Outlines of Indian Philosophy c19.42

c19.42

(iii) Now as regards the last group in the evolution, viz. the elements: When we remember that the ultimate reals out of which the produced part of the universe is constituted according to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika are these elements, it will be seen that the Sāṅkhya-Yoga carries its investigation farther back than that system until it arrives at a single principle. How are these elements derived and what are their characteristics? Their immediate causes are the five tanmātras; and they are named after the distinguishing features of the five elements as śabda-tanmātra ('essence of sound'), sparśa-tanmātra ('essence of touch'), etc. The gross elements which spring from them show greater and greater differentiation. Their mode of origin is as follows: From śabda-tanmātra emerges ākāśa with sound as its manifest quality. From śabdatanmātra and sparśa-tanmātra combined emerges air, which therefore has the two qualities of sound and touch; from these two and rūpa-tanmātra springs fire, which has the three qualities of sound, touch and colour; from these three and rasa-tanmātra emerges water with four qualities, viz. sound, touch, colour and taste; and last, earth comes into being from all the five tanmātras and is therefore characterized by all the five qualities of sound, touch, colour, flavour and odour. The elements beginning with ākāśa are consequently more and more concrete. Each element is conceived as manifold, and consists of finite and disparate particles termed paramāṇus,¹ though the expression does not signify here precisely what it does in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. It is out of these atoms that the whole of the physical universe as known to us is produced.