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

In the preceding verse it was stated that soul was many ; in this, its other attributes are enumerated.

p. 73

The conjunction cha, in the term tasmdt-cha, connects the sentence with the preceding, or with Jahuftwam, ‘ multitudinousness.’ The contrast alluded to is that intimated in ver. 14, and is this: Soul has not the three qualities, it is discriminative, it is perceptive, it is specific, it is rational, it is unprolific; being the reverse, in these respects, of nature and its effects. Not being an object of sense, but percipient of such objects, it observes and testifies to the existence of nature and its products, like an evidence in a lawsuit being plaintiff and defendant. ‘That which is irrational cannot observe, and that to which an object is apparent is a witness *.’ Solitariness is ‘exemption from the three kinds of paint; or, in fact, total abstraction from the world: this is the necessary consequence of being devoid of the three qualities, which are essentially the same with pleasure, pain, and dulness ; and from them, therefore, soul is equally free. From the same cause, absence of qualities and insusceptibility of agreeable or disagreeable emotions, proceeds the next property of soul, that of being a bystander; madhyastha, ‘ neutral, indifferent, unconcerned ;’ udésina, ‘neither rejoicing in pleasure, nor sorrowing in pain.’ Qualities, and particularly foulness, are indispensable to activity ; and being without them, soul is consequently inert: the same is considered to be also the necessary result of its being,‘ discriminative and unprolific, or unproductive f.’. VisnAna Buixsuv restricts the term sdkshi, ‘ witness,” to the sense of ‘ beholder,’ distinguishing it from the other term, to which such a translation is more applicable, drashtri, as importing one who has the object near to, or before, lis eyes ; the latter implies seeing in general : hence he says, ‘Soul witnesses or contemplates buddhi (intellect), and sees the other principles |.”

* Satie cer rafa area: areft w efitafaaat safe temfvagerants: faa | faafaareneaufisiearer wefa fae | gata are qensaai q cearafafar |

Tuererore, by reason of union with it, insensible body seems sensible; and though the qualities be active, the stranger (soul)

appears as the agent. ; BHASHYA.

Here soul is said to be possessed of sensation ; and in connection with it, intellect and the other predicates of nature assuming the appearance of sense seem sentient: as in life, a jar with cold water appears to be cold, with warm water seems to be warm; so intellect and the rest, from union with it, with soul, seem sensible. But the qualities perform the active application (of sense), not the soul: for although in common it is said, soul is the doer, the goer, yet soul is not the agent. How so? Though the qualities be active, (soul) the stranger appears as the agent. There being activity of the qualities, soul, which is indifferent, or inactive, appears as if it was the agent; which it is not. Here is an illustration: as a man who is not a thief, being taken up along with thieves, is suspected to be a thief also; so soul, being connected with the three active qualities, is supposed, thgugh inert, to be active also.

In this manner the distinction of the perceptible, imperceptible, and thinking principles (ver. 2. p. 13) has been explained ; from the discrimination of which liberation is obtained. It is next expounded why the union of the two (chief) principles, nature and soul, takes place.

COMMENT.

It is here taught that the sentient faculty resides in soul, and not, as it appears to do, in the products of nature; and that activity resides in the qualities, not, as it appears to do, in soul.