PURUSHA AND PRAKRITI
We must now consider Purusha no longer in itself, but in relation to manifestation; and this will enable us later on to understand better why it can be regarded under several aspects, while being at the same time one in reality. It may be said then that Purusha, in order that manifestation may be produced, must enter into correlation with another principle, although such a correlation is really non-existent in relation to the highest (uttama) aspect of Purusha, for there cannot in truth be any other principle than the Supreme Principle, except in a relative sense; but once we are dealing, even principially, with manifestation, we are already in the realm of relativity. The correlative of Purusha is then Prakriti, the undifferentiated primordial substance; it is the passive principle, which is represented as feminine, while Purusha, also called Pumas, is the active principle, represented as masculine; and these two are the poles of all manifestation, though remaining unmanifested themselves. It is the union of these complementary principles which produces the integral development of the human individual state, and that applies relatively to each individual. Moreover, the same may be said of all other manifested states of the being and not only of the human state; for, although we have to consider this state more especially, it is important always to remember that it is but one state among others, and that it is not merely at the confines of human individuality but rather at the confines of the totality of manifested states, in their indefinite multiplicity, that Purusha and Prakriti appear to us as proceeding in some sort from a polarization of principial Being.
If, instead of considering each individual separately, we consider the whole of a domain formed by a determinate degree of existence,
such as the individual domain in which the human state unfolds (or no matter what other analogous domain of manifested existence similarly owing its definition to the combination of certain special and limiting conditions), Purusha is, for such a domain (including all the beings who develop their corresponding possibilities of manifestation in it, successively as well as simultaneously), identified with Prajāpati, the 'Lord of produced beings', an expression of Brahma itself insofar as it is conceived as Divine Will and Supreme Ruler. [1] This Will is manifested in more particular form, for each special cycle of existence, as the Manu of that cycle, who gives it its Law (Dharma). Manu, as has already been explained elsewhere, must in fact on no account be regarded as a personage or as a 'myth', but rather as a principle, which is properly speaking the Cosmic Intelligence, the reflected image of Brahma (and in reality one with it), expressing itself as the primordial and universal Legislator. [2] Just as Manu is the prototype of man (mānava), the pair PurushaPrakriti, relatively to a determinate state of being, may be considered as equivalent, in the realm of existence corresponding to that state, to what Islamic esoterism calls 'Universal Man' (al-Insān alkāmil). [3] This conception, moreover, may be further extended to embrace the totality of manifested states, and it then establishes the analogy between the constitution of the universal manifestation and that of its individual human modality, [4] or, to adopt the language
used by certain Western schools, between the 'macrocosm' and the 'microcosm. [5]
Now it is essential to notice that the conception of the pair Purusha-Prakriti has nothing at all to do with any 'dualistic' conception whatsoever, and in particular that it is totally different from the 'spirit-matter' dualism of modern Western philosophy, the origin of which is really imputable to Cartesianism. Purusha cannot be regarded as corresponding to the philosophical notion of 'spirit', as we have already pointed out in connection with the description of Ātmā as 'Universal Spirit', which term is only acceptable on condition that it be taken in quite a different sense; and despite the assertions of a considerable number of orientalists, Prakriti corresponds even less to the notion of 'matter', which is in fact so completely foreign to Hindu thought that there is no word in Sanskrit with which to translate it, even approximately; this shows, moreover, that such a notion is lacking in any real foundation. Furthermore, it is very probable that even the Greeks themselves did not possess the notion of matter as understood by the moderns, philosophers as well as physicists; at any rate, the meaning of the word $ar{v} \lambda \eta$ in Aristotle, is exactly that of 'substance' in all its universality, and $\varepsilon i ilde{i} \delta \circ \varsigma$ (which is unsatisfactorily rendered by the word 'form' on account of the ambiguities to which it too easily gives rise) corresponds no less precisely to 'essence' regarded as the correlative of 'substance'. Indeed, these terms 'essence' and 'substance', taken in their widest sense, are perhaps those which give the most exact idea in Western languages of the conception we are discussing, a conception of a much more universal order than that of 'spirit' and 'matter', and of which the latter represents at most but one very particular aspect, a specification referring to one determinate state of being; outside this state it loses all validity and it is in no wise applicable to the whole of universal manifestation, as is the conception of 'essence' and 'substance'. It should further be added that the distinction between 'essence' and 'substance', primordial as it is in comparison
with all other distinctions, is nonetheless relative; it is the first of all dualities, that from which all others derive directly or indirectly, and it is with this distinction that multiplicity strictly speaking begins: but one must not see in it the expression of an absolute irreducibility, which is in no wise to be found there: it is Universal Being which, relatively to the manifestation of which it is the Principle, polarizes itself into 'essence' and 'substance', without its intrinsic unity being however in any way affected thereby. In connection it may be pointed out that the Vedānta, from the very fact that it is purely metaphysical, is essentially the 'doctrine of non-duality' (advaita-vāda); [6] if the Sāṇkhya has appeared 'dualistic' to those people who failed to understand it, that is because its point view stops short at the consideration of the first duality, a fact which does not prevent its admitting everything transcends it as possible, which is the very opposite of what occurs in the case of the systematic conceptions beloved of philosophers.
We have still to define more precisely the nature of Prakriti, the first of the twenty-four principles (tattvas) enumerated in the Sāṇkhya; Purusha, however, had to be considered before Prakriti, since it is inadmissible to endow the plastic or substantial principle (substantial in the strictly etymological sense of the word, meaning the 'universal substratum', that is to say the support of all manifestation) [7] with spontaneity; it is purely potential and passive, capable of every kind of determination, but never determining itself. Prakriti cannot therefore really be a cause by itself (we are speaking of an
'efficient cause'), apart from the action or rather the influence of the essential principle, which is Purusha, and which is, so to speak, the 'determinant' of manifestation; all manifested things are indeed produced by Prakriti, of which they are so many modifications or determinations, but, without the presence of Purusha, these productions would be deprived of all reality. The opinion according to which Prakriti is self-sufficient as the principle of manifestation could only be derived from an entirely erroneous view of the Sänkhya, originating simply from the fact that, in this doctrine, what is called 'production' is always viewed from the standpoint of 'substance', and perhaps also from the fact that Purusha is only mentioned there as the twenty-fifth tattva, moreover quite independently of the others, which include Prakriti and all its modifications; such an opinion, furthermore, would be formally opposed to the teaching of the Veda.
Mūla-Prakriti is 'primordial Nature' (in Arabic al-Fitrah), the root of all manifestation (since mūla signifies 'root'); it is also described as Pradhāna, that is to say, 'that which is laid down before all other things', comprising all determinations potentially; according to the Purānas, it is identified with Māyā, conceived as 'mother of forms'. It is undifferentiated (avyakta) and 'undistinguishable', neither compounded of parts nor endowed with qualities, inferable from its effects only, since it is imperceptible in itself, and productive without being itself a production. 'Root, it is without root, since it would not be a root if it had a root itself. [8]
Prakriti, root of all, is not a production. Seven principles, the great [Mahat, the intellectual principle, or Buddhi] and the others [ahankāra, or the individual consciousness, which generates the notion of the 'ego', and the five tanmātras or essential determinations of things] are at the same time productions [of Prakriti] and productive [in relation to those which follow]. Sixteen [the eleven indriyas or faculties of sensation and action, including manas or the mental faculty among them, and the five bhūtas or substantial and sensible elements] are productions
[but unproductive]. Purusha is neither produced nor productive [in itself], [9]
though it is indeed its action, or rather, according to an expression borrowed from the Far-Eastern tradition, its 'actionless activity', which essentially determines everything that is substantially produced through Prakriti. [10]
To complete these remarks, it may be added that Prakriti, while necessarily one in its 'indistinction', contains within itself a triplicity which, on becoming actualized under the 'organizing' influence of Purusha, gives rise to the multiplicity of determinations. Prakriti, in fact, possesses three gunas, or constitutive qualities, which are in perfect equilibrium in the state of primordial indifferentiation; every manifestation or modification of substance, however, represents a rupture of this equilibrium, and beings in their different states of manifestation participate in the three gunas in different degrees and, so to speak, in indefinitely varying proportions. These gunas are not, therefore, states but conditions of universal Existence, to which all manifested beings are subjected and which must be carefully distinguished from the special conditions which determine and define such and such a state or mode of manifestation. The
three gunas are: sattva, conformity to the pure essence of Being (Sat), which is identified with intelligible light or Knowledge and is represented as an upward tendency; rajas, the expansive impulse, in accordance with which the being develops itself in a given state, and, so to speak, at a determinate level of existence; and lastly, tamas, obscurity, assimilated with ignorance, and represented as a downward tendency. We will confine our remarks in this instance to the foregoing definitions, which we have already mentioned elsewhere; this is not the occasion to enlarge further on these considerations for they lie somewhat outside our present subject, nor to speak of the diverse applications to which they give rise, more especially in relation to the cosmological theory of the elements; these developments will find a more appropriate place in other studies.