It has been asserted, under the preceding Sutra, that the term ’the Undeveloped’ signifies, on account of the general subject-matter and because the body only remains, the body and not the pradhana of the Sa@nkhyas.—­But here the following doubt arises:  How can the word ‘undeveloped’ appropriately denote the body which, as a gross and clearly appearing thing, should rather be called vyakta, i.e. that which is developed or manifested?

To this doubt the Sutra replies that what the term avyakta denotes is the subtle causal body.  Anything subtle may be spoken of as Undeveloped.  The gross body indeed cannot directly be termed ‘undeveloped,’ but the subtle parts of the elements from which the gross body originates may be called so, and that the term denoting the causal substance is applied to the effect also is a matter of common occurrence; compare, for instance, the phrase ‘mix the Soma with cows, i.e. milk’ (Rig-veda.  S. IX, 46, 4).  Another scriptural passage also—­’now all this was then undeveloped’ (B/ri/.  Up.  I, 4, 7)—­shows that this, i.e. this developed world with its distinction of names and forms, is capable of being termed undeveloped in so far as in a former condition it was in a merely seminal or potential state, devoid of the later evolved distinctions of name and form.

3. (Such a previous seminal condition of the world may be admitted) on account of its dependency on him (the Lord); (for such an admission is) according to reason.

Here a new objection is raised.—­If, the opponent says, in order to prove the possibility of the body being called undeveloped you admit that this world in its antecedent seminal condition before either names or forms are evolved can be called undeveloped, you virtually concede the doctrine that the pradhana is the cause of the world.  For we Sa@nkhyas understand by the term pradhana nothing but that antecedent condition of the world.

Things lie differently, we rejoin.  If we admitted some antecedent state of the world as the independent cause of the actual world, we should indeed implicitly, admit the pradhana doctrine.  What we admit is, however, only a previous state dependent on the highest Lord, not an independent state.  A previous stage of the world such as the one assumed by us must necessarily be admitted, since it is according to sense and reason.  For without it the highest Lord could not be conceived as creator, as he could not become active if he were destitute of the potentiality of action.  The existence of such a causal potentiality renders it moreover possible that the released souls should not enter on new courses of existence, as it is destroyed by perfect knowledge.  For that causal potentiality is of the nature of Nescience; it is rightly denoted by the term ‘undeveloped;’ it has the highest Lord for its substratum; it is of the nature of an illusion; it is a universal sleep in which are lying the transmigrating souls destitute for the time of