The Gita according to Gandhi 1

The Gita according to Gandhi -Mahadev Desai

A. THE SANKHYA SYSTEM Kapila, or whoever the great seer was, who brought into being the Sankhyan concepts, started not with an analysis of objective experience as Darwin did, but, perhaps as a result of elaborate experiments in the laboratory of his self, arrived at the evolutionary idea with the discovery of which Darwin concluded his researches. Darwin found the planet "cycling on" from the simple beginning of "a few forms or one" to "endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful", and evolving through the operation of one law — struggle for life. The Sankhya philosopher, making provision for both matter and mind, started with two eternal principles, one conscious, unconditioned, and passive, the other unconscious but active and manifesting the operation of not one law but three; or, if we may say so, a triple law evidencing not only the struggle for life, but the stage before that, namely inertia, then the struggle for life, and lastly, 'the struggle for the life of others' or sacrifice. The Sankhya philosopher, as we have said, posits the existence of two eternal principles: prakriti and purusha. The existence of prakriti or primordial matter or Nature is, he says, proved by the manifested universe which is its effect. The effect really exists in the cause, which necessarily is a Causeless Cause.