e about the principle of causation according
to which the Sa@mkhya-Yoga evolution should be comprehended
or interpreted.

Principle of Causation and Conservation of Energy [Footnote ref 1].

The question is raised, how can the prak@rti supply the deficiencies
made in its evolutes by the formation of other evolutes
from them? When from mahat some tanmatras have evolved, or
when from the tanmatras some atoms have evolved, how can the
deficiency in mahat and the tanmatras be made good by the
prak@rti?

Or again, what is the principle that guides the transformations
that take place in the atomic stage when one gross body, say milk,
changes into curd, and so on? Sa@mkhya says that "as the total
energy remains the same while the world is constantly evolving,
cause and effect are only more or less evolved forms of the same
ultimate Energy. The sum of effects exists in the sum of causes
in a potential form. The grouping or collocation alone changes,
and this brings on the manifestation of the latent powers of the
gu@nas, but without creation of anything new. What is called the
(material) cause is only the power which is efficient in the production
or rather the vehicle of the power. This power is the
unmanifested (or potential) form of the Energy set free (_udbhuta-v@rtti_)
in the effect. But the concomitant conditions are necessary
to call forth the so-called material cause into activity [Footnote ref 2]."
The appearance of an effect (such as the manifestation of the figure
of the statue in the marble block by the causal efficiency of the
sculptor's art) is only its passage from potentiality to actuality
and the concomitant conditions (_sahakari-s'akti_) or efficient cause
(_nimitta-kara@na_, such as the sculptor's art) is a sort of mechanical
help or instrumental help to this passage or the transition [Footnote ref
3]. The refilling from prak@rti thus means nothing more than this, that
by the inherent teleology of the prak@rti, the reals there are so
collocated as to be transformed into mahat as those of the mahat
have been collocated to form the bhutadi or the tanmatras.

____________________________________________________________________

[Footnote 1: _Vyasabha@sya_ and _Yogavarttika_, IV. 3; _Tattvavais'aradi_,
IV. 3.]

[Footnote 2: Ray, _History of Hindu Chemistry_, p. 72.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._ p. 73.]

255

Yoga however explains this more vividly on the basis of
transformation of the liberated potentia