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A Series of Lessons on the Inner Teachings of the Philosophies and Religions of India1172
Five Instrument of Action which are named as The Speech Organs; The
hands; The Feet; The Excretory Organs; The Genitals, respectively.
iii. The Manas, or Mental Substance or Energy manifesting as the
Deliberative Function of the Mind, and including Imagination.
The above classification of the Physical, Physiological, and Psychological
Principles, is regarded by modern philosophers, scientists, and occultists
as rather too arbitrary for general acceptance, and the leading Sankhya
scholars admit that it was not original with Kapila, nor vital or necessary to
his general system, but was the classification in general vogue in his time,
and for centuries before, and was naturally adopted by him to fill in the
details of his general philosophical conception of Purusha and Prakriti, upon
which dual-conception his system is based.
It is to be noticed in the Sankhya conception of Creation, that Matter,
bot subtle elements and gross elements, is evolved from the Prakriti after
the development of Determinative Consciousness, and even the Selfconscious
Principle, so that Matter (in the strict sense of the term) is held
to be preceded by Consciousness in the Prakriti, and to be produced by
Consciousness or Intelligence, in a sense. But this “Consciousness” is a very
different thing from the “Manas” or Mind of the individual, which he uses
in his deliberative processes, imagination, etc., and which is but a “thinking
machine” evolved by the Consciousness in order to express material life and
activities, just as were the organs of action, and the organs of the senses
evolved (see above classification). To Kapila, Manas or Mind-Principle was
an insentient, automatic energy, semi-material, and operative only by reason
of the activity of the Consciousness, which in turn is illuminated by the
Purusha. The Sankhya conception of Manas, or Mind, is very nearly akin to
the Western conception of Brain, in the phases of its functioning processes.
The Sankhyas teach that the “Soul” is the Purusha, invested with its higher
principles or Tattvas, and must not be confounded with the Purusha which
is “Spirit.” The Soul is given a covering of a subtle body, or linga sharira,
which encloses the buddhi; ahamkara; the five tanamatras; and the ten