Page:Essays On The Gita - Ghose - 1922.djvu/290

282 and plainly what the Sankhya asserts it to be, jada, a mechanical, even an inconscient principle in which the light of the conscious Soul has not at all struggled to the surface : the atom is not conscious of an intelligent will; tamas, the inert and ignorant principle, has its grip on it, contains rajas, conceals sattwa within itself and holds a high holiday of mastery, Nature compelling this form of existence to act with a stupendous force indeed, but as a mechanical instrument, yantriaridham miyayd. Next, in the plant the principle of rajas has struggled to the surface, with its power of life, with its capacity of the nervous reactions which in us are recognisable as pleasure and suffering, but satfwa is quite involved, has not yet emerged to awaken the light of a conscious intelligent will ; allis still mechanical, subconscient or half-cons- cient, tamas stronger than rajas, both gaolers of the. imprisoned sattwa.

In the animal, though tamas is still strong, though we may still describe him as belanging to the tamasic ‘creation, tdmasa sarga, yet rajas prevails much more against tamas, brings with it its developed power of life, - desire, emotion, passion, pleasure, suffering, while sattwa, emerging, but still dependent on the lower action, contri- butes to these the first light of the conscious mind, the mechanical sense of ego, conscious memory, a certain kind of thought, especially the wonders of instinct and animal intuition. But as yet the buddhi, the intelligent will, has not developed the full light of consciousness ; therefore, no responsibility can be attributed to the animal for its actions. The' tiger can be no more blamed for killing and devouring than the atom for its blind movements, the fire for burning and consuming