History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, Incorporating the History of Hindu Chemistry by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray c40.s5.10

c40.s5.10

*Parispanda* sometimes stands for atomic and molecular motion, but more often for the subtile motion of atoms or molecules. The radical meaning of the term is whirling or rotary motion, a circling motion, but it may also include simple harmonic motion (e.g., vibration). All action, operation or work, is ultimately traced to this form of subtile motion lodged in the atoms or in the matter-stuff. The Vedanta, for example, speaks of a cosmic vibratory motion. *Akasa* in the Vedanta, as we have seen, is the first stadium in the evolution of matter, which gives off *vayu*, which gives off *tejas*, and so on; but *akasa* (Ether) itself passes through two stages before the emanation of the *sukshma-bhuta vayu*—(1) the motionless ubiquitous primordial matter-stuff (*bhutadi* in Samkhya) called *puranam kham*, and (2) a subtile integration, the pure unquintuplicated *sukshma-bhuta* called *vayuram kham* (tanmatra stage in Samkhya). It is this subtile *akasa*, in its tanmatric integration, i.e., in the derivative form, which is subject to an incessant *parispanda*. The gaseous stage of matter (the Vedantic *vayu*) is indeed matter in a state of *parispandic* motion. The Samkhya also conceives this *parispanda* to characterise every process and phenomenon of cosmic evolution *Bhutas*, organisms, mental organs, as modes of *Prakriti*, are all subject to this *parispanda* On the other hand, *Prakriti* as the *avyakta*, the a-cosmic, the unmanifest ground, with resolution only of like to like, is devoid of all *parispandic* motion. The Nyaya-Vaiseshika finds *parispanda* in all forms of matter, except *akasa* which, in that system, is non-atomic and incapable of any change or activity. But all atoms, from those of *vayu* downwards, are in incessant motion. The world at bottom is an infinitude of continually whirling (or vibratory) particles. All physical action consists in motion. The Nyaya-Vaiseshika rejects force, power, operation, except as modes of motion. But, though all action of matter on matter is thus resolved into motion, conscious activity is sharply distinguished from all forms of motion In this Nyaya-Vaiseshika differs from Samkhya-Vedanta, which, as we have seen, considered everything other than Intelligence, the *Purusha* or the transcendental Self, to arise in the course of cosmic Evolution, and therefore, to be subject to *parispandic* motion.