states, and possessions. In a Sânkhya treatise translated by Garbe (a commentary upon the text called the Kârikâ), I find a statement of the realistic definition of Being, in a form abstract enough, but illustrated in characteristic Hindoo fashion.[1] I may first quote the statement of the commented Sânkhya text in question concerning the two types of Being of which this extreme dualism makes the world consist. On the one side, as this text tells us, there is the material world. On the other side, however, there is the soul, which the Sânkhya doctrine makes absolutely immaterial. Now both the matter and the soul are real beings. The text here describes them as to their essential metaphysical characters very briefly, and side by side. “The formed matter,” it says, — i.e., the matter of the physical world, “is composed of three constituents, — is object, is common object for all knowers, is of non-mental character, and is productive. The materia prima also possesses these same characters. The soul is opposed to both; yet (being real) it has certain features in common with them.”
The commentator explains this text at some length. “The word ‘object,’” he says, “is used in opposition to those who say (as the Buddhistic metaphysicians had asserted) that there are only states of mind, such as joy, sorrow, confusion, tones, and the like. An object,” he continues, “is that which is known as outside one’s ideas. Therefore is the term ‘common object’ also used. For this term implies that material objects, such as pottery, for
- ↑ See Der Mondschein der Sânkhya-Wahrheit, in deutscher Uebersetzung von Richard Garbe, Abhandl. der Bayer. Akad. der Wiss. I. Cl., Bd. XIX, Abth. Ill, p. 667.
