d regroupings of tamas
reals in the mahat proceed for the generation of the tanmatras.
There has been some controversy between Sa@mkhya and Yoga
as to whether the tanmatras are generated from the mahat or from
aha@mkara. The situation becomes intelligible if we remember that
evolution here does not mean coming out or emanation, but increasing
differentiation in integration within the evolving whole.
Thus the regroupings of tamas reals marks the differentiation
which takes place within the mahat but through its stage as
bhutadi. Bhutadi is absolutely homogeneous and inert, devoid
of all physical and chemical characters except quantum or mass.
The second stadium tanmatra represents subtle matter, vibratory,
impingent, radiant, instinct with potential energy. These "potentials"
arise from the unequal aggregation of the original mass-units
in different proportions and collocations with an unequal distribution
of the original energy (_rajas_). The tanmatras possess something
more than quantum of mass and energy; they possess
physical characters, some of them penetrability, others powers of
impact or pressure, others radiant heat, others again capability of
viscous and cohesive attraction [Footnote ref. 2].

In intimate relation with those physical characters they also
possess the potentials of the energies represented by sound, touch,
colour, taste, and smell; but, being subtle matter, they are devoid

____________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: I have accepted in this section and in the next many of the
translations of Sanskrit terms and expressions of Dr Seal and am largely
indebted to him for his illuminating exposition of this subject as given
in Ray's _Hindu Chemistry._ The credit of explaining Sa@mkhya physics,
in the light of the text belongs entirely to him.]

[Footnote 2: Dr Seal's _Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus_.]

252

of the peculiar forms which these "potentials" assume in particles
of gross matter like the atoms and their aggregates. In other
words, the potentials lodged in subtle matter must undergo peculiar
transformations by new groupings or collocations before they can
act as sensory stimuli as gross matter, though in the minutest
particles thereof the sensory stimuli may be infra-sensible (_atindriya_
but not _anudbhuta_) [Footnote ref 1].

Of the tanmatras the _s'abda_ or _akas'a tanmatra_ (the sound-potential)
is first generated directly from the