Verses on Sāṃkhya 15.1

15.1

nanu ca 'vyaktāvyaktajñavijñānāt', vyaktaṃ tāvat pratyakṣānumānābhyāṃ siddham, pradhānapuruṣayostu sarvadānupalambhāt kathaṃ siddhirnastayoriti nānupalabdhimātreṇāsattvam / yataścaturbhiḥ prakāraiḥ satāmapi padārthānāmupalabdhirbhavati / deśadoṣādindriyadoṣādviṣayadoṣādarthāntaradoṣācca / tāneva bhedena darśayannāha-
atidūrātsāmīpyādindriyaghātānmano 'navasthānāt /
saukṣmyādvyavadhānādabhibhavātsamānābhihārācca //

Objection: Since it was said, "from discriminative knowledge of the manifest, the unmanifest, and the knower," the manifest is indeed established through perception and inference, but since primordial matter and conscious spirit are never perceived, how can there be their non-establishment? [We reply:] non-existence does not follow merely from non-perception. For non-perception occurs even of existent entities by four causes: from a defect of location, from a defect of the sense organs, from a defect of the object, and from a defect of other factors. Showing precisely these distinct causes, he says: / From extreme distance, from proximity, from injury to the sense organs, from instability of the mind, / from subtlety, from obstruction, from suppression, and from admixture with the similar. //