CHAPTER IV. The Process of Evolution

THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION

The evolution which we have spoken of above may be characterised in two ways: (1) That arising from modifications or products of some other cause which are themselves capable of originating other products like themselves; (2) That arising from causes which, though themselves derived, yet cannot themselves be the cause of the origination of other existences like themselves. The former may be said to be slightly specialised (aviśesha) and the latter thoroughly specialised (viśesha).

Thus we see that from prakṛti comes mahat, from mahat comes ahaṃkāra, and from ahaṃkāra, as we have seen above, the evolution takes three different courses according to the preponderance of sattva, rajas and tamas originating the cognitive and conative senses and manas, the superintendent of them both on one side and the tanmātras on the other. These tanmātras again produce the five gross elements. Now when ahaṃkāra produces the tanmātras or the senses, or when the tanmātras produce the five gross elements, or when ahaṃkāra itself is produced from buddhi or mahat, it is called tattvāntara-pariṇāma, i.e. the production of a different tattva or substance.

Thus in the case of tattvāntara-pariṇāma (as for example when the tanmātras are produced from ahaṃkāra), it must be carefully noticed that the state of being involved in the tanmātras is altogether different from the state of being of ahaṃkāra; it is not a mere change of quality but a change of existence or state of being. Thus though the tanmātras are derived from ahaṃkāra the traces of ahaṃkāra cannot be easily followed in them. This derivation is not such that the ahaṃkāra remains principally unchanged and there is only a change of quality in it, but it is a different existence altogether, having properties which differ widely from those of ahaṃkāra. So it is called tattvāntara-pariṇāma, i.e. evolution of different categories of existence.

Now the evolution that the senses and the five gross elements can undergo can never be of this nature, for they are viśeshas, or substances which have been too much specialised to allow the evolution of any other substance of a different grade of existence from themselves. With them there is an end of all emanation. So we see that the aviśeshas or slightly specialised emanations are those which being themselves but emanations can yet yield other emanations from themselves. Thus we see that mahat, ahaṃkāra and the five tanmātras are themselves emanations, as well as the source of other emanations. Mahat, however, though it is undoubtedly an aviśesha or slightly specialised emanation, is called by another technical name liṅga or sign, for from the state of mahat, the prakṛti from which it must have emanated may be inferred. Prakṛti, however, from which no other primal state is inferable, is called the aliṅga or that which is not a sign for the existence of any other primal and more unspecialised state. In one sense all the emanations can be with justice called the liṅgas or states of existence standing as the sign by which the causes from which they have emanated can be directly inferred. Thus in this sense the five gross elements maybe called the liṅga of the tanmātras, and they again of the ego, and that again of the mahat, for the unspecialised ones are inferred from their specialised modifications or emanations. But this technical name liṅga is reserved for the mahat from which the aliṅga or prakṛti can be inferred. This prakṛti, however, is the eternal state which is not an emanation itself but the basis and source of all other emanations.

The liṅga and the aliṅga have thus been compared in the Kārikā:

“hetumadanityamavyāpi sakriyamanekāśritaṃ liṅgaṃ sāvayavam paratantraṃ vyaktaṃ viparītamavyaktaṃ.”

The liṅga has a cause, it is neither eternal nor universal, but mobile, multiform, dependent, determinate, and possesses parts, whereas the aliṅga is the reverse. The aliṅga or prakṛti, however, being the cause has some characteristics in common with its liṅgas as distinguished from the purushas, which are altogether different from it.

Thus the Kārikā says:

“triguṇamaviveki vishayaḥ sāmānyamacetanaṃ prasavadharmi vyaktaṃ tathā pradhānaṃ tadviparītastathā pumān.”

The manifested and the unmanifested pradhāna or prakṛti are both composed of the three guṇas, non-intelligent, objective, universal, unconscious and productive. Soul in these respects is the reverse. We have seen above that prakṛti is the state of equilibrium of the guṇas, which can in no way be of any use to the purushas, and is thus held to be eternal, though all other states are held to be non-eternal as they are produced for the sake of the purushas.

The state of prakṛti is that in which the guṇas completely overpower each other and the characteristics (dharma) and the characterised (dharmī) are one and the same.

Evolution is thus nothing but the manifestation of change, mutation, by the energy of rajas. The rajas is the one mediating activity that breaks up all compounds, builds up new ones and initiates original modifications. Whenever in any particular combination the proportion of sattva, rajas or tamas alters, as a condition of this alteration, there is the dominating activity of rajas by which the old equilibrium is destroyed and another equilibrium established; this in its turn is again disturbed and again another equilibrium is restored. Now the manifestation of this latent activity of rajas is what is called change or evolution. In the external world the time that is taken by a paramāṇu or atom to move from its place is identical with a unit of change. Now an atom will be that quantum which is smaller or finer than that point or limit at which it can in any way be perceived by the senses. Atoms are therefore mere points without magnitude or dimension, and the unit of time or moment (kshaṇa) that is taken up in changing the position of these atoms is identical with one unit of change or evolution. The change or evolution in the external world must therefore be measured by these units of spatial motion of the atoms; i.e. an atom changing its own unit of space is the measure of all physical change or evolution.

Each unit of time (kshaṇa) corresponding to this change of an atom of its own unit of space is the unit-measure of change. This instantaneous succession of time as discrete moments one following the other is the notion of the series of moments or pure and simple succession. Now the notion of these discrete moments is the notion of time. Even the notion of succession is one that does not really exist but is imagined, for a moment comes into being just when the moment just before had passed so that they have never taken place together. Thus Vyāsa in III. 52, says: “kshaṇatatkramayornāsti vastusamāhāraḥ iti buddhisamāhāraḥ muhūrttāhorātrātrādayaḥ.” Sa tvayaṃ kālaḥ vastuśūnyo’pi buddhinirmāṇaḥ. The moments and their succession do not belong to the category of actual things; the hour, the day and night, are all aggregates of mental conceptions. This time which is not a substantive reality in itself, but is only a mental concept, represented to us through linguistic usage, appears to ordinary minds as if it were an objective reality.

So the conception of time as discrete moments is the real one, whereas the conception of time as successive or as continuous is unreal, being only due to the imagination of our empirical and relative consciousness. Thus Vācaspati further explains it. A moment is real (vastupatitaḥ) and is the essential element of the notion of succession. Succession involves the notion of change of moments, and the moment is called time by those sages who know what time is. Two moments cannot happen together. There cannot be any succession of two simultaneous things. Succession means the notion of change involving a preceding and a succeeding moment. Thus there is only the present moment and there are no preceding and later moments. Therefore there cannot be any union of these moments. The past and the future moments may be said to exist only if we speak of past and future as identical with the changes that have become latent and others that exist potentially but are not manifested. Thus in one moment, the whole world suffers changes. All these characteristics are associated with the thing as connected with one particular moment.

So we find here that time is essentially discrete, being only the moments of our cognitive life. As two moments never co-exist, there is no succession or continuous time. They exist therefore only in our empirical consciousness which cannot take the real moments in their discrete nature but connects the one with the other and thereby imagines either succession or continuous time.

Now we have said before, that each unit of change or evolution is measured by this unit of time kshaṇa or moment; or rather the units of change are expressed in terms of these moments or kshaṇas. Of course in our ordinary consciousness these moments of change cannot be grasped, but they can be reasonably inferred. For at the end of a certain period we observe a change in a thing; now this change, though it becomes appreciable to us after a long while, was still going on every moment, so, in this way, the succession of evolution or change cannot be distinguished from the moments coming one after another. Thus the Yoga-sūtra says in IV. 33: “Succession involving a course of changes is associated with the moments.” Succession as change of moments is grasped only by a course of changes. A cloth which has not passed through a course of changes through a series of moments cannot be found old all at once at any time. Even a new cloth kept with good care becomes old after a time. This is what is called the termination of a course of changes and by it the succession of a course of changes can be grasped. Even before a thing is old there can be inferred a sequence of the subtlest, subtler, subtle, grossest, grosser and gross changes (Tattvavaiśāradī, IV. 33).

Now as we have seen that the unit of time is indistinguishable from the unit of change or evolution, and as these moments are not co-existing but one follows the other, we see that there is no past or future existing as a continuous before or past, and after or future. It is the present that really exists as the manifested moment; the past has been conserved as sublatent and the future as the latent. So the past and future exist in the present, the former as one which has already had its manifestation and is thus conserved in the fact of the manifestation of the present. For the manifestation of the present as such could not have taken place until the past had already been manifested; so the manifestation of the present is a concrete product involving within itself the manifestation of the past; in a similar way it may be said that the manifestation of the present contains within itself the seed or the unmanifested state of the future, for if this had not been the case, the future never could have happened. So we see that the whole world undergoes a change at one unit point of time, and not only that but it conserves within itself all the past and future history of cosmic evolution.

We have pointed out before that the manifestation of the rajas or energy as action is what is called change. Now this manifestation of action can only take place when equilibrium of a particular collocation of guṇas is disturbed and the rajas arranges or collocates with itself the sattva and tamas, the whole group being made intelligible by the inherent sattva. So the cosmic history is only the history of the different collocations of the guṇas. Now, therefore, if it is possible for a seer to see in one vision the possible number of combinations that the rajas will have with sattva and tamas, he can in one moment perceive the past, present or future of this cosmic evolutionary process; for with such minds all past and future are concentrated at one point of vision which to a person of ordinary empirical consciousness appears only in the series. For the empirical consciousness, impure as it is, it is impossible that all the powers and potencies of sattva and rajas should become manifested at one point of time; it has to take things only through its senses and can thus take the changes only as the senses are affected by them; whereas, on the other hand, if its power of knowing was not restricted to the limited scope of the senses, it could have grasped all the possible collocations or changes all at once. Such a perceiving mind whose power of knowing is not narrowed by the senses can perceive all the finest modifications or changes that are going on in the body of a substance (see Yoga-sūtra, III. 53).