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CHAPTER VIII
THE CONSTRUCTIN AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE COSMOS
This does not mean that the Vedantists or the writers of the Puranas have copied
this knowledge from the Kapila Samhkhya philosophy; but
only that everywhere the conception of the order in which
the Cosmos was created is the same. Nay, it may even be
said that the word 'Samhkhya' has been used here in the
comprehensive meaning of ' Knowledge '. Nevertheless,
Kapilacarya has explained the order of the creation of the
Cosmos in a particularly systematic manner from the point
of view of a science, and as the Samkhya theory has been
principally accepted in the Bhagavadgita, I have dealt with
it at length in this chapter. Not only have modern "Western materialistic philosophers
accepted the Samkhya doctrine that the entire perceptible
Cosmos has come out of one avyakta (imperceptible to the
organs), subtle, homogeneous, unorganised, fundamental
substance, which completely pervades everything on all sides,
but they have come to the further conclusions that the energy
in this fundamental substance has grown only gradually,
and that nothing has come into existence suddenly and like
a spout, giving the go-bye to the previous and continuous order
of creation of the universe. This theory is called the Theory
of Evolution. When this theory was first enunciated in the
Western countries in the last century, it caused there a great
commotion. In the Christian Scriptures, it is stated that
the Creator of the world created the five primordial elements
and every living being which fell into the category of
moveables one by one at different times, and this genesis was
believed in by all Christians before the advent of the Evolution
Theory. Therefore, when this doctrine ran the risk of being
refuted by the Theory of Evolution, that theory was attacked
on all sides, and that opposition is still more or less going on
in those countries. Nevertheless, in as much as the strength
of a scientific truth must always prevail, the Evolution Theory
of the creation of the Cosmos is now becoming more and more
acceptable to all learned scholars. According to this theory,
there was originally one subtle, homogeneous substance in the
Solar system, and as the original motion or heat of that
substance gradually became less and less, it got more and more
condensed, and the Earth and, the other planets gradually came
into existence, and the Sun is the final portion of it which has
now remained. The Earth was originally a very hot ball,
same as the Sun, but as it gradually lost its heat, some portion
of the original substance remained in the liquid from, while
other portions became solidified, and the air and water which
surround the earth and the gross, material earth under themi
'Came gradually into existence; and later on, all the living
and non-living creation came into existence as the result of
the union, of these three.
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