SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

36
THE TATTVAS AND BEYOND.
But the supreme
(material) body, becomes in a sense objective.
subject can never become objective.
The enumeration of the
tattvas begins from the lowest and the grossest, which is the
earth. And philosophic enquiry also proceeds, and ought to
proceed from the lowest, the tilings known, to the Highest, the
Unknown. This is the pure inductive method. And when we
c$me to enquire of the manner in which this enquiry has proceed
ed, we will find that each school holds on to one or another of
tfie tattvas or something else, as the highest and truest existence,
and refuse to recognize thut anything else can be real or true.
As such we find lokayatas (materialists) occupy the lowest rung
of the ladder. We say lowest from our standpoint, and we beg
their pardon for saying
so. In their own estimation, they are
postulating the Highest possible existence, and every other
postulate is only a hoax. The Lok dyata will only recognize the
first four tattvas, earth, water, fire and air, and will not
recognize even the Aka as a real element. The Buddhists
and Jains also recognize only these four elements. If you point
to existence of mental powers,
the Lokayatas
will refer all of
them, as being merely functions of the brain or other organs of
the body, and that all these functions are mere phenomena
produced out of and caused by the bodily powers. We proceed
a step higher, and we come to those who admit the mental
powers to be substance, and would reduce all the bodily
functions and powers to mere phenomena, and assert that
beyond this mind (Buddhi), nothing can there be. If you
assert that there is such a thing as an Atman, they will think
you are a fool and if
; they want however to take you in, they
will only assert that what we have all along believed in, as
Atman and God, cannot be anything but this Buddhi, and they
will call this by every name you have learned, to apply to what
you regard as higher things. Passing beyond
this Buddhi we
:
reach its immediate cause the ^lulaprakriti.
With most Indian
theistic schools, they do not carry their notion of matter beyond
this Mulaprakriti, standing at the head of the first twenty-lour
tattvas. "They fail to see that matter can assume even finer