The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c7.13

c7.13

In the epic the three entities, intellect, individuation and mind, have all often a fully cosmic function: they are natural expressions for the activity of a personal creator, whether developed or not from the Brahman, and as we have seen are adopted in this sense by the Bhāgavatas in the series of Saṃkarṣaṇa, Pradyumma and Aniruddha, though in that series mind and Pradyumma rank above individuation and Aniruddha. The distinction, however, between intellect and individuation is a slight one, and is not normally made: rather it is assumed that intellect per se involves individuation, and when both terms occur it must be held that we have a result of a further process of analysis. Beside the cosmic function of these powers they figure largely in epic psychology. The principle of individuation passes for a factor in will, and at other times describes the function of attention: it is even by a false abstraction further subdivided and appears as two species, the other being Abhimāna (xii, 205, 24). The other terms are variously explained, but it is a common idea that data are given by sense, that the mind ponders upon them or raises doubts, and that the intellect decides (xii, 275, 17; 285, 17), while the spirit is a mere spectator, a view which corresponds with the doctrine that spirit is the subject without which all these psychic processes would be blind and unconscious. On the other hand, stress is often (xii, 311; xiv, 22) laid on the fact that the senses require the operation of mind to produce perceptions: without mind there is no result, but equally without the senses mind is empty. It accords well with this view that to mind is attributed the function of dreams. Mind also, in xii, 313, is brought directly into connection with the organs of action, to which it must be conceived as conveying the commands arising from the decisions of intellect, but in xii, 299, 20 the function of acting towards the organs of action as the mind acts to the organs of perception is attributed to strength, Bala, a conception which, however, is not maintained.