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Written by Sri Swami Chandrashekarendra
Saraswati |
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According to Sankhya, the Atman is Purusa and is the basis of all,
though,
at the same time detached from everything. In its view Maya which keeps
everything going is Prakriti. The cosmos is contained in 24 "tattvas"
["thatnesses" or principles or categories] of which Prakrti is one-
Prakrti is
indeed the first of these and it has the name of"pradhana". From it
arises
the second tattva of "mahat" which is the intellect of Prakrti (like the
intellect of man). From mahat (the great) is derived the third tattva of
"ahamkara", the ego, self-consciousness, the feeling that there is a
separate entity called "I".
Ahamkara divides itself into two: first as the sentient and knowing life
of
a man, his mind, his five jnanendriyas and five karmendriyas. The second
is constituted by the five "tanmatras" and the five "mahabhutas” of the
insentient cosmos. The jnanendriyas are faculties with which a man gets
to know outside objects: the eyes that see objects, the nose that
smells,
the mouth that tastes, the ear that hears and the skin that feels by
touch.
With his karmendriyas he performs various actions. The mouth serves as
a karmendriya also since it performs the function of speech. The hand,
the leg, the anus and the genitals are all karmendriyas. The "asrayas"
for
jnanendriyas are sound (ear), feeling, sparsa (skin), form (eye),
flavour or
taste (mouth), smell (nose). These five are tanmatras. The tattvas in
their
expanded insentient forms are space (sound), air (feeling or touch),
water
(flavour), earth (smell), fire (form)- these are mahabhutas. Thus
Prakrti,
mahat, ahamkara, mind, the five jnanendriyas, the five karmendriyas, the
five tanmatras, and the five mahabhutas- all these make up the 24
tattvas.
These tattvas are accepted by non-dualistic Vedanta also. According to
it,
it is Isvara (the Brahman with attributes) who unites Purusa (or the
Atman without attributes) with Prakrti or Maya. Sankhya, however, is
silent on Isvara.
The three qualities of sattva, rajas and tamas, according to the Sankhya
philosophy, are accepted by all Vedantic systems including non-dualism.
Sattva denotes a high state of goodness, clarity and serenity; rajas is
all
speed and action and passion; and tamas denotes sleep, inertia, sloth.
The Gita has much to say on the subject in its "Gunatraya-vibhaga yoga".
The Lord says: "Nistraigunyo Bhava" (Go beyond all three gunas and dwell
in the Atman). Sankhya also believes that all undesirable developments
are due to an imbalance of the gunas and that they must be maintained
evenly. But, unlike the Gita, Sankhya does not tell us the means to
achieve this- like worship of Isvara, surrender to him, Atmic inquiry
and
so on.
Purusa alone has life, Prakrti is inert. By itself Prakrti is incapable
of
performing any function. It manifests itself as the 24 tattvas only in
the
presence of Purusa. But Sankhya also speaks contradictorily that Purusa
is
"kevala-gnana-swarupin" unrelated to Prakrti. "Kevala" means what is by
itself, isolated, without the admixture of anything else. "Kaivalya" is
the
name Sankhya gives to liberation. The state in which an individual,
after
discarding the 24 tattvas and being released from inertia, remains in
the
vital Purusa by himself is "kaivalya". (In Tamil "kevalam" has somehow
come to mean "inferior" or "unworthy".)
Advaita also has the goal of one being absorbed in Purusa, that is the
Atman, and discarding all else as Maya. To attain this state, the Acarya
has cut out a path for us, the path that takes us to final release
through
works, devotion and philosophic inquiry. Sankhya does no such thing.
Most of its teaching relates to forsaking the 24 tattvas.
Another unsatisfactory aspect of Sankhya is this. Purusa (the Atman) is
jnana by itself and has no function. Prakrti has a function but is
insentient
and without jnana. How does this insentient Prakriti unfold itself as
the
24 tattvas? According to Sankhya, this phenomenon occurs in the
presence of Purusa. This is not a convincing explanation. How does
Prakrti
perform its function under Purusa that has no function? Supporters of
Sankhya answer: "Are not iron filings brought into motion by the
presence of a magnet? Does the magnet consciously want to keep them
in motion? The magnet is by itself and the iron filings are in motion.
Similarly, though Purusa is by himself, Prakrti is activated as a
consequence of its vitality. "
Purusa and Prkrti work together like a cripple carried by a blind man.
The
cripple cannot walk and the blind man cannot see. So the cripple perched
on the shoulders of the blind man shows the way and the latter follows
his directions. Similarly, Prakrti which has no jnana carries Purusa who
is
full of jnana, but Prkrti without jnana is behind all affairs of the
world.
This may sound good as a story or a metaphor but it does not make sense
unlike the explanation provided by the Advaita concept- that the Nirguna-
Brahman becomes Saguna-Brahman (Isvara) to conduct the world.
Another important difference between Advaita and Sankhya is this.
Although Sankhya believes in a Purusa made up of jnana it does not state
unequivocally like Advaita that all souls are the same as Purusa. All
individual souls, according to Sankhya, exist by themselves. Though the
ideas of Sankhya are confusing sometimes, it is regarded as one of our
basic systems of philosophy. ("Sankhya” means enumerating, numbers:
from it comes Sankhya.)
The author of Sankhya Sutra is Kapila Maharishi. Notable works of this
system are Isvarakrsna's Sankhya karika and Vijnanabhiksu's commentary
on the Sankhya-sutra.
The Gita too deals with Sankhya. When Bhagavan Krsna speaks of the two
paths, Sankhya and Yoga, He means jnana by the former and karmayoga
by the latter (not Rajayoga.)
Sankhya does not go beyond asking us to have an awareness of Purusa
separate from Prakrti. Rajayoga, however, goes further from this point
and tells us the practical means, the "sadhana", to be followed to
become
aware of Purusa dissociated from Prakrti. The concept of Isvara and
devotion to him is part of yoga and it has lessons to bring the mind
under
control. What generally goes under the name of yoga is Patanjali's
Rajayoga, according to which yoga is the stopping the mental process (or
the oscillating vitality of consciousness). It is this yoga that has
become
popular in Western countries.
Sankhya and yoga are not included in caturdasa-vidya but, all the same,
they are important among our sastras.
Though devotion to Isvara is not part of Mimamsa, it accepts the
authority of the Vedas. Likewise Sankhya too respects the authority of
the
Vedas and does not support belief in Isvara.
Buddhism on the one hand, Nyaya and Mimamsa on the other which
were opposed to it, and Sankhya, which does not accept Isvara but
respects the pramanas of the Vedas: of these our Acarya accepts
elements that are to be accepted and rejects elements that are to be
rejected. He establishes the Vedantic system which harbours all these
and which is their source. Sankara's view is not at variance with the
ultimate message of Buddhism, that is the exalted state of jnana. He
accepts some of the basic concepts of Sankhya like Purusa that is jnana
by
itself and equivalent to the Nirguna-Brahman and Prakrti which is the
same as Maya. At the same time, he accepts the Vedic rituals of
Mimamsa and the Isvara of Nyaya. But he sees each of them as an aspect
of the one Truth, not as the final goal which it is to the various
individual
systems mentioned. He integrates these different aspects into a
harmonious whole in his own system of thought. |
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