The Sānkhya Kārikā, with the Bhāshya of Gauḍapāda — trans. H. T. Colebrooke and H. H. Wilson (1837)

In this stanza the three principal categories of the Sankhya system are briefly defined, chiefly with regard to their relative characters.

Existent things, according to one classification, are said to be fourfold : 1. prakriti; 2. vikriti; 3. prakriti-vikriti; and anubhaya ripa, neither prakriti nor vikriti. Prakriti, according to its ordinary use, and its etymological sense, means that which is primary, that which precedes what is made; from pra, pre, and kri,‘to make.’ This, however, is further distinguished in the text into the méla prakriti; the prakriti which is the root and substance of all things except soul, matter or nature; and secondary, special, or relative prakriti, or every production that in its rp. 18 turn becomes primary to some other derived from it. By prakriti may therefore be understood the matter of which every substance primarily or secondarily is composed, and from which it proceeds, the primary, or, as

Mr. Colebrooke renders it, ‘ productive’ principle of some secondary substance or production. This subsequent product is termed vikriti, from the same root, kri,‘to make,’ with ré, implying ‘variation,’ prefixed. Vikriti does not mean a product, or thing brought primarily into existence, but merely a modification of a state of being, a new development or form of something previously extant. We might therefore consider it as best rendered by the term ‘development,’ but there is no objection to the equivalent in the text, or ‘ product.’ In this way, then, the different substances of the universe are respectively nature, or matter, and form. Crude or radical matter is without form. Intellect is its first form, and Intellect is the matter of Egotism. Egotism is a form of Intellect, and the matter of which the senses and the rudimental elements are formed: the senses are forms of Egotism. The gross elements are forms of the rudimental clements. We are not to extend the materiality of the grosser elements to the forms of visible things, for visible things are compounds, not simple developments of a simple base. Soul comes under the fourth class ; it is neither matter nor form, production nor productive. More particular definitions of each category subsequently occur.

IV. Percertion, inference, and right affirmation, are admitted to be threefold proof; for they (are by all acknowledged, and) comprise every mode of demonstration. It is from proof that belief of that which is to be proven results.

BHASHYA.

Perception;—as, the ear, the skin, the eye, the tongue, the nose, are the five organs of sense ; and their five objects are respectively, sound, feel,

p. 19

form, flavour, and odour: the ear apprehends sound ; the skin, feel; the eye, form; the tongue, taste; the nose, smell. This proof is called, (that which is) seen (or perception). That object which is not ascertainable either by its being present, or by inference, is to be apprehended from