अभिमानोऽहङ्कारस्तस्माद्द्विविधः प्रवर्तते सर्गः ।
एकादशकश्च गणस्तन्मात्रः पञ्चकश्चैव ॥ २४ ॥
abhimāno’haṅkārastasmāddvividhaḥ pravartate sargaḥ ।
ekādaśakaśca gaṇastanmātraḥ pañcakaścaiva ॥ 24 ॥
abhimānaḥ=self-assertion; ahaṅkāraḥ=I-principle (egoism); tasmāt=from that; dvividhaḥ=two-fold; pravartate=proceeds; sargaḥ=creation; ekādaśakaḥ=eleven; ca=and; gaṇaḥ=group of; tanmātraḥ=prime subtle elements; pañcakaḥ=five; ca=and; eva=alone
Ahamkara (egoism) is self-assertion; from that proceeds a two-fold evolution – the set of eleven and the five-fold “tanmatras” (sense perceptions).
Both Gaudapada and V. Mishra have very little to say about this Karika. By defining “ahaṅkāra” as “abhimāna”, the karika itself doesn’t seem to add much value. In common usage, both these terms are used interchangeably and both can be translated as ego, pride, arrogance, self-conceit, self-assertion etc. in English. The literal meaning of ahaṅkāra is “I-maker” or self-assertion. A loose translation for abhimāna would be “thinking too highly of oneself” or arrogance.
As we know, every experience that we have in life gets stored in our memory. The ego adds a label to each experience – I like/dislike it; I love/hate it; I want/don’t want it; I am happy/unhappy etc. In addition, the ego identifies each role that we play in life and qualifies it – I am a good/bad person/father/mother/boss/worker/student etc.
As we saw in the previous karika, the intellect (buddhi) is the discriminatory function. However, given our situation, in most cases, the ego is able to influence the intellect in making decisions in favor of something being pleasant rather than being desirable. A common example may help illustrate the respective roles played by the intellect and the ego. The intellect makes the decision to wake up in the morning at 6 AM to practice some yoga. We set the alarm and go to sleep. When the alarm goes off, the ego, playing a dominant role decides that staying in bed for some more time is much more pleasurable. The intellect, playing a subservient role, decides to press the snooze button and, as we know, the practice of yoga never gets done. It is this dominance of the ego which is the cause of “duhkha” (suffering) mentioned in karikas 1 and 2.
The second part of the karika states that from ahaṅkāra proceeds the two-fold evolution – the set of eleven consisting of the sense organs (mind, five organs of perception and five organs of action) and the set of five consisting of the five subtle sense perceptions (sense of hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell). Subsequent karikas provide more details on this evolution.
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