Verses on Sāṃkhya 49

And of error there are five varieties: obscurity, delusion, extreme delusion, gloom, and blinding gloom. He states their further sub-varieties:

The variety of obscurity is eightfold, and also of delusion; extreme delusion is tenfold; / gloom is eighteenfold, and so also is blinding gloom. //

Regarding darkness (tamas), nature is eightfold. Darkness is that which dissolves the real entity. Its ultimate dissolution takes place in the eight natures, namely: primordial matter, intellect, egoity, and the five subtle elements—in these. Dissolved therein, one thinks, "I am liberated"; and that is one's error. Thus the division of darkness is eightfold. The meaning is that [the division] of delusion (moha) is likewise eightfold: deities such as Brahmā, attached to that which has been described as the eightfold lordship beginning with atomicity, do not desire the state of liberation. Upon the exhaustion of that lordship, which had been acquired by auspicious karma, they transmigrate again. This too is an eightfold division of delusion. Extreme delusion (mahāmoha) has a tenfold division: objects for the gods, called the five subtle elements, are unparticularised, consisting of pure bliss, like milk free of conditioning, devoid of pleasure and so forth that arise from the calm [states] and so forth, which exist upon attaining heaven; likewise, those for human beings, because of having physical bodies, are endowed with pleasure, suffering, and delusion, and are calm, terrible, and dull. Thus this extreme delusion is tenfold. For among these ten, gods such as Brahmā and Indra, human beings, and those attached to animal wombs are seen [to be involved]. Because of that, their understanding being confounded into thinking that there is [nothing] beyond the objects, through attachment to them they do not produce the awakening of knowledge whose nature is the perception of the difference between the constituents and the spirit for the manifestation of eternal, unsurpassed bliss. This is extreme delusion; because of it, they do not attain liberation. "Gloom (tāmisra) is of eighteen kinds": the ten objects of gods and human beings have been spoken of before in terms of being unparticularised and particularised; and the lordship beginning with atomicity is eightfold; thus it becomes eighteenfold. The anger of one who has been thwarted by non-attainment of these due to some defect is called gloom; such is the meaning of "and likewise of eighteen kinds". Blind gloom (andhatāmisra) is also of that very number; thus here too it is of eighteen kinds. And in them, suffering arises from fear of death: while lordship exists, abandoning that lordship when seized by death, the terror of one who conceives "I am departing" is called blind gloom; that is to say, even after obtaining the ten objects and lordship, one is not permitted to enjoy them, but dies midway. In this way, these five divisions of error, beginning with darkness, become sixty-two divisions when differentiated. Hereafter, we shall explain the twenty-eight divisions of incapacity.