, from pure egotism, but a single product, mind, instead of eleven, viz., mind and the ten organs of intellection and action: the latter being referred, by him, to the active species of egotism ; which is held, on the adverse interpretation, to be, independently, inoperative, but yet an indispensable con- dition of energy on the part of the other two modifications of the self-conscious principle. To defend, textually, his exegesis of the latter part of the twenty-fifth kdrzkd, Vijnéna must be suppos- ed to contemplate the twenty-sixth Adrikd ; inasmuch as the organs of understanding and action are there mentioned for the first time in the treatise: and this anticipation is clearly impractica. ble, save by the dislocation of all syntax. Nevertheless, the im- port which Vijndna contends for, is far from being a peculiarity * Sdnkhya-kdrikd, p.94. Professor Wilson here, too, however, requires to be set right. Forgetting the order in which he has just enumerated the Modifications of egotism, he writes “ the other ten, from the second kind ; and the elements, from the third.” The words ‘ sccond’ and ‘ third’ must he transposed. HQ 52 personal to himself only. Both the sets of Aphorisms attributed to Kapila are silent on the topic under discussion ; and so is the Mahdbhérata. Arguing, however, from the Hindu point of view,—such as it is,—our commentator is supported by the divine testimony of the Puranas, against the mere human authority of l's'wara Krishna and his successors.* At all events, the ex- + * The productiveness of active egotism is the doctrine of the Puranas. The Mahkdbhérata, after XII., 11395, where it would be expected to pro- pound either this view, or else one that would preclude it, is suggestively mute. Can it be that this tenet is a developement dating subsequently to I's’wara Krishna’s time ; having been, since then, grafted on the Puranas ? I quote, below, from these works. AWAIT STAT HTTTA g aaa! FaeaPyararssar Barhcat ZH U HA BAU Tar Tarheat: Yar: | Vishnu-purdéna, I., 1, 46-7. ** This is the elemental creation, proceeding from the principle of egotism affected by the property of darkness. The organs of sense are said to be the passionate products of the same principle, affected by foulness; and the ten divinities proceed from egotism affected by the principle of goodness ; as does mind, which is the eleventh.” Prof. Wilson’s Translation, pp. 17, 18. In a foot-note to p. 16, Prof. Wilson repeats Gaudapida’s account of the three sorts of egotism, but without directing attention to its contradiction of his text. For a passage to the same effect with the verses given above, see the Bhdgavata purdna, I1., 5,29 seqq.: also ITI., 26, 27 seqq. It is the first of thede two passages that is cited, by Vijndna, at p.118. Virardéghava, in his commentary, the Bhégavata-chandrikd, wrests the word taijasdé, in the fourth verse, into congruity with the dogmas of I’s’wara Krishna and his school, by explaining it to denote ‘ with the aid of passional egotism.’ Add: SarfeareeR Tey war y Sarfearray | aaarairaaty Beat Saifcat <M MI View BAG PATA UyATa | yaaaTTaTIse amacway gat *Kiirma-puréna, prior section, 4th chapter, 53 pression of amazement ventured by M. Saint-Hilaire, is alto- gether gratuitous ; and it would have been well had he foregone ithe temerity of impeaching, with headlong disparagement, the adjudication, by so acute and learned a writer as Vijndna, of a nice philosophical punctuality. Vijnéna, so far from the pre- posterous solecism of deducing any of the elements from mind, expands the seventeenth Aphorism of the second Book in these words: ‘ The eleven organs, and the five subtile elements, 2. e., sound, &c., are the products of egotism.