Pradhana

Badarayana’s logic is the unintelligent principle which cannot be the one consisting of bliss.^[3]

Prakrti ('material nature'). Prakrti is eternal and all-pervading, unlimited and the material cause, eternally producing everything but insentient. Purusha is unproduced, free from all action and modification, without attributes, all-pervading consciousness, individual and separate for each body. Pradhana is called anumanam, 'the inferred entity', meaning purely hypothetical, which when manifest becomes the efficient and the material cause of creation.^[4]

Gautama Buddha. Kapila’s disciple Asuri and Pancashikha are mentioned in the Mahabharata (St.12.29).^[6]

Gunas, non-distinguishable (it cannot be distinguished from itself and so also Mahat and the rest from pradhana), objective, common, non-intelligent and prolific, but the Spirit (pumanam or Purusha) is the reverse of both of them yet similar in some respect. The three gunas though contradictory to each other co-operate and put into effect their single purpose of bringing about emancipation of the Purusha. The existence of indistinguishability etc.; in the Manifest and the Unmanifest is proved from their being constituted of the three gunas and from the absence of their reverse; the existence of the Unmanifest is proved from the effects possessing the attributes of their cause. Manifest is directly perceived because of pleasure, pain and delusion; in the case of Purusha these are non-existent. The 'cause' (unmanifest) must possess the qualities of its 'effect' (manifest), therefore, Pradhana exists. The Unmanifest cause exists because of 1) the finite nature of special objects, 2) homogeneity, 3) evolution being due to the efficiency of cause, 4) the differentiation between cause and effect, 5) the non-difference or merging of the whole world of effects, 6) its operation through the three attributes (gunas) by combination and modification, through difference arising from diverse nature of several receptacles of these attributes. Purusha exists because 1) the avyakta, pradhana, mahat, ahankara and other products exist for the sake of another, 2) of the absence of three gunas and other properties, 3) there must be some controller, 4) there must be some experience, and 5) of the tendency of activities towards final beatitude.^[8] Balarama says Pradhana is three gunas itself and therefore cannot be their adhara ('basis' or 'source') whereas Vamsidhara says that gunas are in the form of karana in Mahat, etc.; and in the form of samuha in Pradhana.^[9]

Prasna Upanishad VI.3-4), created the worlds (Aitareya Upanishad I.i.1-2) is to be understood. Sankara in his commentary on this and the following sutras explains a) insentient Pradhana cannot illuminate Sattva that can only be illumined by the consciousness of the witnessing Soul, b) an insentient Pradhana cannot have the sentient Atman or Brahman as its essence, c) Atman implies a conscious entity in the primary sense which can instruct; here Brahman is that Existence which visualizes and not Pradhana, d) Pradhana is not even indirectly referred to by the Upanishads as the sentient Atman; even if it is the cause of all objects of experience it will still remain unknown because the experiencing subjects as a class are not modifications of Pradhana, e) sentient beings can merge only in a conscious entity which Pradhana is not, f) consciousness is apprehended uniformly as the cause, g) Shvetashvatara Upanishad (VI.9) introduces the all-knowing God, who has no master or originator or ordainer, as the cause and the ordainer of the masters of the organs.^[10] The Sutra I.i.12 – आनन्दमयोऽभ्यासात्, is textually wrong, it should have been worded anandobhyasat because ananda is absolute freedom and if ananda is embodied it becomes non-limited i.e. subjected to limitation.^[11]

Dvaita school of Hindu philosophy, Ishvara, the cause of the universe is the svatantra tattva ('independent reality') and the created universe is the asvatantra tattva ('dependent reality') which is a transformation of Pradhana ('matter').^[14]