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

Be it granted, that whatever is to be ascertained (by any means) is; by what cause is apprehension of nature and soul prevented, and how is it to be effected?

COMMENT.

Reasons are here assigned why things may not be perceived, although they actually exist.

The terms of the text, as illustrated by the comment, are easily understood: the particle cha, in connexion with the last, is considered to imply the existence of other impediments besides those enumerated, such as non-production, as of curds from milk *. But these circumstances, for

_xerheguegeed: arg eget ee reve a Caqaara eratp. 29 the most part, account for the non-perception of perceptible things, and it is still to be considered why nature and soul, which are not amongst things ordinarily perceptible, are not perceived *.

VII.

Ir is owing to the subtilty (of nature), not to the non-existence of this original principle, that it is not apprehended by the senses, but inferred from its effects. Intellect and the rest of the derivative principles are effects; (whence it is concluded as their cause) in some respects analogous, but in others dissimilar.

BHASHYA.

From subtilty the non-perception of that nature. Nature is not apprehended (by the senses) on account of its subtilty, like the particles of smoke, vapour, and frost, which are in the atmosphere, although not perceived there. How then is it to be apprehended? Its perception is from its effects. Waving observed the effects, the cause is inferred. Nature is the cause, of which such is the effect. Intellect, egotism, the five subtile rudiments, the eleven organs, the five gross elements, are its effects. That effect may be dissimilar from nature: ‘nature,’ prakriti; —

‘the chief one,’ pradhdna ; dissimilar from it: or it may be analogous, of similar character ; as in the world a son may be like or unlike his father. From what cause this similarity or dissimilarity proceeds, we shall hereafter explain.

Here a doubt arises, from the conflicting opinions of teachers, whether intellect and other effects be or be not already in nature. According to the Sankhya doctrine, the effects are in nature; according to the

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Bauddhas and others, they are not; for that which is, cannot cease to
be; and that which is not, can by no means be: this is a contradiction.
Therefore, it is said—

COMMENT.

Nature is said to be imperceptible, from its subtilty ; it must be therefore inferred from its effects.

The effects are the products of nature, or intellect, egotism, and the rest; some of which are of a similar, and some of a dissimilar character, as subsequently explained.

Effect, according to the Sankhya system, necessarily implies cause, as it could not exist without it*: but on this topic there are different opinions, thus particularized by VAcnespatt: ‘1. Some say, that that which is may proceed from that which is not. 2. Some say, that effect is not a separately existent thing, but the revolution of an existent thing. 3. Some say, that that which is not may proceed from that which is. 4. The ancients assert, that that which is comes from that which is (or exs from ens). By the three first propositions the existence of nature would not be proved ; for,

‘1. The materiality of the cause of the world, of which the qualities goodness, foulness, and darkness are the natural properties, comprises sound and other changes of its natural condition, and is diversified by pleasure, pain, and insensibility ; but if that which is, is born from that which is not, how can that insubstantial cause which is not, comprehend pleasure, pain, form, sound, and the like! for there cannot be identity of nature between what is and what is not.

‘2. If sound, and other diversified existences, were but revolutions of one existent thing, yet that which is could not proceed from such a source, for the property of manifold existence cannot belong to that which is not twofold: the notion of that which is not manifold through its comprising manifold existence is an obvious error.

° SRiTeRTOWATS TTATe I

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