- Mastery over the Panca-Bhutas by performing Samyama on their gross,
constant, subtle, all-pervading and functional states.
This Sutra and III-48 are two of the most important and abstruse Sutras in this
Section. It will help the student to understand their meaning if we first consider very
briefly the fundamental ideas underlying this doctrine of Panca-Bhutas.
The Panca-Bhutas are also called Panca-Tattvas and it will help us to under-
stand the nature of the Panca-Bhutas if we have a clear idea with regard to the mean-
ing of the word Tattva. The word Tattva as used in the Hindu philosophical systems is
one of great and subtle significance. Literally, it means ‘that-ness’. The essential qual-
ity of a thing which distinguishes it from all other things constitutes its ‘that-ness’ and
so the word Tattva stands for the essential qualities which are embodied in different
measures in different things. Instead of a quality, a Tattva may also mean a principle
which is embodied in a number of things in different degrees which acquire on this
account a sameness of nature in certain matters though differing in degree and mode of
expression. Tattva may also refer to a function and ‘that-ness’ in this case may consist
in a group of things having a common function. But this must be a particular function
common to a number of things though differing in degree and manner of expression.
It will be seen therefore that Tattva is a word of very comprehensive meaning
and cannot be translated by any single word in English. Its significance is based really
upon the fundamental doctrine of Hindu philosophy according to which the manifested
Universe is an emanation of an Ultimate Reality, which pervades and energizes it all
the time, everywhere. When the manifested Universe comes into being there must be
underlying it a vast number of principles, functions, laws etc. which serve as the foun-
dation for the ever-changing phenomena which constitute the World Process. Without
such laws, principles and functions the manifested Universe could not be a Cosmos but
would be a chaos which we know it is not. These different fundamental modes of ex-