Sūtra 4.2

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of Sūtra 4.2:

जात्यन्तरपरिणामः प्रकृत्यापूरात् ॥ ४.२ ॥

jātyantarapariṇāmaḥ prakṛtyāpūrāt || 4.2 ||

jātyantara—to another life-state, pariṇāmaḥ—change, prakṛti—of the creative causes, āpūrāt—by the filling up.

2. Change to another life-state by the filling up of the creative causes (prakṛtyāpūra).—162.

The Sankhya-pravachana commentary of Vyasa

[English translation of the 7th century commentary by Vyāsa called the Sāṅkhya-pravacana, Vyāsabhāṣya or Yogabhāṣya]

[Sanskrit text for commentary available]

Here ‘change to another life-state by the filling up of the creative causes,’ takes place of the life-state into which the body and the powers have already changed and exist. On the former change going out comes the close appearance of their next change by the sequential showing forth of organ and parts which did not exist before; and the creative causes of the body and the powers favour each their own modifications by filling up, which again has the necessity of virtue, &c., as the incidental cause (of removing the impediment).—462.

The Gloss of Vachaspati Mishra

[English translation of the 9th century Tattvavaiśāradī by Vācaspatimiśra]

The attainments due to the trance have been described in the previous chapter. It is now desirable to say that the change into another life-state brought about by the four classes of attainments due to the use of herbs, &c., is also of the same body and the powers thereof. This, however, does not come about by mere material causes. The material itself, so far as it goes, does not prove to be competent to intensify or weaken the state of the divine and the not-divine, in him. It is plain that a cause having no elements of difference in itself cannot operate to produce different effects. In order to guard against the possibility of the change being taken as due to accident alone, he completes and reads the aphorism:—‘Change to another life-state by the filling up of the creative causes.’

Here it is only the change of the body and the powers as they are in one state, that takes place into those suitable to another state. The change takes place of the body and the powers as they appear in man, into the life-state of the animals and gods by the filling up of the creative causes.

The creative causes of the body are the elements of Pṛthvī, &c. The creative cause of the ‘powers’ is the principle of egoism.

‘Filling up’ means the sequential showing forth, entrance therein, of these causes By this comes about the change.

Says this:—‘By the former change going out, &c.’

Well, but if the change is favoured by the ‘filling up’ why does it not take place always? For this reason he says:—‘Has the necessity of virtue, &c.’

By this have been described the changes of the state of the body into childhood, boyhood, youth, old age; the change of the seed of the Nyagrodha into the tree; the change of the small piece of fire thrown into a heap of straw, into a large fire throwing out flames by thousand and embracing the sky itself.—2.