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

It was stated in ver. 8, that mahat and the other effects of prakriti were in some respects like, and in others unlike, to their original. The circumstances in which they were dissimilar were specified in ver. 10, and those in which they agreed in ver. 11. In the latter stanza, the first of the concurrent properties that was named was that of their possessing the three qualities; and in verses 12 and 13 it was explained what was meant by the three qualities. In the present stanza it is asserted, that as the effects of prakriti have the three qualities, they must have, as a necessary consequence, the other properties, want of discrimination and the rest, enumerated in ver. 11; and that as they have them, their origin, or prakriti, must have them also, as there is no essential difference between the properties of cause and effect.

The influence of goodness, foulness, and darkness, or the varied affections and conditions of all substances, is the obvious cause of perplexity, or want of discrimination, &c.; being, in fact, the same state or condition. Traigunya is the influence or any consequence of the three gunas. The next expression is variously interpreted.

Mr. Colebrooke renders tad viparyaya abhdvat*, ‘and from the absence thereof in the reverse ;’ that is, the absence of want of discrimination, &c.

* afauatanrrara |

p. 58

in that subject which is the reverse of the material products of nature, as, for instance, soul, is a negative proof of their existence in the former. The properties of contraries are contrary. Soul and matter are contraries, and consequently their properties are mutually the reverse of each other: but one property of soul is freedom from the three qualities, whilst that of matter, or any material product of prakriti, is their possession ; consequently the former must be capable, and the latter incapable, of discrimination. The same may be said of the other properties of mahat and the rest. Thus VAcnespati observes: ‘It (the assertion) is first plainly or affirmatively expressed in the natural order: it is then put negatively, or in the inverted order ; from the absence thereof in the reverse; from the absence of the three qualities in soul, as the reverse of the products of prakriti, in regard to want of discrimination and the like *.”. The S. Chandrika has a similar explanation : ‘ The reverse of that want of discrimination ; where that is that is the reverse (of mahat, &c.), or soul: for in soul there are not the three qualitics; or, where there is not want of discrimination there are not the three qualities, as in soul {:’ intimating, therefore, that tad, ‘ thereof,’ may refer cither to the three qualities traigunya, or to want of discrimination, &c.

There is, however, another sense attached to the expression ; and the reverse is understood not to signify soul, or any thing contrary to mahat and the rest, but to imply contrariety or incompatibility in the properties of their origin, or prakriti: that is, indiscriminativeness and the rest are the properties of mahat, &c. not only from their possessing the three qualities, but because there is nothing contrary to indiscriminativeness, &c. in prakriti, This proposition is indicated by Vacuesratt, who, after explaining the passage as above, adds, ‘Or it may be understood as

* apATete | afitteare | afrrdanrarefaaentete was Tee SWAT | 1 wenfaafere fro ae wefeady sen ae epTaren @ oafaafeanaeTrt Sana wrarafefr |p. 59 taking for its two subjects cyakta and avyakta (discrete and undiscrete matter), and by the inverted proposition (or negatively) asserting that there is no reason (to the contrary) arising from one being exempt from the three qualities*.’. The same is more explicitly stated by GaurapApa. The absence of indiscriminativeness, he observes, as deduced from the influence of the three qualities, relates in the first instance to ryakta, ‘discrete matter,’ not to avyakta, or ‘indiscrete :’ but the same must apply to the latter also, because there is no property belonging to it which is incompatible with, or the reverse of, the properties of the vyakta, or ‘discrete matter,” mahat, &c.; as in the case of the cloth and the threads of which it is woven, there is no incompatibility between them.