Note (return) — SA@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION (continued 4)

Those also who maintain that the world has sprung from the pradhâna implicitly teach that something not made up of parts, unlimited, devoid of sound and other qualities—viz. the pradhâna—is the cause of an effect—viz. the world—which is made up of parts, is limited and is characterised by the named qualities. Hence it follows from that doctrine also either that the pradhâna as not consisting of parts has to undergo a change in its entirety, or else that the view of its not consisting of parts has to be abandoned.—But—it might be pleaded in favour of the Sâ@nkhyas—they do not maintain their pradhâna to be without parts; for they define it as the state of equilibrium of the three gunas, Goodness, Passion, and Darkness, so that the pradhâna forms a whole containing the three gunas as its parts.—We reply that such a partiteness as is here proposed does not remove the objection in hand because still each of the three qualities is declared to be in itself without parts306. And each guna by itself assisted merely by the two other gunas constitutes the material cause of that part of the world which resembles it in its nature307.—So that the objection lies against the Sâ@nkhya view likewise.—Well, then, as the reasoning (on which the doctrine of the impartiteness of the pradhâna rests) is not absolutely safe, let us assume that the pradhâna consists of parts.—If you do that, we reply, it follows that the pradhâna cannot be eternal, and so on.—Let it then be said that the various powers of the pradhâna to which the variety of its effects is pointing are its parts.—Well, we reply, those various powers are admitted by us also who see the cause of the world in Brahman.