Outlines of Indian Philosophy c19.24

c19.24

The guṇas form the substratum of change which as in Buddhism is taken to be perpetual (p. 211). But change is not total here and the guṇas persist while only their modes appear and disappear. This solution of the problem of change leads to the postulating of a two-fold condition for all things—one, latent or potential and the other, potent or actual. When all the modes of prakṛti are latent, we have the state of dissolution (pralaya); at other times, evolution (sarga). Even in the state of dissolution, prakṛti is supposed to maintain its dynamic character; only then, instead of producing unlike forms, it reproduces itself (sajātīya-pariṇāma) so that perpetual motion is a fundamental postulate of the system so far as the physical world is concerned (p. 233).³ The ground for the conclusion that there is perpetual movement in prakṛti is to be found in the conviction that if it ceased to be dynamic at any stage, it would be impossible to account for the reappearance of motion in it again. Here we see a realization of the truth of Newton's First Law of Motion that a body in motion or at rest continues to be so unless it is disturbed from outside. There is no such external agency recognized in the doctrine to interfere with its movement. No doubt the change from the state of dissolution to that of evolution is accounted for by introducing an outside influence, viz. the presence of spirit (puruṣa-samnidhi)¹; but the explanation is given only in a half-hearted manner and is, as we shall see, one of the unsatisfactory features of the system, so far at least as the Sāṅkhya part of it is concerned.