Ritual

Bindu. The universe in its
unmanifested form is conceived as
the most minute point from which
the expansion of the world takes
place and into which, completing
the cosmic cycles, it recedes.
Rajasthan, c. 18th century.
Gouache on paper.
06
The cosmos is evolved of an unmanifested ground, called
Prakriti, which is conceived as a group of three indeterminate
continua of categories technically known as gunas. Literally, guna
means quality, but as quality and substance arc identical in
Samkhya, the gunas are therefore substantive entities. They are
sattva, the essence or intelligence-stuff, the principle of conscious
manifestation; rajas, the energy-stuff producing motion, force,
quantum, extension, and overcoming resistance; and tamas the
matter-stuff is mass or inertia that offers resistance to opposing
force. At the commencement of a cosmic cycle the process of
evolution is at rest. The three gunas exist together in perfect
equilibrium or uniform diffusion in the infinite continuum,
Prakriti. They neither interact nor manifest their existence. In that
state, both the energy and the matter-stuff, according to Samkhya,
possess the attributes of quantum and continuity, a description
which is in keeping with modern notions of energy and matter.
Evolution begins with the disturbance of this primordial
balance by the transcendental or magnetic influence of Purusha,
the Universe of Consciousness, on Prakriti which is in a state of
equipoise or equilibrated trance. Disequilibration breaks up the
uniform diffusion and impels the aggregation of the gunas to a state
in which one or more is relatively preponderant over the others, a
creative transformation accompanied by evolution of motion
(parispandana).
The diversity of phenomena results from the special combination
of the gunas which constantly unite and separate. Though