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Tanmatras (Sanskrit: तन्मात्र = tanmātra) are rudimentary, undifferentiated, subtle elements from which gross elements are produced.[1] 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 themanas (mind), which receives and arranges them into precepts.[2]
TheSamkhya school of philosophy, propounded by RishiKapila, holds the fivetanmatras, or principle ideas, as the essential, primordial causes of the five substantial elements of physical manifestation:akasha (ether),vayu (air),agni ortaijasa (fire),ap (water), andprithvi (earth), in the order of their creation. These substantial elements are the fivebhutas from whose unlimited combination comes all material forms in space and time, including living bodies. This is in accordance with theVedic theory of creation.[3]
Sankara andRamanuja, theological commentators on theUpanishads, have understood the elements as meaning deities and not the elements proper. TheUpanishads 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-createdrayi andprana, mentioned by the philosopherPippalada, refer to matter and spirit.[4] 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 tosat, for nothing else exists; and to speak of difference from a thing which does not exist conveys no meaning.Vidyaranya explains, inPanchadasi III.27, that:
The Buddhist gandharvaPancasikha calls the ultimate truthavyakta in the state ofpurusha, and that consciousness is due to the conglomeration of the mind-body complex and the element ofcetas, the phenomena which, though mutually independent, are not the self. The renunciation of the perceived and imperceptible phenomena result inmoksha (liberation). The philosopherVijnanabhiksu holds that both the separation ofahamkara and the evolution oftanmatras take place in themahat. The purecit (intellect) is neither illusory nor an abstraction; though concrete, it is transcendent. The state in which thetamas succeeds in overcoming thesattva aspect preponderant inbuddhi is calledbhutadi.Bhutadi andrajas generate thetanmatras, the immediately preceding causes of the gross elements.[6]
Prakrti (nature, or "the ultimate basis of the empirical universe") consists of threeguṇas (aspects or qualities):sattva (potential consciousness),rajas (activity), andtamas (restraint). Theguṇas change but can be in a state ofsamyavastha (equilibrium), where no action results. Under the influence ofpurusha (pure consciousness),prakrti first evolves to producemahat (greatness, eminence) orbuddhi (definite understanding, or intelligence), thenahamkara (ego). Fromahamkara'ssattva aspect, arisesmanas (the mind), the five organs of perception and the five of action. Fromahamkara'stamas aspect, arise thetanmatras (five subtle elements). From thetanmatras arise the five gross, or substantial, elements, under the influence oftamas. Therajas aspect here helps with evolution under the influence of both other aspects.[7][8]
Purusha andprakrti are non-evolutes, they are eternal and unchanging. From the union of these two non-evolutes evolvesbuddhi (knowing), frombuddhi evolvesahamkara (willing), fromahamkara evolvesmanas (feeling),jnanenriyas (five sense-capacities),karmendriyas (five action-capacities), andtanmatras (five subtle elements), from which evolve themahābhūta's (five gross elements). The nearness ofpurusha disturbsprakrti, alters the equilibrium of the threegunas –sattva (illumination),rajas (stimulation and dynamism) andtamas (indifference, heaviness, and inaction) – whose combination of attributes determines the nature of all derivative principles enumerated by theSamkhya system, triggers the causal chains, and facilitates evolution. Primordial materiality does not manifest itself; it is manifested through the evolutes.[9]
The philosopherVijnanabhiksu states that thetanmatras exist only in unspecialized forms as an indeterminate state of matter that theyogins alone can perceive. The fivetanmatras—akasa associated with ether or space,sabda associated with air,sparsha associated withtejas,ap andrasa associated withkshiti, generate theparamanus in which they partly exist astanmatravayava ortrasarenu, which theVaisheshika school andVijnanbhiksu, in hisYoga-vartikka, state are thegunas, and that in thetanmatras there exists the specific differentiation that constitutes thetanmatras. The formation ofbhutas throughtattvantra-parinama is followed bydharmaparinama, or evolution by change of qualities. In the production of a thing, the differentgunas 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. Thelakshana-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 theavastha-parinama aspect of that change that a substance is called new or old, grown, or decayed.[10]
Thetanmatras evolve out of thebhutadi 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 ofparamanus, or atoms, of thebhutas (the created ones), the process being calledtattavantraparinama, 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 threegunas (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 assatkaryavada, 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.[11]
Thesuksma bhutas combine in different proportions with the radical, as its material cause, and otherbhutas, as the efficient cause, to form themahabhutas.Suksma bhutas andpanus, orparamanus, (atoms) cannot exist in the phenomenal state in an uncombined form. Two atoms combine as a result ofparispanda (rotary or vibratory motion) to form advyanuka (molecule); three of thesedvyanukas combine to form atryanuka, and so on, until heavier metals are formed. Exceptingakasha, all othertanmatras have attributes of the previous ones in the succeeding ones. Thetanmatras are quanta of energy.[12] The totalsattwik aspects of the fivetanmatras combine to form theantah-karana or inner-instrument consisting ofmanas,buddhi,citta, andahamkara. The individualsattwik aspects oftanmatras combine to produce thejnana-indriyas consisting of the five sense organs of perception. The totalrajasik aspects oftanmatras of the fivetanmatras combine to form the fivepranas—prana,apna,vyana,udana, andsamana. The individualrajasik aspects oftanmatras combine to produce the five organs of action. The individualtamasik aspects of the fivetanmatras combine to form the elements that make up the world, through the process ofpanchikarana.[13]
