co-operating to produce
the world of effects, these diverse moments with diverse tendencies
never coalesce. Thus in the phenomenal product whatever energy
there is is due to the element of rajas and rajas alone; all matter,
resistance, stability, is due to tamas, and all conscious manifestation
to sattva. The particular gu@na which happens to be predominant
in any phenomenon becomes manifest in that phenomenon and
others become latent, though their presence is inferred by their

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[Footnote 1: _Yogavarttika,_ II. 19, and _Pravacanabha@sya,_ I. 61.]

[Footnote 2: _Kaumudi_ 13-16; _Tattvavais'aradi_ II. 20, IV. 13, 14; also
_Yogavarttika,_ IV. 13,14.]

246

effect. Thus, for example, in a body at rest mass is patent, energy
latent and potentiality of conscious manifestation sublatent. In a
moving body, the rajas is predominant (kinetic) and the mass is
partially overcome. All these transformations of the groupings of
the gu@nas in different proportions presuppose the state of prak@rti
as the starting point. It is at this stage that the tendencies to
conscious manifestation, as well as the powers of doing work, are
exactly counterbalanced by the resistance of inertia or mass,
and the process of cosmic evolution is at rest. When this equilibrium
is once destroyed, it is supposed that out of a natural
affinity of all the sattva reals for themselves, of rajas reals for other
reals of their type, of tamas reals for others of their type, there
arises an unequal aggregation of sattva, rajas, or tamas at different
moments. When one gu@na is preponderant in any particular
collocation, the others are co-operant. This evolutionary series
beginning from the first disturbance of the prak@rti to the final
transformation as the world-order, is subject to "a definite law
which it cannot overstep." In the words of Dr B.N.Seal [Footnote ref 1],
"the process of evolution consists in the development of the differentiated
(_vai@samya_) within the undifferentiated (_samyavastha_) of the
determinate (_vies'a_) within the indeterminate (_avis'esa_) of the
coherent (_yutasiddha_) within the incoherent (_ayutasiddha_). The
order of succession is neither from parts to whole nor from whole to the
parts, but ever from a relatively less differentiated, less determinate,
less coherent whole to a relatively more differentiated,
more determinate, more coherent whole." The meaning o