Charaka-Samhita — trans. Kaviraj Avinash Chandra Kaviratna

It is certain that there are five senses, five materials that con¬ stitute those senses, five resting places of those senses, five objects of those senses, and five kinds of perceptions obtained through those senses. This has been said (by the learned of old) in dis¬ courses on the senses.*1

The mind is regarded as something different from the senses. It is sometimes called safwa, and some again call it chetas. Its functions are regulated by the contact of its objects with the soul. Some regard the mind as the cause of the functions of the senses.t2

* This aphorism embodies the essence of what is said of the Senses by Hindu philosophers. There are five senses, viz., vision, hearing, scent, taste, and touch. The five primal elements of earth, water, light, air, and space enter into the composition of these senses. Vision partakes of light, hearing of space, scent of earth, taste of water, and touch of wind. This is stated in another way, for light is said to have vision for its attribute or property ; space has the attribute of hearing ; earth has the attribute of scent ; water has that of taste ; and wind has that of touch. The adhisthdnas or resting-places of the five senses are as follows : the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the skin. The objects of the five senses are rupa, rasa, fabda, sparca, gandha, i. e. , form (which is apprehended by the eye), taste (apprehended by the tongue), sound (apprehended by the ear), touch (apprehended by the skin or the whole body), and scent (apprehended by the nose). The five kinds of perception, or apprehension, or knowledge obtained through the five organs of sense, are, of course, vision, audition, scent, taste, and touch. The ideas or notions of vision, &c., are materially different from one another. Vide Mahabharata, Book XII*, Sections 252 and 275. — T.

t ‘ Tadarthatma-sampadayatta-cheshta ; ’ this is very abstruse. Here ‘ Tat ’ stands for ‘ manah ’ or mind. By • artha ’ is here implied all upon which the mind dwells, viz., pleasure or pain, and reasoning on objects of reasoning. By * atman ’ is here meant, as the Commentator explains, ‘ chetana-pratisandhatri ’ i. e., the principle that is the cause of the consciousness of one’s own identity as a living being. To render * atman ’ therefore, as * soul ’ would be misleading. But in the absence of a more exact word, this usual equivalent in English for « atman ’ cannot be discarded. What is meant, therefore, by the ‘chesta’ of the mind being ‘ayatta’ of the ‘sampat ’ or contact of the objects of the mind with this ‘ atman ’ seems to be that mental oper¬ ations become possible in consequence of the objects of those operations coming into contact with this principle that makes one conscious of one’s own identity as a living agent. The word ‘ manah,’ as used here, certainly includes « buddhi ’ or under¬ standing. — T.

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