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CHAPTER VIII
THE CONSTRUCTIN AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE COSMOS
Therefore, these thirteen elements, which are qualities, have to look for some
other substance as a support. If you say that they can get the
support of fundamental Matter, then, that is imperceptible and
in an unevolved condition, that is to say, eternal and all-perva-
sive ; and therefore, it cannot become the support of qualities like
Reason etc., which go to form one small Subtle Body. There-
fore, the five Pine Elements, which are the bases of the five gross
primordial elements, have to be included in the Subtle Body side
by side with the thirteen qualities, as a support for them in the
place of the five gross primordial elements which are the
evolutes of fundamental Matter [1]. Some writers
belonging to the Sariikhya school imagine the existence of a
third body, composed of the five Fine Elements, intermediate
between the Subtle Body and the Gross Body, and maintain
that this third body is the support for the Subtle Body. But
that is not the correct interpretation of the forty-first couplet
of the Samkhya Karika, and in my opinion these commentators
have imagined such a third, body merely by confusion of
thought. In my opinion this couplet has no use beyond
explaining why the five Fine Elements have to be included
in the Subtle Body along with the thirteen other elements,
namely, Reason etc [2]. Anybody can see after a little thought, that there is not
much of a difference between the Subtle Body made up of
eighteen elements described in the Samkhya philosophy and
the Subtle Body described in the Upanisads. It is stated in
the Brhadaranyakopanisad that: "just as a leech (jalayuka)
having reached the end of a blade of grass, places the anterior
part of its body on the next blade (by its anterior feet), and
then draws up the posterior part, which was placed on the
former blade of grass, in the same way, the Atman leaves one
body and enters the other body " [3]. But from this
single illustration, the two inferences that (i) only the Atman
enters another body and that (ii) it does so immediately
after leaving the first body, do not follow. Because, in
the Brhadaranyakopanisad itself, there is another statement
further on [4], that the five subtle elements, the Mind,
the organs, Vital Force and a man's righteous or unrighteous
record, all leave the body along with the Atman, which goes
according to its mundane Actions to different spheres, where
it remains for sometime. [5].
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