Gita Rahasya -Tilak 186

Karma Yoga Sastra -Tilak

CHAPTER VIII THE CONSTRUCTIN AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE COSMOS that is, "When the Atman in a living being gets the desire of hearing sound, the ears come into existence ; when it gets the desire of perceiving colour, the eyes are formed ; when it gets the desire of smelling, the nose is created". But the Sarhkhya philosophers say that though the skin may be the first thing- to come into existence, yet, how can any amount of contact of the Sun's rays with the skin of micro-organisms in the living world give rise to eyes— and that too in a particular portion of the body — unless fundamental Matter possesses an inherent possibility of different organs being created ? Darwin's theory only says that when one organism with eyes and another organism without eyes have been created, the former lives longer than the latter in the struggle for existence of the material world, and the latter is destroyed. But the Western Materialistic science of biology does not explain why in the first place the eyes and other physical organs at all come into existence. According to the Samkhya philosophy, these various organs do not grow one by one out of one fundamental organ, but when Matter begins to become heterogeneous as a result of the element of Individuation, such Individuation causes the eleven different faculties or qualities, namely, the five organs of Perception, the five organs of Action and the Mind, to come into existence in fundamental Matter, independently of each other and simultaneously (yugapat) ; and thereby, later on, the organic world comes into existence. Out of these eleven organs, the Mind is dual, that is, it performs two different functions, according to tie difference in the organs with which it works, as has been explained before it the sixth chapter : that is to say, it is discriminating and classifying (samkalpa-vikalpatmaka) in co-operation with the organs of Perception and arranges tie various impressions experienced by tie various organs, end after classifying them. places them before Reason for decision; and it is executive (vyakaranatmaka) in co-operation with tie organs of Action, tlat is to say, it executes tie decisions, arrived at by Season with the help of tie organs of Action. In tie Upanisads, the organs themselves are given the name of 'Vital Force' ( prana ); and the authors, of the Upanisads like the Samkhya philosophers, are of the opinion that these vital forces are not the embodiment of tie five primordial elements, tat are individually born out of the Paramatman (Absolute Self). Tie number of these vital forces or organs is stated in the Upanisads to be seven in some places and to be ten, eleven, twelve, or thirteen in other places; but Sri Samkaracarya has proved on the authority of the Vedanta- Sutras, that if an attempt is made to harmonise the various statements in the Upanisads, the number of these organs is fixed at eleven ; and in the Gita it has been clearly stated that "indriyani dasaikam ca" , i. e.,"the organs are ten plus one, or eleven". In short, there is no difference of opinion on this point between the Samkhya and the Vedanta philosophy.