level of knowledge. The lower the scale
of evolution the less is the keenness of feeling, till at last there
comes a stage where matter-complexes do not give rise to feeling

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[Footnote 1: _Karika_, 12, with Gau@dpada and Naraya@natirtha.]

243

reactions but to mere physical reactions. Feelings thus mark
the earliest track of consciousness, whether we look at it from the
point of view of evolution or of the genesis of consciousness in
ordinary life. What we call matter complexes become at a certain
stage feeling-complexes and what we call feeling-complexes at
a certain stage of descent sink into mere matter-complexes with
matter reaction. The feelings are therefore the things-in-themselves,
the ultimate substances of which consciousness and gross
matter are made up. Ordinarily a difficulty might be felt in
taking feelings to be the ultimate substances of which gross
matter and thought are made up; for we are more accustomed
to take feelings as being merely subjective, but if we remember
the Sa@mkhya analysis, we find that it holds that thought and
matter are but two different modifications of certain subtle substances
which are in essence but three types of feeling entities.
The three principal characteristics of thought and matter that we
have noticed in the preceding section are but the manifestations
of three types of feeling substances. There is the class of feelings
that we call the sorrowful, there is another class of feelings that
we call pleasurable, and there is still another class which is neither
sorrowful nor pleasurable, but is one of ignorance, depression
(_vi@sada_) or dullness. Thus corresponding to these three types of
manifestations as pleasure, pain, and dullness, and materially as
shining (_prakas'a_), energy (_prav@rtti_), obstruction (_niyama_), there
are three types of feeling-substances which must be regarded as
the ultimate things which make up all the diverse kinds of gross
matter and thought by their varying modifications.

The Gu@nas [Footnote ref 1].

These three types of ultimate subtle entities are technically
called _gu@na_ in Sa@mkhya philosophy. Gu@na in Sanskrit has three
meanings, namely (1) quality, (2) rope, (3) not primary. These
entities, however, are substances and not mere qualities. But it
may be mentioned in this connection that in Sa@mkhya philosophy
there is no separate existence of qualities; it h