of the others. The eye cannot see
itself. The ear cannot hear itself. The eye, again, cannot discharge the
functions of any of the other senses, nor can any of the senses discharge
the functions of any sense save its own. If all of them even combine
together, even they fail to know their own selves as dust and water
mingled together cannot know each other though existing in a state of
union. In order to discharge their respective functions, they await the
contact of objects that are external to them. The eye, form, and light,
constitute the three requisites of the operation called seeing. The same,
as in this case, happens in respect of the operations of the other senses
and the ideas which is their result. Then, again, between the functions
of the senses (called vision, hearing, etc.,) and the ideas which are
their result (viz., form, sound, etc.), the mind is an entity other than
the senses and is regarded to have an action of its own. With its help
one distinguishes what is existent from what is non-existent for arriving
at certainty (in the matter of all ideas derived from the senses). With
the five senses of knowledge and five senses of action, the mind makes a
total of eleven. The twelfth is the Understanding. When doubt arises in
respect of what is to be known, the Understanding comes forward and
settles all doubts (for aiding correct apprehension). After the twelfth,
Sattwa is another principle numbering the thirteenth. With its help
creatures are distinguished as possessing more of it or less of it in
their constitutions.[1697] After this, Consciousness (of self) is another
principle (numbering the fourteenth). It helps one to an apprehension of
self as distinguished from what is not self. Desire is the fifteenth
principle, O king. Unto it inhere the whole universe.[1698] The sixteenth
principle is Avidya. Unto it inhere the seventeenth and the eighteenth
principles called Prakriti and Vyakti (i.e., Maya and Prakasa). Happiness
and sorrow, decrepitude and death, acquisition and loss, the agreeable
and the disagreeable,--these constitute the nineteenth principle and are
called couples of opposites. Beyond the nineteenth principle is another,
viz., Time called the twentieth. Know that the births and death of all
creatures are due to the action of this twentieth principle. These twenty
exist together. Besides these, the five Great primal elements, and
existence and non-existence, bring up the tale to seven and twent