An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. II — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1911)

All the aforesaid (twenty-four) categories or elementals (Chaturvins'ati-Tanmdtras) are devoid of consciousness. Similarly the modifications of the primal cause of Prakriti such as the Mahat etc. are all bereft of consciousness in as much as the cause itself, the Avyakta or the original nature is devoid of it. The Purusha or the self-conscious subjectivity, enters into the primal cause (Mula-Prakriti or original Nature) and its necessary effect (the evolved out phenomena) and makes them endued with his own essence or self-consciousness. The preceptors and holy sages explain the proposition by an analogy that as the milk in the breast of a mother, though unconscious in itself, originates and flows out for the growth and sustenance of her child ; (as the semen in the organism of an adult male though devoid of consciousness, flows out during an act of sexual intercourse) ; so these twenty-four primary' material principles (elementals), though unconscious in themselves, tend to contribute towards the making of the self-conscious self or the universal individual (the aggregate of limited or conditional selves) for the purpose of working out his final liberation or emancipation i.e., attainment of the stage of pure consciousness or perfect knowledge. 8.

Now we shall describe the tracts which the Purusha (subjective or self-conscious reality) and Prakriti or nature (passive non-conscious eternity) pass in common as well as those wherein they differ from each other. 9.

Traits of commonalty :— Both the Purusha and Prakriti are eternal realities, both of them are unmanifest, disembodied, without a beginning or origin, eternal, without a second, all — pervading and omnipresent.

Chap. I.] SARIRA STHANAM. tl7

Traits of diversity :— Of the Pumsha and the Prakriti, only the latter is non-conscious and possesses the three fundamental qualities of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Prakriti performs the function of the seed or in otherwords she lies inherent as the seed or the primary cause in the latter phenomenal evolution of the Mahat etc. and contributes the maternal element in the conception, development and birth of the primordial cosmic matter (phenomenal universe\ fecundated by the Purusha (self-conscious subjectivity) in its different stages of evolution. These stages are called Mahat, Ahamkara etc. ; and Prakriti is not indifferent, as the Purusha is to the pleasures and misery of life. But the Purusha (units or atoms of consciousness), devoid of the threefold virtues of Sattva etc. are nonconcerning hence non-producing and bereft of the seedattributes of lying inherent in all as the primary cause of evolution. They are mere witnesses to the joys and miseries of life, and do not participate in their enjoyment though imprisoned in the human organism. 10

Since an effect is uniform in virtue to its producing cause, the evolutionised effects or products of the Prakriti such as the Mahat, Ahamkara etc. must needs partake of the three fundamental qualities (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas) which are predicated of the Prakriti. In other words, these Mahat, Ahamkara, etc, are but the modifications of the three fundamental qualities of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Moreover, certain authorities hold that the Purushas are units of self-consciousness, possessed of the three aforesaid qualities owing to their antecedent conditions or causes (the gross material universe) being permeated with and characterised by them. II.

Il8 THE SUSHRUTA SAMHITA. [Chap. I.

IVIetrical Text (Vaidyakc.) :— It Is asserted in the Ayurveda that it is only the gross-sighted ones and men capable of observing only the superficial appearances, who confound eternal order or sequence of things and events (Svabhaba), God (Is'varaV* Time (Kala), sudden and unlooked for appearances of the phenomena (Yadrichchha), Necessity (Niyati) and transformation (Parinama) with the original Nature (Prakriti). The five different forms of matter (such as Ether etc) are nothing but the modifications or transformed states of the original nature and are characterised by the three universal qualities of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, and all created things, whether mobile or immobile, should be considered as alike exponented by the same. In the Science of medicine the cause of a disease is the one sole aim to be achieved by means of administering proper medicinal remedies (matter), and hence the properties of matter are the only fit subject to be dealt with in a book on pharmacy. And further, because the immediately prior cause of the human organism is a proper and congenial admixture of the sperm and ovum (matter), the sense organs are the resultants of phenomenal — evolution of matter, and the objects of sense perception are equally material or phenomenal in their nature. 12 —14,

IVIemorable verse : -A man by a particular organ of his body perceives the same matter which forms the proper object of that sense organ in as much as the perceiving sense organ and the perceived sensible are produced by the same material cause. The matter,

* The second factor according to Sankhya, in the order of cosmic evolution, which as the seed of the universe, was hid in the burning disc of the central, primordial Sun, out of which the different solar systems have come into being.