The latent (lit: unmanifest) supreme nature (Prakriti) is the progenitor of all created things She is self-begotten and connotes the three fundamental or primary virtues of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. She is imaged or embodied in the eightfold categories of Avyakta (unmanifest), Mahán (intellection), Ahamkára (Egoism) and the five Tanmátras or elementals (proper sensibles) and is the sole and primary factor in working out the evolution of the universe. The one absolute and original nature is the fundamental stone house of materials out of which the bodies of all self-conscious (Karma-Purusha) working agents (agents who come into being through the dynamical energy of their acts or Karmas) have been evolved in the same manner as all water, whether confined in a tank or a reservoir, or coursing free through the channels of streams and of mighty rivers, have been welled up from the one and shoreless primordial ocean. 2.

Out of that latent unmanifest (Avyakta) or original nature (impregnated by the atoms or elemental units of consciousness or Purushas) Intellection or Mahán has been evolved, and out of Mahán egoism. This Mahán or intellection should be likewise considered as partaking of the three fundamental attributes (Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas) of the latent (Avyakta) or original nature. * Ahamkára or egoism in its turn may be grouped under three subheads as the Vaikárika Taijasa (operative) or Rájasika, and Bhutádi (illusive or Tamasika). 3.

The eleven organs of cognition, communication or sense perception have emanated from the co-operation of the aforesaid Vaikárika Ahamkára with the Taijasa or Rajasa. They are the ears, skin, eyes, tongue, nose, speech, hands, genitals, anus, feet and the mind (Manah). Of these foregoing organs the first five are intellectual or sense organs (Vuddhi Indriya); the next five being operative (Karma-Indriya). The mind (Manah) partakes of the character of both the intellectual and operative organs alike. 4-5.

The five Tanmátras or elementals (or the five proper sensibles of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell) characterised by the Nescience, etc. have been evolved out of the Bhutadi etc. (or Támasa Ahamkára) concerted with the Taijasa Ahamkára through the instrumentality of the Vaikárikam. The gross or perceptible modifications of these five Tanmatras are sound, touch, taste, sight and smell. From the combination of the aforesaid five Tanmátras (Bhutádi) taken one at a time, have successively emanated the five gross matters of space such as

Sattva, Rajas And Tamas

Adhesion, cohesion and disintegration in the Physical plane; affection, love and hate in the moral; emancipa-tion, spiritual affinity and sin in the Psychic.

Simply phenomenal or the simple outcome of the phenomenal evolution without being by other specific attributes of matter and hence Sàttvika or Illuminating or quasi-spiritual, ether, air, heat, (fire,) fluid (water), and earth (solid). These twenty four categories combinedly form what is technically known as the twenty four elements (Tattvas). Thus we have discoursed on the twenty four fundamental principles (Chaturvins'ati-tattvam) 6.

Hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell respectively form the subjects of the five intellectual (Vuddhi) organs of man, whereas the faculty of speech, handling, pleasure, ejections or evacutation, locomotion successively belong to the (remaining) five operative (Karma-Indriya) ones. The original nature (Avyakta), Mahan* (intellection), Egoism (Ahamkára), the five sensibles (Tanmátras), and the five gross material principles in their nascent stage in evolution form what is included within the eight categories of Nature (Prakriti), the remaining sixteen categories being her modifications (Vikára). The objects of intellection (Mahán) and Egoism (Ahamkárá) as well as of the sense organs of knowledge and actions are the material principles (Adibhautika) though they are spiritual in themselves and in their nature.

The tutelary god of intellection (Buddhi) is Brahma. The god Is'vara is the presiding deity of the sense of egoism (Ahamkára); the moon god is that of the mind (Manah); the quarters of the heaven, of the ears; the wind god is that of the skin; the sun is that of the eyes; the water is that of the taste; the earth is that of the smell; the fire is that of the speech; Indra is that of the hands; Vishnu is that of the legs; Mitra is that of the anus and Prajapati is that of the organs of generations. 7.

* Mahán, Ahamkára and the five Tanmátras, though but modifications of the original Nature in themselves, have been included within the category of Nature (Prakriti) in asmuch as they form the immediately prior or antecedent conditions of the evolution of the phenomenal universe.

All the aforesaid (twenty-four) categories or elementals (Chaturvins'ati-Tanmatras) are devoid of consciousness. Similarly the modifications of the primal cause of Prakriti such as the Mahat etc. are all bereft of consciousness in as much as the cause itself, the Avyakta or the original nature is devoid of it. The Purusha or the self-conscious subjectivity, enters into the primal cause (Mula-Prakriti or original Nature) and its necessary effect (the evolved out phenomena) and makes them endued with his own essence or self-consciousness. The preceptors and holy sages explain the proposition by an analogy that as the milk in the breast of a mother, though unconscious in itself, originates and flows out for the growth and sustenance of her child; (as the semen in the organism of an adult male though devoid of consciousness, flows out during an act of sexual intercourse); so these twenty-four primary material principles (elementals), though unconscious in themselves, tend to contribute towards the making of the self-conscious self or the universal individual (the aggregate of limited or conditional selves) for the purpose of working out his final liberation or emancipation i.e., attainment of the stage of pure consciousness or perfect knowledge. 8.

Now we shall describe the tracts which the Purusha (subjective or self-conscious reality) and Prakriti or nature (passive non-conscious eternity) pass in common as well as those wherein they differ from each other. 9.