Note 163 — Chapter II · (continued 2)

प्रकृत्ति Prakritti is a word of the highest import with the Hindu philosophers. In its precise sense, it means “that which is primary,” “that which precedes what is made;” from pra, “before,” and kri, “to make.” The Prakritti of the Sánk’hyás is a primary, subtile, universal substance, undergoing modification through its own energy, and for a special motive, by which it is manifest as an individual and formal substance, varied according to the predominance of qualities which are equipoised and inert in the parent, and unequal and active in the progeny (see Sánk’hyá Kárika, translated by Colebrooke, commented by Profess. Wilson, pp. 80-83). The author of The Dabistán in the above passage attributes to Prakritti the meaning belonging to máyá, “illusion.” The Sánk’hyás do not commonly confound the signification of these two words, for they maintain the reality of existing things: but the Vedantis and the Pauranikas (or followers of the Puranas) regard creation as a delusion, or as a sport of the creator, that is, as the máyá. Prakritti is translated by Colebrooke “nature,” sometimes “matter.” Professor Lassen renders this word by “procreatrix.”