The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s7.t2.6

v2.c40.s7.t2.6

The whole theory is one mass of difficult paradoxes, despite its seeming elegance and simplicity of structure. The main basis of the conception, that there is suffering through the connexion of the soul with nature, is contradicted by the fact that there is really no connexion: the suffering is produced by a connexion which does not exist, and is only imagined to exist, but an imagined connexion is no ground for results which a real connexion alone could produce. The relation of the one Prakṛti with the psychical apparatuses which are not conscious except under the illumination of the subject is never clearly explained, or perhaps understood.¹ At best we may endeavour to conceive the position that the connexion—which, however, as we have seen, is not really existent—of the spirit with Prakṛti, as a single undifferentiated unit, produces a primal consciousness (Buddhi), which develops under the influence of the individuation (Ahaṁkāra) of the spirit an individual form or psychic apparatus, on which is based the life of the individual. In that case the conception of a cosmic development of individuation and the other things would be in the main a mistaken complement of the system which is not essential to it. But there is the grave objection to this theory that already in the Sāṁkhya Kārikā the paternal and maternal portions of the gross elements are supposed by the author to fall back into and be picked up out of Prakṛti by the psychic apparatus in the case of death and rebirth, and not as would be logical and proper, if the development of Prakṛti were individual from the point of Buddhi onwards, recalled into and evolved from the subtle elements, while the Prabhūtas, which represent the material world, are made to stand over against the selves as an independent real world.