Note (return) — SA@NKARA'S INTRODUCTION

Here the Sâ@nkhya comes forward with a new objection. The difficulty stated by you, he says, viz. that the non-intelligent pradhâna cannot be the cause of the world, because thought is ascribed to the latter in the sacred texts, can be got over in another way also, viz. on the ground that non-intelligent things are sometimes figuratively spoken of as intelligent beings. We observe, for instance, that people say of a river-bank about to fall, 'the bank is inclined to fall (pipatishati),' and thus speak of a non-intelligent bank as if it possessed intelligence. So the pradhâna also, although non-intelligent, may, when about to create, be figuratively spoken of as thinking. Just as in ordinary life some intelligent person after having bathed, and dined, and formed the purpose of driving in the afternoon to his village, necessarily acts according to his purpose, so the pradhâna also acts by the necessity of its own nature, when transforming itself into the so-called great principle and the subsequent forms of evolution; it may therefore figuratively be spoken of as intelligent.—But what reason have you for setting aside the primary meaning of the word 'thought' and for taking it in a figurative sense?—The observation, the Sâ@nkhya replies, that fire and water also are figuratively spoken of as intelligent beings in the two following scriptural passages, 'That fire thought; that water thought' (Ch. Up. VI, 2, 3; 4). We therefrom conclude that thought is to be taken in a figurative sense there also where Being (Sat) is the agent, because it is mentioned in a chapter where (thought) is generally taken in a figurative sense94.