Outlines of Indian Philosophy c19.75

c19.75

Now as regards the double sense in which the principles from mahat onwards, excluding the elements in their twofold form, are to be understood in the system. It is not difficult to understand their significance from the standpoint of individual experience. The process of perception, as just set forth, makes it quite clear. But the same cannot be said of their cosmic aspect, and it is impossible from the premises of the system to discover why these psychical terms should be applied to the ontological entities in question. The only way of explaining this obscure point is to assume a cosmic Puruṣa and regard the whole process of evolution as an ideal presentation to him. That will give us at once a rendering in psychical terms of these ontological principles. If we identify the mahat—as cosmic buddhi illumined by spirit—with this Puruṣa, the next stage in evolution, viz. the ahaṁ-kāra will stand for the sense of self-hood which arises in him, positing on the one hand what we have described as the objective series or not-self; and on the other the subjective series, or more strictly, the apparatus of thought adapted to cognize it.¹ Since in the case of such a cosmic subject the order of psychological presentation coincides with that of actual evolution,² the above assumption also accounts for the order in which the several principles occur in the evolutionary scheme which, as observed already, is the reverse of that in which they function in individual mental life. When we remember that this is exactly the position of the Upaniṣads and that they mention more or less the same stages³ in describing the creation of the world by the personal Brahman (mahān ātmā), it will be clear that the inclusion by the Sāṅkhya of these principles in its scheme is to be traced to the teaching of those treatises. But in its reaction against Absolutism, the doctrine has discarded the idea of a universal soul and by sundering it into two—prakṛti and puruṣa—has reduced each to a mere abstraction. For the activity of prakṛti is meaningless with puruṣa; and puruṣa, were it not for its association with prakṛti, would be hardly distinguishable from nothing. The result is that while the system professes to be dualistic, its implication is quite the reverse.⁴