4 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 _Purusha-Prakriti_, 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 al-kāmil_).^[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 ὕλη in Aristotle, is exactly that of 'substance' in all its universality, and εἶδος (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 _Sāņkhya_ 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 _Sāņkhya_; _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 _Sāņkhya_, 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 _Maya_, 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 [ahaņkāra, 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 _guņas_, 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 _guņas_ in different degrees and, so to speak, in indefinitely varying proportions. These _guņas_ 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 _guņas_ 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.