A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c5.10.3

c5.10.3

Just as in the Vedāntic theory of pañchīkaraṇa, out of the five original elements, fire, air, water, earth, and space, half of each element was regarded as being kept intact, while the other half was regarded as being divided into four equal different parts, four such parts from the different elements one after another going to make up a half, which in combination with the half of the original element made up one transformed evolute of the original element, similarly, in the case of the Upanishadic trivṛitkaraṇa each of the three original elements namely fire, water and earth is to be regarded as being divided into two equal portions, one half being kept intact, while the other half is divided into two equal portions, the two quarters of the two other elements in combination with the one-half of the original element making up a transformed evolute of the original element. This idea of the mixture of the elements in the Upanishads is a very interesting one from the point of view of its analogy with a similar idea in the philosophy of Anaxagoras who taught that there was a portion of everything in everything, and thus that the elements came to be mixed with each other and gave rise to transformed products.