Tanmatra

Tanmatras (Sanskrit: तन्मात्र = tanmātra) are rudimentary, undifferentiated, subtle elements from which gross elements are produced. There are five sense perceptions – hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell – and there are five tanmatras corresponding to those five sense perceptions and the five sense-organs. The tanmatras combine and re-combine in different ways to produce the gross elements – ether, air, fire, water, and earth – which make up the gross universe perceived by the senses. The senses come into contact with the objects and carry impressions of them to the manas (mind), which receives and arranges them into precepts.

Overview

The Samkhya school of philosophy, propounded by Rishi Kapila, holds the five ''tanmatras'', or principle ideas, as the essential, primordial causes of the five substantial elements of physical manifestation: ''akasha'' (ether), ''vayu'' (air), ''agni'' or ''taijasa'' (fire), '' ap'' (water), and ''prithvi'' (earth), in the order of their creation. These substantial elements are the five '' bhutas'' from whose unlimited combination comes all material forms in space and time, including living bodies. This is in accordance with the Vedic theory of creation.

Theories of evolution

Upanishads

Sankara and Ramanuja, theological commentators on the ''Upanishads'', have understood the elements as meaning deities and not the elements proper. The ''Upanishads'' hold the impossibility of the generation of anything from out of nothingness, or not-being, explain the genesis from life-force or cosmic-force, but finally aver that all creation is only an illusion or appearance. The first-created ''rayi'' and ''prana'', mentioned by the philosopher Pippalada, refer to matter and spirit. That Brahman is the non-dual reality can only be known by the process of differentiation from the five elements, differentiation is necessary to separate Brahman from the elements that make up the perceived world. As creation means the appearance of names and forms, names and forms cannot exist before creation. Also, the difference between objects of the same class can have no reference to ''sat'', for nothing else exists; and to speak of difference from a thing which does not exist conveys no meaning. Vidyaranya explains, in Panchadasi III.27, that:

:अक्षाणां विषयस्तवीदृक्परोक्षस्तादृगुच्यते
:विषयी नाक्षविषयीः स्वत्वान्नास्य परोक्षता

:(an object which the senses can perceive can be compared,
:but an object which is beyond perception can only be imagined,
:and the object which is the subject of perception cannot be an object of the senses.)

Buddhism

The Buddhist gandharva Pancasikha calls the ultimate truth ''avyakta'' in the state of ''purusha'', and that consciousness is due to the conglomeration of the mind-body complex and the element of ''cetas'', the phenomena which, though mutually independent, are not the self. The renunciation of the perceived and imperceptible phenomena result in ''moksha'' (liberation). The philosopher Vijnanabhiksu holds that both the separation of ''ahamkara'' and the evolution of ''tanmatras'' take place in the ''mahat''. The pure ''cit'' (intellect) is neither illusory nor an abstraction; though concrete, it is transcendent. The state in which the ''tamas'' succeeds in overcoming the ''sattva'' aspect preponderant in ''buddhi'' is called ''bhutadi''. ''Bhutadi'' and ''rajas'' generate the ''tanmatras'', the immediately preceding causes of the gross elements.

Samkhya

''Prakrti'' (nature, or "the ultimate basis of the empirical universe") consists of three ''guṇa'' (potential consciousness), ''rajas'' (activity), and '' tamas'' (restraint). The ''guṇas'' change but can be in a state of ''samyavastha'' (equilibrium), where no action results. Under the influence of ''purusha'' (pure consciousness), ''prakrti'' first evolves to produce ''mahat'' (greatness, eminence) or ''buddhi'' (definite understanding, or intelligence), then ''ahamkara'' (ego). From ''ahamkara''s ''sattva'' aspect, arises ''manas'' (the mind), the five organs of perception and the five of action. From ''ahamkara''s ''tamas'' aspect, arise the ''tanmatras'' (five subtle elements). From the ''tanmatras'' arise the five gross, or substantial, elements, under the influence of ''tamas''. The ''rajas'' aspect here helps with evolution under the influence of both other aspects.

''Purusha'' and ''prakrti'' are non-evolutes, they are eternal and unchanging. From the union of these two non-evolutes evolves ''buddhi'' (knowing), from ''buddhi'' evolves ''ahamkara'' (willing), from ''ahamkara'' evolves ''manas'' (feeling), ''jnanenriyas'' (five sense-capacities), ''karmendriyas'' (five action-capacities), and ''tanmatras'' (five subtle elements), from which evolve the ''mahābhūta''s (five gross elements). The nearness of ''purusha'' disturbs ''prakrti'', alters the equilibrium of the three ''gunas'' – ''sattva'' (illumination), ''rajas'' (stimulation and dynamism) and ''tamas'' (indifference, heaviness, and inaction) – whose combination of attributes determines the nature of all derivative principles enumerated by the ''Samkhya'' system, triggers the causal chains, and facilitates evolution. Primordial materiality does not manifest itself; it is manifested through the evolutes.

Yoga

The philosopher Vijnanabhiksu states that the ''tanmatras'' exist only in unspecialized forms as an indeterminate state of matter that the '' yogins'' alone can perceive. The five ''tanmatras''—''akasa'' associated with ether or space, ''sabda'' associated with air, ''sparsha'' associated with ''tejas'', ''ap'' and ''rasa'' associated with ''kshiti'', generate the '' paramanus'' in which they partly exist as ''tanmatravayava'' or ''trasarenu'', which the ''Vaisheshika'' school and ''Vijnanbhiksu'', in his ''Yoga-vartikka'', state are the ''gunas'', and that in the ''tanmatras'' there exists the specific differentiation that constitutes the ''tanmatras''. The formation of ''bhutas'' through ''tattvantra-parinama'' is followed by ''dharmaparinama'', or evolution by change of qualities. In the production of a thing, the different ''gunas'' do not choose different independent courses, but join together and effect the evolution of a single product. The appearance of a thing is only an explicit aspect of the selfsame thing—the atoms. Quality is a nature of substance and any change in substance is owing to changed qualities. The ''lakshana-parinama'' aspect of the change in appearance refers to the three different moments of the same thing, according to its different characters as unmanifested, or manifested, or manifested in the past but conserved. It is in the ''avastha-parinama'' aspect of that change that a substance is called new or old, grown, or decayed.

Vedanta

The ''tanmatras'' evolve out of the ''bhutadi'' which is only an intermediate state. They have some mass and the energy and physical characteristics—such as penetrability, power of impact, radiant heat, and viscous attraction—and affect the senses after assuming the form of '' paramanus'', or atoms, of the ''bhutas'' (the created ones), the process being called ''tattavantraparinama'', or primary evolution. In evolution, the total energy always remains the same, redistributed among causes and effects, the totality of effects exists in the totality of causes in the potential form. The collocations and regroupings of the three ''gunas'' (attributes or properties) induce more differentiated evolutes. The regroupings constitute the changes leading to evolutions, i.e. from cause to effect, which is based on the process known as ''satkaryavada'', the doctrine that the effect is existent in the cause even before the causal process has started to produce the effect, which operates in accordance with the laws of conservation of matter and energy.

The ''suksma bhutas'' combine in different proportions with the radical, as its material cause, and other ''bhutas'', as the efficient cause, to form the ''mahabhutas''. ''Suksma bhutas'' and ''panus'', or ''paramanus'', (atoms) cannot exist in the phenomenal state in an uncombined form. Two atoms combine as a result of ''parispanda'' (rotary or vibratory motion) to form a ''dvyanuka'' (molecule); three of these ''dvyanukas'' combine to form a ''tryanuka'', and so on, until heavier metals are formed. Excepting ''akasha'', all other ''tanmatras'' have attributes of the previous ones in the succeeding ones. The ''tanmatras'' are quanta of energy. The total ''sattwik'' aspects of the five ''tanmatras'' combine to form the ''antah-karana'' or inner-instrument consisting of ''manas'', ''buddhi'', ''citta'', and ''ahamkara''. The individual ''sattwik'' aspects of ''tanmatras'' combine to produce the ''jnana-indriyas'' consisting of the five sense organs of perception. The total ''rajasik'' aspects of ''tanmatras'' of the five ''tanmatras'' combine to form the five ''pranas''—''prana'', ''apna'', ''vyana'', ''udana'', and ''samana''. The individual ''rajasik'' aspects of ''tanmatras'' combine to produce the five organs of action. The individual ''tamasik'' aspects of the five ''tanmatras'' combine to form the elements that make up the world, through the process of '' panchikarana''.

References

{{Indian philosophy, state=collapsed

Rigveda
Vedanta
Yoga concepts
Hindu philosophical concepts
Sanskrit words and phrases