CHAPTER V Hindu Theory of the Three Gunas
Before going any further, and in connection with what has just been said, it is necessary to refer again to the Hindu theory of the three gunas.[1] Our intention is not to treat this theory in full in all its applications, but merely to provide a brief summary of it in so far as it relates to the present subject. The three gunas are essential, constitutive and primordial qualities or attributes of beings envisaged in their different states of manifestation. [2] They are not states, but general conditions to which beings are subject, by which they are bound, [3] as it were, and in which they participate in indefinitely varying proportions, with the result that they are distributed hierarchically throughout the entire range of the " three worlds" (Tribhuvana), that is, throughout all the degrees of universal Existence.
The three gunas are : sattwa, conformity to the pure essence of Being (Sat), which is identical with the light of Knowledge
( J nâna), symbolized by the luminosity of the heavenly spheres which represent the higher states of the being; rajas, the urge that provokes the being's expansion in a given state, in other words the development of those of its possibilities that are situated at a certain level of Existence ; lastly, tamas, obscurity, assimilated to ignorance (avidyâ), the dark root of the being considered in its lower states. This is true for all manifested states of the being, but naturally it is also possible to consider these qualities or tendencies more particularly in relation to the human state. Thus sattwa, the upward tendency, always refers to states that are higher than the particular state taken as basis or starting-point in this hierarchical distribution, and tamas, the downward tendency, to states lower than that state; as for rajas, it refers to this last state itself, regarded as occupying an intermediate situation between the higher and lower states, and hence defined by a tendency which is neither upward nor downward, but horizontal ; in the present case, this is the " world of man" (mânava-loka), that is, the domain or degree of universal Existence occupied by the human individual state. The relationship of all this to the symbolism of the cross will now be readily observed, whether that symbolism is considered from the purely metaphysical or from the cosmological viewpoint, and whether it is applied to the "macrocosmic" or to the "microcosmic" order. In all cases, rajas can be said to correspond to the entire horizontal line, or better, if the three-dimensional cross is considered, to the combination of the two lines that define the horizontal plane; tamas corresponds to the lower part of the vertical line, that is, the part below the horizontal plane, while sattwa corresponds to the higher part of this same line, namely the part above the plane in question, which thus divides into two heuuispheres, upper and lower, the indefinite sphere mentioned above.
In a text of the Veda, the three gunas are depicted as turning one into another in ascending order: " All was tamas (at the outset of manifestation regarded as emerging from the primordial indifferentiation of Prakriti): It (the Supreme Brahma) commanded a change, and tamas took the hue
(i.e. the nature) of rajas (intermediate between darkness and luminosity) ; and rajas, having received another command, took on the nature of sattwa." If we regard the threedimensional cross as traced out from the centre of a sphere, as we have just done and shall often be doing again, then the change from tamas into rajas can be represented as the tracing of the lower half of the sphere, from one pole to the equator, and that from rajas into sattwa as the tracing of the upper half, from the equator to the other pole. The imaginary horizontal plane of the equator then represents, as has been said, the domain of the expansion of rajas, whereas tamas and sattwa tend respectively towards the two poles, the extremities of the vertical axis. [2] Lastly, the point from which the change of tamas into rajas, and then that of rajas into sattwa, is ordained, is the actual centre of the sphere, as will at once be clear from what has been said in the previous chapter [3]; this will be explained more fully later on. [4]
The above is applicable not only to the degrees of universal Existence but also to the states of any one being; there is always perfect correspondence between these two cases, for each state of a being develops, with all the extension of which it is capable (and which is indefinite), in one given degree of Existence. Again, in the cosmological sphere, it is possible to make certain more particular applications of this theory to the domain of the elements; but as the
theory of the elements does not come within the scope of the present study, it is better to reserve everything connected with it for another book in which we intend to deal with the conditions of corporeal existence.