A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.14

c18.14

The evolution and diversity of the world are explained by primæval matter, although uniform and indivisible, consisting of three different substances called *guṇas* or constituents (originally "strands" of a rope). By the combination of these in varying proportions the diverse material products were supposed to have arisen. The constituent, called *sattva*, distinguished by the qualities of luminousness and lightness in the object, and by virtue, benevolence, and other pleasing attributes in the subject, is associated with the feeling of joy; *rajas*, distinguished by activity and various hurtful qualities, is associated with pain; and *tamas*, distinguished by heaviness, rigidity, and darkness on the one hand, and fear, unconsciousness, and so forth, on the other, is associated with apathy. At the end of a cosmic period all things are supposed to be dissolved into primitive matter, the alternations of evolution, existence, and dissolution having neither beginning nor end.